Michael > Recent Status Updates

This is a formidable 875+ page novel in small print with a cast of characters having complex Russian names plus their patronyms which require eight pages to list in the appendix, and takes place in at least 15 different settings including Russian and Nazi prison camps, battlefields in the Russian steppes and various underground bunkers in and around Stalingrad.
Think of War and Peace and Doctor Zhivago. A must read.

This book was a good example to not trust best seller lists on the quality of the book. I found it to be a crude self adulation of the author’s sexual appetites and self importance in being a public figure.

I got this because Goodreaders have given it 4-5 *. Turns out it’s a Mitch Albom book in disguise.

This book is a heck of surprise. I didn’t expect the writing to be this good. I could really feel the pain and anguish of the central characters as their stories are told

I had read the first two of this series before the advent of Trump but but now I'm realising just how similar the character of Henry VIII is to him.

Put it aside for now. Not what I expected. Not much going on. Through 15% of book it has been one new character development after another. Rushdie's style reminds me of the outrageous characters of Thomas Pynchon but Pynchon's characters are more interesting. Rushdie seems to be forcing the humor for his characters.

Disappointing

Magnificent

Turns out I didn’t learn any lessons after reading Ellroy’s White Jazz a few years ago. The writing is still head spinning.

Five pages in and I’m not sure I want to go on. Ellroy’s writing style of short staccato declarative type sentences gives it a sense of incoherent thoughts rather than a flow going somewhere.

Used to be a Buckley worshipper. This book has changed my mind