Ataraxia

  A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler I am not sure if I liked this better than Breathing Lessons, but I am inclined in favor of the latter, by the same excellent author After reading this good book, I thought about The Buddenbrooks and Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann. A Spool of Blue Thread is the story of a family, much like The Buddenbrooks and less like Joseph and His Brothers. The Whitshank family is at the center of the novel, with its (at times too) many relatives, orphans and ancestors. From the start I must say that I lost about a third of the story, when the plot moves on to Junior Whitshank. Abby might be in the eye of the storm, as the woman who seems to control her husband, Red to an important degree. She is the mother of three children and has adopted (in a strange, convoluted and secret way) a fourth, who is nicknamed Stem. The most intriguing and often obnoxious is Denny, albeit I must confess that I liked at least some of his attitudes. For instance, there ...

  The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler   I have read Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler about a year ago and enjoyed it very much. Then I found The Accidental Tourist on the Guardian list of 1000 books to read, listed under best humor…   I did not find the book particularly funny, in fact there is the shadow of a dead boy hanging over it, at least for me. Then there is the issue of the movie, inspired by the book, which presented an old problem for me: seeing instead of the characters the actors playing them: William Hurt, Kathleen Turner and I forgot who Muriel was…   There’s no denying the book is interesting and the passages on travel are sometimes fun to read: the way to cope with the unknown by going to familiar international chain restaurants (McDonalds?). Macon has a dog that needs training and this is when Muriel comes into the picture. I find her obnoxious at times, even if this is just a “Blink” feeling. I felt compassion for the dog that has to go through tra...

  Live Flesh by ruth Rendell is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, but it is only ranked 6409 th on the Greatest Books of All Time, it has just 134 reviews on Goodreads and more importantly for this obscure corner, it was not enjoyable for the under signed – you have thousands of reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other web pages on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws are radiant   6 out of 10   Malice Aforethought https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/05/malice-aforethought-by-anthony-berkeley.html is such a mesmerizing mystery novel that I have problems in accepting other works, such as Live Flesh…"It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Doctor Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter." These are the first words in Malice Aforethought and think how valiant this is   You know that Doctor Bickleigh wan...

  The Sportswriter by Richard Ford is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, just like Independence Day, by the same author, is included on that list, notwithstanding that, it is only 1637 th on the Greatest Books of All Time – it seemed to be one of my own Top 200 or so, but now I am not sure, who knows what I will say about it, by the end of this note – you have thousands of reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other web pages on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html   7 out of 10   I have written about The Sportswriter https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-sportswriter-by-richard-ford.html ‘When I first started to read The Sportswriter I was turned off by the gloomy, tragic atmosphere of the novel…’ then I thought it is wonderful, when trying it for the first time, and now I am back in between   This novel should be set aside, it may be a barometer, I have been somewhat depress...

  Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1931, although it is rated an astonishingly low 11449 th on The Greatest Books of All Time site, I liked it, even if I was not ecstatic about it, especially when it got too long, winding on beyond the point where it should have stopped – you find thousands of reviews on magnum opera from the GOAT and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, if you care to visit   8 out of 10   I remember a critique made by Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/03/take-girl-like-you-by-magister-ludi.html regarding the ‘Checkoff formula: you take a lot of characters, all miserable because of something they won't do, and let them talk without influencing each other for three acts, and at the last moment you introduce some arbitrary calamity, or some proposed change like a return to Petrograd or a holi...

  The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope Not really bad, but not overwhelming either I did not take this story too much at heart. In fact, I was hesitating: -            Is this a children’s or teenagers’? -            I am still not sure, albeit there are arguments for all options… There is a note on this tale that says that it gave the start to a type of novel or film where the action takes place in a fictional country: -            The Ruritanian romance The first film in this genre that comes to mind is The Prince and the Show Girl, with a couple of extraordinary leads: -            Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, two greats that did not get along as we learn from other films and accounts of the production -            The Princ...