★★★★☆ | Horror | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Working through the few books of Stephen King I haven’t read. This is a collection of his early stories. A few are dated, and a few are exceptional. There is a bleakness that pervades many of these stories. I hoped for a good outcome for the protagonist against all odds, but I was seldom rewarded. Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut and The Raft were my favorites.
★★★☆☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A good premise perhaps weakened by too many characters and side stories. The depression era setting, poor living conditions, and the horrors of racism and cruel treatment of people with disabilities felt Dickensian. McBride held my attention by the end, but a good editor might have helped maintain it all the way through.
★★★★☆ | Graphic Novel | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Finishing this second compendium means I’ve read over 2,000 pages of comics this year. There’s something comforting about the amount of grief these characters feel on each page that keeps me reading and caring.
Compendium 3 and 4 ordered!
★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I listened to the audio book of this one. The story is told by Dolores as part of a police interview. There are no other speakers. She tells the entire story in one setting. The audio book narrator was pretty good. Hard Maine accent with plenty of emotion.
…★★★☆☆ | Psychology | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
The main premise of the book is that our “self” is not contained in our body, but is instead formed by relationships with others.
…★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Volume III of the eleven-volume Story of Civilization by Will Durant. I knew so little about the rise and fall of Rome and the formation of Christianity before reading this. I feel so much more informed. My favorite so far!
There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.
★★★★☆ | Spy-Detective | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A long, meandering, indulgent spy novel by an author whose prose is typically tight as a drum. This novel felt intimate and autobiographical, as if Le Carre were explaining the abuses he endured as a child through a novel. It wasn’t what I expected, which is OK. I’m not sure I would consider this one of his best novels. 3.5 stars?
★★★★☆ | Horror | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A short novella. I read it in one sitting. Good retelling of the classic werewolf myth.
★★★☆☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
An OK book. The unreliable narrator was unlikeable, which I guess in the end was intentional.
Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways. —SIGMUND FREUD
★★★☆☆ | Horror | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
Continuing my quest to read all of the books by Stephen King. I listened to this one to start and then finished it on Kindle. We follow the story of a lost nine-year-old through the forests of Maine and New Hampshire over the course of a week, using the innings of a baseball game as chapter markers. Trisha McFarland is a diehard Red Sox fan and closer Tom Gordon is her favorite player. You can tell King is going through a baseball phase as he uses this story to share is love for the game though this precocious little girl.
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