Book Specs Author: David Foster Wallace Publisher: Bay Back Books Publishing Date: February 2016 Number of Pages: 1,079 (982 pages of narrative, 96 pages of notes and errata) Genre: Metafiction, Satire, Post-modernism Synopsis Set in an addicts’ halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring one of the most endearingly screwed-up families in modern fiction, […]
Tag: Literary Fiction
Book Review # 87: Disgrace
Book Specs Author: J.M. Coetzee Publisher: Secker & Warburg Publishing Date: 1999 Number of Pages: 220 Genre: Literary Fiction, Novel Synopsis David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, is a scholar fallen into disgrace. After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, he has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair […]
Book Review # 79: Of Mice and Men
Book Specs Author: John Steinbeck Publisher: Pearson Education Limited Publishing Date: 2011 Number of Pages: 118 Genre: American Fiction, Modern Classic, Tragic Realistic Fiction Synopsis Of Mice and Men is a poignant tale of the extraordinary friendship between two itinerant workers in the harsh depression years of 1930s America. George and his large, simple-minded friend […]
Book Review # 77: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Book Specs Author: Ernest Hemingway Publisher: Quality Paperback Book Club Publishing Date: 1993 Number of Pages: 471 Genre: War Novel Historical Fiction Synopsis Written in the late 1930s, when democracy faces its greatest peril, For Whom the Bell Tolls is Hemingway’s masterful novel about love, death, honor and betrayal. Set amidst the tragedy of the […]
Book Review # 76: Sputnik Sweetheart
Book Specs Author: Haruki Murakami Translator: Philip Gabriel Publisher: Vintage Publishing Date: April 2002 Number of Pages: 210 pages Genre: Magical Realism, Romance, Suspense Synopsis K is madly in love with his best friend, Sumire, but her devotion to a writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments. At least, that is, until she meets […]
Book Review # 75: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Book Specs Author: Douglas Adams Publisher: Del Rey Publishing Date: 2005 Number of Pages: 216 Genre: Scientific Fiction, Adventure Novel Synopsis Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Perfect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide […]
Book Review # 74: The War of the End of the World
Book Specs Author: Mario Vargas Llosa Translator: Helen R. Lane Publisher: Picador Publishing Date: August 2008 Number of Pages: 568 pages Genre: Historical Novel Synopsis Deep within the remote backlands of nineteenth-century Brazil lies Canudos, home to all the damned of the earth: prostitutes, bandits, beggars, and every kind of outcast. It is a place where history […]
Book Review # 73: Catch-22
Book Specs Author: Joseph Heller Publisher: Vintage Publishing Date: 1994 Number of Pages: 519 pages Genre: War Novel, Satirical Novel Synopsis At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who […]
Book Review # 72: The Master and Margarita
Book Specs Author: Mikhail Bulgakov Translator: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky Publisher: Penguin Books Publishing Date: 2016 Number of Pages: 396 Genre: Magical Realism, Satirical, Romance, Historical Metafiction Synopsis Nothing in the whole of literature compares with The Master and Margarita. One spring afternoon, the Devil, trailing file and chaos in his wake, weaves himself […]
Book Haul, Third Quarter 2018 (Part II)
This is the second part of my 2018 third quarter book haul. To check the first part, click here. Here’s the rest of my book haul. Title: The Autumn of the Patriarch Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez Translator: Gregory Rabassa Publisher: Penguin Books Publishing Date: 2014 No. of Pages: 229 Synopsis: “As the citizens of an […]
