false 20 157 155 true 5664600 read 1 true 133202 currently-reading 0 true 133201 to-read 1 true 2761373 dip-in--dip-out 11 false 139446 binned 8 false 3514828 pregnancy 0 false 214156 re-reading http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77986634 The Big Book Of Lesbian Horse Stories (Paperback) by Alisa Surkis
bookshelves: currently-reading
Sample: A cab pulled up and Tilly leaped out. "Oh Midge," she mourned. "I was afraid of something like this." Turning to Jean, she said, "Thank you Jean, and try to understand. Midge's problem is overidentification with her father, which compelled her to embrace a patriarchal power system, while her own desires placed her squarely in opposition to that very system. She does the best she can."

Suffice to say that so far i am LOVING this. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75351171 to: The End of Alice: A Novel (Hardcover) by A.M. Homes
If you're going to write a book about paedophilia, or more accurately nympholepsy (as Martin Amis defines it) you're going to be judged against Lolita, so you really need to do something different and something that is as good - otherwise why bother?

Homes is no Nabokov. She's a perfectly decent writer, but her prose isn't as rich - not really remarkable at all.

The book is in three sections - the narrator who has had a relationship with and killed a 12 year old girl called Alice; his life decades later in prison; his correspondence with a 19-year-old girl who is grooming a young boy. The relationship with Alice is the best part of the book as it's so reminiscent of Lolita. A sexually precocious, demanding, bolshy pre-teen who appears to have the narrator wrapped around her finger, followed a road trip.

You imagine that Homes added the other two angles as a twist on Nabokov's tale. But what do the twists really add? The girl's account seems to be there only to titilate. The narrator's reaction to these is a mixture of arousal and brutality. With both the girls accounts and his reactions, is Homes trying to excite us so that, despite ourselves, we feel the same excitements and urges of the paedophile? Who bloody knows. If she is, the writing isn't clever enough to take this anywhere.

You could say that she's being brave by tackling such a controversial subject, but the over-riding feeling is of someone doing their best to shock. But shock teaches you nothing. In the end, you just end up trying to retrospectively add meaning to the book. And if the reader is left to divine meaning, then that's the writer's failure. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69066875 to: The Collected Dorothy Parker (Penguin Modern Classics) by Dorothy Parker
Because as everybody knows, Dorothy was never anything but collected.

Short stories - some of which are so perfect that they made my heart hurt. One made me sigh out loud in the dentist surgery because of its ending. Funny, acerbic, and something that is very rare, I think - women written well.

Not all the stories are perfect, but when they are good they are very, very good. The book reviews answer all of my questions about how to write a book review that has the personality of its author but isn't a massive critical ego trip. The poems are hit and miss, but in the context of their time, quite groundbreaking I think... ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10927303 David's review of Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
by Douglas Coupland

i thought he came across really well in this mini-interview about gen x - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep... ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/67627833 Maureen's review of Talking Cock
by Richard Herring

HIGH FIVE! ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71318942 Maureen's review of The Member of the Wedding
by Carson McCullers

i wanna smooch carson mccullers right up ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71385672 Steven's review of Bad Science
by Ben Goldacre

my friend knows him. that is all. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/67138741 to: The Scarlet Letter (Penguin Popular Classics) by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Written at a time when the trend was for novels to be preceded by a meandering explanation from 'the writer' about how they came across this 'true story' blah blah bloody blah, only on page 40 does the story actually begin. Before this, the reader has to endure a tediously lengthy description of the Custom House and its machinations. Get on with it Hawthorne! And once you're in the grip of the story, it don't let up. What should be a pretty juicy tale - Salem witchery, sexy priests and children possessed - is canceled by numerous, multi-claused, tedious asides about the physiognomies of village elders and the precise hue of forest leaves or whatnot. This would never pass muster in a Black Lace novel.... ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68832441 Maureen's review of The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair

oh i've got this to read eventually as well. don't give owt away! ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66567940 to: Revolutionary Road (Vintage Classics) by Richard Yates
The construction of identities, the way we play roles within our own lives, phoneys, frauds, the lot of us. All set in a Mad Mennish world - men in the city, wives in the suburbs, reuniting in the cocktail hour. Brilliantly written, in an Updike style. So depressing, I found myself picking fights and holes in my own life under its influence. ]]>