The author of The Diary of Amy, the 14-Year-Old Girl Who Saved the Earth talks about his book and why he wrote it, about his audience, the state of the world, why he writes satire, his models, why he loves Dr Strangelove, why he chose to use a diary format, and lots more.
A review of Bristol House by Beverly Swerling
Bristol House is as unique a literary mystery as one is ever likely to read. Swerling makes some interesting choices with her narrative. At first impression, Annie Kendall strikes the reader as a brilliant, competent researcher whose personal transgressions have cost her, deeply, on a professional level. There are moments in the story where her carefully reconstructed self—the self rebuilt from countless AA meetings and confronting her deepest fears and strongest weaknesses—nearly shatter and the former, scarred Annie threaten to reemerge.
Interview with Paul Collins
The author of The Maximus Black Files Trilogy talks about the Australian publishing industry, his most recent books, the differences between writing for adults and young adults, the importance of humour, on motivating kids to read, his work-in-progress, his inspiration, and lots more.
Love and Cruelty and Money: Great Expectations, a novel by Charles Dickens
It is hard to reconcile daily life and profound thought sometimes, but fiction gives us the semblance of both, reconciled. In Great Expectations, we see how shallow hopes give way to mature duties, friendship, love, and wisdom, when the little poor boy Pip gets a benefactor and a trip to London—he assumes Miss Havisham is his benefactor.
A review of A Pride of Lions by Mark Iles
A Pride of Lions is a fast paced sci-fi action story full of futuristic scenerios, great spacy fights, good guys vs bad guys, pirates, and even a touch of romance. This is a book that will appeal to any reluctant reader or staunch television watcher looking for for a fast, easy and satisfying plot driven story. Readers looking for more than light relief won’t be disappointed either. Selena is well-drawn, with a strong character arc, and enough tragic back story so that the reader instantly likes and sympathsises with her.
A revew of The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography by Alan Jacobs.
But it was always an embattled book, representing at various times, “too much Catholicism,” “too much Protestantism,” too much tradition, too much irreverence toward tradition, too limited in its reach or too inclusive as to be almost wimpy and unclear, an example of the poetic beauty of the English language, or too old-fashioned, incomprehensible, and quaint in its language. It was a thing that symbolized something to be rebelled against or something to be upheld.
A review of The Book of Job: A Biography
Larrimore goes on to show how mistranslations, lack of knowledge of Hebrew, lost or wrongly-placed passages, the translator’s choice of words, emotional state, ethical temperaent, misconceptions about the idea of “patience,” the interpreter’s acquaintance (or lack thereof) with grief and suffering, and a saccharine idea of Job have affected the book’s history.
An interview with David Laskin
The author of The Family talks about his book, the people behind it and within it, the historic events and extensive research he did, his challenges in writing this book, the “American dream” and immigration, and much more.
A review of Daimones by Massimo Marino
There are touches of I Am Legend in here with leaving announcements they’d be in a certain place for an hour each day and there is ample tension and reasoning to appeal to any aficionado of apocalyptic novels. Maybe the pace is slowed too much in the exposition in the last section of the book but it would be too much a spoiler for me to discuss that now.
Existential Time: Cloud Atlas and The Apu Trilogy, Billy Budd, The Company You Keep, Django Unchained, Flight, Grand Canyon, Inescapable, Lawless, Lean On Me, Lincoln, Matewan, Temptation, To the Wonder, and Wuthering Heights
Those were perspectives put forth in particular times, and they inspired fervent debate and disagreement. However, we, in successive generations, do not have to take sides for or against any man: we can look at their reasons and their results and take what is useful as the changing times demand. We can affirm classical studies and vocational training, democratic participation in the larger world and attention to particular communities, and nonviolence when it is sensible and violent self-defense when it is necessary.