dllh's reviews
674 reviews

The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition by Rainer Maria Rilke

3.0

I dog-eared two of the elegies but in general didn't like the style of them. I liked a fair few more of the sonnets, and they were easier to get through overall. I had read some Rilke many years ago and not been super enthusiastic. I'm still not. I believe that people find things to gush over in Rilke's work, but I think his work just isn't for me. I'm glad to've ticked these collections off my list, though.

The GAA: A People's History by Paul Rouse, Mark Duncan, Mike Cronin

slow-paced

4.0

It took me a while to read this book both because I prioritize fiction and because it has so many sidebars and images with captions that for me it was slow-going. I'm not complaining about these -- they were good -- but it was oddly tiring to read and I generally read just a small handful of chapters at a time with sometimes long breaks between bouts of reading.

I thought it was a fantastic history of the GAA, and I learned a lot about the history of Ireland and of Gaelic sports. I've played hurling for a few years, so this was of particular interest to me. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the history and culture of the GAA and Gaelic Games in Ireland (and abroad).

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

adventurous funny fast-paced

3.5

I liked this one but it felt a little baggy at times. I felt like there were only so many times and ways in which I needed to see demonstrated that John Brown was super zealous about both his religion and his cause. Of course, it is a tall tale (with some basis in reality), and excess is a part of such tales. I won't read this one again, but I liked it and will keep reading McBride.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Racial slurs, and War

McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh

dark fast-paced

2.5

The style just didn't really do it for me, and by the time I had begun to feel a little more interested and invested, it was over.

Private Life by Jane Smiley

sad

3.25

I'm not sure what to say about it. The pacing sometimes felt slow, but it also covered 60+ years in a short 300 pages. The tail end was biting and made me think oddly of Shirley Jackson. It held my interest all the way through, but I wouldn't call it a page-turner. Yet I read it fairly quickly. It almost felt incomplete, or at least not long enough. But that's not quite right, because it was clearly framed by its opening and closing sections and Smiley doled out precisely what she wanted the reader to see. There's a sense of limitation or private-ness in the title itself.

That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

4.0

I enjoyed the voices and the stories in this one. The main character and his story and indeed the overall plot weren't nearly as interesting to me as the folksy narratives and memorable people Proulx exposes that character and thus us to. I'm ambivalent about her zany names for nearly every person in the book -- I'm a sucker for zany names but it became absurd almost beyond the fun of it. It's not the deepest or most nuanced book I've ever read, but I really enjoyed it

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

fast-paced

3.0

I liked it well enough but not as much as some of Whitehead's other work. I did feel a great sense of place while reading it. I've never been to Harlem, though have seen portrayals in movies, and I felt like Whitehead gave me a real sense of some elements of the Harlem he describes.

Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan

adventurous slow-paced

3.0

This one dragged a bit for me, though admittedly it was long. I got pretty tired of spending time with

Perrin in the wolf dream

, though it might've been less annoying if I had been reading to myself rather than aloud. The return of

Moiraine

was much anticipated but I thought it was very sudden and in a way unearned that

she and Thom were suddenly an item. Sanderson had given us some small hints of a stronger connection, but it felt tacked on and definitely didn't seem like something Jordan set up. What I'm responding to isn't the relationship but the clumsiness of its introduction.

Exemplary novels' selection by Miguel de Cervantes, Miguel de Cervantes

adventurous funny medium-paced

3.5

It was neat to read more work by Cervantes beyond Don Quixote. Some of the stories blurred together for me as they were similar in subject matter and in their telling, but I enjoyed all of them.

Miguel de Unamuno - San Manuel, Bueno, Martir 1930 by Miguel de Unamuno

fast-paced

3.5

Very short. I liked it. A little philosophical, a little religious, pretty humanistic.