All around seems to be a decent (albeit brief) look at the life of Marcel Proust. While I wish the author/ biographer would’ve explained some of his statements a little better, I enjoyed the book greatly. I may have had more criticisms if I were a Proustian expert, however.

I’m not the biggest fan of Longfellow but I don’t dislike his work either. For me, a lot of his poetry sounds cliché or trite but I have to admit that’s probably just my modern ear. “Evangeline” has some beautiful descriptions and a lovely narrative while other pieces, such as “The Wreck of the Hesperus”, are a little flat sounding (at least to me). My favorite is likely “The Village Blacksmith” since I love the theme on time/ age as the day passes throughout the poem. All in all, Longfellow is worth a read though to modern readers his strong meter and rhyme may sounds a bit tired.

I can't believe I gave this only three stars the first time around! My only defense is that I was younger and more naive at the time and may have skipped around a bit (sinful, I know). Reading these poems now, I absolutely love the narrative pieces Whitman creates with simplistic, straightforward lines accented with powerful imagery and fascinating dichotomies. I particularly enjoyed "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" and similar pieces that contrasted human nature with the impositions of society. I will say that some of the memorial pieces (particularly those concerning Abraham Lincoln) felt a little too heavy handed compared with his other pieces so I wasn't as interested in those. All the same, gorgeous works and a recommended classic for anyone even remotely interested in poetry.

After the first few chapters I thought I was going to HATE this book. Originally I found the author’s commentary on women grating, the characters flat, and the descriptions droning. However, the drama in this book ends up being pretty good and after a while I found myself really wondering what was going to happen next and what the outcome would be. The ending was affecting and I’ll likely be pondering it for a while. If you can get over the timely sexism and some long-windedness, it is a good read.

This is maybe my third time reading The Great Gatsby and it’s still a 3 star book for me. There are some parts of the book that are beautifully written and some of romance and tragedy is very effective. However, for me, some parts of the book are paced very strangely. Long spans of time evaporate quickly and I think overall the book would be more emotionally evocative if we had more time to process certain information or get attached to certain characters. However, it’s still a good book and a very quick, easy week.

Great as usual. I never realized how much I love her rhythm. She drops you off in the middle of nowhere without a map of compass and expects you to find your way by interpreting the shape of a cloud. That’s what it feels like, anyway. I’m here for it.

A solid collection of poems. A few of these really put me in the shoes of the protagonist. With very limited space and words, Williams paints a perfect picture for you. A great lesson in the phrase "less is more". The poems are great and I suppose the only reason I'm not giving this book 5 stars is simply because the more melancholy pieces didn't seem as effective/ emotionally evocative as the happier, observant, or wistful ones. However, I have to admit that part of that could be because I read a very emotional novel just yesterday and perhaps it upped my resistance a little.

I need time to think about this one. Like, a LOT of time. This book falls somewhere between 4 and 5 stars but I would need that time to make a final decision. The story is long but most of it feels quite fast paced, especially the second half. This book starts off quite mundane but the intrigue keeps ramping itself up until you're overwhelmed with psychics, war stories, mysterious phone calls, faceless men, and a host of other bizarre happenings. I will say that much of this story seems to be a commentary on elements of the second world war and Japan's involvement in the mainland. The story criticizes violence and war as a whole but in interesting ways I haven't really seen done before. I would likely be able to interpret many more of the symbols in the book if I had more knowledge of Japanese history. A note- there are some scenes where an older man (30's maybe) makes comments about the body of a teenage girl (16-17) which most American readers would probably find distasteful. Of course, I believe the age of consent in Japan is 14 so this may be viewed differently by Japanese readers. It was still a little off putting to me but it's not much worse than what you'd find in a Stephen King novel. I would really recommend the audiobook- at least, the one I had was fabulous and the different voices performed by one single voice actor were amazing.

Absolutely gorgeous. I’d never even heard of jazz musician Buddy Bolden before reading this book and I don’t usually care for the concept of “fictionalized real life accounts” but this book was amazing. As one of the characters slowly descends into madness, you truly feel as though the same is happening to you. Another character’s bewilderment feels like it’s really yours. Somewhat tragic and has unpredictable scene changes that take some getting used to (feels like syncopated jazz music) but it’s so worth it. I’d really recommend this to anyone even mildly interested in jazz music or poetry (as some passages read like poetry).

3 or 3.5. The writer/ doctor cites sources and writes in a very clear way but I wish he discussed more topics.