Member: lyzadanger

I appreciated your review of What We Believe but Cannot Prove.

posted by Iacobus at 7:13 pm (EST) on Dec 22, 2011

Hi, Lyza,
I don't get around to checking out your LT page often, but while entering the Seamus Heaney Beowulf to my own collection, I saw your mention of John Gardner's Grendel. I love that book, too. I think Maggie has read it; I seem to remember her telling me that each chapter was linked to a sign of the zodiac. ] didn't pick up on that when I read it in the 1970s. Also, I'm in total agreement with you about The Alchemist. It's pretentious and preachy and not all that original.
--Mom

posted by frannyor at 8:00 pm (EST) on Aug 31, 2011

Thanks for your review of Aeneid. After leaving it years ago in high school Latin thanks to Gutenberg, I plan to have another stab at it. We had no context whatsoever and it seemed that it went on and on and on about libations.

posted by carterchristian1 at 3:08 pm (EST) on May 2, 2010

From Frank Delaney: Thank you for reviewing Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show. To have one's work receive such thoughtful and intelligent attention is a true pleasure. In this new democracy we call the blogosphere, I'm assuming that all the old bets are off and we authors can now engage with those who write about our work - hence his comment. Which is: Your dear Irish aunts can relax! This book is built largely on satire and I fear I may have ignored the old directive that satire must be laid on with a brush and not applied with a pencil. (Your comments gave me the reward of remembering this: we don't always learn from our reviewers.) Thus your aunts can come to understand that in fact I'm lampooning (if perhaps too gently at times) all that I myself have found, shall we say, "difficult" about my native land (my journalism has been far angrier). This will also help to explain my point that far from writing for any audience, I write for myself - I have no other intention and would never patronise any audience, American or other, by playing to them. By way of proof that I write for myself, there are quotes from, hommages to, more than thirty mythologies throughout the novel, and many, many little slaps of pastiche. Again, thank you so much - I enjoy your reviews, and I was especially arrested (not surprisingly) by this one; it was full of insight.

posted by frankdelaney at 3:43 pm (EST) on Mar 3, 2010

I saw your review of Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. Just wondering if you had read his Anathem novel?

posted by briandarvell at 6:11 am (EST) on Oct 4, 2009

Noticed that you liked The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in reviewing my new novel and posting your comments here (as well as on a few other book-related sites). I thought you might like my novel since it's been compared to that novel by a number of reviewers. I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary in case you're interested:

http://christophertusa.com/

Thanks,

Chris

posted by cmtusa at 11:53 am (EST) on Apr 17, 2009

Life is....
by Mother Theresa

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

posted by theoldman at 7:59 am (EST) on Mar 7, 2009

Hi Lyza - I would like to add you to my Interesting Libraries as I have been reading some of your reviews and I like them! We are both in the Group Reads - Literature group which I have just joined which is how I came across you. Looking forward to Pale Fire.

We disagree about Jane Eyre but are in sync on the Alchemist and I completely understand where you're coming from on Midnight's Children - my brother had the same reaction, although I must confess that I, contrary to expectations, ended up thoroughly enjoying it.

Anyway, I'd like to see what you're up to every now and then, bookwise. Hope you don't mind.

Pummz

posted by Pummzie at 8:37 am (EST) on Feb 25, 2009

I just finished Out Stealing Horses and wanted to let you know that I enjoyed your review. I was very impressed with this book and loved the style, the long simply discribed scenes of completing a task or describing a setting. This is a book I will think about for a few days before jumping into to something else. I noticed that you read The Sea by John Blanville. I thought these books had some interesting similarities: the death of a spouse led to going back to a childhood residence, the narrator reviewing the events of his childhood that made a lasting change in his life, etc. Anyway thanks for the review; your insights were appreciated.

posted by novelcommentary at 5:08 pm (EST) on Dec 10, 2008

I just finished Out Stealing Horses and wanted to let you know that I enjoyed your review. I was very impressed with this book and loved the style, the long simply discribed scenes of completing a task or describing a setting. This is a book I will think about for a few days before jumping into to something else. I noticed that you read The Sea by John Blanville. I thought these books had some interesting similarities: the death of a spouse led to going back to a childhood residence, the narrator reviewing the events of his childhood that made a lasting change in his life, etc. Anyway thanks for the review; your insights were appreciated.

