Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
Wesker is a fluffy, long-haired black cat with yellow eyes. Aloof and rare, she does not particularly like snuggles — though she is getting soft in her old age. She’s the oldest of the cats, and easily the most mature.
Wesker has always been independent. Hargrave’s first child, she’s the least spoiled cat of the bunch. She’s a black cat but she’s never brought anything but good luck to this house.
If you can throw a string, Wesker will chase it. The highest honour she can bestow is to climb on the sofa or the counter and groom your hair. And, if you’re really lucky, sometimes she’ll bring you a toy.
But only after she’s let you know that she’s bringing it by meowing loudly from a distant room.
It’s a short, but compelling novel that is masterfully written for maximum impact. Larsen’s prose is incisive, blunt, and yet at the same time has a poetic flow and keeps the narrative driving forward smoothly but quickly. A perfect one-afternoon read. This is a review of Passing.
The art of good, compelling dialogue is as essential as it is elusive. In this book, the words and conversations flow out in a smooth, natural way and with a language that is never awkward or forced. This is a review of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.
I’ve been reading classic literature since I was very young, but the work of Austen was a blind spot for me. Mostly, that had to do with the way acquaintances pushed me to read them. Bright. Sparkly. Light. Romantic. Those are not the words that draw me to literature. They also weren’t the entire picture of either the novels or the author. This is a review of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the term ‘Grand Guignol’ as it is used as a description for a modern film or novel. It was actually a theatre in Paris. This is a review of Maurice Level’s Thirty Hours with a Corpse.
I’ll always remember the hospital and the hospital basement as one of the settings of my childhood. I spent a lot of time there and listening to my mother’s stories of what it’s like to work in healthcare. This is a review of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward.
For a few years, starting when I was twelve or thirteen I followed the same ritual on Friday nights. Right after dinner, as dusk was falling, I’d walk to the mall across the street and enter the store, making a beeline to my favourite section — the horror movies. This is a review of Ray Russell’s The Case Against Satan.
Though the novel is complete in terms of narrative, it’s not exactly finished per se. There’s a note in front of my edition that explains that the decision was made to publish the work because reading as much of Camus’ as possible helps readers and scholars understand who Camus was as a writer and his process. This is a review of A Happy Death.
In some modernist novels that I’ve read, I’ve noticed a particular trade-off that sometimes happens between form and narrative. I was pleased to see that Arno Schmidt is a writer that can perform the delicate balancing act without leaving the narrative behind to do so. This is a review of Nobodaddy’s Children.
A Story About A Real Man is about a man that actually existed — hence the title. Alexei Maresyev was a Soviet pilot that fought in the second world war and suffered a double amputation. This is a review of Boris Polevoy’s novel.
I’m going to admit it right off the bat, Doctor Faustus is not an easy read. For the first three hundred pages it is a difficult slog up an impossible mountain that one cannot see the peak of. This a review of Thomas Mann’s magnum opus.
