reviews

Introspection, Theology, and Mother Russia Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky The classics kick continues with full immersion into the heady and essentially depressing existentialism of classic Russian novels. I chose one of the smaller Russian novels, The Brothers Karamazov (a mere 700 odd pages as opposed to Dostoevsky’s other famous opus, the 1,700 page plus Crime and Punishment). The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky’s final novel, written as he himself came face to face with mortality and death, is the story of three brothers who are left to deal with the aftermath of their depraved father’s life and violent death as a murder investigation slowly implicates their complicit [...]

Murders wasted... Author:  Lawrence Millman It checked so many boxes.   First, it’s a true story about murder, one of my favorite guilty reading pleasures.  Second, the murders take place in the Canadian Arctic, a great backdrop for drama of any variety.  Lastly, it’s written by an acclaimed author who’s an accomplished lichenologist.  I love lichen!!  So it was with considerable enthusiasm that I started reading.  Unfortunately, despite all its promise, almost everything about Lawrence Millman’s At the End of the World goes terribly wrong.  I can’t wait to tell you why. But first, I’ll start with telling you what the [...]

Love and loneliness... Author:  Leslie Jamison Leslie Jamison has made it.  Having published an acclaimed novel in 2010, at the age of 27, followed by a best-selling collection of essays and a riveting memoir, she is now teaching non-fiction writing at Columbia University.  It’s been an impressive run and it’s clear that she has yet to encounter a slump, as evidenced by her most recent work, Make it Scream, Make it Burn.  A collection of fourteen essays, it displays Jamison’s remarkable talent for deep introspection and vivid, gut-wrenching prose. The Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. Presenting [...]