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RC2017: The Tsar of Love and Techno
The stories in Anthony Marra’s The Tsar of Love and Techno could sturdily stand on their own – but after reading them together you will wish for them never to be separated. I added this book to my 2017 Reading Challenge per a recommendation from book reviewer and blogger FictionFan, who highly recommends the audiobook (I read a physical copy), and I’m so glad I did.
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From My Bookshelf: Best, Fantastic, Critical
Welcome to the second installment of this feature I introduced last month. At the moment, or previous to this writing, I filled my brain with information about tile games for a work assignment, and added more to my discussion of The Fireman which I want to do be done with but feel I’ll never do justice. So I’m using this as a little break, to talk about three books from my shelves.
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Summer Reading Challenge 2016: The Pier Falls and Other Stories
There’s nothing better than a summertime read that so thoroughly describes the tragic, horrific event of an ocean pier falling and taking human life with it. The title of this short story collection by Mark Haddon (and consequently, the title of the first of these stories) is so simplistic, so matter of fact, yet no detail between the covers goes untouched. The first moments of the pier’s destruction to ten years after are well constructed, and while the scenes can be difficult to read, not reading is even more grueling.
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Nothing Gold Can Stay | 2016 Reading Challenge
These stories by Ron Rash are hard-hitting, inquisitive, and conclude with abrupt endings that frustrate, satisfy, and sometimes only led me to wonder if I understood any part of the story that came before. From a story about a couple short on luck to one about runaway slaves during the Civil War, to a girl befriending a pair of hippies and a rural town draining a pond, the range and depth of the book’s contents stretches into a plethora of corners of the imagination and societal affairs in the southern Appalachians.