Written Reviews

Haruki Murakami: “Samsa in Love”

October 21, 2013

Click here to read the story in its entirety on The New Yorker webpage. Haruki Murakami’s “Samsa in Love” (tr. from the Japanese by Ted Goossen) was originally published in the October 28, 2013 issue of The New Yorker. I’ve never liked anything I’ve read of Murakami (which has been little), but obviously this is some

Jeremias Gotthelf: The Black Spider

October 17, 2013

Trevor reviews Jeremias Gotthelf’s 1842 horror novel, The Black Spider, just out in a new translation from Susan Bernofsky. Read the full post.

2013 National Book Award Finalists

October 16, 2013

Today they announced the five finalists for each category of the National Book Awards. Fiction: The Flamethrowers, by Rachel Kushner The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride Bleeding Edge, by Thomas Pynchon Tenth of December, by George Saunders Nonfiction: Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, by

2013 Man Booker Prize Winner

October 15, 2013

This year’s winner is: The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton And for those of you in the United States, Little, Brown just published the book today. I have had a copy for a while, but so far I haven’t been able to bring myself to read the large (848 pages) book, but I am looking forward

Sherwood Anderson: “Respectability”

October 15, 2013

This post is part of a series dedicated to Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories, from The Library of America. “Respectability” comes from Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio. For an introduction to this series and for links to the other posts, please click here. We feel pity and care about many of the subjects in Winesburg, Ohio, but

Previous Next

Listen In

Episodes of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast: discussions of books and authors, shaped by curiosity, rereading, and the pleasures of talking things through.

Browse all episodes

The Reading Life

The Mookse and the Gripes Instagram features a more immediate space with posts and videos about current reads, recent finds, including a steady dose of Criterion films.