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 …
Do you remember when you were a child and there was no limit to your imagination? When you would come up with the craziest stories and nothing was really impossible. When you would question the status quo, not to fight it, but just because you didn't know what status quo means and you didn't really …
When I started reading this book I did not know it was based on a story from Japanese folklore. Which was probably for the better, because I did not know the ending either, though one starts to expect it quite early in the book, which surprisingly is not a bad thing. George is a middle-aged …
I'm slowly making a dent in my Kindle's stash of books I bought or downloaded 6-8 years ago. This is one of those, I cannot remember how I got it or what made me decide to buy it, but there it was. As I forget why I got certain books, I'm starting to treat my …
During my March visit in my family home I heroically finished reading Lord Jim and since I had no other book with me off I went to scan the shelves of our home library. We have plenty of books that have been sitting there for years, due to our unstoppable habit of buying new books. …
He made me think of a trained baby elephant walking on hind-legs. His three daughters were awfully nice, though they resembled him amazingly, and on the mornings he woke up with a gloomy view of their matrimonial prospects the office would read it in his eye and tremble, because, they said, he was sure to …
For some reason, in my high school, we never read Joseph Conrad. Which I came to think was a good thing, especially after I spoke back then to a few o my friends who hated Lord Jim with passion. For some reason Polish schools back then selected this novel, and not a much more compact Heart of …
It is one of the books I bought during my visit to Denver last year. I never read Kent Haruf before, but his books came so highly recommended that I bought two, right away. It took me a few months to get to this one, but now I have to hold myself back not to …
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