5+ | Raging Biblio-holism

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

February 27, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: A collection of stories set mostly in the wilds of Florida – but not quite the Florida we know. This is Russell’s fantastic version of the state: where lycanthropes are real, ghost fish can be seen with special diving goggles, and giant mollusks once roamed the seas. The Review: I’ve had rather a tumultuous time with Swamplandia! since reading it. At the time, I felt betrayed by the way Russell pulled the magical-realism rug out from under the reader […]

Categories: Fiction • Tags: 5+, Fantasy, Fiction, Karen Russell, Magical Realism, Short Stories, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Swamplandia!

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NW

November 19, 2012 by Drew

The Short Version: The story of four residents of Willesden, Northwest London – four different, disparate individuals who grew up together but grew into separate lives… without ever manging to escape the draw of the NW. After a surprising intrustion into Leah’s life, the four characters swirl inexorably back towards each other and a sudden conclusion. The Review: This is a novel that, in many ways, defies summary. What is it about? It is about people. I know, I know, […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 5+, Fiction, Literature, London, NW, Zadie Smith

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The Lover’s Dictionary

February 5, 2012 by Drew

The Short Version: synopsis, n. The story of a love affair, told not chronologically but alphabetically. The Review: wonderful, adj. As an unabashed romantic and unrepentant word-user, this book was a tiny slice of perfection. It manages to encapsulate so much of how we feel in any given relationship while remaining specific to the individual story at hand. verbose, adj. By god, there are quite a number of words. It’s an impressive commitment, really: you decide you’re going to write […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 5+, David Levithan, Fiction, Literature, The Lover's Dictionary

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Last Man In Tower

December 28, 2011 by Drew

The Short Version: The Vishram Society is a somewhat falling-down but still rather decent block of flats in Mumbai. The tenants all know one another and it is a happy, if not quite wonderful, life. After a developer comes to them with a stunning buy-out offer and the buy-out is held up by one stubborn individual, greed begins to win out and the once-harmonious Society devolves into the very worst that humanity has to offer. The Review: I read The White Tiger a […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 5+, Aravind Adiga, Fiction, India, Last Man In Tower, Literature

Of Bees and Mist

October 8, 2011 by Drew

The Short Version: In a town where the fantastic is more commonplace than yours, two families with dark histories smash together when Meridia and Daniel fall in love. This is Meridia’s story, from childhood to her thirtieth year – and it is a story of wonder and magic – not magic in the sense of spells and potions, but magic in an elemental way. There is love, death, ghosts, otherworldly forces, and a general sense of autumnal mystery about the whole […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Literature • Tags: 5+, A Visit to October Country, Erick Setiawan, Fantasy, Fiction, Literature, Magical Realism, Of Bees and Mist

The Lost Books of the Odyssey

March 27, 2011 by Drew

The Short Version: Returning to the idea of the oral tradition that created the Greek myths we now find so engrained in our society, these “lost books” are apocryphal variations on the stories we think we know so well. There are the predictable tales – from the cyclops’ point of view – but also more divergent tales. Stranger tales. Sadder tales. Tales not of the Homer story but of the stories that spawned it. The Review: What must it’ve been […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 5+, Classics, Fiction, Literature, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason

The Hunger Games Trilogy

October 11, 2010 by Drew

It will be impossible for me to separate these three books into individual reviews, so I’m reviewing them together. I read all three in a blur of pages this weekend – starting the first book Friday afternoon and finishing it in the wee small hours of Saturday morning, then powering through the second during the day Saturday (I had to lend it to a lovely friend of mine – one of the few to whom I lend books, as she […]

Categories: Fiction, Sci-Fi • Tags: 5+, Catching Fire, Dystopian, Fiction, Katniss Everdeen, Mockingjay, Sci-Fi, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, Young Adult

Chronic City

October 7, 2010 by Drew

Jonathan Lethem is apparently moving out of New York City. I read this somewhere (NYMag, maybe?) and they had a quote that stuck in my mind, about how this book very much seemed like a book written by someone ready to move out of the city. It is – it is a love letter to the city but also a requiem for a life lived here. It is a portrait of a city not-quite-this-one, where a giant tiger roams the […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 5+, Chronic City, Fiction, Jonathan Lethem, New York City

Money: a suicide note

August 16, 2010 by Drew

Well. This… this is unexpected. Two 5+ books back to back? Does the reading of this book – a book that felt more than a little bit like Gravity’s Rainbow in terms of the sheer “before/after” of the reading experience – alter the way I felt about the last one? I think it does. I’m having trouble (in the back-to-back-ing) reconciling the two novels as being anything remotely the same. Shteyngart’s book was a masterwork because it caught me off-guard. […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 5+, Fiction, Literature, Martin Amis, Money: a suicide note

Theatre

August 5, 2010 by Drew

Those of you who know me or follow my other blogs or what-have-you are probably aware that I’m an avid consumer and producer of theatre. Those who weren’t aware – now you are. A tradition started with the first show I was ever in, my mother gives me a book with a print-out-congratulations on the inside cover – “congrats on X part in Y show, these dates, this place, love Mom Dad and Val.” The books have ranged from children’s […]

Categories: Non-Fiction • Tags: 5+, David Mamet, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, Theatre

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Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Archives

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

NW

The Lover’s Dictionary

Last Man In Tower

Of Bees and Mist

The Lost Books of the Odyssey

The Hunger Games Trilogy

Chronic City

Money: a suicide note

Theatre

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