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Recently Finished

Delphine de Vigan, Underground Time. Liked it a lot, if by "liked" you mean "experienced a slightly nauseous feeling of creeping dread that didn't require anything more supernatural than people being dicks towards each other". :star4:
 
Hegemony by Mark Kalina. (Kindle) A very enjoyable sci-fi read. Billed as space opera, it has it all: love, hate, loyalty, betrayal, fighting, technology, weaponry, strategy and tactics but, also, plausible characters and settings and believable orbital mechanics in interstellar space.
 
I just finished reading After Dark by Haruki Murakami. I feel like I will have to think about it for a while before I can form a good opinion of it. The only other work by Murakami that I've read is Norwegian Wood. Comparatively, I think that I liked Norwegian Wood more, because it did not have unexplained and unrealistic parts, like After Dark (such as the part where Eri "moves" from her room into a room shown on a television set). Still, I enjoyed how the novella was set during the late night and early morning.
 
Aliens vs. Predators - Michael Robbins. A slim book of poetry, very modern. I had hoped it included the poem that had caused me to buy the book, but no such luck. Unfortunately, his others don't speak to me. Now I know. :sad:
 
Volume 3 of Karl Ove Knausgård's autobiographical novel My Struggle (volume 1 was recently released in English as A Death In The Family). Volume 3 isn't really the revelation that vol 2 (and much of vol 1) was; this is about his childhood, and as good as his storytelling is, it's a far more straightforward collection of memories that don't really do much that any number of 70s childhood stories haven't already done. Still good, but bring on vol 4 - the adult asshole Knausgård is far more interesting than the adolescent one.

:star3:
 
Just finished: In one person

I don't know what caused John Irving to choose this subject matter, but coming from him you know it's not drivel. Does this novel have latent content that the reader is not aware of? This novel does have a digression from his usual novels, although some of his normal traits are intact. No, it's not New Hampshire, but close- it's Vermont, and there are no actual bears, but the word is used in the book to describe some men. Wrestling is a big part of this novel ( Irving is a Hall of Famer ) and there are a lot of deaths to loved ones.While this novel is not completely atypical, it is very enjoyable and comical in some chapters. I actually found myself laughing out loud at times, even though this is not a banter type book. You know what? Meh! It doesn't matter, it was a wordsmith's look at fifty years of a bisexual's journey through life.
Book Reviews And Comments By Rick O
 
Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz. An excellent contemporary romance novel set in today's very modern world, as a woman admissions officer for Princeton University finds both her professional and personal lives beginning to unravel. The plotting is excellent and unobtrusive as the story smoothly leads the reader through the unexpected but plausible turns of a wide range of modern episodes and issues. The characters are highly believable and, for the fastidious, the writing has the clarity and literate quality one expects in a hard-back professional publication. Five stars overall, despite a final few pages which have an overly smooth resolution.
:star5:
 
Just finished: Canada

I know Richard Ford is a Pulitzer Prize winner, but to me this novel was just adequate at best. I have to admit that this is the first novel I have read of his, but I expected more after reading the reviews of his 'The Bascombe Novels' . A John Irving he's not. The story was okay, but I don't know if the matter was relevant. And why does Ford tell the reader what's going to happen many chapters before the event actually happens? I like to fall into these unexpected predicaments and marvels without the author providing his own 'spoilers'. I'm not complaining because I did somewhat enjoy the story, I just think it could have been a whole lot more nail-biting. Two positive points relating to the author's style are the disambiguation and resolution of the novel.
Book Reviews And Comments By Rick O
 
Finished two concurrent reads tonight.

Shades of Grey by E.L. James 3/5

Follow Me Down by Shelby Foote 5/5+
 
Finished vol 4 of Karl Ove Knausgård's My Struggle, so now I'm up-to-date with what's been translated so far. And honestly, feeling a bit Knausgårded out. Vol 4 is better than vol 3, and occasionally absolutely brilliant, but... holy hell, he's fascinated by himself. I'll definitely read the remaining 1500-odd pages that are vols 5 and 6, but right now I'm grateful for having to wait a few months.
 
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