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Gentlemen and Players

July 5, 2008

Details:
Author: Joanne Harris
Type: Fiction
Genre: Mystery

Tedious, predictable thriller about vengeance in an upper-crust English boy’s school. Not only is it dully-written—Joanne Harris is incapable of letting a subtle hint or observation go by without ham-handedly spelling it out and hammering it home, just to make sure you really get it—but the climactic plot twist is visible from space. (Let us just say that painstakingly tiptoeing around certain topics brings them into the forefront of the reader’s mind—and thus raises the reader’s suspicions—as much as if the topic had become the main theme of the book.) A real waste of time, this book.

Orlando: A Biography

July 4, 2008

Details:
Author: Virginia Woolf
Type: Fiction
Genre: Fantasy

Okay, this is a Virginia Woolf novel that I can get on board with. Historical drama? Check. Gender-switching? Check. Hilarious prose? CHECK. Part of me feels guilty for admitting my admiration for a Woolf novel. The other part of me wants to name my first child Orlando.

Afterlands

July 3, 2008

Details:
Author: Steven Heighton
Type: Fiction
Genre: Drama

A lyrical, moving dramatization of the ill-fated Polaris Arctic expedition and the Inuit woman who held it all together. This is one of the most interesting incidents in Arctic history, and Heighton handles it well. Recommended.

The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed

July 2, 2008

Details:
Author: John Vaillant
Type: Nonfiction
Genre: True Crime

Despite the title—and despite the interesting incident it examines—it bored me. The whole thing seemed scattered, lightweight, and badly organized; it felt like a magazine article that had been clumsily puffed up into a book. Something about John Vaillant’s writing style annoyed me, too; it might just be a temporary feeling, since I’m currently having a bad reaction to non-fiction writers who try to get cute with their prose, but every clever little quip of Vaillant’s rubbed me the wrong way. Can’t recommend this book.

Dear Whoever Checked The Golden Spruce Out of the Library Before Me:

July 1, 2008

How nice of you to leave a single pubic hair between pages 162-163, as a little treat for future readers. Too bad you didn’t leave a few packs of sanitary wipes along with it, since I’ve now used up all of mine.