Prior to reading Life A User’s Manual, I did a bit of research on Georges Perec. Now that I’ve read this undoubted masterpiece of a novel, it’s no surprise to learn that he was a keen member of Oulipo, a literary society founded by Raymond Queneau and mathematician Francois le Lionnais. Coined the Workshop for…
Read more No 556 Life A User’s Manual by Georges Perec #20booksofsummer
Bad Behavior was published in 1988 and it marked a striking debut from Mary Gaitskill. This collection of nine stories features tales of sexual obsession, drug addiction, and the darkest sides of human relationships. Several of the stories feature young women working as prostitutes, through either choice or necessity, most with a striking naïveté despite…
Read more No 566 Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill #20booksofsummer
Jeet Thayil has poured his experience of his years as a drug addict in Mumbai into Narcopolis, a sprawling, hallucinatory journey through Bombay from the 1970s to the present day. The novel opens with an astonishing Prologue that features one sentence that is over six pages long and sets out Thayil’s goal of creating a…
It is safe to say that my 20 Books of Summer Challenge is not going to plan at all. With just under 4 weeks to go, I have read 10, reviewed a pitiful 5 and am half way through 2 more. 20 seems very far away right now and if my summer continues the…
The curse of 20 Books of Summer has struck again! For yet another year, my reading is going really well, but the reviewing is falling by the wayside. I swore I wouldn’t do mini-reviews, but I have to face facts. We’re one month in and by my calculations, I should have 6.66 books reviewed. I…
Eoin McNamee has made his name as an author of noirish literary reimaginings of real life crimes. From the Shankill Butchers to Princess Diana, he mines the novelistic possibilities that real life murder and conspiracy is alive with. His writing is lyrical, at times beautiful and always at odds with his subject matter. The…
Book Reviews By A Geek
Our adventure through life and homeschooling in the UK
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