Julian Barnes’s latest novel, Sense Of An Ending, has been well received. It’s won the 2011 Man Booker prize. It’s well written—which, in this case, actually just means that the prose is restrained, refined, there are occasional changes in rhythm, it’s got a sort of controlled ease, all that soulless jazz. I have liked Julian […]
Tom Holt’s Doughnut is an utter confection* of silliness, sci-fi, world hopping, and awkward family relationships. If you’re unfamiliar with the realm of funny sci-fi, then dearest reader let me introduce you. Funny sci-fi might be just about my favorite thing ever. It deals with all of the fantastical, intriguing sci-fi concepts we can’t stop […]
Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf series is a powerful, engrossing, delicious delivery of violence, sex, musings on the why’s of life, questions about the nature of humanity (and monstrosity, as the case may be), and of course, werewolves. What’s not to love? And this is not your average paranormal novel. Naturally, to like the books […]
Gosh. The Basic 8 is one of those books I wish I’d read in high school. I mean, half a decade later it’s still amazing, I just know though, that especially at that age The Basic 8 would have sent me spinning, would have blown my mind, would have been an utter gift. Let’s be […]
Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief is a masterpiece. I’m dead serious. So I’m both excited and terrified by the prospect that a movie interpretation of the book will be in theatres November 15, 2013. I always get this way about movie adaptations. I don’t know whether to be scared or excited or both. I usually […]
There’s this little BBC America show about clones—Orphan Black?—you might have heard of it (and how people are ready to swear bloody vengeance because a certain actress was Emmy snubbed). Orphan Black begins with troubled, tough, drug-dealing/doing Sarah Manning at a train station, suddenly pulled into a tangled web of half-information and deceit when she […]
Wow. I am super not qualified to objectively talk about this book in even a pseudo opinions-are-never-really-objective way. I have zero distance from this thing. I am in it, it’s all up in my grill, welcome to patient 0/the point of impact. Have a nice day. But I really want you to know about Eleanor […]
The press team on The Andalucian Friend is working their tails off to try and convince the general public that The Andalucian Friend is the Swedish thriller book equivalent of the second coming. I give them an A+ Nice Try paper plate award for their efforts. But they are wrong. Alexander Söderberg’s The Andalucian Friend […]
I. Wow. E.E. Charlton-Trujillo’s Fat Angie is a triumph and a mess and funny and brutally honest and gimmicky and clichéd and wonderful and a freaking thousand volts straight to the chest. It’s quite flawed and I could nitpick some of the style for years but. Dang. This book could be a lifeboat. I mean. […]
Vampires in the Lemon Grove is Karen Russell’s second collection of short stories. Her first, St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her first novel, Swamplandia!, received quite a bit of critical acclaim. Award nominations and whatnot. I didn’t actually get a chance to read Swamplandia! when it first came out, so I […]
I haven’t had a whole bunch of exposure to Jamaica Kincaid. I read Girl (which fairly blew my mind, GO READ THAT!), so there’s that, I guess. But I’m no expert. I’d never read one of her novels before See Now Then. I don’t know much about her life—I mean, I’ve heard that this particular […]
Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell series is fantastic. The series is planned to consist of three books, two of which are already out (Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies). The series (at least, so far) tracks Thomas Cromwell, advisor first to Cardinal Wolsey and then to King Henry VIII, through the tumultuous political and religious […]
Teddy Wayne’s latest novel, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, is about 11-year-old tween pop star, Jonny Valentine, and the circus that is his life. In the book, Jonny relates a few months of his second tour, sparing us nothing—the media hoopla, his infinitely complicated relationship with is mother-manager, daily tour business, his search for […]
Chad Kultgen’s latest novel, The Average American Marriage is the sequel to his provocative first novel, The Average American Male. The Average American Marriage is much like The Average American Male—both are carefully constructed shock-and-awe satires with strong language to provoke, to offend, to teeter just on the edge of memoir. And they are funny. […]
You guys, I did something crazy. I read a non-fiction book. This is … new and different for me. I don’t usually read nonfiction if it’s not about infectious diseases. …By which I mean Ebola. Really, pretty much just Ebola. In middle school and high school my dad got so frustrated with my 100% fiction […]
Tenth of December is Saunders’s fourth collection of short stories, and it is very very good. You may have heard about it. Some have (already) said that it’s the best book of 2013. That’s a lot of faith, or love, or something. And the book is, really, very good. Saunders’s Tenth of December appropriately holds […]
Okay, so I know I haven’t really reviewed that many kids books here before, but I get asked (by relatives, by children, by parents of children) for recommendations for kid’s books ALL THE TIME!!! And I mean, I will not tell a lie, I ADORE telling people what to read—you know, sharing books that I […]
Generally speaking, I’m not very good at serials. I don’t watch TV when it airs (people watch things weekly?! How????), I always end up marathoning whole seasons in great swaths, or abandoning series partway through. For example, I have not finished either Battlestar Galactica OR Friday Night Lights yet. I love both of them, I’m […]
You may well have guessed that I like graphic novels/graphic story-telling in general (there may have been a few hints: comic con, for example). You’re right! A+ for you! I could give you a whole little essay about why—it would be kind of long though, and have lots to do with visual literacy, language as […]
Okay, in the second (third? I guess it depends on how you count) installment of Borah’s Best of 2012, we have two categories. Think of it as a double feature. 1) Books That Don’t Let Go This is erroneously named. Only one book really needed to be here. But it did, indeed, need to be […]
This is pretty much straightforward. I read a lot of books this year, and a huge proportion of those books were fiction. Sometimes realistic, some fantasy, some sci-fi, and some historical—but, in any case, a lot of fiction. These are—in no true order—my top five fiction picks of the year. The Dog Stars, by Peter […]
Okay, so My Books is not doing an awards thinggummy this year (hopefully one day). Basically, there are just too many great books out in the world and not enough people to properly keep tabs on them. And I’d rather not give short shrift, you know? So in lieu of a proper AWARDS type thing, […]
Being a 20something human with an intact soul and a love for the idea of children reading, it pretty much goes without saying that I love Harry Potter. I don’t love it as much as other people I know–I can’t name all the minor characters, nor can I recite any of the Sorting Hat songs–but […]
David Mark’s debut, The Dark Winter, is a stout, hardy, character-driven mystery that treats what is an introductory novel as a satisfying, whole, stand-alone work, complete with office politics, fleshy back story, and a series of seemingly random murders—as well as an interesting question posed concerning mercy and justice. The Dark Winter features the mysterious […]
Father Gaetano’s Puppet Catechism is the latest effort from dark dream team Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola. It’s a little darker, a little more claustrophobic than their previous effort (Joe Golem And The Drowning City), and I had more mixed feelings about it. But if you can stand a little work, Father Gaetano’s grows into […]
Comic Con isn’t just about comics anymore. This year at NYCC I had quite a bit of bookish fun. First things first: I got to see Sir Terry Pratchett talk about his latest novel, Dodger. This was both awesome and rather heartbreaking all at once. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I love […]