Can you be trusted to finish a series? My track record with them is spotty, at best. But I'm working hard to improve my reputation. This year, I started and finished reading Amitav Ghosh's trilogy, each volume over 500 pages (but the page-turning sort of pages). Hopefully the other
It was displayed on the wooden bookcase in the entrance way of the city library which was reserved for new books. The display was unmarked, near where the building’s security guard sat next to the front doors, no label and no sign, but the only thing to look at
This bundle of books, with the Canadian Reading Challenge in mind (this, the eleventh year, hosted by The Indextrious Reader, with sign-ups for the twelfth year now posted), was particularly delectable. I love the idea of telling the story of a life in a way that feels true, whether
Although it played a vital role in establishing the author’s reputation for story-crafting, The Bingo Palace feels like a single dish, served without accompaniments, on what has become, in the years since, a rich and varied menu. The emphasis on story-telling was there in the beginning, however, in a
Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2008) I thought the footnotes would make it fun (like in a Steven Haywood short story); I was more focussed on the ‘wondrous’ than the warning of brevity. In fact, Oscar’s life emerges from dictatorship and constricted choices, and you
