http://www.goodreads.com/review/list_rss/77724 en-US Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:29:51 -0700 60 http://www.goodreads.com/ 200 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo.gif 10637245 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:29:51 -0700
oh yeah - and did I mention that it's got absolutely everything else that anyone could possibly want in a novel - mystery, political strife, domestic intrigue, hilarity, a thrilling loop-the-looping structure, and 339 pages of pure, unadulterated kick-ass-dazzling prose.

In sum:
I friend this book, know or not?]]>
author: Preeta Samarasan
name: lowell
average rating: 4.90
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 03/08
date added: 03/31/08
shelves: novels-i-love
review:
I'm going to go ahead and call this my favorite novel of the decade. I've never, ever, EVER, believed in characters as deeply as I believe in the inhabitants of The Big House. You know what - forget the decade! This is as good a novel as I know of, and as intimate and moving a reading experience as I've had, and as rich and vivid a world as I’ve ever read my way into. I don't know if I've ever loved a character as much as I love Aasha. Love though, is not all I feel for this book – and this, I think, is what makes it so seriously, truly, utterly great: it's also unrelentingly painful. It will hurt you. It hurts, even when guided by a loving hand, to look so honestly at the brutality and smallness and meanness of which humanity is capable. It hurts to follow the trails of ruin left by willful blindnesses, shameful prejudices, and faithless underestimations; it hurts to watch small mistakes, no matter how innocently or ignorantly perpetrated, result in huge, enveloping, unrescindable sadnesses – but to be able to look at all of this squarely, attentively, and unsparingly; to depict it fully, in all its ugly complexity; to dwell on the pain, to pick and prod and examine it, to stare into its hideous face with humor and healthy cynicism, but also, somehow, hope – is, I think, the bravest sort of thing a piece of writing can do. I smiled on nearly every page, but never did the novel allow me to indulge the dangerous fantasies of a happy ending – not for everyone, not in a world like ours.

oh yeah - and did I mention that it's got absolutely everything else that anyone could possibly want in a novel - mystery, political strife, domestic intrigue, hilarity, a thrilling loop-the-looping structure, and 339 pages of pure, unadulterated kick-ass-dazzling prose.

In sum:
I friend this book, know or not?
]]> 18739633 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:36:44 -0700
author: William Maxwell
name: lowell
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 03/31/08
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:
The best (and possibly only) novel I've ever read in under two hours.
]]> 19124255 Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:16:58 -0700
author: Raymond McDaniel
name: lowell
average rating: 4.71
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 04/08
date added: 03/31/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 18926364 Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:25:49 -0700
author: Ian McEwan
name: lowell
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at: 04/08
date added: 03/29/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 18882188 Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:04:38 -0700
author: Charles Johnson
name: lowell
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 03/28/08
shelves: novels-i-love
review:
Does a better final paragraph exist??
]]> 18882366 Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:29:09 -0700
author: David Shields
name: lowell
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 03/28/08
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:
a strange combination of terrifying, educational, and motivating.
]]> 18739786 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:21:41 -0700
author: Michael Herr
name: lowell
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 03/27/08
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:
Not only is this the most engrossing piece of journalism, the most touching memoir, and the most illuminating book on war I've ever read; it's also written as if Herr was on fire and being chased by literature-eating wolves. I read it twice in a row and would do it again.
]]> 1149266 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:18:41 -0700
author: Ryszard Kapuscinski
name: lowell
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 03/27/08
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:
A loving, human ode to war and folly.
]]> 10637271 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:57:50 -0800
author: Charles Bock
name: lowell
average rating: 2.92
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 03/08
date added: 12/18/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 1217395 Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:20:17 -0700
author: Salman Rushdie
name: lowell
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 10/13/07
shelves: novels-i-love
review:

]]> 4074276 Sun, 05 Aug 2007 13:54:01 -0700
author: Anonymous
name: lowell
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 08/05/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 3360803 Sat, 04 Aug 2007 11:14:22 -0700
author: Diana L. Eck
name: lowell
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 08/04/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360844 Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:03:22 -0700
author: Junot Díaz
name: lowell
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 08/02/07
shelves: novels-i-love
review:

]]> 3360810 Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:37:48 -0700
author: Denis Johnson
name: lowell
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/28/07
shelves: novels-i-love
review:
A moving and beautifully written ode to the doomed and damned (and much less often redeemed) maniacs, geniuses, destroyers, victims, healers, and jokers of the Vietnam War. Encompasses the roots, enactment, and aftermath of the gruesome adventure from nearly every imaginable perspective. Denis Johnson is magic. And the best describer of monkeys ever.
]]> 1315363 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:40:44 -0700
author: James Dickey
name: lowell
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: novels-i-love
review:
I defy anyone to find a halfway decent book that's more brutal than this one. I truly had to put it down multiple times (at least five) because it was causing me intense physical discomfort. Just remembering it is enough to make me double over. Though unpleasant, it's an experience I'd highly recommend, if for no other reason than to be able to say that a book has done you violence.
]]> 1148088 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:28:10 -0700
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: lowell
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: novels-i-love
review:
If you can introduce me to three books I like more than these I'll pay you 100 dollars.
]]> 3361912 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:21:44 -0700
author: Jean Hatzfeld
name: lowell
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:
see "Machete Season"
]]> 3360233 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:21:03 -0700
author: Jean Hatzfeld
name: lowell
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:
Along with "Into the Quick of Life", Hartzfeld's book shines where Gourevich's "We Wish to Inform You..." falls short - giving both victims and perpetrators (many of whom are victims as well) the space to tell their stories. It seems to me to be the most humane of the many books written about the genocide.
]]> 3360044 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:01:09 -0700
author: Ryszard Kapuscinski
name: lowell
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:
The best piece of travel writing I know of; by my favorite journalist of all time.
]]> 1069745 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:34:34 -0700
author: Roberto Bolaño
name: lowell
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: novels-i-love
review:
At once mindblowingly boring and utterly engrossing - vapid and ingenius - pulpy and deadly serious - tragic and comic - impersonal and soulful - sarcastic and earnest - profane and mythic - unrelatable and heartbreaking - terrible and perfect --- A seemingly dashed-off (but then again, possibly not) masterpiece about Latin American poets lost in/to the world. Over 30 narrators, easiy 100 characters, and at least 4 continents are involved.
]]> 3360530 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:16:39 -0700
author: J.M. Coetzee
name: lowell
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360506 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:16:04 -0700
author: Wole Soyinka
name: lowell
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1989
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360391 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:11:33 -0700
author: Michela Wrong
name: lowell
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360336 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:09:33 -0700
author: Gary Snyder
name: lowell
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360306 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:08:58 -0700
author: Jo Ann Beard
name: lowell
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360261 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:06:52 -0700
author: Jonathan Kozol
name: lowell
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360187 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:02:56 -0700
author: Bill Berkeley
name: lowell
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360175 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:01:52 -0700
author: Timothy B. Tyson
name: lowell
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360164 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:01:20 -0700
author: Joseph Campbell
name: lowell
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360156 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:00:56 -0700
author: Joseph Campbell
name: lowell
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1972
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360141 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:00:17 -0700
author: Joseph Campbell
name: lowell
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360097 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:57:42 -0700
author: Alex Kotlowitz
name: lowell
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360085 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:56:44 -0700
author: Alex Kotlowitz
name: lowell
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360069 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:56:03 -0700
author: Charles M. Payne
name: lowell
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 3360052 Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:55:31 -0700
author: Ryszard Kapuscinski
name: lowell
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 07/21/07
shelves: non-fiction-addiction
review:

]]> 1148365 Sat, 19 May 2007 22:21:58 -0700
author: Peter Orner
name: lowell
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/19/07
shelves: my-favorite-african-lit, novels-i-love
review:
Easily my favorite novel of the last couple of years, and by far the most gorgeously written. Also it's populated by the most entertaining group of weirdos I've come across since Cannery Row or something like that. On top of all this it's pleasingly weird in structure (154 chapters in 300 pages!), and totally hilarious when it wants to be. Oh yeah, and it takes place at a near-defunct missionary school in the middle of the Namib Desert. Read it!!!!
]]> 1149015 Sat, 19 May 2007 17:37:15 -0700
"with carnival coming, radios go on full blast, trembling these shacks, booming out calypsos, the songs that announce in this season the new rhythms for people to walk in, rhythms that climb over the red dirt and stone, break-away rhythms that laugh through the groans of these sights, these smells, that swim through the bones of these enduring people so that they shout: Life! They cry: Hurrah! They drink rum and say: Fuck it! They walk with a tall hot beauty between the garbage and dogshit, proclaiming life, exulting in the bare bones of their person and their skin."

