Catch-22, Still Catching 52 Years Later
I’ve just finished listening to the Audible reading of Joseph Heller’s famous novel, Catch-22. The reader Jay O. Sanders is wonderful. The …
Category Archives: Fiction
Paradise of the Blind, a Novel from Vietnam, Duong Thu Huong
Paradise of the Blind (1988) is Duong Thu Huong’s second serious novel, following a series of popular short stories, a novel …
Burmese Days, George Orwell, 1934
Burma was the land of mystery in my youth. Daring men who fought in secret wars in dark green and …
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, Vietnam
Bao Ninh’s convention shattering novel of war, The Sorrow of War, (1991/1994) opens at war’s end. Kien is in the …
Cambodia: Through a Thief’s Eyes
The first I ever heard of Angkor Wat’s fabulous temple complex was reading Andre Malraux at a young age, probably …
The Life of Pi: To Believe or Not to Believe
I am trying to understand why I came out grumpy rather than enthused from Ang Lee’s spectacular CGI movie, The …
Girl By the Road at Night: Misery Writ Small
Girl By the Road at Night (2010) by David Rabe, a highly praised playwright and author of several other novels, …
Novel Without A Name: of Vietnam, A Man, A Country and A War
Beginning to prepare for a February trip to South East Asia I do what I always do — read. What …
Oblomov: The Greatest Russian Novel You’ve Never Heard Of
1842 to 1880: what a forty years for readers of literary masterworks! Beginning with Gogol’s Dead Souls and ending with …
Under Fire: A French Novel of WW I Trenches
Although All Quiet on the Western Front is the best known, and possibly the best written, novel of soldiers …
A Farewell to Arms, or Not? WW I Through American Eyes
Pop the question: “WW I fiction?” and 10 out of 10 who have an answer at all will say “A …
Generals Die in Bed: A Novel from WW I
Generals Die in Bed (1930) is a slender and undeservedly little known novel from WW I, by Canadian-American, Charles Yale Harrison …