The Age of Miracles
As Karen Walker Thompson’s The Age of Miracles opens, the world is in the initial stages of “the slowing” — a gradual decline in the speed of its rotation on the Earth’s axis. This is, of course, problematic, and sends our narrator Julia’s life into chaos, along with the rest of the world’s population. I …
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
The Possessed is author Elif Batuman’s recounting of her summer spent studying in Uzbekistan, mixed in with tales of her experiences as a Russian Literature grad student. I picked it up out of the respect I have for classic Russian Literature, which I have a soft spot for since it’s just so desperate and dramatic. …
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Hmm, I seem to have read quite a few books about crazy people lately. This one is one of those. Shirley Jackson, who most people know from her short story “The Lottery” which almost everyone read in grade school at some point, has a particularly dark and suspenseful brand of writing and it shines in …
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
So, full disclosure: I’m a pretty big Office fan, and I watch The Mindy Project. So, yeah, I like Mindy Kaling’s brand of humor. It’s sort of self-effacing in a girl power-ish kind of way. If you’re not familiar with her work, she’s basically a comedy screenwriter and actress who was on The Office and …
Mathilda Savitch
I didn’t mean to finish Mathilda Savitch. Not to say that I didn’t want to finish it, but it just wasn’t even anywhere remotely close to the top of my list of books I wanted to finish. But even though I bought it and mentally put it in my “read later” pile, I ended up …