This was 324 pages, really? It breezed by so quickly, an under-rated quality in serious fiction, and I was so, so happy to not cringe my way through another of Margaret Atwood’s recent works. Of course, she’s not completely off the hook, but her modern-day adaptation of The Tempest, a novel about a man whose …
Category: Fiction
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/12/03/hag-seed-by-margaret-atwood/
Sep 20 2016
When All the World Was Young by Ferrol Sams
When All the World Was Young wraps up Ferrol Sams’ semi-autobiographical bildungsroman trilogy that began in Run With the Horsemen and continued in The Whisper of the River. It follows Porter Osborne, Jr., from his entrance into the medical school at Emory University six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor through his service …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/09/20/when-all-the-world-was-young-by-ferrol-sams/
Sep 18 2016
The Return Of Sir Percival: Guinevere’s Prayer by S. Alexander O’Keefe
I’m not sure how I feel about this book. On the one hand, it’s an entertaining tale of Dark Ages Britain, with some really cool Roman/Byzantine/Middle Eastern history and politics thrown in. On the other, it’s a re-imagining of Arthurian lore which plays super fast and loose with established canon, and while it’s good reading, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/09/18/the-return-of-sir-percival-guineveres-prayer-by-s-alexander-okeefe/
Sep 09 2016
Made You Up by Francesca Zappia
Seven-year-old Alexandra Ridgemont loves chocolate Yoo-Hoo drinks and the lobster tank at the supermarket in the small Indiana town where she lives with her archaeologist parents. The lobsters are the same bright red as her hair. But the lobsters are sad. They always beg her to let them out of the tank. Alex ignores …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/09/09/made-you-up-by-francesca-zappia/
Aug 30 2016
The Just City by Jo Walton
I love so much how my experiences with Jo Walton’s books just get better and better. I spent the climactic scene of The Just City with one hand clutched to my breast, knowing something terrible was coming and feeling a kind of horror and relief when it finally did — horror because it truly was …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/30/the-just-city-by-jo-walton-2/
Aug 19 2016
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
So much of this book is an exercise in narrative tension: you know something terrible is coming, and you know the general shape of it, but you’re waiting for the details to… I don’t know, ram it home? At one point — in what was, to me, one of the more compelling passages in the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/19/we-need-to-talk-about-kevin-by-lionel-shriver/
May 01 2016
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
I love historical fiction. I don’t often read it (and too often fall into the trap of reading historical fantasy, which I’ve found to be an extremely problematic genre,) but I’m usually pleasantly surprised by how good historical fiction is. Perhaps that has to do as much with the nature of the author who goes …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/05/01/the-last-kingdom-by-bernard-cornwell/
Apr 29 2016
Dshamilja by Tschingis Aitmatow
Louis Aragon swore that it was the most beautiful love story in the world. Dshamilja is beautiful, and it is a love story, among other things, but I am not sure I would go as far as Aragon. On the other hand, Aragon was a committed Communist, and Dshamilja is a story of love among …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/29/dshamilja-by-tschingis-aitmatow/
Apr 22 2016
The Song Of The Lark by Willa Cather
The Song Of The Lark is the story of how a small town girl becomes a famous opera singer by staying true to her instincts and artistic vision. Thea Kronberg is a difficult person to like: her talent and sensitivity mark her as a tall poppy to her detractors, but also attract the interest of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/22/the-song-of-the-lark-by-willa-cather/
Apr 09 2016
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
Nearly a month after reading The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra, I am still thinking about what made me uneasy while reading it. The nine interlinked stories themselves are a fabulous artistic achievement. Set primarily in Russia’s far north and far south, an Arctic mining center and Chechnya, they range back and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/09/the-tsar-of-love-and-techno-by-anthony-marra/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire