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crimson petal and the white, the
michael faber
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| For those of you who would have liked to had a little more dick in your Dickens, you can't go wrong here. The story revolves around a young prostitute in 19th century London, who goes by the name of Sugar. A married, wealthy, perfumer by the name of William Rackham has such a fascination with young Sugar, that he decides to take her off the market by drawing up an attractive deal with her Madam. This 800-plus doorstop of a novel should not scare you away, though. It's a blast, and you'll be amazed at how fast you plow through it. With a host of wonderful supporting characters, a saucy narrator, and Faber's dazzling recreation of the era, you'll look forward to getting cozy in bed with Sugar for a spell each night, and you'll wonder where in the Dickens she's been all your life. |
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reviewed by: ericS |
March 2003 [link] |
recommend 2 thumbs up
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word freak: heartbreak, triumph, genius, and obsession in the world of competitive scrabble players
stefan fatsis
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This book was so delish. Wall Street Journal sport reporter Stefan Fatsis takes a year to infiltrate the world of scrabble competitions. Not only does he learn to play competitively, it’s the most interesting cast of characters since Happyrobot! I am a scrabble nut (yes, I have “Travel Scrabble” which I force my husband to play on flights and in hotel rooms) so I devoured this book. The most interesting bit of the story is that competitive scrabble players aren’t necessarily super-smart, they’re just strategic and have good memorization skills. They know hundreds and hundreds of words – but they don’t know what the definitions are. They know that “zoa” is an acceptable scrabble word – but have no idea how to use it in a sentence (other than “hey, I just made the word “zoa” for 1600 points!”)
Happy reading (and spelling)!
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reviewed by: lisa may |
November 2002 [link] |
recommend
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kick me: adventures in adolescence
paul feig
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paul feig is the creator of the t.v. show "freaks and geeks" which i loved loved loved. its short-lived run broke my heart. don't worry, i've signed a petition to get the first season released on dvd.
anywho, feig (pronounced "feeg") is the creator of the show and it's obvious from his book that he had a lot of material to work with. and yes, as you might have guessed, he got called "paul fag", "fag newton" and just plain "fag" an awful lot. feig shares plenty of funny and painful growing up stories including the dreaded rope climb in gym class and the his attempts at little league. laugh outloud funny. oy - adolescence is the worst! |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
March 2003 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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kick me
paul feig
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Feig is the master of recounting the uncomfortable and funny world of growing up especially in this slim book about his sexual (or non-sexual) misadventures in adolescence (and older, much to his chagrin). Feig starts at his early days of masturbation, where he learned from a religious radio talk show that God takes off one day of your life every time you masturbate (after abstaining for a few days, he decided he didn't want to live THAT long anyway) and takes us through the odyssey of dating in your teens to finally losing his virginity. Heart-warming and silly, you'll cheer at the end when Feig finds the love of his life.
(disclaimer: i'm a huge "freaks and geeks" fan so Feig can write anything and I'd love it.) |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
April 2006 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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word
coerte v. w. felske
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| At first I thought this book was going to be a silly romp through silly Los Angeles and another one of those: Los Angeles can be categorized by three things: look at me, look at me, make me famous. But hey, I bit. It turned out to be a "Catcher in the Rye" for a jaded feller. There's an image of debauchery in the latter half of this big book that still makes me cringe. This is a great book if you are at an impasse in your life and wonder if you are going to be famous or a loser. Although the ending turned out a bit pat pat pat, it was still a very nice read. I liked how it changed gears like a ride from Los Angeles to the desert must change. |
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reviewed by: kristen |
October 2000 [link] |
recommend
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last days of dead celebrities
mitchell fink
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I was looking for something a little more gossipy from a book with this title; what I got instead was a fairly interesting look into the deaths of some famous people (to use the word "celebrities" is a little much) with their last days being somewhat banal and their deaths being really sad.
For the almost 24 hours before his death, John Lennon listened to a song Yoko had recorded over and over again. John Belushi died with some freaky woman who shot him up with speedballs (she was later immortalized in a song by her ex-boyfriend Gordon Lightfoot). David Bloom had just sent his wife a sentimental email about his love for her, their daughters and God before he died of a blood clot while covering the Iraq war. Other "celebs" include Arthur Ashe (died of AIDS as a result of a blood transfusion), John Ritter (died of a hole in an artery) and Margaux Hemingway (suicide - just like her great-grandfather, grandfather - Ernest, great-aunt and great-uncle died).
