Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author= Marie-Sabine Roger
|title= Soft in the Head
|rating= 4
|genre= General Fiction
|summary= This novel will make you smile. It's a feel-good story, unusual in its premise and original. Germaine is a 45 year old man who is illiterate. He has a group of drinking friends who frequently make him the butt of their jokes, a mother who calls him a 'half-wit', amongst other things, and a girlfriend whom he appears afraid of committing to. Germain spends many afternoons in the park, counting pigeons and writing his name among the dead of the war memorial. It is here that he meets Margueritte, a tiny 85 year old woman who tells him she also counts the pigeons.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271589</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Gregory Maguire
|summary=''The House at the Edge of Night'' is an epic family saga, spanning some 95 years and several generations. The story begins when Amedeo Esposito arrives at the isolated Sicilian island of Castellamare to serve as the first doctor in the island's history. He is immediately captivated by this strange little community; a heady mix of tradition, superstition and ritual. An island so small is naturally a hotbed of gossip, with 'overheard' confessions being dutifully relayed across the five-mile island within minutes of being heard. The benevolent Saint Agata watches over her people and bestows the odd miracle upon the fortunate. This is the place that Amedeo chooses to make his home and together with his resourceful wife Pina, they slowly restore the 'cursed' House at the Edge of Night to its former glory as a bar and meeting place for the locals.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959322</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chuck Palahniuk
|title=Make Something Up
|rating=5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=What are we to make of that subtitle-seeming writing on the front cover – ''stories you can't unread''? Does that not apply to all good fiction? Clearly it is here due to the reputation of the author, and the baggage his name brings to the page. We'd expect a dramatic approach from anything Palahniuk writes, and an added frisson, an extra layer, from which we might be forced to shrink back. But a lot of the contents don't quite go that far. Yes, things are dramatic, when society starts attaching defibrillators to itself, to create the perfect, simple, care- (''The Price is Right''-, and Kardashian-) free happiness. A man buys a horse for his daughter – but boy is it the wrong horse to buy. A man falls in love – yes, sometimes the plot summaries of these stories really are better off for being short (speaking of which, don't turn to the three-page entrant here as a taster, it'll put you off by dint of being, almost uniquely here, a nothing story). A call centre worker can't convince people he's on the level and even in their country – until someone starts riffing back to him. A housing estate report conveys bad regulation violations, but not as bad as the happenings at a 'Burning Man'-styled festival, in a very clever couple of tales. But many too are the instances where that extra step has been taken.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587688</amazonuk>
}}

Navigation menu