Jesse Ball | Raging Biblio-holism

Roundup, December 2016

December 23, 2016 by Drew

Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball 4.5 out of 5 The Short Version: When James Sim comes upon a stabbed man, his life is upended. Who (or what) is Samedi? Why are people following him? What is the horrible plan that will happen on the seventh day? Can his own mind be trusted? The Review: Ball’s earliest novel is in some ways his most categorizable. It reads like a thriller in the mold of John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps or Hitchcock’s mistaken-man […]

Categories: Fantasy, Fiction, Literature, Mystery, Sci-Fi • Tags: Cibola Burn, Classics, Consider Phlebas, Culture, Fiction, Futurism, Iain M. Banks, James S. A. Corey, Jesse Ball, L. Frank Baum, Literature, Mystery, Normal, Samedi the Deafness, Santa Claus, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Science Future, The Culture, The Expanse, Warren Ellis

The Way Through Doors

November 2, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: A young pamphleteer/government inspector in a rather curious version of New York sees a young woman hit by a cab. He takes her to a hospital where she’s diagnosed with severe amnesia and finds himself charged with taking care of her – primarily, keeping her awake through the night. He does so by telling her stories, stories that overlap and intertwine and that hopefully will reveal her lost identity by the time the sun comes up… The Review: I decided, […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Dreaming, Dreams, Fiction, Jesse Ball, Literature, Lucid Dreaming, review, Reviews, Storytelling, The Way Through Doors

The Curfew

September 23, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Molly’s mother was disappeared by the government when she was younger. Now, she and her father William (a violinist-turned-epitaphorist) live a quiet life in an increasingly violent and dangerous city where no one goes out after dark and people die in the streets. But when William goes out on an errand late one night and does not return, she and her neighbor create a puppet show in the hopes of explaining and perhaps saving their story. The […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Agitprop, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Dystopia, Family, Fiction, Jesse Ball, Literature, Music, Politics, review, Reviews, The Curfew, Totalitarianism

A Cure for Suicide

May 2, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: An examiner arrives in a small village, where she is to attend to a man (a “claimant”) who has just arrived. The man is disorientated and seems to be learning everything all over again about living. What is this place? Who is this examiner? Why is this man here? The Review: I discovered Jesse Ball through the Tournament of Books last year, when Silence Once Begun was on the bracket. That strange novel – an outlier, I was […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: A Cure for Suicide, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Jesse Ball, Literature, Reading, Reviews

Silence Once Begun

February 20, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: After his marriage dissolves due to his wife’s silence, a journalist named Jesse Ball begins looking into a strange case in Japan known as “the Narito Disappearances” – a case that had no leads, no trace, until a mysteriously signed confession appears. But the man who confessed remains silent and Ball tries to uncover what really happened to Oda Sotatsu, the man who confessed to a crime he did not commit. The Review: I’d like to frame the beginning […]

Categories: Fiction • Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Crime, Fiction, Japan, Jesse Ball, Journalism, Literature, Metafiction, Reviews, Silence Once Begun, The Tournament of Books 2015

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: Jesse Ball

Roundup, December 2016

The Way Through Doors

The Curfew

A Cure for Suicide

Silence Once Begun