Crossposted from Dreamwidth, a day late (maybe not a dollar short).

What I've Finished Reading

I bought The Disaster Artist on impulse and finished it in about a day. It's a largely sympathetic account of Tommy Wiseau and the making of The Room, according to the book's subtitle "the greatest bad movie ever made." I'm not sure what I think of it. ( Read more... )

What I've Finished Reading

A Generation of Vipers:

It has been fairly fancy of me, I know, to write so long and noisy a book just to say that if we want a better world, we will have to be better people.

I can't tell if A Generation of Vipers is too sloppy to be dangerous or if I've just developed the illusion that it is as a defense mechanism ( Read more... )

What I've Finished Reading

I'm still way behind on my 99 Novels, which is no one's fault but my own. I really enjoyed both Portnoy's Complaint and A Single Man (two different books about the body, I guess you could say) but I'm still not sure what to say about either of them. So I'll give it another week and either come up with something or let it ( Read more... )

What I've Finished Reading

( The Groves of Academe )

I'm not reading anything this week (I'll read and respond to comments next week) but I did finish Prometheus: The Life of Balzac on Friday. I loved every horrible minute; it was one of the most enjoyable biographies I've ever read.

( And the ever-present doubt remained: how trust a man who had never known the difference between fact and fiction? )

What I've Finished Reading

The Grand Sophy. I guess it was thoughtful of Georgette Heyer to concentrate all her anti-Semitism in a big ugly lump in the middle of the book, instead of just sprinkling it inextricably over everything? A book editor could easily just scoop it out and throw it away, and nothing of value would be lost. The vicious ( Read more... )

What I've Finished Reading

Nature, it seemed, was as huge as Gormenghast

Titus Groan, at long last! I'm going to miss you, you weird stony bramble-garden of a book! Also, props to Baby Titus for developing a personality in the last ten pages or so, even if that personality is just "fussy baby who doesn't want to stand on a raft in the rain." Poor ( Read more... )

What I've Finished Reading

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It took only about an hour to read (it's a graphic novel) and was absolutely worth revisiting. An understated memoir about growing up in Iran in the early 1980s, as a terrifying fundamentalist regime takes over.

What I'm Reading Now

Titus Groan is almost over -- well, there are about a ( Read more... )

What I've Finished Reading

I got The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante for Christmas, and was almost physically unable to put it down until I'd finished it. Because my sister was in town with her kids, I read a large portion of it with a baby in my lap. It was even better than My Brilliant Friend, except for my irrational dislike of overnight ( Read more... )

What I've Finished Reading

Earlier that year, when "an Indian Woman with gay Baskets and a dazzling Baby" appeared at the kitchen door, instead of locking it Emily engaged the stranger in talk, asking what the infant liked. 'To step' was the answer, whereupon the poet led the unsteady toddler on a short walk: "she leaned on Clover Walls and they ( Read more... )