If we don't count Macbeth, for it's a retelling of a story that is not only about crime, and Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, which is a play with genres, not a straight crime story, then The Abominable Man is the first crime book I read in 2019. I find it …
Continue reading The Abominable Man – Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö
Let's start with a bad translation of the title, to give you an idea what it's about: Polish ghostology: Things and people in the years of transformation. A bad one, I know... but bear with me. The years of transformation in Poland denote the period when communism ended and democracy started, there are no strict …
Continue reading Duchologia polska: Rzeczy i ludzie w latach transformacji – Olga Drenda
It was one of those books that lingered on my Kindle for years, waiting for its time. It finally came in February, during my vacation on Tenerife. In the last few years I've been mostly reading paper books, so my Kindle typically only gets looked at when I'm on holiday. We're moving to Baton Rouge, …
Looking at my reflection really did soothe me, though I hated my face with a passion. Such is the life of self-obsessed. I was terribly grim and unaffected, unfriendly. Or else I was strained and chipper and awkward, grating. "Ha-ha", I said, "Coming or going, that's me - flat." I'd never learned how to relate …
After reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation at the beginning of the year and being utterly surprised by it and pushed out of my comfort zone I decided to buy Eileen. The opportunity happened during my recent visit to New York, when I finally had some time to go to the Strand Book Store. When my …
This is the last book I had left to read from my Denver book-haul, I bought two books by Haruf for two reasons, he is a Colorado writer and I have never heard of him before. I loved Our Souls at Night, so I had high hopes for this one as well. I'll use the back …
What they mean is that manufacturing jobs have gone overseas and middle-class jobs are harder to come by for people without college degrees. Fair enough - I worry about those things, too. But this book is about something else: what goes on in the lives of real people when the industrial economy goes south. It's …
Continue reading Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis – J. D. Vance – Quotes
