Quibble Quarterly

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: Unaccustomed Earth

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:04:41 -0800

Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth Lahiri writes stories of immigrant displacement, from the point-of-view of Bengali-Americans. I'm always a little surprised at the depth of that displaced feeling in her works--I understand the second generation...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: The Northern Clemency

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:04:04 -0800

Philip Hensher, The Northern Clemency Amazon.com reckoned this was the book of the year. My opinion is not so lofty, though I did zip through fairly happily. The Northern Clemency reads a little like what Dickens would write, if he were writing ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: The Lazarus Project

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:00:18 -0800

Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project It's neither here nor there, the tenuous life of the immigrant--"there" has been left behind, and "here" the immigrant is not yet--maybe never will be entirely--at home. Hemon is a neither-here-nor-there, fo...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: Atmospheric Disturbances

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:58:26 -0800

Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances Writing "crazy," like acting "drunk," is too often done sloppily and stereotypically, with tics we all recognize but no sense of how the individual personality influences--perhaps even necessitates--the sy...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: Yesterday's Weather

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:56:43 -0800

Anne Enright, Yesterday's Weather Once in a while you finish something and immediately think, "Ooh, I'd like to do that again." The unread book tower having now reached six stories, I rarely reread, but I was tempted, with Enright's short fictio...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: Fieldwork

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:55:27 -0800

Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork As the observer effect in physics has it, looking at an object can change it, so the truth depends on who's looking. Certainly detectives, novelists, and ethnographers know that eyewitnesses and narrators are unreliab...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: Life Class

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:53:05 -0800

Pat Barker, Life Class WWII was so massive--in geography, in lives lost and damaged, in ongoing impact on how we talk about war and politics and culture--that is has largely obscured its predecessor. And that's terrible, because the first world ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: When Will There Be Good News?

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:51:51 -0800

Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News? Recently I saw a band list itself as Healing & Easy Listening/Folk/Ghettotech, and thought: I haven't heard you and never will, because that's just ass. Librarians and store clerks and shoppers like ...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Fiction: The White Tiger

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:49:39 -0800

Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger Novels set in India tend to fall into one of two camps: (1) Bollywood fabulist, all about color, costume, fantasy, romance, and (2) Dickensian dire, all about poverty, brutality, a struggle that often comes down to...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Favorite books of 2008: Nonfiction

nobody@vox.com(Quibble) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:41:52 -0800

Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be Frightened Of Nobody wants to die, but Julian Barnes really freaks out at the prospect of death; he is entirely unreconciled to it. And honestly, why wouldn't you be? Despite the people who declare, with a put-upon ai...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend