Recently Begun Books

[Chandos MD]

I’m working on the Norton collection of Chekhov’s stories—previously the biggest blind spot in my reading, especially because of his place in the physician-writer canon. I’m totally in love with them. His ranting about the current state and trajectory of medicine in Ward No. 6 would be just as urgent and hard-hitting if it were published today.

 

[Ben Jackson]

A Garden of Earthly Delights, Expensive People, Them--Joyce Carol Oates
Autobiography--- Janet Frame
The Hotel--- Elizabeth Bowen
Americanah--- Chimamanda Adichie

I have finished Frame, Bowen's novel and Garden of Earthly Delights. Frame's works seems to be the best among the recent reads. Bowen's novel isn't a bad book at all, considering that it's her first, although I had some issues in understanding some of the sentences, I appreciate the novel for its interesting psychological depiction. As for Oates, I still don't know why she ended up writing some mediocre books after her Gothic phase (post 1984): Foxfire, Rape and others. If she had continued to be more consistent by producing novels in the same level as Garden of Earthly Delights, she could have been a Nobelist by now. The book is very beautiful novel looking Post Depression era American society that calls to mind Steinbeck. It's the first in her Quartet, but this one surely deserves to be ranked among her best.