I grew up watching American movies and reading American novels, so it’s no wonder that my imagination was at least partly shaped by American images. The most notable of these is the image of New York. I’ve never been there, but it always seemed a mysterious, unique but strangely…

It happens to me quite often that I come across a book at random and it suddenly exerts an irresistible force on me. I don’t think there’s anything miraculous in this, I simply mean that a good title, a nice cover or a chance sentence I happen to read when picking up the book can awaken…

I first came across this novel when I was a highschool student. I recall that one of my classmates was in the habit of carrying this book around and reading bits of it during recesses. I was an avid reader even back then, but still, I was overawed by the fact that someone could actually bring huge,…

I have not been affected so far by the huge popularity of geisha and, in general, Far Eastern novels. Consequently, I started to read Mingmei Yip's novel with completely naive eyes. And even though I am still not entirely aware of all the clichés and rules of geisha/courtesan novels after reading…

I came across this novel in my favourite bookshop. Its loud cover was sticking out a mile and after a while I felt myself forced to pick up the book, so I took a look at it, checked what it was about, and finally I bought and read it. I was a little bit afraid of what I would find in between the…

Since I had seen the movie version of Crash (directed by David Cronenberg) a couple of years ago, I have been planning to read the novel. Judging from the movie, I could imagine what the book might be like, and anyway, usually I am not the one to complain about the disgusting elements of any novel,…

After reading The Crying of Lot 49 last year, I became enthusiastic to read any other Pynchon books I could lay my hands on. So when it turned out that one of my colleagues owns a copy of Slow Learner, I was happy to accept his offer that he lends me the book. Slow Learner is a collection of five…

I cannot recall the moment when I decided to read this novel. I guess I must have read a sentence or two on a blog somewhere which made me conclude that this was a sufficiently sordid, tragic and dramatic novel, consequently, I was going to like it. Well, I was wrong, so much so that I almost put…

This is such an imperfect novel and still, I love it so much. So far I have only read this and The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, and since both novels deal with similar topics (ruined love, the corrupting power of money and the amorality of the rich) comparing them comes naturally to me. I think The…

I love Ian McEwan. Amsterdam was the first of his novels I read, several years ago. I guess I could not really grasp its significance at the tender age of around 15, but I felt that it was good writing and since then I re-read it more than once. After Amsterdam, I put McEwan aside though, and only…