I have a strange attitude towards bestsellers. I read a lot of praise about them, hear some bits and pieces of the story, and finally come across a sentence or a shred of someone’s review which manages to break through the wall of my snobbishness and disinterestedness, and suddenly I become…

I first heard about Smiles on Washington Square in an American literature seminar at the university a couple of years ago. The novel seemed interesting, so when I found it in a second-hand book shop I bought it immediately but then put it aside without ever reading it. But now I was in the mood for…

I first read about this novel in a post on one of my favorite book blogs. Bridge mentioned once that among other things, novels like this make it worth while to be an English major student. Unfortunately I did not come across this book when I was an English major, but now I thought it surely cannot…

I'm not a bad person. I'm a bad person. I didn't mean to kill the man in the reading room. I did mean to kill the man in the reading room. What happened afterwards wasn't my fault, don't blame me. It was my fault. Blame me.  I came across the above quote by chance and I immediately knew I…

I read an extensive and exquisite post on the sequels to Jane Austen’s novel not long ago, and I immediately got a craving for one of Ms. Austen’s books. Although my all-time favorite is Pride and Prejudice, this time I chose Persuasion for some reason. I only read this novel once so…

I was wandering around in a bookstore a couple of weeks ago when I came across this book. I had never heard about it and the name of the author was not familiar either, but I liked its title immediately. At that time I had a craving for a book which is very dramatic and grave, and this book seemed…

I had not read any of Joanne Harris’s novels before. Though I often came across her nicely covered books, which reminded me of children’s books, and I watched the movie version of Chocolat several times and enjoyed it very much, I did not feel any urge to read any of her stories. Then a…

I was about twelve years old when, rummaging through my grandmother’s shelves, I came across this novel. Thanks to the Hungarian habit of changing the simple titles of novels to more interesting ones, the book was called The Orphan of Lowood instead of Jane Eyre, and the title led me astray: I…

A few years back I used to see this novel quite often in the bookstores, but its oft-criticized cover baffled me and I had never felt the slightest inclination to read the book. Then a couple of weeks ago I came across a review of Doppler peppered with some quotations from the text, and I realized…

I like Stephen King’s writings in general, and he has some novels I am absolutely fascinated by (such as The Dead Zone), so I started reading the short stories of Night Shift readily and with great expectations, as I know that King can be a wonderful storyteller. Unfortunately this collection…