Nov 01 2016
One of the descriptions of Neil Gaiman that has stuck in my head is “reasonably facile writer.” He used the phrase in a New Yorker profile back in 2010, and there’s a British self-deprecating quality to the description, but there’s more than a little truth to it, too. Gaiman writes quickly, and with reasonable facility, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/11/01/the-view-from-the-cheap-seats-by-neil-gaiman/
Sep 09 2016
I’m a fan of the charming ABC comedy of the same name, which was how I first heard of this memoir, and was taken aback to discover that Eddie Huang himself had very negative opinions of the show. But then I read this book, and I get it. Mr Huang had an abusive childhood, and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/09/09/fresh-off-the-boat-a-memoir-by-eddie-huang/
Jan 12 2016
I purchased The Art of Travel on the way out of town during a spring break beach trip. The options at the Baylor Bookstore (the prep school, not the university), were limited to the sorts of things high schoolers either should read (such as Night by Elie Wiesel) or must read (insert Shakespeare title …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/12/the-art-of-travel-by-alain-de-botton/
Dec 20 2015
So I’m torn. I’m a big fan of ABT (because Center Stage is the best dance movie ever, and also everything ABT stands for) and I knew of Misty Copeland but I never really cared about her any more than the average principal dancer till I saw her judging on So You Think You Can …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/20/life-in-motion-an-unlikely-ballerina-by-misty-copeland/
Dec 18 2015
I really enjoyed her fiction work, so in comparison, this collection of essays seems fairly bland. It’s okay if you want to read the musings of a young, single white American woman living in New York City, but it’s nothing groundbreaking, distinctive or even particularly memorable. There’s some humor to it, but I didn’t find …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/18/i-was-told-thered-be-cake-by-sloane-crosley/
Dec 15 2015
I’ll admit, I picked up the book because “ooh, sexy nuns!” But The Nuns Of Sant’Ambrogio turned out to be so much more: an intelligent examination of the Catholic Church in a turbulent period of the 19th century, with this scandal serving to illuminate the theological and political divides that have shaped the institution (and …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/12/15/the-nuns-of-santambrogio-the-true-story-of-a-convent-in-scandal-by-hubert-wolf/
Nov 21 2015
I really loved Mindy Kaling on The Office, and quite enjoyed the first season of The Mindy Project. Alas, I stopped watching the latter when the levels of self-absorption stopped being entertaining, so I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy reading this book, especially since excerpts veered over into unfairly judgmental territory. But that, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/11/21/is-everyone-hanging-out-without-me-and-other-concerns-by-mindy-kaling/
Oct 24 2015
Wait, so this is the second book he wrote about MIT students who figured out how to scam casinos? Anyway, the story itself is compelling enough, but the writing is violently purple. The best description I’ve encountered of his writing style is “non-fiction pulp”: tolerable enough for a book, I guess, and much improved by …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/24/busting-vegas-by-ben-mezrich/
Jul 24 2015
Having just finished a bunch of Orwell, this was both mind-boggling and horribly sympathetic. She describes growing up in a state of repression more suited to communism or a paranoid dictatorship a la North Korea than to any religion that purports to help people self-actualize. I applaud her for having the intelligence to see that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/24/beyond-belief/
Jun 18 2015
Every literature should be so fortunate as to have a Nobel laureate write a textbook history of its development. The only down side I can see to The History of Polish Literature — so far, that is, I am up to the middle of the 18th century, although that’s just a little less than the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/06/18/the-history-of-polish-literature-by-czeslaw-milosz/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire