Dec 22 2021
There are some interesting set pieces and arresting imagery in this modern-day tale of witches on a remote southern island, tied by bonds of blood and love. You definitely get the idea that some of these scenes sprang into Paige Crutcher’s head fully formed, so viscerally and lovingly are they depicted. Alas, that’s about all …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/22/the-orphan-witch-by-paige-crutcher/
Oct 14 2021
I read a lot of books where I praise the empathy displayed, but after reading Brad Kessler’s brilliant North, I realized that there’s another, rarer quality I appreciate even more in writing: the quality of compassion. It’s one thing to understand where another person’s pain is coming from, to find common ground no matter how …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/10/14/north-by-brad-kessler/
Aug 19 2021
Exceptionally moving novel that spotlights the harms of a practice that most people don’t even like to think about. I can seriously say that in all my years of reading, I’ve encountered maybe one entire other work of fiction that’s addressed this issue with honesty and compassion, Ovidia Yu’s terrific Meddling And Murder. That said, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/19/songbirds-by-christy-lefteri/
Aug 14 2021
One of Orhan Pamuk‘s great virtues as a storyteller is his ability to create situations in which several different versions of reality are all possible within the narrative that he has established, and it is — at least for a time — left to the reader to decide which one is the truth of the tale, or …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/14/the-red-haired-woman-by-orhan-pamuk/
Jun 22 2021
Hey, Doug, I’m reading a novel translated from the German! Ably translated into English by Tess Lewis, who’s done a really good job, in particular, of getting the song lyrics from the 1980s not quite right when the characters are explaining them to one another. What You Can See From Here is an interesting sort …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/22/what-you-can-see-from-here-by-mariana-leky/
Jun 07 2021
As someone who cherishes the idea of eventually writing fiction professionally one day, it is 100% infuriating to read books like this, books so elegant, so intelligent, so perfect and modern that it makes any effort I could possibly make feel superfluous. Having a healthy ego, I will get over my sheer envy in days, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/07/the-portrait-of-a-mirror-by-a-natasha-joukovsky/
May 05 2021
There is a LOT going on in this book, and some of it is really good and some of it is really bad, but I definitely looked up the age of the author after this and I’m genuinely convinced that in a decade or two, she’s going to come back to this book and wince …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/05/hurricane-summer-by-asha-bromfield/
Feb 01 2021
Happy Black History Month, everyone! I’m so excited to have just read a strong slate of contemporary novels featuring Black protagonists and casts living their best lives, whether it’s via superheroics, sleuthing or, in this latest case, shop-keeping while falling in love. Real Men Knit follows Jesse Strong, the youngest of four very different adoptive …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/02/01/real-men-knit-by-kwana-jackson/
Dec 04 2020
At this point in my experience with Lily King, I know what to expect: a meticulously rendered milieu with quietly simmering emotions that are universal despite the very specific circumstances and locales of our narrators, and then BAM! a figurative punch to the face, and then the throat, and then the solar plexus, rendering this …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/12/04/writers-lovers-by-lily-king/
Aug 31 2020
Richard Brautigan might be that garrulous guy at the bar telling stories of things he’s done and seen, or things that people he knows have done and seen. The book goes down easy; I read it in less than an afternoon. Individually the tales don’t go on for too long, there’s usually something amusing along …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/08/31/trout-fishing-in-america-by-richard-brautigan/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire