Book Review: The Second Worst Restaurant in France

The Second Worst Restaurant in France by Alexander McCall Smith My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars I will be the first to offer plaudits to the genius and gentle humor of Alexander McCall Smith. However, this sequel to the free-standing My Italian Bulldozer reads like it was the product of the publishers, not the author. …

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Book Review: The Rosie Result

The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion My rating: 4 of 5 stars "I had observed that neurotypicals criticised autistic people for lacking empathy -- towards them -- but seldom made any effort to improve their own empathy towards autistic people."Boom. What a statement, and so incredibly true. My sister is totally empathetic, yet neurotypical people …

Book Review: Jeremy Poldark

Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham My rating: 3 of 5 stars This novel is what we refer to as a "bridge" book or a "filler" book. There is very little plot that happens, but it wraps up story lines from the previous two novels as well as sets up some events that will resonate in …

Book Review: Fowl Play

DuckTales Vol. 4: Fowl Play by Alessandro Ferrari My rating: 4 of 5 stars Ducktales: Fowl Play continues the comic tie-in to the wildly popular reboot TV show. This collection seems to have a theme of "family," as various members of the McDuck and Duck tribe realize what their family means to them. These comics …

Book Review: My Italian Bulldozer

My Italian Bulldozer by Alexander McCall Smith My rating: 4 of 5 stars Reading an Alexander McCall Smith book is like returning to one of your favorite haunts after months or years away and remembering why you liked the place so much to begin with. The atmosphere is relaxed and gentle, despite whatever pedantic prodding …

Book Review: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn My rating: 4 of 5 stars I feel this book would be a great one to make Western high schoolers, who are convinced of the "evil fascism" of their country, to read. They can whine all they want about how "totalitarian" their government is, …

Book Review: Landline

Landline by Rainbow Rowell My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book was hit or miss for me. I loved the relationship between Georgie and Neal and how we got to see it evolve. All of the characters (except maybe Kendrick and Scotty) were well-rounded and developed. The premise of a magic time-traveling phone is …

A New Perspective

The story below was submitted to Writer's Digest for a short story competition (https://www.writersdigest.com/your-story-competition/your-story-97-submit-now) based on the picture attached to this post. Let me know what you think: Dev had never seen one up close before. Sure, his parents had told him about the magnificent creatures, but it was different to actually spy one cavalierly …

Ignoring the Elephants in the Room: A Review of Avengers Endgame

You might be aware that I am a huge MCU fan, and I wrote a rather scathing review of Infinity War which can be found here: https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/peruseandmuse.blog/657. I ended that review by saying the writers had a chance to redeem many of their issues with the introduction of time travel in Endgame, but that I …

Love and Peace: Tolstoy’s View on Spiritual Love

After a long, hard journey with many halts along the way, I finally finished Leo Tolstoy's gargantuan depiction of the Napoleonic wars: War and Peace. The book, at over a thousand pages, is not for the faint of heart or the easily distracted. After reading a particularly tedious description of the war portion of the …