kris_mccracken's reviews
2529 reviews

Amusing, and original first time around. Slight, but that’s okay. Well worth a read if you haven’t already.

More of the same really. It has its moments, but a tad repetitive if you’ve just read THDTHG. Only for the keen ones.

A private dick finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in melodrama involving jewel thieves, a murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, corruption, gangster's molls and all manner of seediness.

So we have all the makings of a rollicking tale, and Raymond Chander's second novel is very much that. With a punchy prose-style, his tone of voice, his oft-imitated (but seldom matched style) overcomes any sense of ludicrousness of the plot twists and turns.

Well worth chasing down and reading.

A reasonable thriller, albeit one weighted down with a few too many red herrings for this reader. Moreover, the whole thing hangs together a little too neatly, with characters lacking depth and believability.

It's good enough, but far from the heights of its reputation.

I'd rather have scored this a 2.5, but despite enjoying the first half quite a bit, I really did get muddled with the constant shifting of tone (not to mention allegiances). The length and complexity of the denouncement ultimately detracted from the overall effect.

A brutal read this. Deep in detail, the plot follows the planning, execution and conclusion of a bombing raid during World War Two. Told from the viewpoint of both British and German sides, Deighton utilises a clinically detached vantage point. This affords us a unique view, one in which terrible injuries and deaths are described in the same detail as the tactical approach of modern warfare.

This is surprisingly effective, and as each successive event is dissected, the pointlessness and barbarity of war is laid bare. There are no winners here, and I defy any reader to make their way through this and not feel absolutely gutted by the end.

Not for the faint-hearted.

A classic, but with a cast of simpering, feeble and supremely annoying characters, it can make for heavy reading at times. While it's well written, the pace is slow and the relationships utterly suffocating.

A quick courtship that deteriorates into an unhappy and stifling marriage that takes up the first chunk of the book. Then children come along, as the mother shifts her affections to her sons. It's quite clear that this will not end well.

The trouble is (and I'm sure that this is heresy of some form), our central characters of Paul and his mother are just so utterly tiresome. Paul Morel is so unlikeable, Gertrude so messed up, Miriam so weak, that you just can't bear to be around them for too long. Even more so when you find yourself going through the same events over and over again.

Poor old Miriam's pupils must dilate a dozen times, and how much do we really need to hang about while Paul gazes at flowers?

On the plus side, I liked Clara, but struggle to understand what she saw in Paul.

A bit of a grind, but if you are in an Oedipal mood, this will be right up your Straße. I should say, the last bit, after all the storm and stress, is wonderfully written, but bleak as can be.

I first read this about 30 years ago, and revisited this week with Ezra (8 years old). It stands up beautifully. It captures well the trials and tribulations of life with a toddler. Written in the early-1970s, it resonates with kids today.

The humorous sections remain funny and realistic, and I know that I'm on to a winner when Ezra has demanded that we read the rest of the series in succession.

Look, Coates wrote this book for his son, not for me, so I can hardly complain that I'm not really the intended audience.

Content-wise, I don't really have a problem with it (beside something of a shrug of my shoulders that it really seemed to lack any kind of coherency in terms of economic or class critique). That said, the experience of a young African American growing up in a world of urban decay and it communities hostile to young black men is no doubt a problematic one, and one filled with opportunities for anger and despair, so I would not for one second deny the author that.

What did compel me to rate it a two star was the writing, which is just a little too florid and baroque to resonate with me. Moreover, there's a tendency towards repetition and circular argument here that - while no doubt somewhat due to both stylistic choices and the state of play in the US today - left me somewhat shrugging my shoulders at the end.

I don't mind the bleakness, but at least James Baldwin keeps you interested despite the despair...

A cold and dark book, this one. Bleak and tragic, this isn't one for the faint-hearted or already depressed. Set in backwoods USA (think Deliverance), this is a place where people are "dead to wonder ... dulled to life, empty of kindness, boiling with mean".

Hard-going, but worthwhile.