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Erika (17789 KP) rated We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence in Books

Feb 6, 2021

I'm not going to lie, I hardcore DNF this book after suffering through 30-ish%. It was advertised as being about a murder at Harvard, and that it may have been a professor. That sounded so interesting.
But no, I got a semi-autobiographical book about the paranoid, slightly-off her rocker author. She re-enrolls at Harvard, takes said professor's classes and tries to solve the case.
Surprisingly, that's not this book's biggest problem. The biggest issue with this book, other than being boring AF, is that this case was solved with longer overdue DNA testing... and completely proved the author's theory wrong. However, even though this book was published after, she still continues on her crusade. It was odd that they went ahead and published it, since it was all incorrect, incoherent babbling.

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Zadie Smith recommended Pnin in Books (curated)

Pnin

Vladimir Nabokov | 2000 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry

(0 Ratings)

Book Favorite

"This novella is explicitly a book about ridicule and caricature—Professor Pnin is a joke of a man on a college campus. He’s an awkward Russian émigré with bad English, false teeth, a clumsy sense of humor, a tendency to burst into tears or take offense at small slights. Everybody on campus can do an impression of him. He’s a clown. But at the core of the book is the idea that there is a Pnin who is as real as the people who ridicule him. You are invited to laugh at him, and then you are humbled and shamed by your own laughter. It’s a gorgeous, hilarious, humane book that uncovers the reality of a man’s life in sly, piecemeal fashion. I think it’s my favorite novel."

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The Chocolate Lady (94 KP) rated Naming the Bones in Books

Oct 7, 2020

Louise Welsh knows how to intrigue her readers and, like any good mystery writer, gives them enough twists and turns to keep them interested to the last page. But instead of using a professional (like investigator or detective) to get to the bottom of this story, she puts the research in the hands of a Professor of Literature on sabbatical, trying to write the story of his favourite poet's brief life for a book. Using this as the basis of the story, the people in his life also get tangled into the strange circumstances of the poet's life and death. For people like myself, who don't care much for the mystery genre, Welsh proves once again that you don't need to be a fan to enjoy her works.