Synopsis:
After his release from prison, a troubled man befriends the man he crippled, and awakens his demons with tragic result.
Review:
Though strong in characterization (as always), Live Flesh doesn’t hold up as one of Ruth Rendell’s strongest. On its publication in 1986, I’m sure it made much more of an impact, but in today’s serial [...]

Popularity: 28% [?]

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Synopsis:
The last of a dying breed, a proper English butler reflects on his life in service.
Review:
I had no idea I would love The Remains of the Day as much as I did. To be honest, I love Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go so much that I was afraid that if I didn’t like [...]

Popularity: 39% [?]

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Synopsis:
The premature baby of Fifth Business was kidnapped by roustabouts, grew up a circus performer, and has grown into the greatest magician in the world. His life story offers the final piece to the question posed in The Manticore: “Who killed Boy Staunton?”
Review:
Robertson Davies’s masterful Deptford Trilogy deserves to be on more must-read lists. [...]

Popularity: 47% [?]

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Synopsis:
Basically Brave New World crossed with 1984.
Review:
There isn’t an original idea in This Perfect Day. It’s also got one of those scenes where the main character rapes his love interest to prove his mastery, and she resists then totally gets into it and it ends up being just what she needed to [...]

Popularity: 23% [?]

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Synopsis:
A summer job turns into a game of strategy with potentially deadly consequences for a young aspiring scientist hoping to learn more about the implications of the regenerative powers of starfish.
Review:
Of course I had to read a L’Engle as soon as humanly possible, and I wanted to read one I hadn’t read before. I [...]

Popularity: 31% [?]

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Synopsis:
A biography of Shirley Jackson, author of the short story “The Lottery,” and one of my favorite authors.
Review:
I was inspired to read this thanks to an email I got from Chaucerian Girl. She expressed an appreciation for Private Demons, Judy Oppenheimer’s biography of the woman I believe to be one of the greatest American [...]

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Synopsis:
One man’s harrowing journey up the Congo in search of enlightenment.
Review:
Blogging really wasn’t invented for talking about a book like Heart of Darkness. I am utterly incapable of coming up with anything approaching an instant reaction to this book. I need to sit with it for a long time, then read it again, [...]

Popularity: 45% [?]

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Synopsis:
After learning of the death of her abusive ex-boyfriend, a woman returns to the home by the lake she once loved to build a new life and exorcise old ghosts.
Review:
I am a very big fan of T. Greenwood’s second novel, Nearer than the Sky, and I have no excuse for why it took me so [...]

Popularity: 29% [?]

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Synopsis:
The sole survivor of humankind’s first trip to space is a ruined, broken Jesuit priest, for whom the encounter with alien life brought him both divinely inspired rapture and despair.
Review:
When humanity finally hears a voice from space, it’s music, and thanks to a bold young scientist the first mission to the source of the transmission [...]

Popularity: 28% [?]

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Synopsis:
The son of a wealthy industrialist enters Jungian therapy to discover why he feels that his life is at a point of crisis.
Review:
In The Manticore, Robertson Davies continues the story he began in his masterful Fifth Business, turning his acute eye for the majesty of the quotidian on David, the son of Boy Staunton, a [...]

Popularity: 42% [?]

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