reading – Page 5 – toby wallis

The Art of Fielding

I was going to write a blog post about how I have just finished reading The Art of Fielding, and how it is a Great American Novel about the Great American Novel. I was going to talk about how The Great American Novel, such as it is, tempers the American Dream and how the twoContinue reading “The Art of Fielding”

1Q84 books 1 and 2, Haruki Murakami

Recently I have paying more attention to the one star reviews on amazon than the five star ones. It’s not as negative as it sounds, I have found that gauging what the one stars are saying can give an interesting perspective. Five star reviews can be a bit gushy, but if they are tempered byContinue reading “1Q84 books 1 and 2, Haruki Murakami”

Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman

A debut novel can be the purest glimpse into the mind of a writer. Before becoming saddled with the weight of expectation and an awareness of having to live up to what came before, the debut can seem like an unshackled, carefree, gleefully un-self-conscious thing. Boxer, Beetle is like this. It reads like Beauman had aContinue reading “Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman”

The Art of Planning Ahead

I’ve not been buying many new books lately. It’s not because I’ve gone off them or anything, its because I thought it would be a good idea to work my way through the backlog of unread books lying around the house before I started adding to it. I had this idea that it would beContinue reading “The Art of Planning Ahead”

Spurious, by Lars Iyer

I found this book while browsing in Waterstone’s one afternoon last year. I was just picking up books at random and flipping through them and read a chunk of dialogue in this one wherein two characters are talking about Kafka. That’s all it took for me to want to buy it. Then it sat onContinue reading “Spurious, by Lars Iyer”