I don't read contemporary fiction very often because I generally find it disappointing and Ali Smith's "There But For The" was no exception. I struggled through this book and nearly stopped reading it several times.The story is about a man's absence after he locks himself in a guest bedroom in th...
I appreciate Ali Smith’s attempt to take me out of my comfort zone as a reader with this meta-novel, which is a unique approach to that much-loved trope of crime fiction, the ‘locked room’ mystery. But this did not quite gel as a novel for me.Throughout it I was too conscious of Smith’s tinkering...
I loved Girl Meets Boy. Smith offers a well-written, memorable version of the myth of Iphis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphis) from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I loved reading every page. I wish Girl Meets Boy had been several hundred pages longer. I have read another two novels by Smith, The Acciden...
The fall occurs at dawn.Albert CamusIf I had not read MJ’s excellent review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), I would never have purchased this book as firstly, I had never heard of the author and secondly, this didn’t sound like my type of book at all. That’s the “problem” with Goodrea...
This was a fun and surprising read with lots of scintillating wonders in its delivery and content. It falls into the box of “experimental writing”, but it flows along so fast and spritely compared to many a turgid, self-important postmodern of doorstop dimensions. Ali’s opening epigraph from Jo...
The Universal StoryI loved the use of repetition and elaboration on the same story in this one. I loved the descriptions of the books, particularly the one about the Great Gatsby from 1974 what was yellow but is now more white and the picture sepia. I felt that was just, for some reason, stunning...
If, after reading a few of his novels, you have become enthralled by Antal Szerb's ability to blend and play with various literary modes- fantasy, irony, adventure, humor, gothic melancholy- then you will likely enjoy tracing his writerly development in this story collection. It begins with Szer...
She was reading a Georgette Heyer book. There was no tea on. There was no sign of anything to do with tea in the kitchen. My father would be home in an hour. I stood at the foot of the stairs for a while. The dog looked down at me, wagged her tail. My mother turned a page and yawned. I slung my s...
I was the only person in Carriage J when we set off. Me! A whole train carriage to myself! I am doing all right (and that train getting more and more English the further south we came. The serving staff doing the coffee changed into English people at Newcastle. And the conductor’s voice on the sp...
I knew it. I know it cause we sat on that poor specimen of wall (which will not last) until a much older woman, bent by the years, came out of the dwelling behind us making a great furore : she poked the boy in the back with the bristle end of a brush on a long wood pole and she shouted something...
I thought it was just more evidence of your passionate and sensitive nature. At first I was quite charmed by it. It was charming. She was charming. But here are three instances of what it was like for me. 1: I’d be deep asleep, in the place where all the healing happens, the place all the serious...