Before Night Falls
Penguin Vitae editions are easy to love and to gush over. The colours! The foil text! The hardcover, in a comfortable size!
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky is a little monster of a calico tabby. A very active cat, she is Hargrave’s little snicker-snack. She’s the third youngest kitten and has a very silky coat.
Hargrave adopted Jabberwocky from a shelter as a kitten. She was playful, adorable, and had big green eyes. She also didn’t sleep. After several 4AM wake-ups, Jabbers had to be trained to go to bed at a certain time. Even as an adult, she still goes to bed every night.
A valued member of the thieves guild, Jabberwocky will steal anything not nailed down. Her sister’s kibbles? Stolen. Pen on the table? Knocked off. Chair you wanted to sit in? Taken.
Despite being very hyper and never sleeping, Jabbers is also rather lazy. She loves to run after a toy as much as she loves to stuff herself and fall asleep on someone’s lap. It’s a contradiction she’ll never resolve.
Goodbye to Berlin
Reading Isherwood brings you into a moment in history, and there’s something really powerful and rare about that.
The Flowers of Buffoonery and The Beggar Student
I do love a short novel. Not only do they reliably help me out of even the most prolonged of reading slumps, but short novels are where writers really shine. It takes a lot of skill to craft a narrative that is tight but still full of intent and power.
Voices of the Fallen Heroes
When you read these stories, it’s easy to start looking for threads of his eventual fate or at least the mental state that led to it. Are they there? Yes, but they are subtle.
I Am Not Ashamed
If you don’t know who Barbara Payton was, you are forgiven. I was actually introduced to her and her book through Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley on TCM, and a screening of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, a 1950 James Cagney film.
Dorothy Parker in Hollywood
I came late to the work of Dorothy Parker and I came to it in a piecemeal way that I think many modern readers come to it. Honestly, I knew more about the saga of Parker’s mortal remains being stored in a filing cabinet for decades than I did about her.
The Lover
While the book is called The Lover, I would argue that it’s not much about the lover at all.
Brother, I’m Dying
It’s really a story of two fathers, since it was her uncle that became her father when Danticat was left behind by her parents as they established themselves in America.
Inherit the Wind
Lawrence and Lee make a powerful statement about what it means to stand up for what is right in the face of an overpowering multitude fixed on carrying on in the wrong.
Jolly Festive, Jeeves
I was expecting, based on the title, to get a collection of purely Christmas, party, winter holiday, or holiday stories here. Instead, the book contains thirteen tales organized by month with two for December. Also? They are not all from the Jeeves and Wooster universe.