Take a photo of a barcode or cover
gwcoffey's reviews
520 reviews
The Gift of Everything by Lang Leav
4.0
Poetry is just about the only kind of book I prefer to read in print (vs. ebook). When I scored a gift card to a local bookstore I used it to buy a few books of poetry. For the most part I chose at random. I had never heard of Lang Leav. But I liked the cover, and I liked the sweetness of a few poems I glanced through.
I read this book cover to cover. I won’t say every poem is precisely my thing, but every poem is lovely, and there are many that strike my particular chord.
How do I thank my mother / for giving me the life / she desperately wanted / for herself?
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
4.0
My daughter’s girlfriend told me she read Shirley Jackson as a young teen, and Jackson instantly became her favorite author. I had never read any Jackson at all, so I bought this collection and read them all. Folks, I have questions. No, just kidding. These stories are superb. So very cynical. But superb. I am a little surprised a teenage girl would consider these her favorite stories. But that’s a good surprise.
All the Rivers by Dorit Rabinyan
4.0
This was recommended by my oldest child Isabel. It is a beautifully written introspective story set within a conflict I’m not educated enough to comment on. The book is excellent. The characters enter your heart and will not leave. Rabinyan is an expert and constructing a believable powerful romantic relationship.
Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
3.0
Kantor is an impeccable writer and this book is beautifully constructed. But it veers waaaaay too close to white southern apologia to be excusable in this the twenty-first century. I understand that Andersonville prison was a real place, and that the tragic events of the story are based in truth and worthy of examination. But Kantor’s sympathetic characters seem wholly unaware of the centuries of suffering they themselves have perpetuated leading up to the events of the story, and Kantor doesn’t seem to think it worth mentioning.
But other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Because yes, if you ignore that glaring detail the book is very good.
Machine by Elizabeth Bear
4.0
I read Elizabeth Bear’s wonderful short story Thanksgiving and immediately fell in love with it. So I decided to read one of her books. I think I picked this at random, and it turns out it is part of a series (and not the first). But that didn’t seem to matter.
The tone of this book is very different from Thanksgiving. It is much more of a straight-down-the-middle SciFi novel: suspenseful plot, diverse cast of characters, and a far out universe.
I enjoyed it a lot. It is fast-paced, fun, and imaginative. I especially loved the incredible diversity of sentient characters. She’s got humans, bugs, sentient trees, robots, and more. And many of these are deeply imagined and internally coherent. She imagines a universe full of complex cultural interactions, and a people who have learned to get along beautifully. It is quite a feat.
Silence by Shūsaku Endō
Artistically it is a remarkable achievement. Given the title, and the themes, it is unsurprising but delightful that the book is full of intricate sound detail. We hear, as much as see, the Japan the characters inhabit. In this way it reminds me of The Virgin Suicides, another book that makes heavy use of non-visual imagery. Consider this passage, for example, after the protagonist Rodrigues has witnessed the execution of a fellow prisoner. There are screams. And then the prison courtyard falls silent. Finally, we hear the cry of the cicada. As Rodrigues processes what he has witnessed we read:
Rodrigues wishes for some divine intervention in the form of a voice, or perhaps of thunder, but he is left with stillness. He is left with the natural world. It is powerful metaphor built around aural imagery. The book is full of this kind of thing.
And even more so his definition of sin:
I would give everything to live in a world where Christianity truly embraced these views.
5.0
This book shot straight onto my favorite books list. It is a fictional story based on historical events: it tells the story of Jesuit missionaries operating under intense government persecution in 17th century Japan. But it is really a book about doubt, faith, and a yearning for assurance. In this book, that takes the form of a desire to hear the voice of God. But while these characters are Christian, this is not a Christian book. At least it isn’t to me.
