Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:02:19 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/ http://www.compulsivereader.com en-us http://compulsivereader.com/html/images/images/books.gif http://compulsivereader.com/html/ maggieball@compulsivereader.com http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2424.html Bausch’s novel is imbued with an awareness of what war can do to people, and especially to the men who are sent out to fight. You are surrounded with death, always, and you may be required to kill. You need to exercise constant vigilance and to have an abiding mistrust - a ‘wariness’ in fact - of the native civilians to survive. Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:02:19 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2420.html Pattillo does an admirable job of writing the fictional First Impressions manuscript (nothing with this title by Austen is known to exist) and keeps with the nature of the writer herself, but the larger storyline of Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart could have used a bit more development. Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:16:20 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2419.html Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture is an entertaining, thought-provoking foray into an interesting and important area.  Hughes focuses mainly on the effect of P.C. in contemporary Britain, America and South Africa, but he looks at earlier historical periods (such as the Reformation) too.  Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:30:35 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2418.html The story has elements of horror to it, the psychological play between desire for a dream and the day to day need to deal with reality. For the young woman, that means turning toward other man that she dates and beds, for Anton, it means dealing with what his marriage means to him while seeking someone to talk to via email. Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:23:27 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2414.html It's a rich, linguistic treasure whose fast and fancy plot belies the depth. I read it once for the pleasure of the story, which did seem to get a little kooky towards the end, and then, a second time, for the sheer beauty and complexity of it where the ultimate ambition of Ruiz Zafón's creation became clearer. It is the sort of novel that keeps on revealing something different, the more you explore it. Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:11:21 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2409.html There is much more to The Mermaid’s Tale than this sketch indicates and Medlock is a talented stylist able to evocatively capture both mood and surroundings. She writes lucidly in the registers of both realism and mythology, bringing these layers together in a unified novel of great interest to both men and women, for all of us are working to be able to learn to sign our own names in the name of the larger world. Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:59:22 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2408.html Time to get organised! Here is our annual review of a broad selection of diaries. The review includes Granta, Eyes Over Africa Poster Calendar, The New Yorker Dads Diary, The Jacqueline Wilson Diary, Mslexia Writer's Diary, and Ed Hardy 2010 Magneto Diary. Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:07:47 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2406.html These are not new themes. Literature is filled with characters that talk and talk, but never seem to understand. Literature is filled with characters that have it all, but still can't find happiness. What Rouss does is to take these stock themes and rework them for the contemporary world. Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:34:18 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2405.html The poetry is dense, with inventive imagery, uncompromisingly charting female experience, rage, love, tenderness, hunger and fear, across the human body and through imagination. Even at its most painful, in the midst of Cancer or nuclear annihilation, there is a wry humour and detachment – a leaning in towards precision in meaning. Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:16:16 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2404.html The television talking heads monitoring the possible terrorist threat sometimes seem less conscious, having as they do an inclination to say anything at all rather than nothing (even a wise nothing), sometimes presenting authoritative guests who articulate convoluted obscurities or obvious banalities (such a presentation of the news media seems both documentary and hilarious). Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:09:34 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2403.html The book does not have the dramatic urgency of Another Country by James Baldwin, or the metaphorical richness of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Its strength is in the presentation of a complex, sophisticated mind, full of deliberations, fact, reference. Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:06:10 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2402.html The author does answer all the questions I had about Genghis Khan before reading this book and more than that. Along the way he also cites primary source references to support his story. I gained a good appreciation of the life and times of Genghis Khan. He was a survivor of the Mongolian steppe traditions and this means to overcome many dangerous obstacles, such as defending his life from other potential Mongol warlord leaders. Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:26:35 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2401.html Though it’s quick and easy, and the reader might end up wondering whether anything happened at all, on reflection, Maryanne’s journey is one that all modern folk might benefit from taking. It’s a journey that involves shedding the daily grind of doing in favour of time to take long baths, long walks, observe and listen. A Year of Cats and Dogs is funny and spiritual in the most pragmatic sense – a satisfying, and pleasurable read. Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:29:51 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2398.html These are bitter stories. All of the men, women, and children of the stories are imprisoned by circumstances. Redemption for the reader is in Cummins’s pitiless depiction of his doomed characters. Truth is what matters and he makes truth transcendent. Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:29:36 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2397.html Obviously a short book, it could have been better by being shorter, more selective, but this a minor consideration. When there are so few books that have quality of this kind, one accepts readily what the author gives us. And what Rasmussen gives us is mostly splendid indeed. Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:34:14 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2396.html Hilburn does have the special gift of getting behind the glitz and glamour of these famous stars and merely starting conversations with the person. He says in several places throughout the book that he was often assigned interviews at the last minute at the artist’s request, and rather than conduct a proper interview with microphones or tape recorders, he and the artist simply had a conversation, Hilburn jotting down notes and important quotes as they talked. Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:52:01 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2395.html Language is used here as talisman – a means for escaping the ugliness of the present into something bigger and, if not better, more powerful. Rhythm and alliteration are used expertly, to create partial rhymes and a song-like metre that mirrors meaning. Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:21:16 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2389.html There are so many subtle parallels, transitions, symbols, and correspondences in this wonderful, rich novel. Edmund’s lighthearted romp creates a powerful impression of deep meaning, but the work is so funny and, at times, absurd, that you can’t help enjoying yourself. Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:06:40 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2388.html Conan Doyle is, of course, a great storyteller and his sense of place (above all, Victorian London) and character (Victorian personages and eccentrics of myriad description, as well as the immortal figures of Holmes and Watson) remains unsurpassed; he gives the reader far more than simply a series of puzzles to solve. Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:54:51 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2384.html The plot is a braid of subplots set in three time periods, 1949, 1999 and 2009. The time-travelling aspect, though restricted to a few characters, raises opportunities for intriguing recursion events, cleverly executed. Instead of shying from the time-paradox issues, Larken employs them so that the same person not only meets himself, but ... ah, you wait and see. Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:25:29 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2383.html What Kjaerstad achieves is a remembrance of things past but a remembrance freed of the often dreary self-absorption of Proust. There is in Kjaerstad a burnishing of surfaces with an interior that glows while providing associations that can only be available to an author who plays daring games with time. Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:06:05 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2382.html The author drew me in so deeply, I felt Brek’s emotions as if they were my own. The author creates an image of the afterlife that is altogether beautiful, frightening, gory, inspiring, mysterious, joyful and sad. I think anyone regardless of their beliefs, can gain something from this book. It’s a murder mystery, supernatural thriller and a theological debate all rolled into one. Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:00:51 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2381.html Sarah Hall weaves together what at first appear to be four very separate stories. They seem to have very little to do with one another. They are narrated through different points of view. They take place in two different countries, England and Italy. Each of the four is set in a different time period. Only gradually, is the reader made aware of connections between the stories. Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:55:17 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2380.html The gods envy the mortals because they exist. The beauty of humanity is in the everyday, limited action morality that involves eating, using the toilet, copulating (human to human, regardless of the guise), bleeding, feeling pain, giving birth, and above all, dying. This is the underlying celebration of the novel: the beauty of flawed humanity amidst the bodiless, bloodless gods. Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:54:36 -0500 http://compulsivereader.com/html/Article2378.html Recently, while browsing through a used book store, I came across the Penguin paperback edition of Babel's Collected Stories. Whatever the great expectations "My First Goose" raised in me, the stories in this collection didn't disappoint. The stories are divided into four groups: "Early Stories," "'Autobiographical' Stories," "Red Cavalry" (the volume which originally contained "My First Goose"), and "Odessa Stories." Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:45:36 -0500