Amanda read and liked Brad's review of The Sun Also Rises:

"I've read this book every year since 1991, and it is never the same book. Like so many things in this world, The Sun Also Rises improves with age and attention.

Some readings I find myself in love with Lady Brett Ashley. Then I am firmly i...more I've read this book every year since 1991, and it is never the same book. Like so many things in this world, The Sun Also Rises improves with age and attention.

Some readings I find myself in love with Lady Brett Ashley. Then I am firmly in Jake Barnes' camp, feeling his pain and wondering how he stays sane with all that happens around him. Another time I can't help but feel that Robert Cohn is getting a shitty deal and find his behavior not only understandable but restrained. Or I am with Mike and Bill and Romero on the periphery where the hurricane made by Brett and Jake and Robert destroys spirits or fun or nothing (which is decidedly something).

And then I am against them all as though they were my sworn enemies or my family. No matter what I feel while reading The Sun Also Rises, it is Hemingway's richest novel for me.

I feel it was written for me. And sometimes feel it was written by me (I surely wish it was).

Hemingway's language, his characterizations, his love for all the people he writes about (no matter how unsavory they may be), his love of women and men, his empathy with the pain people feel in life and love, his touch with locale, his integration of sport as metaphor and setting, his getting everything just right with nothing out of place and nothing superfluous, all of this makes The Sun Also Rises his most important novel.

It is the Hemingway short story writ large. It is the book he should be remembered for but isn't. I often wonder why that is, and the conclusion I come to is this: The Sun Also Rises is too real, too true, too painful for the average reader to stomach. And many who can are predisposed to hate Hemingway.

A terrible shame that so many miss something so achingly beautiful.(less) "

Amanda read and liked Kemper's review of Oryx and Crake:

"Geez. That was the most depressing apocalypse ever.

A hermit called Snowman is playing caretaker and prophet to a strange new race of people he calls the Crakers in the ruins of civilization. As Snowman forages for supplies, his recollec...more Geez. That was the most depressing apocalypse ever.

A hermit called Snowman is playing caretaker and prophet to a strange new race of people he calls the Crakers in the ruins of civilization. As Snowman forages for supplies, his recollections make up the story of what caused a massive biological and ecological disaster that has apparently wiped all the old humans out except for him.

Snowman’s past takes place in our near future where he was once known as Jimmy in a society where genetic engineering was commonplace and the privileged lived in compounds owned and maintained by the corporations they worked for. Jimmy/Snowman’s memories of his brilliant friend Crake and the woman he loved, Oryx, haunt him even as he struggles to survive.

Fascinating book that seemed all too plausible in its depiction of a future state where brainless, nerveless chicken blobs with multiple breasts are created in a lab for chicken nuggets and animals are routinely crossbred. And all this set against a society where the only thing that matters is the bottom line so the idea of questioning the ethics or morality of what’s being done makes you a traitor.

This is a story that takes the idea of playing god to a whole new level. When you can create any kind of life you can imagine, where do limits come in? And if you think that human society is beyond saving, what kind of people would have the arrogance to think they can come up with something better?
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Amanda read and liked Kemper's review of My Dead Body: A Novel:

"- Hey, Charlie Huston. Can I ask you a question?

- Sure, Kemper.

- First, I’m a big fan. Your new breed of neo-noir writing is a blast to read in both your crime and horror novels.

- Thank you.

- No pro...more - Hey, Charlie Huston. Can I ask you a question?

- Sure, Kemper.

- First, I’m a big fan. Your new breed of neo-noir writing is a blast to read in both your crime and horror novels.

- Thank you.

- No problem. I gotta admit that I thought the Joe Pitt character was probably one of your weaker creations for a while there, though.

- Why? You didn’t like the idea of a tough guy Vampyre getting caught up in various turf wars between rival clans in New York?

- No, I was good with that. I just have this pet peeve about writers doing supernatural characters. There's always a hero or anti-hero who is supposed to bad ass, but it seems like they always spend the majority of their books getting beaten to the point where they can barely function, but somehow prevail in the end. Harry Dresden and Sandman Slim, for example. And Joe Pitt is a poster boy for this. He’s supposed to be the rogue independent vampire that everyone is scared off, yet he seems to spend most of the books getting his ass handed to him, and even his Vampyre healing hasn’t prevented him from being maimed and half-crippled by now.

- You have a point, and I’m sorry to say that poor old Joe doesn’t fare much better in this book. So I assume you want to ask why I felt the need to inflict such misery on him?

- No, actually, after reading My Dead Body, I’m pleased with how you handled the whole thing. I didn’t realize that there was an arc to the whole story and that this one would be the final culmination of Joe’s saga. The fact that he’s a damaged mess makes sense in that context. Plus, I now realize that Joe wasn’t a miserable asshole just for the sake of being a miserable asshole. He’s a character like John Constantine or Rorschach from Watchmen. He’s the outsider who refuses to compromise no matter what it costs him and others.

- Oh, well I’m glad you feel better about that now, Kemper, but I thought you had a question?

- I do, Charlie Huston. My question is just why in the hell you are incapable of writing dialogue like every other goddamn writer in the known universe?

- Are you referring to the way I don’t use quotation marks or verbs like ‘said’ or ‘asked’?

- Yes, I am. I mean, you do some of the best and most realistic dialogue this side of Elmore Leonard, but this affectation of using a dash and then the dialogue with no clue as to who spoke it… Well, frankly, Charlie Huston, it’s kind of a pain in the ass. And it gets really bad when there are several people in a room talking, and then you have to get cute about letting us know who’s speaking by using the other person’s name. All this could have been avoided if you would just use some freaking quotation marks and a ‘I said’ every once in a while. Everyone else does it.

- Yes, but I’m a groundbreaking writer trying to perfect a new style of noir….

- Save it, Charlie Huston. It’s a cute little gimmick that was mildly amusing in the first book I read by you, but now it’s just a distraction. And it’s too bad because My Dead Body was a terrific book, but I shouldn’t have to create flow charts as I’m reading to try and keep track of who is speaking. I really don’t get it. Were your parents killed by quotation marks and you swore vengeance? Did the word ‘said’ steal a girlfriend from you once? You need to get it over it.

“I’ll think about it,” Charlie Huston said.

“You see how easy that was?” Kemper asked.

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