ESSAYS
Nothing Like I Imagined by Mindy Kaling
Nothing Like I Imagined is collection of lighthearted essays by Mindy Kaling. Being quite a fan of Kaling and her shows I knew that these essays would be fun. If you like Kaling’s humour chances are you will also like her essays. In ‘Kind of Hindu’ she writes about not feeling Hindu enough, in ‘Help […]
MoreThe Common Reader by Virginia Woolf — book review
Throughout the course of my undergraduate degree I consistently and persistently avoided Virginia Woolf’s body of work as on the best of days I have little patience for stream of consciousness (especially of the Joycean variety) and modernist literature. When my lecturers mentioned Woolf they always seemed to confirm my impression of her being a […]
MoreThe Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature by Viv Groskop — book review
“Russian literature deserves more love letters written by total idiots. For too long it has belonged to very clever people who want to keep it to themselves.” Although The Anna Karenina Fix is certainly written in an engaging style, Viv Groskop’s humour, which mostly consists in her resorting to a forced comedic ‘light’ tone when […]
MoreCoventry by Rachel Cusk — review
I have rather mixed thoughts about Rachel Cusk’s Coventry: Essays. Maybe I’m just not the right ‘reader’ for her work…I previously read, and was rather underwhelmed by, Outline…a book that has won quite a few literary awards and is thought of by many as a modern classic. This collection by Cusk is divided in three […]
MoreEx Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
“Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, arid underneath our sofa, and on. top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves. How could it be otherwise?” Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader is a delightful and uplifting ode to bibliophiles. Anne Fadiman’s collection […]
MoreLET ME TELL YOU: BOOK REVIEW
Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson ★★★★✰ 4 of 5 stars I thought I was insane, and would write about how the only sane people are the ones who are condemned as mad, and how the whole world is cruel and foolish and afraid of people who are […]
MoreTHINGS I DON’T WANT TO KNOW : BOOK REVIEW
Things I Don’t Want to Know: On Writing by Deborah Levy ★★★✰✰ 3 of 5 stars In Things I Don’t Want to Know Deborah Levy revists her childhood in South Africa in order to better understand her place in the present. She herself admits that her writing favours form > matter and so in this […]
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