Category: Book Reviews

April 30, 2010

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks *** (of 4)

The plot is contrived and straight as ruler and the characters are one dimensional, but the book is still a great read. Like Brooks’ People of...

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April 30, 2010

The White Tiger by Arivan Adiga ** (of 4)

Hard to imagine why this book won the 2008 Booker Prize, England’s Pulitzer. The protagonist is a low-caste Indian who makes good, but most of...

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April 30, 2010

What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers **** (of 4)

It’s hard to comprehend how anyone survives what Valentino had to in escaping Arab militiamen in southern Sudan and comes away only with excrutiating headaches....

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April 30, 2010

War Trash by Ha Jin * (of 4)

A second rate book by a first rate author. Jin read everything he could find on the fate of Chinese prisoners of war during the...

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April 30, 2010

Waiting by Ha Jin *** (of 4)

A love triangle compromised by the Cultural Revolution in China told in exquisite detail. While I was reading I could smell manure in the fields,...

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April 30, 2010

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri *** (of 4)

Compelling in the way of an auto crash. I could not look away, but I definitely felt worse for having partaken. Like her Interpreter of Maladies,...

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April 30, 2010

The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey * (of 4)

An Irish western outlaw in 1870s Australia. I think the book won some famous prize. I found it unreadable, predictable drek. Recommended by Terri Laufer

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April 30, 2010

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini *** (of 4)

A bottomless well of hopelessness, despair and background warfare in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion of the 80s through the American invasion post 9/11. Seen...

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April 30, 2010

The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra ** (of 4)

A poetically written account of life under the Taliban extremists of Kabul Afghanistan. It’s written by an Algerian, not an Afghani, with a self-described vendetta...

FICTION

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April 30, 2010

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemorovsky ** (of 4)

According to the NY Times, this stunning book contains two narratives, one fiction and the other a fragmentary, factual account of how the fiction came...

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