Simone Oltolina

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/18314981266/alfred-kubin-the-other-side

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/20773176024/the-architect-of-ruins-by-herbert-rosendorfer

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/25785140073/youssef-ziedan-azazeel

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/26281115214/colum-mccann-let-the-great-world-spin

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/17085586598/death-in-spring-by-merce-rodoreda

So Eleanor Catton wrote one of those thrillers you buy at the airport.

The literary equivalent of a TikTok micro-aesthetic...and just about as essential.

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/30949062647/julian-barnes-flauberts-parrot

Four stars, on account of the beautiful language and the decency of keeping an otherwise unremarkable story short.

Now go read “Blood Meridian”, which sits on another level, entirely.

Loved the correspondence between Peter Weiss and Hermann Hesse. Hated this impossibly tedious piece of non-fiction masquerading as a novel. Sorry.

I honestly don't get the hype surrounding this novel. Is the author part of a clique of glitterati? The language is not particularly beautiful, the plot is barely there, stretched over too many pages, and the themes are, again, nothing to go crazy about.

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/29414731134/bring-up-the-bodies-hilary-mantel

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/16697489202/the-night-circus-erin-morgenstern

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/19633212900/jeffrey-eugenides-the-marriage-plot

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/22036750714/christopher-priest-the-islanders

http://etcetcetcetc.tumblr.com/post/24277432951/chad-harbach-the-art-of-fielding

Look, I get it: it's important, it's lyrical, it does magical things with language but, beware, it's mind-numbingly boring.