Reviews and Comments

roxdub

roxdub@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 6 months ago

She/her/elle

Reader, writer. Liseuse, écriveuse.

Reading a mix of French and English books, mostly fiction, some classics and poetry, Canadian contemporary, sci-fi, socialist, and more.

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Octavia E. Butler: Wild Seed (Paperback, 1981, Pocket)

Radical classic

This book tells the story of the relationship between Doro and Anyanwu, two beings with special powers - very different powers - and how they choose to use them. Wild Seed is a classic, one that is much needed in these times of crisis. Significant and radical.

reviewed The tour of the world in eighty days by Jules Verne (The best novels of Jules Verne -- v. 2)

Jules Verne: The tour of the world in eighty days (1900, P.F. Collier)

Phileas Fogg, a very punctual man had broken into an argument while conversing about the …

Charming and accessible

A short and happy travel book I read at a time when traveling was not in the realm of possibilities (ie pandemic). You already know the story, but have you read the book? It is the comical tale of a man who tries to win a bet by traveling around the world in eighty days, and ends up finding love along the way. Charming and accessible.

Leo Tolstoy: La guerre et la paix (French language, 2010, Éditions Points)

"War and Peace centers broadly on Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three …

An epic classic

For many years, I have been working through a rather long list of literary classics in chronological order of publication. I have reached the late 1800s, and it just so happened that the start of 2021 coincided with La Guerre et la Paix, or War and Peace (1869) by Leo Tolstoy. Looking back, it seems like a completely unreasonable project for me to start the year with such a dense classic. This book spans more than 1600 pages and features more than 500 characters. Lockdown life demanded ambitious personal goal-setting, and so I did what I could to stay the course.

Every day, I opened my beautiful green paper edition of this novel and read a few short chapters. War and Peace is the historical and philosophical novel by excellence. It narrates the invasion of Russia by France, and alternates between scenes of military conflict and high society. The complex …

reviewed What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

Omar El Akkad: What Strange Paradise (2021, Pan Macmillan)

Memorable and important

A book that dives into the migrant crisis like few others do. The story begins when bodies wash up on the shores of a small island. In alternating chapters, the situation unfolds either from the perspective of young migrant Amir, or from the perspective of the girl who shelters him, speaks a different language, and zigzags around the authorities to keep him safe. A beautiful and difficult book, haunting and devastating, that navigates a political and personal storyline.