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piiskoor

Another fine mess

Reader fan critic teacher reader fan.

Currently reading

McGlue
Ottessa Moshfegh
Knife Fight and Other Struggles
David Nickle
Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
Andrew Solomon
The Good Lord Bird
James McBride
Ancillary Justice
Ann Leckie
Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More (New Edition)
Derek Bok
Dissident Gardens
Jonathan Lethem
Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen Since the 1960s
Kim Newman
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
James Gleick
Complete Novels
Dashiell Hammett, Steven Marcus
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank - Nathan Englander I waffled--4, or 5? One story was a misfire for me, but really just in comparison:"The Reader" had Englander's trademark hints of magic, bit the gloves were threadbare, the sleight of hand somewhat fumbling, the trick itself mostly expected, mawkish, obvious.

Every other story was outstanding.

Every story felt like a full journey, hints of an old-school plotter's love of turns, twists, and climactic dazzle; and yet, strangely, each also aeems indebted to--or to embody--other, less narrative-centric traditions in the short form: Carver, Cheever, Welty, Munro, Babel, Singer. Repeatedly Englander interrogates the thorniest of ethical dilemmas: how to have faith but live humanly; how to understand revenge, but not get lost in it. He's consistently funny, and sad, and startling.