Snarky Reviews: Sunday New York Times

Zowie! With a couple exceptions the book reviews in today's (1/27/08) New York Times are downers. Drew Gilpin Fault's This Republic of Suffering:Death and the American Civil War gets a rave from Geoffrey Ward,. Don't know if I'm up for 346 pages of Death and Suffering.

All Shall Be well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Tod Wodicka, which got a rave in another publication was slammed. Sounds like an interesting book.

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anan, a novel about the birth of Bngladesh gets off to a "muddy start," but redeems itself. Another tempting book.

Riding Toward Everywhere by William T. Vollmann was panned by J.R. Moehringer. This, too, is a book I look forward to reading because some of my relatives went "on the bum" during the Great Depression and rode the rails. One of them later became an entrepreneur and made a lot of money, lived an interesting life in a tiny Kansas town and became a world traveller, even learned Spanish late in life.

Ezra Pound: Poet, receives an even review from Charles McGrath. Of course Pound's life is so odd and interesting and controversial that reviewers (not this one) always tend to review the man and not his biographer's work.

Ellington Boulevard by Adam Langer, not just a novel but a New York novel, is again, more of a mixed review but basically positive. I've been visiting New York since I was a young bride (is there ever an "old bride"?) but have never felt there was a novel in these visits, or even a short story. Wonder why. No drama, no conflict? Note to self: dig deeper, you fool.

I don't read horror, so I skipped the review of20th Century Ghosts. Also skipped the review of Patrick Buchanan's book, since I figured I wouldn't read it either.

Still to read; The Cure Within, another book I wouldn't be inclined to read but the review might be interesting. Ditto, Alfred Kazin, a Biography.

Pat Barker's new novel, Life Class, got a basically panning review. She was put down for not writing a novel like her other novels. What's a writer to do? This was apparently too romantic. I was particularly interested because the book is about painters and World War I, and I am getting into a novel about (among other things) a painter and some research let to an idea for yet another novel.

News on the Trade Fiction vs. Mass-Market Fiction lists. Atonement is #1 in Trade and #5 in Mass-Market. The movie and then the Academy Award nominations have really helped this book. Hooray for tie-ins. Must gladden Ewan McEwan's heart and portmonnaie.

Pillars of Earth is #3 in Trade and #15 in Mass-Market, a surprising, to me, reversal. I Am Legend is #10 in TB and # 7 in MM. (I just hit a forbidden key and lost this post, BUT, due to total paranoia I had already submitted it a couple times. Ha ha. Blogger!)

A note about the hard-cover list: Janet Evanovich zoomed to the top with Plum Lucky. I love Stephanie Plum and that series. Both Evanovich and Sue Grafton, #8 with T is for Tresspass,
are excellent writers and storytellers and deserve all the success they have achieved. Both are dead serious about their writing and craft. Sisters in Crime!

Happy reading. Stay tuned for another food post. Hey, eating and reading some of the best parts of the day, n'est pas?

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