May 2012
1 post
2 tags
White Teeth
By Zadie Smith
I waited too long to write about this one. I can’t remember much of the plot, but luckily, I’m quite sure the plot wasn’t the point. The characters and relationships in and between the three central families were far more crucial. One of the most fascinating aspects of the book was an inside look at a Muslim family living in England. The gap between tradition and...
February 2012
2 posts
2 tags
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
By Junot Diaz
I’ll be the first to admit, I probably didn’t understand half of what is there to be understood in this book. First and foremost, I don’t speak Spanish. Specifically, I don’t speak Dominican slang, snippets of which are sprinkled throughout the narration and dialogue. Now I could have stopped every time I came across a word I didn’t know, but...
2 tags
number9dream
By David Mitchell
Ok, David Mitchell. Seriously? I was enjoying that, and then you just had to go an end it. I would’ve stuck with you for another 300 pages if you’d have left things a little more resolved. Maybe you were making a statement about life and how it just keeps going. Or whatever. But we didn’t even find out if this virus worked!! Even a few more sentences might...
September 2011
4 posts
2 tags
Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen
The surprise ending was not at all surprising.
This has been a retroactive installment of Ansley Spoils Books. This novel read by me in May 2011.
3 tags
Little Bee
By Chris Cleave
Half-way through this reading book, I was trying to recommend it to a friend of mine, but I couldn’t recall the author’s name.
I’m so rarely staring at the cover when I’m reading a book.
So I dug my book out of my bag to give my friend what I was sure would be a woman’s name, and was completely blown away when I realized this book was by a man. The...
3 tags
The Hunger Games Trilogy
By Suzanne Collins
I read The Hunger Games just for fun. I wasn’t expecting any great depth of meaning, and I didn’t get any. Entertaining, yes. Makes me want to rough it out in the woods? Yeah, kind of. Definitely the first book anyway. But a completely one dimensional heroine is just not enough to hold my interest for three books and 800 pages. By the end, I could’ve cared...
7 tags
Slaughterhouse Five
By Kurt Vonnegut
Anti-war plus Sci-Fi. Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran (if we’re being liberal with the term), is “unstuck in time” and experiences different points in his life over and over and in a seemingly random (though, I’m sure, not to Mr. Vonnegut) order. Death is not sad because, as aliens point out to Billy, when you see in four dimensions, you see all time...
