B. Morrison's Blog, page 54
July 26, 2015
Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, by Tony Hoagland
First off, how great is that title? I laughed out loud when I saw it. Such a great combination of humor, ordinary things, and Japanese poetic traditions. Plus, my #1 son is finally getting a Honda like the rest of us, so I guess I’ve founded a Honda dynasty of my own, however late he is coming to it.
I love Hoagland’s poems. He uses the things of this world to craft seemingly simple poems, poems that always leave me staring off into the distance thinking new thoughts. I’ve written before ab...
July 19, 2015
After I’m Gone, by Laura Lippman
A new novel from Lippman is always cause for rejoicing. She has a series of crime novels featuring Tess Monaghan and probably just as many stand-alone crime novels, all of them excellent reads. I call them crime novels; they are certainly mysteries and I make no apologies for loving that genre. However, in these books, what I value more than the puzzle demanding a solution are the story structure and psychological depth. Well, also that they usually take place in Baltimore, a city I know well...
July 12, 2015
West of Sunset, by Stewart O’Nan
The curse of early success: we may say we’re willing to risk it, but there are certainly plenty of cautionary tales. The prime example may be the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The immense success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, made him the golden boy of the 1920s. Along with his wife, Zelda, Fitzgerald danced and drank and partied up a storm.
The two were known for crazy, reckless stunts. But all of those drunken escapades left little time for writing. For a while, he kept going b...
July 5, 2015
The Children Act, by Ian McEwan
This very short novel begins with a crisis in the stable and ordered life of High Court Judge Fiona Maye, a specialist in Family Law. Childless herself and partner in a long and comfortably loving marriage, Fiona finds the deep pleasure of her life, the moments when she loses herself, in sorting out tangled cases and writing opinions that can themselves become standard references for later cases.
Her superior view from the bench is challenged when her husband informs her that he is embarking...
June 29, 2015
Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny
I read a lot of mysteries. It’s not that I am bloodthirsty, but rather that I love the puzzle of the plot and the psychological depth of the characters. Plus a lot of the best novel writing today is being done in mysteries. I especially like finding a good series. When the same handful of characters return in book after book, the author has the opportunity to dig ever more deeply into them, revealing so much more of them over time, allowing them to change in unexpected ways.
Not every author...
June 21, 2015
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, Essays by Jane Hirshfield
I’ve been trying to make a dent in the stack of writing craft books that threaten to overwhelm my bookshelves despite all my resolutions not to acquire any more of them. However, this week I’ve gone back to reread this lovely book by Jane Hirschfield. The nine essays contain so much depth and beauty that I’m sure I’ll be back to savor them many more times.
Hirschfield explores the magic of poetry, pulling back the curtain to show what makes some poems work. Her insights leave space for the im...
June 14, 2015
An Officer and a Spy, by Robert Harris
I was doubtful when one of the owners of my local indie bookstore urged this book on me. However, she’d never steered me wrong before, so I succumbed. It’s a fictional retelling of the Dreyfus affair, a shameful chapter in France’s history and one which I thought I knew a lot about. Ha! After reading this absorbing book I realise that I only knew the barest outline of the story.
In December 1894 Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of selling French military secrets to Germany. The Army had learned...
June 7, 2015
Glaciers, by Alexis M. Smith
Sometimes you want a big, fat novel; sometimes you want a small, quiet one. Only 112 short pages, Smith’s novel follows a young woman during a single day. Twenty-something Isabel is many things: a thrift-store aficionado, a librarian who repairs damaged books, a child of divorced parents, a resident of Portland, Oregon. But most of all she is a person whose imagination is both deep and wide.
She collects postcards of cities around the world. Having grown up in an isolated cabin in Alaska, sh...
May 31, 2015
Translations from the Night, by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo
I love to talk with people about books, so I’ve joined several book clubs over the years. One has a peculiar modus operandi: we don’t read the same book; instead we each talk about a book we’ve read that month. We have a monthly theme, but don’t always stick to it. For this month, we spun a globe to see where our finger landed. Then we read a book either set there or by a local author.
I got Madagascar.
I make a point of reading authors from other countries, but Madagascar? I couldn’t think...
May 24, 2015
The Comic Toolbox, by John Vorhaus
I am seriously unfunny. I mean, I enjoy a good joke or comedy routine as much as the next person, but fail when it comes to producing one. It’s embarrassing. I only know one joke, well, actually two but the second one is so silly it doesn’t really count: What’s yellow and not a banana? Oh, wait, it is a banana. Silly.
The only person I’ve met who was more humor-impaired than I is my friend, John. He and I were both technical trainers and decided to spice up our dry material with some jokes. I...
