The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch Philip K. Dick
Did you end up finding it, Philip? What it means to be human? Religion didn’t seem to provide your answer. Did drugs? A Scanner Darkly is famous for your search, but this appears to be some sort of transition between those two searches.
Like Graham Greene, Dick is one of my favourite [...]
The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
Continuing on my plan to expand the types of books I’m reading: this was from Annabel several years ago. A Booker prize winner, and I’ve enjoyed some of the others I’ve read, it’s also Canadian and a female author. I just haven’t been reading enough female authors recently; though Zadie Smith is one of my favourite authors.
It’s [...]
A Burnt-out Case Graham Greene
I read this book many, many years ago: way back in year nine English. It was the first of the Greene novels we read, followed by Our Man in Havanna and then The Quiet American. I remember really enjoying the latter two, but just not getting A Burnt-out Case. Thinking back on it now this might [...]
First Among Sequels Jasper Fforde
The latest Thursday Next novel and again a book for book and story lovers. A brief introduction: Thursday Next is a literary detective in an alternative reality where books are the single most popular form of entertainment. And in this alternative reality the line between the real world and a fictional world inside books is blurry. [...]
Stardust Neil Gaiman
A very cute, very enjoyable fantasy fairy tale. There really isn’t a lot more to it than that: it’s simple, plain, well-written escapist fun. Like all of Gaiman’s work that I’ve read (which is nearly all of it) it’s very well written, and hell of a lot of fun. Highly recommended.
I was inspired to read this by the [...]
Brazil John Updike
The outline is a re-telling of the classic story of Tristan and Isolde. This is only a frame for a much larger story to be hung from, though. Overall, I was reminded of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude – perhaps because I’m simple and both are set in the wilds of South American jungle. [...]
The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett
I don’t normally read detective/mystery novels, but I was given a recommendation to try reading outside of what I normally read. Figuring that if I am to grab a book from another genre, I might as well do that genre justice, I decided to read this.
Ultimately though, I just don’t have much to say and [...]
Snow Crash Neal Stephenson
My first cyber-punk novel; I haven’t even read any William Gibson. This was recommended to me over his other novels, including Cryptnomicon, which I already had. It’s a very good sci-fi novel: unlike much other sci-fi Snow Crash is both written recently and set in the quite near future. This book also has another advantage: Neal Stephenson was [...]
The Songlines Bruce Chatwin
On the surface this may seem to be a travel novel, that is what Chatwin’s most famous for after all. You could read this as a book about a trip through the red centre of Australia. But this is really a book about travelling: it seems to be Chatwin’s final attempt to get at the wanderlust in [...]
Y: The Last Man – Unmanned Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, José Marzán, Jr.
There was a long hesitation before I was willing to buy this comic, the premise has immature male fantasy written all over: everything that’s bad about comics really. But, I was looking for something else, and so far I’m happy with my experimentation. This first [...]