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• Current

Type: fiction

Status: —

Author: Jane Smiley

Tags: american pastoral

Description: Though well crafted and technically proficient, this book misses when it comes to deep characterThough well crafted and technically proficient, this book misses when it comes to deep character development. As a result, the book often comes across as a laundry list of events, rather than an explication of a pioneering young woman. Never-the-less, Smiley's ideological exploration makes this book worth the read for the patient student of authors like Willa Cather and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Though Smiley's novel lacks some of the fire power found in the period novels, she does an excellent job of categorizing the life of a pioneering woman, whilst also, through disguise, exploring gender roles and the pioneer life....

2006-01-12

  & 42 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: I recommend

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Tags: american time experimental

Description: Deceptively deep tale of Billy Pilgrim, a WWII veteran that makes the fantastic claim thatDeceptively deep tale of Billy Pilgrim, a WWII veteran that makes the fantastic claim that his conscious travels in time and that he had at one time been abducted by aliens. The book is often classified as science fiction, but that tag is terribly inaccurate. Many have also tried to declare this book an anti-war book, but this is equally inaccurate. This book is probably the best depiction of a war veteran's struggle with reality that you will ever read. Slaughterhouse Five is a great American novel, written by a great American author. It should not be missed...

2005-12-06

  & 6 users

• Current

Type: documentary

Status: I recommend

Author: William S. Burroughs

Tags: american beat autobiography controversial

Description: The name says it all. This book chronicles a life of addiction. Burroughs holds no punches.The name says it all. This book chronicles a life of addiction. Burroughs holds no punches. He brings the reader into the under-belly and shows them how dark this lifestyle can be. Still, you cannot help but think that Burroughs is still likeable in a sick and twisted way. This book is probably the most influential of all of the Beats. ...

2005-11-04

  & 3 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: disliked

Author: Michael Hornburg

Tags: american counter-culture

Description: Purchased this book because I though it was obvious that Hornburg was marketing his book toPurchased this book because I though it was obvious that Hornburg was marketing his book to take advantage of the fact that his last name would place him in close alphabetical proximity to Nick Hornby on the book store shelf. This is where the comparison ends. Whereas Hornby has a knack for getting into the mind and heart of the aging X generation, Hornburg can't make up his mind about what he wants to do with his novel. Characters are flat and uninteresting and plot never makes you feel that anything is at stake. ...

2005-11-04

  & 6 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: —

Author: Tobias Wolff

Tags: american bildungsroman first

Description: A bildungsroman of sorts. The book follows a collection of young men that attend an expensiveA bildungsroman of sorts. The book follows a collection of young men that attend an expensive boy's prep school circa 1960. Three times a year, the school brings in an author of note to meet with the students. During the course of the book, three different authors visit: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand and Earnest Hemingway. The vignettes regarding each of these authors is as much a commentary on them and literary style, as it is on perceptions of readers and expectation.

This book is not perfect, but it is a reasonable attempt by a reasonably talented author....

2005-11-04

  & 9 users

• Current

Type: art

Status: favorite

Author: Henry Miller

Tags: american expatriate controversial

Description: A tour de force! Miller attempts to break down the Aristotelean edifice, by keeping himselfA tour de force! Miller attempts to break down the Aristotelean edifice, by keeping himself as attached to the narrative, as is humanly possible. Miller is the ultimate expatriate, living in Paris at the tail end of the lost generation. He (the character and the author are one in the same) has fled the US in search of a personal liberty that is not fully accepted stateside. The reader follows the main character through the author's own, debaucherous lifestyle. Miller takes sheer joy in his interaction with the under-belly of Parisian life. The sheer pleasure that Miller gets through his baseless existence makes this book powerful and palateable to the reader of gritty fiction. Unlike Bardamu in "Journey to the end of the Night", by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Miller seems to wrap himself in the down comforter of French Nihilism. It is as if he is saying, "If this is it, we may as well grab all of the enjoyment that is to be had".

Banned in America from the date of it's first printing in 1933, until the Senate obscenity hearings of 1961, this book holds the mantle as the most banned American book in history. The modern reader will not find it nearly as shocking, but it is a testament to the work, that it stands the test of time. ...

2005-11-01