No sooner had I finished The Circle and raved about it to a friend who is a voracious reader and whose opinion I trust than she had me reading Super Sad True Love Story. There are similarities, which is why I am reviewing them together. Both are set a few minutes into the future and both of them are thoroughly dystopian. Both of them also accelerate inexorably and intensify to something of a climax. Both are equally scary, although paradoxically SSTLS, which on the surface is much more violent and unfathomable, is much harder to take seriously.
One of my dreams, when I first arrived in Rome, was to be able, on a hot summer evening, to walk out to my own lemon tree and pick a still-warm fruit to grace my ice-cold G&T. Sixteen years and four removals later, that tree, bought from a lorry at the side of the road, is still with me and, this wi...
The (Italian) poster for Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri describes it as a black comedy. I'm not sure I would call it a comedy of any kind, even though it has lots of very funny moments. But then, I'm not sure what category I would put it in, if forced. "Quirky, damn funny, thought-provo...
I've had some odd things happen on micro.blog lately, to whit . To confirm I'm not nuts, I grabbed a screenshot, but when I attempted to create a reply at my Known install, Known refuses to upload the image. This is nothing new, but I had forgotten wabout i...
When I re-entered social space after a three-week break, there was a very pleasant surprise. My friend Jason had relaunched his Doubtfully Daily Matigo podcast. I binged on the first five immediately (alternating with another short podcast) and then caught up fully this morning.
