Monthly Archives: March 2024

I did not consciously set out to read an Irish novel on St Patrick’s Day, but I won’t pretend that I wasn’t delighted by the coincidence. All the more so because the novel itself was a delight! It was so warm, and clever, and funny; an utter pleasure to read — I tore right throughContinueContinue reading “The Happy Couple, Naoise Dolan”

This is going to sound strange, but this book is the most warm, touching, funny, and loving grief memoir you could ever hope to read. It’s heartbreaking, but also so joyful — although the narrative mostly recounts the process of illness and mourning, the book is really a celebration of life, and love, and closeness.ContinueContinue reading “Dancing at the Pity Party, Tyler Feder”

I haven’t read any of Coetzee’s books since Elizabeth Costello, but a friend of mine posted to facebook that she was going to be on a panel about The Pole at a conference, and then another friend chimed in and said that she had read it and was excited to discuss, and I love homework,ContinueContinue reading “The Pole, J.M. Coetzee”

I had a sort of half-baked theory for awhile that massively long novels, especially of the difficult, formally experimental variety, produce a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, where you kind of have to find them brilliant and worthwhile, because you’ve sunk so much time and effort into them. So I was weirdly, pleasantly surprised to findContinueContinue reading “Ducks, Newburyport, Lucy Ellmann”