All kinds of love

I've started listening to this novel, and so far--as the title would imply--it is all about love. The book opens with one character, and we follow from him, to his wife, to his wife's past lover, and I assume we'll keep bouncing around like this, in a sort of meandering way through the past. It's …

Pure genius

I've just started this one by Vladimir Nabokov, and already am blown away just in the first pages. This guy is pure genius, and I wonder how he's not ranked higher than he already is even. I'm laughing almost ever page as I read this, its just so subtly brilliant. I wonder if as many …

The Peregrine by J.A. Baker

Turns out the version I purchased of  The Peregrine also contains another writing, 'Hills of Summer', so I was much nearer to the end than I thought in my previous post. I'm now finished, and it ends just as it began, with prose of the highest order. This is the kind of book that can …

Exploring

Writing a story based in a city I've never been in is interesting, and fun. I wonder how writers did it before the age of the internet. I can drop down into the streets and virtually walk them to get a feel for the city. I can look up bars and restaurants and read reviews …

Great humor

I've started listening to Great Expectations   and am finding it very entertaining. He is quite adept at painting his characters in very memorable and overblown ways, while still keeping them from being caricatures or ridiculous. I've been laughing out loud a lot with this one so far. I wonder why all these classic novels …