If Art Garfunkel feels the need to post a “books read” list on his Web site, then so does the Grouch. Here is a list of Grouch’s literary conquests of the past 20 years – works of genius and works of dreck. Click here.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Louise Erdrich
Erdrich wins awards and is a critics’ darling, and there are aspects of her writing that I admire, but to me a lot of the prose in Round House – especially character motivations and behavior – does not ring true.
The protagonist is a 13-year-old Native American whose mother is raped, and so Erdrich is compelled to enter the boy’s head, but the result often reads like a middle-aged woman’s skewed idea of what teen boys think and do. I also didn’t buy her characterization of some of the adults: Episodes with a foul-mouthed, hunky Catholic priest are meant to be humorous but are just flat-out bizarre. On the plus side, the climactic scenes are powerful, and the depiction of life on a North Dakota reservation is colorful.
Some critics predict that this book will be thought of as an American-Indian To Kill a Mockingbird. I suppose this is because the story is told from a child’s point of view, the boy’s father is an Atticus Finch-like judge, and the plot includes rape, racial tensions, and social injustice. But To Kill a Mockingbird? Perhaps in theme, but certainly not in execution.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
OK, it’s a “coffee-table book,” but it’s one lavishly illustrated coffee-table book. Art doesn’t go into much detail about individual painters or paintings – actually, it doesn’t go into much detail about anything – but as a guide to finding what you like so that you can find more of what you like, it’s a precious resource. Now, about that title … judging from the book’s content, the only “art that changed the world,” at least until recent years, was art produced in Europe. Oh, really?
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Colin Dexter
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by William Shakespeare
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely … smug, materialistic gentiles or vindictive, malicious Jews? That’s pretty much the unflattering picture painted by the Bard in this controversial “comedy.” For the young, heterosexual, and moneyed, the play ends happily. For others, not so much.
There are Shakespearean revisionists out there who refuse to believe that the beloved playwright was anti-Semitic but, if he wasn’t down on Jews, he was certainly down on Shylock, the notorious Jewish moneylender at the heart of this story about obstacles to young love.
As always with Shakespeare, methinks you must read this play more than once. You read the first time (something of a chore) constantly referring to annotations for word definitions and cultural references; you read again for the pleasure of the poetry.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Henry Bushkin
By now I should have learned this lesson: Whenever I pick up a book about a celebrity I’ve admired, I am likely to wind up disillusioned with said celebrity. Exhibit A: I read a biography of Bob Hope a couple of years ago. Since then, I have a hard time watching Hope’s movies without wondering which of his comely co-stars the sexually predacious comedian was bedding – or at least trying to bed – while upholding his image as a wholesome family man. Johnny Carson, penned by longtime Carson lawyer/playmate Henry Bushkin, is another depressing read – although it’s undeniably juicy.
Pros: 1) Bushkin’s split with Carson 25 years ago was not amicable, but his account of their 18 years together seems fair and balanced. 2) If you are seeking dirt, Bushkin doesn’t hold back on stories about Carson’s peevish moods, drunken brawls, and countless extramarital flings. 3) The author’s theory about what motivated (and tormented) Carson – an emotionally cold mother – appears plausible.
Cons: 1) When you buy a book about the undisputed king of late-night TV, I don’t think it’s asking too much to expect a few anecdotes about The Tonight Show itself. But Bushkin is far more interested in high-stakes contract negotiations with NBC than with Hollywood gossip. 2) Seriously, no more than a few brief mentions of Ed McMahon? That’s like writing a book about Abbott and Costello and omitting Costello.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Janet Evanovich
I’ve been critical of Evanovich’s golden-goose series about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum because each new installment contains the same-old, same-old: Cars blow up, relationships stall, and Stephanie remains the immature ditz. And yet I keep on reading the books.
Maybe it’s because Notorious feels a bit fresher than recent entries – more introspection; fewer unrealistic situations – but I’m beginning to rethink my complaints. I’ve been expecting the Plum characters to evolve, but really, should the goofballs on I Love Lucy have “evolved”? Should Lucy have matured, Ricky calmed down, and Fred run off with a mistress? Perhaps it’s better if some things never change.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Leo Tolstoy
Let me nitpick at Leo Tolstoy. His two great novels, this one and War and Peace, are simply too damn long. This is partly because Tolstoy could not resist lengthy, off-plot digressions about the issues of his day (military strategy in Peace; agriculture in Karenina). Also, in comparing great novelists of the 19th century, I prefer Charles Dickens, whose books feature something that’s rare in Tolstoy: humor.
I’m done nitpicking. There is a reason that Anna Karenina is considered one of the best novels of all time. Tolstoy immerses readers in his characters’ minds and keeps us there. Don’t think you can relate to a member of 1870s Russian aristocracy? You will in this book. Tolstoy’s description of Anna’s descent into madness, culminating at a train station, is one of the most devastating passages I’ve ever read.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Margaret Atwood
It’s tempting to downplay, as feminist propaganda, Atwood’s parable about a future America where men use religion to subjugate women (aided and abetted by other women). But then again … I can drive a few miles from where I live and watch Somali women, clad in “modesty” robes and Muslim hijabs, strolling past Victoria’s Secret at the mall. And I can turn on the TV and watch some southern Congressman calling for bans on birth control ….
Let’s face it: If any political alliance is handed the means for imposing its will on the rest of us, it probably will. Atwood’s superb novel depicts this societal nightmare from the female perspective, but the dangers of her “Gilead” are universal.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Marisha Pessl
Is it possible that someone at the Random House editorial department has a vendetta against Pessl? That’s the only explanation I can think of for the bizarre proliferation of italics in her book. You eventually get used to it, but the infestation of italicized words in every other paragraph is, initially, a major distraction.
In other respects, Pessl’s thriller is a mixed bag. Her plot is imaginative: An investigative reporter hunts a mysterious cult-filmmaker named Cordova, whose young daughter kills herself by leaping down an elevator shaft. But there are stretches of Night Film that are so poorly written – so illogical or overwrought – that at times it resembles an earnest high-school student’s essay for English class. A typical simile from page 205: “The woman’s small black eyes swarmed it like flies over a turd.” I’m not sure why they failed to italicize “turd.”
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
