Presented here in all their glory, and in order from first to last, are my losing entries for the TLS tweet-a-book-review contest. A good time was had by all, I think, even though one week’s ringer, I mean winner, actually writes for the TLS. I know!
Here’s to Alex Drace-Francis (@AlexDrace), who was singled out by the TLS for honorable mentions three weeks in a row, and the impressively prolific Basant (@KangriCarrier), whose thumbs by now must be tweeted to the bone. As for me, I managed to snag honorable mentions for my first two entries (special thanks to @kmziegler for the assist with Middlemarch). All gems, though.
- Middlemarch’s characters struggle with cages. A book for the ages, sages, and rages. It has 800 pages, so read it in stages.
- #Why read #TheSecretAgent? Because #Conrad’s #narrator & #pov mercilessly track the #crosshatching of #personal & #political lives.
- #TheHouseofMirth: Detailed, gracefully tragic internal portraits of lives ruined by twittering gossip and the duplicity of the rich.
- The only mystery about Lady Audley’s Secret is why anyone would read it.
- Not that you won’t enjoy, in bits, with #TheSacredFount, the contest, but as James himself writes, “you after all then now don’t.”
- “Janet! Donkies!” Don’t dare set critical hoof on David Copperfield. A life closely observed twice in one book. In short, radiant.
- How did Mark Twain become a great writer/river boat pilot? By learning to read the scene and the unseen. #lifeonthemississippi
- Some books, like some dames, play hard to get. But The Big Sleep struck me like a cop walking into a bar and saying ouch. I got it.
- I wanted to get through The Lord of the Rings, I really did, but I didn’t find it Hobbit-forming.
- Whan that April with his tweeties soote/The texts of March hath perced to the roote/…Than longen folk to goon on Instagram.
