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michaelhartford

michaelhartford

Currently reading

Shelter Half
Carol Bly
The Bee-Loud Glade
Steve Himmer
Today
March
29
Carol Bly
Steve Himmer
April 2011
17
reviewed: The Magicians: A Novel
Lev Grossman’s The Magicians offers a fantasy world cribbed heavily (and quite openly) from the Harry Potter and Narnia books...
The Magicians - Lev Grossman
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March 2011
19
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January 2011
16
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January 2011
01
reviewed: Hull Zero Three
Full review here ... Greg Bear's Hull Zero Three is science fiction at its best: it is shaped by big ideas, is filled with te...
Hull Zero Three - Greg Bear
finished reading:
November 2010
27
reviewed: The Word for World is Forest
Reading Le Guin’s novella “The Word for World is Forest” in 2010, it’s hard not to draw the parallels with James Cameron’s “A...
The Word for World is Forest - Ursula K. Le Guin
finished reading:
November 2010
21
reviewed: The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans
As a “Holocaust detective story,” The Lampshade has few actual clues. Jacobson has a DNA profile made at the lab that identif...
The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans - Mark Jacobson
finished reading:
October 2010
21
reviewed: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
Though I enjoyed the book very much, I found that its style kept me just on the verge of hurling it across the room. This nov...
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe - Charles Yu
finished reading:
August 2010
27
reviewed: Ill Fares the Land
Judt tells the history of Anglo-American political economy from the Great Depression to the present, as the story of the rise...
Ill Fares the Land - Tony Judt
finished reading:
July 2010
27
reviewed: The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves
A complex portrait of slavery arises from the accounts Ward gathers. We hear the voices of field slaves, who are viciously wo...
The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves - Andrew Ward
finished reading:
May 2010
12
reviewed: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
Chris Hedges’ Empire of Illusion is in part an angry screed, in part a Jeremiad lament, and (in small) part a vision of a bet...
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle - Chris Hedges
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April 2010
15
reviewed: Apparition & Late Fictions: A Novella and Stories
These four elegiacal stories and one novella are about death, regret, death, loneliness, and death. Set largely in rural Mich...
Apparition & Late Fictions: A Novella and Stories - Thomas Lynch
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January 2010
05
reviewed: Every Man Dies Alone
What makes Every Man Dies Alone more terrible than Orwell and Kafka, though, is that it isn’t wholly a work of fiction. The n...
Every Man Dies Alone - Hans Fallada
finished reading:
November 2009
12
reviewed: In The Year Of The Long Division: Stories
The stories in In the Year of Long Division show the ultimate end of the minimalist impulse: prose becomes poetry, external d...
In The Year Of The Long Division: Stories - Dawn Raffel
finished reading:
November 2009
02
reviewed: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Equally insightful and exasperating, with a significant dose of aristocratic condescension.Full review here
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work - Alain de Botton
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October 2009
01
reviewed: Voices from the Moon
I have a theory–thoroughly untested, and probably wrong–that you can identify a novel written by a master of the short story ...
Voices from the Moon - Andre Dubus
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September 2009
30
reviewed: Pieces for the Left Hand: 100 Anecdotes
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert LennonThe 100 anecdotes collected in Pieces for the Left Hand are loosely held together...
Pieces for the Left Hand - J. Robert Lennon
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September 2009
05
reviewed: Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales
Troll’s Eye View is a collection of stories revisiting well-known fairy tales–Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, Molly and t...
Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales - Garth Nix, Michael Cadnum, Nancy Farmer, Jane Yolen, Ellen Datlow, Catherynne M. Valente, Ellen Kushner, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Kelly Link, Terri Windling, Midori Snyder, Wendy Froud, Peter S. Beagle, Joseph Stanton, Neil Gaiman, Delia Sherman, Holly Black
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