Source: Purchased for iPad Kindle app
Six-word review:
Just as engrossing the second time.
A bit more:
I reviewed The Longest Way Home thoroughly, the first time I read it. This time, I reread to discuss with my F2F group. The discussion was not great. Those who read the book loved it but a lot of people didn't get around to reading and few showed up, possibly because of summer travel (one of our members broke a leg --something to do with a bungee cord and balloons). We didn't care for the prepared questions in the book and, unfortunately, the bits that I'd highlighted to bring up for discussion were not available because my iPad chose the meeting time to crash. Oh, well. I still loved the book and I'd read it, again. It's by far one of my favorite travel reads in recent years.
Source: Friend
Six-word review:
Sparkling wit coupled with realistic storytelling.
A bit more:
My delightful friend Sandie sent me her copy of Bark. I recently read Moore's most lauded collection, Birds of America, and was both disappointed and impressed. She's a talented wordsmith; but, her stories are such bummers. Maybe I've become accustomed to her style because I did end up enjoying the 8 stories in Bark (I mistakenly said there were 5 stories, recently -- not sure how that number lodged in my brain but the correct number is 8). One thing's for sure: she's so clever that I use a ton of Post-its whenever I read her writing.
Source: Friend
Six-word review:
A totally quirky collection of stories.
A bit more:
Kodi Scheer must have some sort of medical training in her background because there are quite a few stories that involve a character who is a medical professional and/or has some depth of anatomical knowledge in Incendiary Girls. Regardless, this is one weird - a** set of stories. A doctor finds out she has breast cancer just after convincing herself that the horse her daughter trains on is her reincarnated mother. After discovering that one of the contestants in a beauty contest has a fake scar on her leg, the other contestants tear her to pieces, literally. When the wife of a deployed army medic finds his ear in the laundry and other pieces of his body show up, she realizes he has died. After each anatomy class, the body a medical student has been dissecting shows up at her home with his flesh peeled back and parts missing where the students have taken him apart. Seriously. Bizarre. Stuff. I loved it.
Reminder: Hopefully, Monday Malarkey will be back next week.
Happy Monday!
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I'm glad you liked BARK...it just fell so short for me. One or two stories were good (not all stories in a collection can be bad, lol), but for the most part I was underwhelmed. But maybe it was *me*.....
ReplyDeleteI think it was a case of being in the right mood to appreciate her craftsmanship, Michele. I can't say I love Lorrie Moore's stories, in general, (although a few resonate) and yet I can recognize her brilliance with words; sometimes that weighs more heavily than the storyline. This just happened to be one of those times. You're not the only one to express disappointment. A lot of people seemed to think she just threw together a few leftover stories (the older ones did feel oddly out of place) and I can certainly understand that sentiment. They did feel a little thrown-together and there aren't that many stories, after all.
DeleteI was also underwhelmed by Bark. Hoping it's a stop-gap while she's working on something truly, madly, deeply awesome i.e. more Moore-like.
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it, I remember reading your thoughts at Goodreads. Maybe it's just because I read two of her collections so close to each other. I really just felt like it was more of the same but I'd become accustomed to her style. And, I might have been a little relieved that it was so short after reading Birds of America. I don't love her stories because they tend to be such downers but I do love her unique turn of phrase. She is kind of crazy-brilliant with words.
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