Tag: TBR Challenge
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White Teeth by Zadie SmithVintage International, 2001 (Originally Hamish Hamilton, 2000)
I’ve been meaning to read this book for approximately a decade now, and am glad I finally did. On the most basic level it’s the story of two friends—Archibald Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal, who met when they served in WWII together—and their families. But it’s also about families in general, and culture and history…
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The Lost Art of Walking by Geoff NicholsonRiverhead Books (Penguin), 2008
Despite its (fairly frequent) snarkiness, and despite the fact that several sections read like strings of facts or anecdotes connected only loosely, I did enjoy this book, which is as much about Nicholson’s own walking experiences and philosophy as it is about, as the subtitle puts it, “The History, Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Pedestrianism.”…
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Witch Grass by Raymond QueneauTranslated and with an Introduction by Barbara WrightNew York Review Books, 2003(Originally published in French by Librairie Gallimard, 1933)
When I saw Carol’s post about NYRB Reading Week, hosted by The Literary Stew and Coffeespoons, I thought it might be a good time to read Witch Grass, which is a New York Review Book that also happens to be on my languishing TBR Challenge list. The price-sticker on the back of my copy of…
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Waiting for the Weekend by Witold RybczynskiViking, 1991
Despite the title, and despite the fact that much of this book tells the story of how the weekend as we know it came into being, Waiting for the Weekend isn’t just about Saturday and Sunday and how they got that way. It also examines larger questions of leisure: what is leisure, anyhow? And how…
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The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey NiffeneggerHarcourt, 2004 (Originally MacAdam/Cage, 2003)
It’s been a while since I picked up any of the books I picked for Emily’s Attacking the TBR Tome Challenge—I’ve only read three books from my list so far, and it’s already August! But after reading Fire and Hemlock I was in the mood for another novel, specifically another novel with a quirky romance…
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Eating for England: The Delights & Eccentricities of the British at Table by Nigel SlaterFourth Estate (HarperCollins), 2007
I bought this book in a Whole Foods in London a few years ago, but hadn’t gotten around to reading it ’til now. I love Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries for the really vivid and satisfyingly descriptive way he writes about food. This book has some of that, like when, at the very beginning, he describes…
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The Great Brain by John D. FitzgeraldYearling (Dell), 1971 (originally The Dial Press, 1967)
I thought I was in the mood for something other than a kids’ book, but I was, perhaps, wrong. I just moved on Sunday: not far, just four blocks, from one apartment to another within the same neighborhood. As moves go, in the grand scheme of moving possibilities, it was an easy one. But it’s…
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Finishing The Fugitive, and taking a break from Proust
I just finished The Fugitive, and it was good, and I am glad to be done with it. The “Sojourn in Venice” section was of course really pleasing, water and light and history and beauty and art, a brief boring digression on politics/diplomacy aside. There’s a surprise telegram (with an added twist) that makes our…