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In the beginning of September, my professor suggested I read this. Strangely, I can't remember why or how this came up, but it has been on the 'to read' list for four months, and I finally picked it up over christmas break.

Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is considered a landmark book in 20th century literature because it is one of the first (the first?) books to depict the harsh (inhumane) conditions of the Soviet Gulag, opening up an entire world to the masses of both Soviet Russia and the rest of the world in 1962. The book is a scant 139 pages as a small paperback (Signet Classic, translated by Ralph Parker), and I read it in 3 short sittings. It is truly a breeze to read.

The book is quite simply exactly as it states, one day, from waking to sleeping, in the life of a soviet inmate in central Siberia. There's really not much of a story to it, it's more of an account. We live with Ivan Denisovich Shukhov (Shukhov is how he is referred to most often), breathe with him, eat his 9 ounces of bread for ...

The premise of this book is very intriguing. A young man, Andrej Koscuisko, is bound by familial duty to become Ship's Inquisitor, using his medical skills to learn the fine art of torture. Andrej, however, is a healer, and must deal with the disturbing reality of going against all that he believes. Add to that interpersonal struggles and military politics, and you've got a hell of an idea for a story.

As a work of fiction, this book let me down in parts. The writing style took time to get used to and required concentration just to avoid ...

Lightning Rods tells the story of the introduction of women as sexual lightning rods into corporate American office environments in order to ward off sexual harassment lawsuits. Joe, the man behind the idea, bases it in one of his recurring sexual fantasies, and much of the novel concerns what happens when you translate fantasy into real life.

At first, I did not recognise this as a Helen DeWitt novel at all. You may ask with ...