As with many of Haruki Murakami's novels, the plot curdles with complex diversity only to be resolved by a collision between wild fantasy and outright slapstick. A Wild Sheep Chase refers aptly to the tradition of cool but kitsch detective sagas. Except here, the metaphoric goose is now a literal sheep with a distinctive marking; an urban myth with...more
Critically lauded and an Oprah Book Club choice, Jonathan Franzen's third novel The Corrections is already a huge success in the US, and it's none too difficult to see why. Whereas his earlier novels, The Twenty-Seventh City and StrongMotion could be seen as single-issue works (on inner city decay and abortion respectively), the long-awaited The Co...more
Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient...more
Set in the near-future, this swirling comedy/epic revolves around a tennis academy, a residence for recovering substance abusers, a tight group of Quebecois-separatist terrorists, and "Infinite Jest", a film so funny that it literally kills. Perhaps one of the most ambitious attempts to capture the spirit of the age, Wallace's pervasive theme is th...more
The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway's first big novel, and immediately established Hemingway as one of the great prose stylists, and one of the preeminent writers of his time. It is also the book that encapsulates the angst of the post-World War I generation, known as the Lost Generation. This poignantly beautiful story of a group of American a...more
A comic memoir of growing up as a heavy metal junkie in rural North Dakota in the 1980s retraces the author's coming of age to the soundtrack of Motley Crue, Ratt, Poison, Krokus, and other hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners rock bands.
"Among the best books ever written on professional basketball." The Philadelphia InquirerDavid Halberstam, best-selling author of THE FIFTIES and THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, turns his keen reporter's eye on the sport of basketball -- the players and the coaches, the long road trips, what happens on court, in front of television cameras, and off-cou...more
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