It is an impressive feat to be able to write an unconventional, let alone an unexplored, type of love story as Audrey Niffenegger does in The Time Traveler’s Wife. While the plotline is intricately woven, the premise is simple: Henry DeTamble has a “Chrono-Displacement Disorder”, a genetic condition that causes him…
Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road…No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild. Jon Krakauer in Into…
The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it. Kazuo Ishiguro in The Remains of the Day There is a certain experience that comes with reading this book. Intensely moving and perceptive, The Remains of the…
Paradais by Fernanda Melchor, masterfully translated by Sophie Hughes, is an absolutely entrancing, visceral read. It spans just over a hundred pages and is densely layered with complex themes written in Melchor’s pitiless prose, from ideas of classism, racism, and misogyny to the macabre acts of rape and murder. This…
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow gains its name from Macbeth’s famous soliloquy. As bleak as it is, Gabrielle Zevin creates a new spin on the meaning of “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”: in the world of games, it’s the possibility of “infinite rebirth, infinite redemption.” We don’t always understand life and how…
“What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore—And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.Or does it explode?” Langston Hughes in Harlem A Raisin in the Sun…
“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” Chuck Palaniuk The first rule about Fight Club is that you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of the fight club is that you do NOT talk about Fight Club. Only two guys to a…
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew…
“In the winter of 1561, Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner, it occurs to her that their journey to this lonely place has a sinister purpose: he intends to kill her.” Maggie…
William Stoner lives a quiet life. After his death, he’s hardly remembered; during his life, he moves from his family’s farm to the University of Missouri, where he becomes a teacher. He falls in love with literature and teaching, but never rises above the rank of an assistant professor; he…