Book Reviews

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk is a force to be reckoned with. It's a little bit horror, a little bit psychoctic and little bit comedic.

"The sky was a donkey's swollen paunch, hanging threateningly low overhead."

A critic called Stuart: A Life Backwards (Delacorte Press 2006) by Alexander Masters "important." That is the best word to describe this book. Stuart is a gruff thirty-three year old , who has suffered some incredibly unfortunate events. Born with muscular dystrophy. Stuart was teased relentlessly through much of his childhood. His pain, sadly, did not end there.

Water for Elephants (Alonquin Books, 2006) is absolutely superb. Author Sara Gruen apparently loves animals--her fist novel Riding Lessons is, as the title suggests, about horses. Water for Elephants goes beyond good writing--the entire concept is ingenious and intriguing.

There are two books I can remember that ever made me physically cry. There were the rape scenes in Saramago’s Blindness, and there was nearly every chapter of Michael Kimball’s How Much of Us There Was.

The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich is the story of a fictional small town in North Dakota named Pluto. The town’s story is told through the stories of several of its residents and families, a story of racial tension, religion, and other standard themes.

When it comes to hardcover books, I rarely remove the dust jacket while I’m reading it. Generally, I prefer the feel of the dust jacket in my hands, with its texture of newness. But when I started The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine, I was compelled to remove the jacket, placing it in a secure place on my shelf. Not that there is anything wrong with the dust jacket—it is a fine design.

Meghan O’Rourke’s first collection of poetry, Halflife (W.W Norton, 2007), is an enjoyable read that explores the theme of decay - the titular halflife – through a journey of experiences both real and imagined. Divided into five sections, each section represents a different stage of decay.