posted by novelcommentary at 5:08 pm (EST) on Dec 10, 2008

Your review on Midnight's Children captures exactly what I thought too! Thanks for posting it.

posted by Nickelini at 6:20 pm (EST) on Sep 2, 2008

Lyza,
Just had to leave a compliment. I, too, am overrun with books as they now create aisles within my house. The TBR piles have run amok. My compliment is for your reviews; I am utterly envious of how brilliantly you articulate a book's weaknesses and strengths. Can't wait to read more! Just finished Monsters of Templeton and felt you hit every nail on the head. (Alas, I am cursed with weak and hackneyed metaphors.....)

posted by GirlMisanthrope at 11:04 pm (EST) on Aug 12, 2008

Flattered that you find my library interesting. I once had the pleasure to be in Powell's, but it was during a 24 hour layover and I could only buy one book because my bags were packed and had no room.

posted by OldSarge at 6:48 am (EST) on Jun 11, 2008

Hiya Lyza, I started with The Windup Bird Chronicles and moved on from there. Some of the other books are quite different but still uniquely Murakami but TWBC has elements of all of them. So I would say you're on the right track. Hope you enjoy it!

posted by klarusu at 2:57 am (EST) on Jun 7, 2008

Hi - Thanks for adding my library to your "interesting libraries" list. It is a pretty odd assortment, but I enjoy almost any kind of nonfiction. I hope you find some interesting ideas for your TBR list - I know I have found many while perusing other libraries here.

posted by oregonobsessionz at 9:54 am (EST) on May 8, 2008

Hi Lyza,

I just read your comments on Manguel's book about Homer. I have had the same thoughts about Homer, feeling I have to find out more. But I did not go to Manguel's book for it (I may yet) but got from The Teaching Company audio courses by Professor Elizabeth Vandiver, one on Odyssey and one on Iliad. Since I spend a lot of time every day in the car, commuting to work, I have loved the format and each course of 12 lectures is spectacular, presented by a most knowledgeable professor. This might give you more insight if you wish it. The Teaching Company has its own site and the courses are frequently available inexpensively on Ebay. I could also be persuaded to lend them to you.

posted by polutropos at 11:45 am (EST) on Mar 29, 2008

Hi there. Liked your review of the Iliad. Don't forget that the reason we 'know' everything but don't hear it in the Iliad is because the Iliad is one part of a 12 part Epic Cycle, most of which is lost. The Odyssey is the only other part we still have. Effectively, the only reason we 'know' anything about the remainder of these myths is because parts of it are reported in later sources, such as imperial Roman or later Classical Greek sources (think Aeschylus's Orestia). If we didn't have those later retellings either, we wouldn't know about the rest of the myth. Also, we really don't know whether these retellings were accurate in the first place! All incredibly fascinating stuff, no?

posted by notmyrealname at 7:57 am (EST) on Mar 17, 2008

Hi Lyza -- I like your reviews and found I basically agreed with them on the books we have in common -- I, Claudius; Vanity Fair; Thirteen Moons -- to name a few I've recently read. Jen

posted by jhowell at 9:51 am (EST) on Feb 28, 2008

Hi, Lyza. I really liked and resonated with your review of A Long Way Gone. I read it last summer, and found it disturbing...not just by its subject matter, which I think is true and horrific, but by Beah. There just seemed to be something fishy there -- maybe all that did happen to him, or maybe he added into his experiences some that he saw or happened around him. It was a lack of affect, I think, that was hardest for me to grasp. I also read a similar, but I thought much better, book along the same lines, What is the What? by Dave Eggers about one of the Sudanese "Lost Boys." Here the person's soul and spirit were really engaged in the story, though it was fictionalized and written by a very gifted professional writer, which may have been the difference between the two books. I also thought the main character's Christian faith in What is the What? made a huge difference, both in what happened and in the telling of it. Martha Huntley

posted by MarthaHuntley at 9:25 pm (EST) on Nov 26, 2007

Lyza, this is your Irish aunt here, just set up my account (1 book). Love your picture. C.

posted by corklizard at 8:47 am (EST) on Apr 21, 2007