What the sort-of blurb tells us: "The Book of Other People is just that: a book of other poeple. Open its covers and you'll make a whole host of new acquaintances. Nick Hornby and Posy Simmonds present the constantly diverging writing life of Jamie Johnson; Hari Kunzru twitches open his net curtains to reveal
People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe, and then they do not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjuration. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe; and it is that rock solid belief, that
What the blurb tells us about A Visit from the Goon Squad: A Visit from the Goon Squad vividly captures the moments where lives interact, and where fortunes ebb and flow. Egan depicts with elegant prose and often heart-wrenching simplicity, the sad consequences for those who couldn't fake it during their wild youth – madness,
Thou shalt not be mistaken… From what I’ve written in some of the blog post before, one may assume I am a (more or less) sophisticated reader thanks to my academic ventures (*cough*) in the field of comparative literature. Well, sometimes I am. Depending on my mood, my ADHD, the lunar phase, and the
What the blurb tells us: Elf and Yoli are two smart, loving sisters. Elf is a world-renowned pianist, glanorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yoli is divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. When Elf's latest suicide attempt leaves her hospitalised weeks before
I haven't the courage, or perhaps the hardness, to withstand the tremendous pathos of this life. I love life's casual beauty — fear its awful strength. — Jack Kerouac The Sea is my Brother What the blurb tells us: In the spring of 1943, not long after his first tour as a Merchant Marine, twenty-one-year-old
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. — Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums Inspiration overload on the road One of my first impressive encounters with American literature was Jack Kerouac and his most famous book, On the Road. I was about 14, and because I had already been to
What the blurb says: "William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar's life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet, as years