Saturday, January 02, 2016

Twitter-Compliant Book Reviews Again

The first of this kind was posted many a sunrise ago here. Let's begin 2016 by resuming this ancient art of reviewing :P.

Gilgamesh - version by Stephen Mitchell: Perhaps, the oldest epic. A great king and a wild man - enemies turned friends. Gods kill the friend. King saves the country. First superhero?

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translated by W. S. Kuniczak: Nero, Roman empire and persecution of the early christians. Love story and burning of Rome. Witty, imaginative, though long. Petronius rocks!

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Michael Glenny: There's Moscow, the master and his Margarita. A novel written and burnt. And there's the devil. Depressing to uproariously glorious satire.

NW by Zadie Smith: Four young adults living in London. Diverse lifestyles and troubles. Slow-paced and fast-moving. An insight into the urban British life.
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki: A teenage Japanese girl with troubled parents. A Canadian writer living in the wilderness. A washed-up diary. Evocative and immersing.

Watership Down by Richard Adams: Renegade rabbits in quest of a new home. To survive man, machine and predator. Hare-raising adventures. Politics! Not all rabbits are equal. ;)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Fables and analogies. Magic and madness. A hundred characters, stories and years. All jumbled up. The only novel ever left unfinished by me.

The next installment should contain the following works.
Elantris - Brandon Sanderson
Shardik - Richard Adams
With Their Backs to the World - Asne Seierstad, translated by Sindre Kartvedt
Stoner - John Williams
The Martian - Andy Weir
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
When the next installment might present itself is the real question ;).