He was so bored after the dreary, eventless weeks in Venice, when each day that went by had seemed to confirm his personal safety and to emphasise the dullness of his existence.
A fascinating character, this Tom Ripley. Stunning prose by Highsmith. (I’ve seen the film years ago – also a fine piece of work.) Enough twists to deliver jitters, and a feeling of guilt at times as you can’t help but celebrate Tom’s morbid successes. That sonofabitch.
Now I want to tour Europe.
Detective Cassie Maddox takes the name Lexie Madison for a case. She gets stabbed, the case folds, and Cassie is taken out of undercover work. Later, a young woman who looks like Cassie is found dead in the tiny Irish village of Glenskehy. The woman’s name? Lexie Madison.
“Lexie” lives with four friends in a house called Whitethorn in the village. One of the detectives on the case thinks one of the friends is the murderer. Now Cassie’s assignment is this: enter the house and pretend to be the dead girl. Serve as bait.
I first encountered Tana French’s writing in In the Woods, which also features Cassie (her partner, Detective Rob Ryan, serves as narrator). French remains as sharp as ever. Writing so superb that you can feel the hush of Whitethorn House as the door closes. Beautiful.
#7
#8
Fell in love with the details of the room in this picture, so I just decided not to tear it up.
So pretty. ♥
These should be up on my wall in no time.
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Here be a pile of books I’ve read or cannot read anymore (hello, Eden Express, hello Sleepers).
Here be my TBR pile.
Done with Ender’s Game, now reading The Likeness and Landscapes.
Check out my cool bookmark (a gift from Almi, yay!):
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And on the writing front –
Copy-pasted all of my poems in a single file; will now open said file when I no longer feel like throwing up at the sight of it.
Bizaare. Last night I actually dreamt a workable opening scene for this short story that’s been bugging me for months. I’ll go back to fiction writing soon, soon.
…but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other’s dreams. How were we to know?
Ender’s Game
I have read Ender’s Shadow before this book. Shadow basically tells the same story, only from Bean’s perspective. And so I dove into this novel already knowing the great, tragic twist; I have working knowledge of the Battle School even before I cracked open this book. Remember, the enemy gate is down, says Ender Wiggin, and true, true. I know that. Really, there shouldn’t be a surprise.
And still the last few pages of Ender’s Game knocked the wind right out of me. Unbelievable emotional power. Unbelievable.
Feminism brought us suffrage, career opportunities, awareness.
Imagine the modern woman: perfumed, confident, dressed to the nines, successful, smart. Imagine you’re an institution that will find profit, huge profit, in her destruction. How will you destroy her?
Tell her she’s ugly.
Tell her she’s too fat.
Tell her her hair’s too thick, or she’s wearing the wrong lipstick, or her boobs are too small.
Now, if you’re the woman, how do you fight back? By not believing. By not caring.
That’s easy enough to do, right? We know better, right? We’re empowered. Right?
This is quite a compelling read, and a bit of an eye-opener. Thanks to Cyril for lending me a copy. :)
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I haven’t read a nonfiction book in a while, so I was glad to have been able to read this one. Some of the other nonfic books that I enjoyed, off the top of my head: Watching the English, In Cold Blood, Bully, Freakonomics, Stupid White Men, The Culture of Narcissism, Fast Food Nation, and an excellent collection of true-to-life police stories presented interview transcript-style, with no comments from the author (I cannot remember the title, gah) .
I’d like to get my reading paws on this one:
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Thanks to Kenneth Yu for this FYI. :)
Some shameless self-promotion: I have a short story, “Singing”, in the January 18, 2010 issue of The Philippine Graphic. My thanks to the literary editor, Marra PL. Lanot, for taking it in.
Incidentally, in the same issue is the poem “Reportage” by online acquaintance Eliza Victoria.
Hooray. :D
‘Tis the time for year-enders eh? Members of Livejournal group bookish here lists their worst reads of the year.
I’ll just list the books I enjoyed this year. For individual reviews of some of these books, just click on “books” and/or “reading” in ze tag bubble.
Boy do I read a lot.
I’m still reading The Beauty Myth and Ender’s Game, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be first on my 2010 list. :)
Happy New Year, all. ♥
The genius of Ira Levin’s fiction is that his prose is so lucid, so simple and straightforward and true, that you can never imagine anything evil happening to any of his (read: ordinary) characters.
And then halfway through you’ll get slapped by a line like, Rosemary found herself chewing on a raw and dripping chicken heart in the kitchen one morning at four-fifteen.
Like I said, genius.
Photo from fantasticfiction.co.uk
Eliza Victoria 