3 posts tagged “historical fiction”

I finished reading Encyclopedia of An Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal last night.  I thought it was a very cool book. She has a way of being funny, endearing, snarky, and bit wacky without seeming like she's trying too hard. She's unpretentious, and I really like that.

I'm still working on Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. And I *will* finish that damned book, come hell or high water!

Next up, The Known World by Edward P. Jones.

I've just finished reading The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl. I enjoyed this book immensely. I think it was brilliant of Pearl to craft a Poe-esque tale about a Poe devotee who becomes consumed with uncovering the mystery surrounding the final days of Poe's life and the circumstances of his death. I've been enjoying historical fiction a great deal this year, and this is by far the most satisfying, engrossing novel I've read in this genre recently. I highly recommend it, especially if you enjoy historical fiction and/or Edgar Allen Poe. I've not yet read his first novel, The Dante Club, but it is on my to-be-read list now.

 

I finished reading Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augusten Burroughs Sunday afternoon. That puts me 60% of the way toward my 50 book goal for 2006. Whee!

This is the first book of his that I've read, and I adore his sarcastic, mean, ego-centric way of looking at the world. I can only hope to achieve this in my own head, let alone in my writing.

 

Now I'm reading The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl. It's good so far. I've been on a big historical fiction kick this year, and I adore Poe, so it seemed like a natural choice. I'm also reading Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. It is taking me a while to get through it, as I find it rather dense, but it is fascinating.