Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The New York Trilogy, by Paul Auster

So the "trilogy" (City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room) is really just one book. Like it doesn't even make sense to review them separately.

And um, wow. Crazy & interesting & clearly with SO much going on below the surface. (Now that I know how everything ties together, I may need to read it again to really get it.) Dream-like & spooky & incredibly well-written.

From a Washington Post Review - "Ever since City of Glass, the first volume of his New York Trilogy, Auster has perfected a limpid, confessional style, then used it to set disoriented heroes in a seemingly familiar world gradually suffused with mounting uneasiness, vague menace and possible hallucination. His plots — drawing on elements from suspense stories, existential rĂ©cit and autobiography — keep readers turning the pages, but sometimes end by leaving them uncertain about what they've just been through." I'd say that's about right.

Short, though, even with all three put together. I could've gone on reading this for weeks.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt

Great & entertaining read. Yes, pretty bleak at times, but with enough light & humorous (and occasional absurd) moments to keep it from becoming completely & utterly depressing. I couldn't stop laughing over the part where his grandmother gets mad at him for throwing up God in her backyard & makes him go to confession.