All Quiet on the Western Front

I cannot stress how in love with this book I am. I pretty much devoured it, barely looking up from its pages for hours, and there’s something so gorgeous about it, about the moments of silence between the moments of agony, of the torture of leave when your friends are on the front lines, and you don’t fit in anywhere except with them, of the bond of comradeship, which Remarque describes as closer than between lovers. I want to read this over and over and over again. This is, by far, the greatest war account I have ever read.

5/5

Oranges are not the Only Fruit

For its tiny size, Oranges packs a lot of delight. Winterson's cutting humour about her life, her masterful inclusion of fairy-tale like fragments, and her sheer ability make this one of the biggest pleasures I've read all year.

5/5

The Far Side of the Moon

This was a joy to watch, written by, directed by, and starring Robert Lepage, who I am now in love with, unfortunately, since it seems like it’s going to be difficult to get my hands on his works. It’s a fairly typical story of failure and fraught family relations, but Lepage imbues it with such humour and such a deft hand that there is something in it that always strikes the viewer as absolutely original.

5/5

Giovanni's Room

This is a little gem, quickly consumed, sparkling with brilliantr prose, realistic, well-rendered characters, and a gorgeous, devastating ending. I'm not sure why I haven't read James Baldwin before now, but I will make a point of devouring more of the novels from his tremendously prolific career.

5/5

Self-Help

Lorrie Moore's stories continually astound me. This collection, hinging on break-ups and endings, made me laugh, cry, and other cliches. I desperately want to devour everything she has ever written, and I hope that doesn't sound as creepy as it seems.

5/5

Past Imperfect

I picked this up at random, mostly because I liked the cover. And this is a case where judging a book by its cover was absolutely the right decision. This is one of the greatest collections of poetry I’ve ever come across, and certainly the best in the past year or two. I can’t pinpoint what I like about it so much, so I’m just going to buy it and then read it again and again until I can properly enunciate what is so amazing about this. But it is amazing.

5/5