A tragic-comic exploration of Trinidad’s messy racial and economic legacies, a musical and excessive celebration befitting Carnival itself, a book of wild stylistic experimentation, it’s also a heartbreaking tale about one man’s search for ‘personhood,’ community, and hope in the midst of desperate, crushing poverty.

A must read for anyone interested in Trinidad, Carnival traditions, or good books. ]]>
author: Earl Lovelace
name: lowell
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/19/07
shelves: novels-i-love
review:
Like a record by an unknown genius picked at random out of a dollar bin at goodwill, this book, when I brought it home and unleashed it, actually (truly) made me want to dance. Written in “poor-talk,” a highly lyrical Trinidadian Pidgin English which allows for incredible and delightful feats of linguistic dexterity, Lovelace’s 250 page novel depicts the beautifully chaotic, pot-holed, garbage-strewn life of a small shantytown on the outskirts of Port of Spain, Trinidad, as its inhabitants prepare for Carnival. The lovingly-rendered characters (failed and famous Calypsonians, depressed costume makers, alienated Indian shopkeepers, vitriolic barmaids, drunken steel-drummers, gorgeous widows, and “bad-johns”) all struggle against the nihilism and despair that their poverty engenders, as they are drawn together for the annual transformative ritual which allows them a glimpse into their mythical dream-world – a world where “All-o-we is one,” where,

"with carnival coming, radios go on full blast, trembling these shacks, booming out calypsos, the songs that announce in this season the new rhythms for people to walk in, rhythms that climb over the red dirt and stone, break-away rhythms that laugh through the groans of these sights, these smells, that swim through the bones of these enduring people so that they shout: Life! They cry: Hurrah! They drink rum and say: Fuck it! They walk with a tall hot beauty between the garbage and dogshit, proclaiming life, exulting in the bare bones of their person and their skin."

A tragic-comic exploration of Trinidad’s messy racial and economic legacies, a musical and excessive celebration befitting Carnival itself, a book of wild stylistic experimentation, it’s also a heartbreaking tale about one man’s search for ‘personhood,’ community, and hope in the midst of desperate, crushing poverty.

A must read for anyone interested in Trinidad, Carnival traditions, or good books.
]]> 1315801 Sat, 19 May 2007 17:22:53 -0700
Now that I look at the table of contents though, I think there are even more reasons to check out this anthology. "Fathers," "The American Embassy," "The Thing in the Forest," "The Shell Collector," "Burn your Maps," and "Sacred Statues" are also great. A good year for O'Henry.]]>
author: Laura Furman
name: lowell
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/19/07
shelves: short-story-collections-worth-your-
review:
This one made the list solely on the basis of Denis Johnson's "Train Dreams," definitely one of my five favorite short stories of all time.

Now that I look at the table of contents though, I think there are even more reasons to check out this anthology. "Fathers," "The American Embassy," "The Thing in the Forest," "The Shell Collector," "Burn your Maps," and "Sacred Statues" are also great. A good year for O'Henry.
]]> 1073906 Sat, 19 May 2007 16:54:29 -0700
author: Roberto Bolaño
name: lowell
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/19/07
shelves: short-story-collections-worth-your-
review:
Believe the hype about Roberto Bolano. I was skeptical, but he actually IS like nothing I've ever read before. I'd especially recommend "Mauricio 'The Eye,' Silva," "The Grub," and the title story.
]]> 1137869 Sat, 19 May 2007 16:42:49 -0700
author: Chinua Achebe
name: lowell
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/19/07
shelves: my-favorite-african-lit, novels-i-love
review:
This might just be the perfect book.
]]> 1069729 Sat, 19 May 2007 16:19:41 -0700
author: Paul Bowles
name: lowell
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/19/07
shelves: short-story-collections-worth-your-
review:

]]> 1315248 Sat, 19 May 2007 16:10:48 -0700
Influential aside:
Thank Sozaboy for the current spate of African Child Soldier Literature - The Beasts of No Nation, in particular, is a direct [too direct, I’d say] descendant of this seminal work.

