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Tag Archives: Ian McEwan
2018 Books Read
2018 Books Read 1. Tamburlaine, Part 1, by Christopher Marlowe I finished 2017 with Paradise Lost, in the mood to continue with rigorous challenging poetry. I decided to read the complete plays of Christopher Marlowe (re-read in most cases). The … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce
Tagged Animal Farm, Annie Proulx, books read, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Marlowe, Clifford Odets, Edgar Allan Poe, England, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Finnegans Wake, friends, George Orwell, H.L. Mencken, Hunter S. Thompson, Ian McEwan, Ireland, Italy, Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Pauline Kael, poetry, Poland, politics, Robert Kaplan, Romania, Ron Chernow, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Truman Capote, Victor Serge, Waiting for Lefty
7 Comments
Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2018
Thanks, everyone, who hangs out here, who likes what I do, whether you’re an Elvis fan, a Supernatural fan, a general cinephile, a book-lover, or just someone who’s been checking in periodically for almost 16 years – WHAT? – I … Continue reading
Posted in James Joyce, Movies, Television
Tagged Anne V. Coates, Burt Reynolds, documentary, Doris Day, Dorothy Malone, Elvis Presley, England, Finnegans Wake, Frank Sinatra, Gena Rowlands, Germany, Gold Diggers of 1933, Grace Kelly, Hal Ashby, Howard Hughes, Ian McEwan, James Cagney, Joan Didion, Joaquin Phoenix, Julie Christie, Lynne Ramsay, Mexico, Minnie and Moskowitz, Natalie Portman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Play It As It Lays, Robert Altman, Russia, Sanaa Lathan, South Korea, Supernatural, Warren Beatty, women directors, Woody Allen, year in writing
10 Comments
Review: On Chesil Beach (2018)
It’s the adaptation, stupid. My review of On Chesil Beach is now up at Rogerebert.com.
Snapshots
— Finished Decline and Fall (I talked about it here). In the last 5 pages, Waugh breaks out the brilliance of his message, going from covert to overt. He truly amazes me. I never stopped laughing – but the ending … Continue reading
Posted in Personal
Tagged Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh, Ian McEwan, Peter Weir, snapshots
3 Comments
The Books: “Atonement ” (Ian McEwan)
Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: Excerpt from Atonement: A Novel, by Ian McEwan Ian McEwan is such a good writer that there were times, when reading this book, when I had to just put it down, and absorb it. I … Continue reading
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Jessa Crispin has an interesting interview with Peter Boxall, editor of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I loved what Boxall said at the end: Having benefited from an extraordinary number of emails and letters as well as … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce
Tagged A Tale of Two Cities, A.S. Byatt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alice in Wonderland, Amongst Women, Animal Farm, Annie Proulx, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, At Swim-Two-Birds, Atonement, Cat's Eye, Catch-22, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, D.H. Lawrence, Don DeLillo, E.M. Forster, Edgar Allan Poe, Edna O'Brien, Emily Bronte, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Finnegans Wake, Flann O'Brien, Flannery O'Connor, Frankenstein, Franny and Zooey, George Eliot, George Orwell, Great Expectations, Gulliver's Travels, Handmaid's Tale, Herman Melville, House of Leaves, Hunter S. Thompson, Ian McEwan, In Cold Blood, J.D. Salinger, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Ellroy, Jane Austen, Jane Eyre, Jeanette Winterson, John Irving, John McGahern, John Steinbeck, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Heller, Kazuo Ishiguro, Leo Tolstoy, Lewis Carroll, Lord of the Rings, Margaret Atwood, Mark Danielewski, Mary Shelley, Master and Margarita, Middlemarch, Mikhail Bulgakov, Moby Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Notes From the Underground, Possession, Pride and Prejudice, Primo Levi, Sexing the Cherry, Stephen King, The Catcher In the Rye, The Country Girls, The Great Gatsby, The Hobbit, The Passion, The Shipping News, The Things They Carried, Thomas Mann, Tim O'Brien, Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote, Ulysses, Underworld, Vladimir Nabokov, Wuthering Heights
9 Comments
Thoughts on Atonement
Last night, I finished watching Arsenic and Old Lace – (I especially enjoyed Cary Grant’s pratfall over the chair) – but anyway, idly, randomly, I picked a book off the shelf – Ian McEwan’s Atonement – which I had already … Continue reading
Recommended Reading: Fiction
And now for the Fiction recommendations. (See the Non-Fiction ones below) Choosing books out of all the books I love is rather torturous for me. So this is an impulsive, scanning-the-bookshelves-with-mine-eyes and writing titles down spur-of-the-moment kind of list. Here … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Atonement, Charlotte Bronte, Crime and Punishment, England, fiction, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Going After Cacciato, Harriet the Spy, Herman Melville, Ian McEwan, Ireland, J.D. Salinger, Jane Eyre, Louise Fitzhugh, Michael Chabon, Moby Dick, Possession, Russia, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Catcher In the Rye, The Dead, The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, Vietnam
17 Comments
Cape Cod, Here I Come
In the past three days I have become, in the words of my friend Jackie, a “redheaded whirligig”. I am moving. The date has been set for the 18th of August. The movers are booked. I have subletters living with … Continue reading

