Skip to content

Old Paper & Cats

Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews

  • Reviews
  • Cats
  • U.P. Cat
  • Instagram

1972

The year of 1972 CE.

This time is part of the Contemporary.

You are viewing 1972 reviews.

You can view all other eras/movements, or you can search by language/region, genre, editor/translator, book authors, or year of edition.


Short Letter, Long Farewell

Peter Handke
ContemporaryLiterature

Short Letter, Long Farewell

Short Letter, Long Farewell is heavily influenced by film noir. The plot does not drive forward in a straight line, but the one element that does provide consistent momentum is the narrator’s attempts to escape his ex-wife.

May 13, 2024May 12, 2024 by S. Hargrave — Comment on Short Letter, Long Farewell

The Mad and the Bad

Jean-Patrick Manchette
Contemporary French Crime

The Mad and the Bad

You know just enough about the characters — no more, no less. You are provided with just enough background information. It keeps the story tight and moves things along in ways that longer works often struggle with. Perhaps if you look closely you can see the traces of a formula, but it is applied so skillfully that it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment or impact of the narrative.

July 3, 2023July 2, 2023 by S. Hargrave — Comment on The Mad and the Bad

The Book of Blam

Aleksandar Tišma
Contemporary Serbian Literature

The Book of Blam

Tišma makes death a haunting presence, coming in and out of focus, receding and approaching. It is always there and always palpable, and is never far away.

September 27, 2021September 27, 2021 by S. Hargrave — Comment on The Book of Blam
A towering stack of old books. The Old Paper & Cats icon.

Recent Reviews

  • Airless Spaces
  • The Flowers of Buffoonery and The Beggar Student
  • Voices of the Fallen Heroes
  • Written on Water
  • Hollywood Babylon
  • I Am Not Ashamed
  • Adventures in the Screen Trade
  • The Devil’s Candy
  • Dorothy Parker in Hollywood
  • The Lover

Books by Themes

Centenarians Diversity Essentials Favourites Film Ghosts Gothic Halloween Plague Books Road Trip Winter Holidays Women Authors

Books by Genre

Adventure Children's Literature Comedy Crime Epistolary Essay Gonzo Journalism Horror Journalism Literature Memoir Mystery Noir Non-Fiction Poetry Romance Short Story Theatre

Books by Era

19th Century 20th Century 1894 1919 1929 1935 1937 1939 1940 1941 1945 1946 1947 1954 1955 1957 1959 1962 1963 1964 1965 1967 1968 1969 1971 1972 1974 1977 1978 1979 1983 1985 1986 1988 1991 1993 1994 1996 1998 1999 2003 Contemporary Cross-Era Interwar Wartime

Books by Region

American Australian Belarusian Belgian Brazilian Canadian Chinese Czech Danish Dutch French German Greek Haitian Hungarian International Italian Jamaican Japanese Mexican Polish Russian Serbian Swiss Taiwanese UK Ukranian Vietnamese

Books by Author

Alberto Moravia Alexander Pushkin Charles Dickens Chester Himes Daphne du Maurier David Goodis Denis Johnson Dorothy B Hughes Dylan Thomas Edith Wharton Elias Canetti Erich Maria Remarque Fyodor Dostoevsky Gil Courtemanche Helen Garner Henry Bean Hunter S. Thompson James Baldwin James M. Cain James Weldon Johnson Jerome Lawrence Joan Didion Kenneth Grahame Margaret Kennedy Margaret Millar Martha Dickinson Bianchi Osamu Dazai Patricia Highsmith Rainer Maria Rilke Richard Wright Robert E Lee Robert Graves Roch Carrier Shel Silverstein Simone de Beauvoir SJ Perelman Sylvia Plath Tim O'Brien Timothy Findley Various Walter Kempowski William Lindsay Gresham Yukio Mishima Zora Neale Hurston Ágota Kristóf

Cats

A black cats with yellow eyes, sitting primly.
Wesker
A slightly overweight fawn tabby and some book stacks.
Bubastis
A calico tabby sits with its paws in the sunshine.
Jabberwocky
An orange tabby cat looks towards the ground.
Bandersnatch
A tortoiseshell cat sits primly with her paws together and holds her head high. She's wearing a golden bow tie with black-and-white polka dot accents.
Rusalka
© 2025 S. Hargrave from The Ugly Porcelain Cat