The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

I never expected that Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible would help me win trivia night at the bar. But sure enough, one of the last questions involved naming one of the many official languages of South Africa, one that was inherited by the Dutch, etc., etc. I wasn’t sure of the answer, but [...]

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

I read Zadie Smith’s White Teeth on my trip to Italy this past spring (I sound like quite the world traveler, but really it was just me spending my spring break visiting friends studying in Florence). There were lots of plane rides, train rides, and bus rides in which to read it. And [...]

Don’t Move by Margaret Mazzantini

I read the few chapters of Margaret Mazzantini’s Don’t Move and then abandoned it to finish a few other ones. Not that it wasn’t interesting, but it just didn’t grab my attention right away. I’m glad I went back to it, however, as it ended up being really beautiful.
After I read it and [...]

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

I didn’t know about the controversy surrounding one of Jonathan Franzen’s interviews before I read this The Corrections, I didn’t even find out about it until I was googling his name to find the image of the book cover. I didn’t even bother reading up on the ‘drama’ because in my opinion, if a [...]

The Body Artist by Don DeLillo

I read some reviews on Amazon.com before I picked this book to read. Some of the reviews for Don Delillo’s The Body Artist said:
[It] is simply a rare escapade into the world of literary realism. There is so much harmony in this book that it I found it difficult to disassociate myself from the [...]