Category Archives: CBR5
While Mortals Sleep by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has a unique style. If you’ve read him, you know this. If you haven’t read him, do so. I’ve read the bulk of his books at this point, and I was pretty glad to pick up While … Continue reading
World War Z by Max Brooks
Forgive me, this review will be quite short. I’ve fallen behind on writing and need to catch up a bit. My ninth book was World War Z by Max Brooks. While I do like good science fiction, I haven’t yet … Continue reading
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Aside from the occasional short story, I hadn’t read much Updike before this. The Rabbit novels have been on my list for some time, but you know how that goes. I’ll get to them one of these days. I snagged … Continue reading
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
It might be obvious by now that lately I’ve been partial to young writers. Karen Russell is a favorite, and Dave Eggers is an obsession (though he’s not that young anymore). I heard about this book a year ago, and put … Continue reading
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
I’ve read this book before. I will read this book again, probably many times. Writing an overly positive review without sounding too schmucky is hard, so I’ll keep this one pretty short. If you haven’t read Eggers before, I highly … Continue reading
St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
Karen Russell likes kids. She likes them to be lost, hurried, confused, afraid. Have you read Swamplandia!? In that story, our heroine is Ava, proud member of the Bigtree clan, brave alligator wrestler and frightened little girl. Here, Russell offers ten … Continue reading
number9dream by David Mitchell
I’ll preface this by saying I read Cloud Atlas last fall, avoided the movie, and am pretty enamored with David Mitchell. I’m already fiending to read more of his work. Cloud Atlas unreels its nested narratives artfully, and Mitchell’s transitions between … Continue reading
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Ignatius J. Reilly is a madman. His hat is green, his stomach is bulging, and his mustache is black and often crumb-filled. He makes me laugh really, really hard. A Confederacy of Dunces is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. … Continue reading
Americana by Don DeLillo
Most books fit into some basic genres (mystery, historical fiction, self-help (privileged white women eating Indian food and claiming inner peace), etc.). Americana was a tough one for me to classify. Most simply, I could stick it into two genres. The first … Continue reading
CannonBall Read #5
I often find myself reading a pop-culture site called Pajiba. While much of it is pretty silly, it’s very funny and keeps me informed of important things (like when Arrested Development is back on the air and how stunningly awful … Continue reading
Ben Mitchell-Lewis 