All in all, I wanted more macabre stories of stars dying glamorous and rock & roll deaths - not people dying from horrible diseases or dying away from their families or being shot. I can read the obits in the paper for that stuff. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
December 2006 [link] |
recommend
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the flight of the creative class: the new global competition for talent
richard florida
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| This book is really interesting. If you're reading this & you live in New York City, Minneapolis, Toronto, San Francisco/San Diego/Los Angeles, or Austin: congratulations! You live in one of the good "creative" places, and chances are, you are one of the lucky 30% in creative occupations. For people in the rest of the United States: tough luck. Economist Richard Florida points out that in this post-industrial economy, it's creativity that is the new currency, and the United States has only a few areas where creativity flourishes. The rest of the U.S. is in a quagmire. Florida argues convincingly for allowing more foreign college students to study in the U.S., and points out that we should be doing more to attract & retain what creative people the U.S. has, rather than allowing them to immigrate to Toronto, Sydney, Helsinksi, Paris, etc. Florida also makes the point that the U.S. isn't necessarily polarized as "blue state vs. red state": it's polarized as idea-based-economic-area vs. broken-down-industry-economic area. A very interesting read, even though it's got a lot of math in it (I skipped over the math bits). |
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reviewed by: victoria |
August 2005 [link] |
recommend
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another bullshit night in suck city
nick flynn
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Nick Flynn reveals a disturbing relationship with his father, something that has haunted him his entire life and shaped him the way a painful absence can shape a child. His technique of punchy, short chapters are a knife slash to the gut, over and over, while his touching insights into the real lives of men and women living homeless on the streets of Boston-including his father-rubs salt in the wounds.
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reviewed by: nate |
July 2005 [link] |
recommend
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the portrait of mrs. charbuque
jeffrey ford
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| The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque is a novel set in 1893 New York City. Portrait artist Piambo is commissioned by a strange blind man to paint the visage of Mrs. Charbuque...the kicker? Piambo is not allowed to see her. He must paint what he thinks she looks like as she tells stories of her life from behind a screen. The price she'll pay is three times what he would make in a year. Through all this, a madman claiming to be Mrs. Charbuque's husband is stalking Piambo and a gruesome disease is killing street women: They die as blood weeps from their eyes. Part historical fiction, part mystery, part romance, part comedy and all engaging. Superb! |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
July 2003 [link] |
recommend
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writings of marie de france
marie de france
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| I'm still looking for a book of these I can re-read from when I read her book for a course in college (then sold it back for a greatly-reduced amount but still money of course). From what I remember, Marie de France was like a Beowulf/Canterbury Tales-era author who had very wry stories. One of my theories about humans is that we were all pretty lucent and had the same problems as always like meaning of life, does love last, etc from the time our food/shelter problem was pretty well solved 'til now, BUT we haven't really progressed on any answers. I seem to have the idea planted in my subconcious that this Marie de France lady had some answers that I need to re-read. |
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reviewed by: kristen |
September 2000 [link] |
recommend
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crooked letter, crooked letter
tom franklin
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| Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is Southern fiction at its finest, portraying a Mississippi town steeped in mystery with drunk fathers, racial tension and chickens thrown in for good measure. Larry Ott leads a solitary life ever since high school when a girl he took out on a date disappeared soon after he met up with her. Another girl has gone missing and suspicions alight on Larry. When Larry is found shot one night, his former friend and town constable Silas works to solve the mystery of the current missing girl as well as shed some light of his own about the girl who went missing all those years ago. Despite some tedious sections, this thriller was hard to put down. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
August 2011 [link] |
recommend
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in the woods
tana french
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| In 1984, three children disappear into rural woods outside Dublin. Only one is found, his memory wiped clean of what happened, his shirt ripped and shoes filled with blood. The whereabouts of the two others is unknown. The boy changes his name and becomes a detective and twenty years after the incident winds up investigating the murder of a young girl in those same woods. He and his friend and partner, Cassie, work the case brilliantly but the detective is mentally and emotionally affected. Can he finally figure out what happened to him and his friends in the woods that night? A slightly disappointing ending (it is classified as a mystery book and it stays a mystery to the end) doesn't mar the crystal prose, great characters and witty dialogue. On a related note, all the characters in the book call the forest "the wood" as in "What happened that night in the wood, anyway?" yet the title seems to have been Americanized to "woods". Who knows what that's all about. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
April 2009 [link] |
recommend
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