Historical aside:
Ken Saro-Wiwa, an Ongoni tribesman who himself worked as a civilian administrator during the Biafran / Nigerian Civil War, was hanged by Sani Abacha’s regime in 1995 for anti-governmental activism, including protests against Shell Oil’s involvement in the Niger Delta – a conflict which rages on.

Also includes one of the best first lines ever: “Although, everybody in Dukana was happy at first.”

Sample of rotten English: “All the nine villages were dancing and were eating plenty maize with pear and knacking tory (gossiping – there’s a glossary) under the moon. Because the work on the farm have finished and the yams were growing well well. And because the old, bad government have dead, and the new government of soza and police have come.
]]>
author: Ken Saro-Wiwa
name: lowell
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 05/19/07
shelves: my-favorite-african-lit, novels-i-love
review:
Sentence diagrammers beware! Written in “rotten English,” a dialect invented by Saro Wiwa himself (complete with it’s own grammatical and syntactical rules – dependent clauses can function as complete sentences, etc.) which incorporates “Nigerian Pidgin English, Broken English, and Idiomatic English,” it may take several pages to get into the flow of the language, but I implore you to do so. Sozaboy is the quintessential African War story, as well as the greatest anti-war novel I’ve ever read. It’s also, very strangely, the closest thing to James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man I’ve found (heady company, I know, but that’s how much I love this novel!). Our narrator is a young soldier conscripted against his will into an unnamed civil war which he doesn’t understand, and which has taken everything from him and promises nothing in return. We follow him as he descends helplessly into the surreal horrors of this terrifying war, charting his psychological development along the way, and are, like him, left far wiser for it – a terrible sort of wisdom, yes – but a necessary one. It is a grotesque and tragic odyssey which this novel takes us on, but one that we must undertake if we want to understand the first thing about the wars that are raging around us. This is must read for anyone interested in contemporary Africa, or 3rd world conflicts.

Influential aside:
Thank Sozaboy for the current spate of African Child Soldier Literature - The Beasts of No Nation, in particular, is a direct [too direct, I’d say] descendant of this seminal work.

Historical aside:
Ken Saro-Wiwa, an Ongoni tribesman who himself worked as a civilian administrator during the Biafran / Nigerian Civil War, was hanged by Sani Abacha’s regime in 1995 for anti-governmental activism, including protests against Shell Oil’s involvement in the Niger Delta – a conflict which rages on.

Also includes one of the best first lines ever: “Although, everybody in Dukana was happy at first.”

Sample of rotten English: “All the nine villages were dancing and were eating plenty maize with pear and knacking tory (gossiping – there’s a glossary) under the moon. Because the work on the farm have finished and the yams were growing well well. And because the old, bad government have dead, and the new government of soza and police have come.

]]> 1217861 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:52:35 -0700
author: Philip Roth
name: lowell
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1959
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1148207 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:45:52 -0700
author: Anonymous
name: lowell
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 1217708 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:43:52 -0700
author: Gustave Flaubert
name: lowell
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: novels-i-love
review:

]]> 1217648 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:37:04 -0700
author: Gustave Flaubert
name: lowell
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1217608 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:31:10 -0700
author: Henry James
name: lowell
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1217587 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:30:35 -0700
author: Anthony Doerr
name: lowell
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: short-story-collections-worth-your-
review:

]]> 1217531 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:25:06 -0700
author: Patrick O'Keeffe
name: lowell
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1217494 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:22:42 -0700
author: Angela Carter
name: lowell
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: short-story-collections-worth-your-
review:

]]> 1217426 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:18:27 -0700
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: lowell
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1137801 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:15:46 -0700
author: Bessie Head
name: lowell
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: my-favorite-african-lit, read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1217310 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:12:40 -0700
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: lowell
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1217306 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:11:54 -0700
author: Joseph Conrad
name: lowell
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1217281 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:10:29 -0700
author: Jean Rhys
name: lowell
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1217206 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:06:16 -0700
author: Herman Melville
name: lowell
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 05/14/07
shelves: read-a-novella-tonight
review:

]]> 1217143 Mon, 14 May 2007 22:04:03 -0700