Category: Book Reviews
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Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis – A Book Review
I largely credit my love of reading with The Chronicles of Narnia. My fourth grade teacher read the entire series to our class and I loved every minute of it. With the contemporary release of theatrical versions of the first two installments, I’ve enjoyed rereading the books for the first time in twenty years. Prince…
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Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt – A Book Review
For some reason, and I don’t know why, I had it in my head that Angela’s Ashes was about Frank McCourt and his brothers returning to Ireland as adults and fumbling about as they tried to decide how to dispose of their cremated mother’s ashes. It’s not. Angela’s Ashes is actually a memoir essentially detailing…
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Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman – A Book Review
Living under the shadow of Sandman and American Gods, Gaiman has difficulty impressing me with other works because those two are so utterly superb. Anansi Boys is an unfortunate example of just such a case. It tells the story of Fat Charlie, the son of the trickster god Anansi. Early on in the story his…
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The Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman – A Book Review
The Kindly Ones encompasses the direct consequences of the earlier volume, Brief Lives. In Brief Lives, Lord Morpheus (Dream) changes, for better or for worse. The actions that lead to such change must have ramifications, and The Kindly Ones details such repercussions. In The Kindly Ones, Lyta Hall, a character who has made sporadic appearances…
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The Sandman: Brief Lives – A Book Review
I thought Season of Mists was my favorite The Sandman volume until I read Brief Lives. Brief Lives absolutely has it all-drama, action, comedy, romance, and philosophical ponderings. It focuses upon Morpheus rather directly-unlike other volumes where sometimes he exists within the stories only peripherally-as he helps his sister Delirium track down their brother known…
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All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy – A Book Review
The first volume of what’s known as The Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses encompasses what I love about McCarthy’s writing. Set in the late Forties, All the Pretty Horses follows teenage Texan John Grady Cole seeking a better life for himself in Mexico. He travels by horse with his slightly older friend, Rawlins,…
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Timbuktu by Paul Auster – A Book Review
I absolutely admire Paul Auster because whenever I pick up one of his books, I totally have no idea what to expect. You’ve surely noticed how some authors basically tell the same story over and over again? Not Auster. I’ve read quite a few of his works by now, and while he has similar themes…
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The Sandman: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman – A Book Review
I’ve heard much about The Sandman series for many years, and so last summer I finally decided to experience it for myself. The first volume was adequate, but it didn’t “wow” me as much as I expected. Probably because, by this point in time, Gaiman’s concepts had been copied and recopied so many times by…
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