Mystery character and book of the week
|
Mystery character of the month and book of the week
| | This character is one of literature’s greediest and cruelest fictional creations. Even the name that the author attached to this character evokes malevolence and spite and the author made sure, in dialogue and description, that the reader loathed this person. Portrayed as “high-shouldered and bony,” this character presents a rather fearsome face to the world with “no eyelashes and eyes of a red-brown.” The character often wears black and their limbs appear lanky and skeletal. Indeed, even the feel of this character’s hand in one’s own is “clammy and ghostly.” This character likes to dispense homespun wisdom to our protagonist and stokes a not-so-secret flame of bitterness and inferiority. But the author who created this character clearly found them fascinating for the character has many of the best scenes in the story. Do you know who this character and the author that created the character is? When you have a guess, email me at: kmiller@mpr.org. In the not-too-distant-but-still-dystopian future, a grieving husband sets sail on a creaky boat named Flower to find the spirit of his late wife.
And like any great quest story, the adventure is in the seeking, not the sought-after.
Leif Enger’s new novel is bursting with quixotic characters, mischief-making villains and a kind of whimsy that is both comforting and charming.He’s also given Lake Superior a soul. “It’s called a lake,” Enger writes early in the story, “because it’s not salt but this corpus is a fearsome sea and if you live in its reach you should know at all times what it’s up to.” Innocence, virtue and magic abound in Enger’s “I Cheerfully Refuse.”
— Kerri Miller | MPR News |
|
|
| Ask a Bookseller: ‘The Ministry of Time’ by Kaliane Bradley
|
Tiffany Lauderdale Phillips of Wild Geese Bookshop in Franklin, Ind., recommends Kaliane Bradley’s debut novel “The Ministry of Time.” She calls it a time-travel romance with a James Bond element, with beautiful writing and ideas that will leave you with plenty to talk about over dinner. | |
|
|---|
|
|
|
| | Alua Arthur says facing death is the key to living well |
Alua Arthur herself thinks about dying a lot. As she tells Kerri Miller on Big Books and Bold Ideas, she has detailed plans for what she’d like her deathbed to be like. But more importantly, she says living with an awareness of mortality helps her live with intention. | |
|
|---|
|
|
|
| | | With Maybelline Mocha and an Afro wig, white author explores 'Blackness' in a new book |
Detailed accounts of America’s racial divide are nothing new, and particularly in the years since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, there has been renewed interest in the topic.
But the key difference between Forster’s account and those written by others is that Forster, a white man, said he “disguised” himself as Black — donning an Afro wig and dark foundation — to get a firsthand account of modern life as a person of color.
| |
|
|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
