Review: Blindness, by Jose Saramago

I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing

Review: A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara

All the most terrifying ifs involve people. All the good ones do as well

Review: My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent

You need to surrender yourself to death before you ever begin, and accept your life as a state of grace

Review: The Children Act, by Ian McEwan

That the world should be filled with such detail, such tiny points of human frailty, threatened to crush her and she had to look away

Review: The Buried Giant, by Kazou Ishiguro

How can old wounds heal while maggots linger so richly?

Review: A Horse Walks Into A Bar, by David Grossman

Synopsis: The setting is a comedy club in a small Israeli town. An audience that has come expecting an evening of amusement instead sees a comedian coming apart on stage, an act of disintegration, a man crumbling, as a matter of choice, before their eyes. They could get up and leave, or boo and whistle …

Review: Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood

I am the thing in which the trees and animals move and grow, I am a place

Reading Lolita in Tehran – by Azar Nafisi

“Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies.”

Review: Bend Sister, by Vladimir Nabokov

"Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form" My love/hate relationship with Nabokov continues

Review: Levels of Life, by Julian Barnes

Synopsis: You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed. In Levels of Life Julian Barnes gives us Nadar, the pioneer balloonist and aerial photographer; he gives us Colonel Fred Burnaby, reluctant adorer of the extravagant Sarah Bernhardt; then, finally, he gives us the story of his …

Review: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë

Synopsis: Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story …

Review: Trumpet, by Jackie Kay

Synopsis: The death of legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody exposes an extraordinary secret, one that enrages his adopted son, Colman, leading him to collude with a tabloid journalist. Besieged by the press, his widow Millie flees to a remote Scottish village, where she seeks solace in memories of their marriage. The reminiscences of those who …