The Passion
“Love, they say, enslaves and passion is a demon and many have been lost for love. I know this is true, but I know too that without love we grope in the tunnels of our lives and never see the sun.”
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The Red Tent
Jacob demands an outrageous dowry – that all of the men of Shechem shall bear the mark of the tribe of Jacob, and be circumcised. Seeing how in love with Dinah his son is, the King agrees and the bargain is struck. The night after the mass circumcision, Dinah’s brothers sneak into the city. They are furious about the kidnapping and rape of their sister, and slaughter every man they can find while he sleeps.
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A Visit From the Goon Squad
In 1979 San Francisco, the punk scene is burgeoning and Bennie, Scotty, Jocelyn, Rhea, and their friends are on the front lines. Bennie and Scotty are the leaders of the Flaming Dildos, a band hopeful of making it big amongst the likes of their local idols Flipper, The Nuns, and the Dead Kennedys.
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The Rent Collector
Sopeap Sin threatens the family, but when she glimpses Nisay’s book, she falls to her knees, greedily thumbing through it, and Sang Ly begins to suspect that Sopeap Sin can secretly read.
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Lullaby
Carl’s research reveals that the poem in question is actually a “culling song”, which has the magical power to kill anyone it is spoken aloud to. Half mad with grief over recognizing that he killed his family, Carl accidentally memorizes the culling song and becomes an unintentional serial killer.
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Memories of My Melancholy Whores (Memoria de Mis Putas Tristes)
You come to understand that he has never traded love for any of the things he could have had for it – a wife, children, family, companionship, partnership. He has been offered everything, and has never taken anything if there was not love. Despite all of his faults and ridiculous shortcomings, he has a queer sort of integrity.
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Sexing the Cherry
Set in 17th century England during Oliver Cromwell and Charles I’s time, we are plunged into the world of Jordan and the murderous Dog-Woman; who is, in the author’s words, “perhaps the only woman in English fiction confident enough to use filth as a fashion accessory.”
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Forged In Grace
Grace can heal the flesh of others, but can she heal her own? Can she soothe the darkness which threatens to eat Marly from the inside out, or will it consume Grace with it?
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Less Than Zero
When Less Than Zero came out, it was held out by the baby boomers as what was “wrong with Generation X”, and Generation X decried it as “promoting ugly stereotypes.” Perhaps most disturbing (to me), Ellis has been credited in a way with inventing the Kardashians and Paris Hiltons of the world with his portrayal of wealth and narcissism amongst Hollywood youth.
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Mermaids in the Basement
Renata DeChavannes is a slightly overweight screenwriter who has just seen her superstar long-term boyfriend splashed on the cover of a tabloid with a hot young starlet wrapped around him. Furious, unable to reach him, and in the wake of her mother and stepfather’s untimely deaths in a plane crash, Renata storms through her house, ultimately coming upon a note written by her mother. “If you’re reading this, I’m dead,” the note begins…
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Beloved
“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.”
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Trainspotting
Where Welsh really shines as a writer is that despite the fact that every single character is either a junkie, a criminal, an asshole, or some combination of the three, you can’t help but sort of like most of them.
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The Help
One thing that is pointed out is how susceptible children are to their parents’ attitudes – the white children in the novel grow up adoring their nannies, and yet, as soon as they are old enough to understand their parents’ ridiculous notions about race, start treating these women exactly the way their parents do.
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Water for Elephants
This story begins in the mind of ninety (or ninety-three, he can’t remember which) year-old Jacob Jankowski. Not-quite-forgotten in a nursing home, he contents himself with harassing his nurses and complaining about the food. That is, until the circus comes to town.
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