Book Review: Speedboat by Renata Adler
“I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort.” I had the chance to talk to Renata Adler and ask her about … Continue reading
Book Review: Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar
“Long live Hebrew Khizeh! Who, then, would ever imagine that once there had been some Khirbet Khizeh that we emptied out and took for ourselves. We came, we shot, we burned; we blew up, expelled, drove out, and sent into exile.” One is not always in touch with history and its events. Of course, being … Continue reading
Book Review: Time’s Arrow or The Nature of the Offence by Martin Amis
“He is traveling towards his secret. Parasite or passenger, I am traveling there with him. It will be bad. It will be bad, and not intelligible. But I will know one thing about it (and at least the certainty brings comfort): I will know how bad the secret is. I will know the nature of … Continue reading
Book Review: Sylvia by Leonard Michaels
“There would be an inadvertent insult, then disproportionate anger. I would feel I didn’t know why this was happening. I was the object of terrific fury, but what had I done? What had I said?” – The Narrator I remember a quote from the books that are a part of Melville House’s The Neversink Library. The quote … Continue reading
Book Review: Fairy Tale Fail by Mina V. Esguerra
Let me get straight to the point: Fairy Tale Fail is an infuriating novella. Clocking in at 142 pages, it is the worst book I have ever read full stop. In my opinion, it has no value whatsoever to the point that the world can easily find another mediocre writer who can easily replicate Esguerra’s efforts in … Continue reading
Book Review: Love and Misadventure by Lang Leav
I’m not really an avid reader of poetry and my expertise in the genre is minimal at best. However, I do appreciate well-written poems that I read every now and then. I remember that the first poem that I really liked, that had a profound effect on me, was Allen Ginsberg’s Howl which I read during an … Continue reading
Book Review: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
“The story is not in the words; it’s in the struggle.” – The Unnamed Narrator of The Locked Room Paul Auster is one of the authors whose work I really like and excited to explore. I got introduced to his prowess through his novella, Man in the Dark, and then I followed it up with his short … Continue reading
Book Review: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” – Adam Ewing Proof of the good influence that a book club can have on you is that you will read books that are usually out of your radar. Entering a book … Continue reading
Book Review: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.” – Nick Carraway The Great American Novel is one of the most coveted yet most elusive … Continue reading
Book Review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
“A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.” – Rev. Ames I am not a very religious person and, as a consequence of that fact, I rarely read anything with any sort of religious theme or subject matter. The … Continue reading
The Book Hooligan 