Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex edited by Melvin Jules Bukiet. Recommended. “Witness the people of the book, in bed.” Thus editor Melvin Jules Bukiet invites the reader into the intimacies of Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex. In this collection, everyone from Saul Bellow, … Continue reading →
Nothing But You: Love Stories from the New Yorker ed. by Roger Angell. Not recommended. Earlier in 2002, I had read Victorian Love Stories: An Oxford Anthology edited by Kate Flint, a wonderful, imaginative anthology that covers the gamut of … Continue reading →
On the Rez by Ian Frazier. Highly recommended. If you are looking for structure and pat solutions to contemporary Native American problems, you won’t find them in On the Rez by Ian Frazier. Like the reservation life and stories it reveals, On the Rez is rambling … Continue reading →
Pagan’s Crusade by Catherine Jinks. New York: Collins. 2004. 272 pages. I learned about Pagan’s Crusade on a medieval history list, where a poster recommended it for young adults. Pagan, a 16-year-old product of war rape who arises from the grimy underbelly of … Continue reading →
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. Recommended. Combination lengthy kvetch and documentation of a fictional psychiatric disorder, Portnoy’s Complaint addresses the narrator’s life as a first-generation American Jew and an oversexed male. As both, Alexander Portnoy is unable to reconcile his desire for the American … Continue reading →
Priestess of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2002. 416 pages. Set mainly outside Britannia, Priestess of Avalon marks a departure from Bradley’s Avalon series and the buildup to the Matter of Britain. Bradley and Paxson trace … Continue reading →
Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood by Naomi Wolf. Not recommended. Female coming of age. Female desire and sexuality. Feminism. Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood attempts to address these issues in the context of Naomi Wolf’s own coming of age in the 1970s. … Continue reading →
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Highly recommended. Rebecca is a mystery novel in which nearly every character makes false assumptions that lead to false conclusions. From the catty and gauche widow Mrs. Van Hopper to the suave widower Maxim de Winter, nearly everyone … Continue reading →
Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony by Lee Miller. Not recommended. Armed with a master’s degree in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University, Lee Miller tries to combine history with the arts of the novelist and dramatist. Not successfully, as she … Continue reading →
Sherlock Holmes and the Thistle of Scotland by L. B. (Pamela) Greenwood. New York: Pocket Books, 1990. 208 pages. It’s been many years since I read the Sherlock Holmes canon, so I may not be the best qualified to judge the … Continue reading →