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Dead Babies by Martin Amis
Martin Amis is a clever writer, capable of vivid descriptions, intriguing comparisons, and clever turns of phrase. But those gifts are not enough to redeem Dead Babies, which I found to be a dreadful book. It tells of ten people spending a weekend in a house in the English countryside. They fill their time with alcohol, drugs, sex, and violence. ( Read more... ) -
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Published: 1954
My edition: Penguin Modern Classics
Pages: 276
I noticed this the other day in one of those Top Ten Funniest Books Ever list. And I also read an old review which said you shouldn't read it sitting on the bus because your howls of laughter would make people look at you funny.
Well.
( Lucky Jim ) -
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is a very good writer, and Cat's Eye is a very good book, beautifully written, marvelously observed, sometimes funny, eminently well worth reading. It is the story of Elaine Risley, a painter, who returns to Toronto, where she grew up, for a retrospective exhibition of her work. The story, all of it in the first person and the ( Read more... ) -
Tent of Miracles, by Jorge Amado
A biography of a remarkable (and fictitious) man and a chronicle of Brazil's racial struggle.
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The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
New York: Nan A. Talese (Doubleday), 2000
First U.S. Edition
521 pages
This is the first book by Margaret Atwood that I have read--a lapse on my part, because she is a well-known and highly regarded writer. I definitely recommend The Blind Assassin. It is an intricate story--two stories, really, that play off one another and come together at the ( Read more... )