Artistically it is a remarkable achievement. Given the title, and the themes, it is unsurprising but delightful that the book is full of intricate sound detail. We hear, as much as see, the Japan the characters inhabit. In this way it reminds me of The Virgin Suicides, another book that makes heavy use of non-visual imagery. Consider this passage, for example, after the protagonist Rodrigues has witnessed the execution of a fellow prisoner. There are screams. And then the prison courtyard falls silent. Finally, we hear the cry of the cicada. As Rodrigues processes what he has witnessed we read:
Yet his perplexity did not come from the event that had happened so suddenly. What he could not understand was the stillness of the courtyard, the voice of the cicada, the whirling wings of the flies. A man had died. Yet the outside world went on as if nothing had happened. Could anything be more crazy? Was this martyrdom? Why are you silent? Here this one-eyed man has died—and for you. You ought to know. Why does this stillness continue? This noonday stillness. The sound of the flies—this crazy thing, this cruel business. And you avert your face as though indifferent. This … this I cannot bear.
Rodrigues wishes for some divine intervention in the form of a voice, or perhaps of thunder, but he is left with stillness. He is left with the natural world. It is powerful metaphor built around aural imagery. The book is full of this kind of thing.
I also admire Endō’s version of Christianity so much. Two lines best illustrate this. First, his vision of Christ:
Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.
And even more so his definition of sin:
Sin is not what it is usually thought to be. It is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious of the wounds he has left behind.
I would give everything to live in a world where Christianity truly embraced these views.
Silence is moving, powerful, thought-provoking, and exquisitely crafted.
Punks: New & Selected Poems by John Keene
And then proceeds to take this line seriously. It is a bold poem, and you will nod, scowl, and wonder.
Punks is large, powerful, and ambitious collection—the kind of book you can open to a random page, read, and be effected.
4.0
I heard John Keane interviewed about this book of poetry and ordered it right away. In the interview he read his remarkable poem Beatitudes which begins benignly:
Love Everything
And then proceeds to take this line seriously. It is a bold poem, and you will nod, scowl, and wonder.
Love the monster breeding inside you and slaughter him with love.
Love the shipwreck of your body, your mind’s salted garden.
Punks is large, powerful, and ambitious collection—the kind of book you can open to a random page, read, and be effected.
Augustus by John Williams
The phrase “It does not matter” is a recurring motif. It reduces the events of the story to footnotes, and in the process the characters are elevated.
Williams is a masterful writer. Each character writes with a distinctive voice, and you find youself feeling who is writing through voice alone. And the writing style is impeccable. I’m not versed enough it the world of Roman classics to identify this myself, but my child (who is) tells me Williams is using patterns here closely connected to Latin rhetorical style of the time.
I love this book enough to immediately listen to the audiobook. And I’m sure I’ll read it again.
5.0
Augustus is a perfectly written, surprisingly moving epistolary novel about the life of Caesar Augustus. Williams pulls off a magic trick here, telling an engrossing and compelling story of the first Emperor of Rome through personal drama. The world-altering historical events are a backdrop here. This is a book about the man and, to a lesser extent, his daughter.
The phrase “It does not matter” is a recurring motif. It reduces the events of the story to footnotes, and in the process the characters are elevated.
The despair that I have voiced seems to me now unworthy of what I have done. Rome is not eternal; it does not matter. Rome will fall; it does not matter. The barbarian will conquer; it does not matter. There was a moment of Rome.
Williams is a masterful writer. Each character writes with a distinctive voice, and you find youself feeling who is writing through voice alone. And the writing style is impeccable. I’m not versed enough it the world of Roman classics to identify this myself, but my child (who is) tells me Williams is using patterns here closely connected to Latin rhetorical style of the time.
Augustus has a core theme of inevitability: the inevitability of the Roman Empire itself, and its inevitable fall. And also of impermanence and perhaps even futility. These are surprising themes for a book about the rise of the empire.
Do they know that before us lies a road at the end of which is either death or greatness? The two words go around in my head, around and around, until it seems they are the same.
I love this book enough to immediately listen to the audiobook. And I’m sure I’ll read it again.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
4.0
My child Isabel was obsessed with these books as a pre-teen. But at the age where they wanted to read on their own. So I didn’t get to enjoy them with them. And I’d never read them myself. I can see why they loved them so much. Sweet feminist historical fiction. What’s not to love?