Every time I read this play or see it performed, I cry.

I’m not sure what all the hype is about this book. It was okay but not great – nothing to justify all the comments on the back of the book. Call me cynical but I did notice that many of the authors whose comments are on the book jacket are also acknowledged as having “helped” the author in one way or other with the manuscript. I guess it also helps if the author has worked as an editor at a well known publishing house. Meow.

I love a good mystery and because I read so many I have to delve deep to find an additional author whose plots, writing style etc. appeal to me. I’ve found one in Peter James. This is his first Roy Grace book about a detective in Sussex and I’m addding the rest to my reading list!

I highly recommend this triology by Tom Rob Smith that begins with Child 44, then The Secret Speech and concludes with Agent 6. It gives a chilling glimpse of life in the USSR during the Cold War and covers a time period of about 20 years ca. 1960-1980. It details the life of KGB officer Leo Demedov and his evolving view of the Soviet Union during this period, and contrasts his public life as a servant of the state and his private life as husband to Raisa and then father to Elena and Zoya.

When I learned the truth behind the sex slavery in this Swedish crime novel it was a jaw dropping experience, disconcerting experience. Strongly recommended.

I finished this book late last night and didn’t have the oomph to write about it.

It’s the kind of book that browns you off reading for a while and not because it isn’t good, but rather because you think you’ll have a tough time finding a worthy follow up.

There is so much wisdom and humor in this book. It reminds you that at the age of fourteen you are in so many ways unequipped to deal with life and at the same time understand certain things about it that seem far beyond your years.

The book takes place at a private Catholic boys’ school in Dublin. I won’t be spoiling it for you if I tell you that Skippy does indeed die and in the novel’s first five pages. The following 650 pages outline what leads up to and follows this event. As one reviewer pointed out the narrative is told from at least twenty different view points. In my opinion this adds to the reader’s understanding and is not confusing about the way we all figure into the lives of those around us. There were some laugh out loud moments and no manipulative tear jerking ones, quite a feat concerning the subject matter. So much insight from such a young author.

Highly recommended if you hadn’t guessed that already.

I know this movie got a rotten review on tomatoes but I enjoyed it!

Not as good, in my opinion, as Mina’s Garnethill trilogy but a well done and thought provoking crime novel nevertheless. I will continue to look for books by Denise Mina.

During the course of reading this book I read an interview with Donna Tartt published shortly after its publication. The author stated that she had never cared about being a prolific writer, that she labored for years over each book. She writes sentence by sentence looking for just the right word (sounds like Flaubert). I began to read The Little Friend more carefully and take note of her style. I found many visual images and similes and metaphors which struck me as just right. (for example, she describes death as a collapsed bridge gaping in the dark). Aside from a few pages describing strung-out meth head delusions I read each page and was sorry when the novel came to an end. I will miss Harriet and should the author ever write a second novel about her I would gladly read it. I have read that a third Tartt novel will come out in 2012 and I look forward to it.

I found this book to be worth the time invested in reading it. Possible spoiler follows. Having now read this and The Corrections I think I can isolate two concepts important to Franzen: family and forgiveness.