Books in April

THE ANATOMY LESSON

The third book of the Zuckerman books sees our hero plagued by a mystery illness that forces him to spend his days sprawled on a play mat, getting soused and receiving visits from an array of ladies. In the latter half of the book he leaves the mat and heads out to Chicago to interview for medical school. What a nut. Of course he's in no state to interview for anything so after a slow start, a mad pitch of lunacy and bullshit builds when Zuckerman's out and about.

THE ONLY ALIEN ON THE PLANET

Most online reviewers of this book allowed the appalling cover art or the lack of extraterrestrials to ruin this book for them. Idiots. It's a book intended for teenagers about a boy who never speaks and the classmates who try to befriend him. I found this book very refreshing. It has all the typical elements of a YA novel but never gives in to melodrama, it's very wholesome and grounded. The romance is subtle and tense but it doesn't eclipse everything else that's going on. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of ruining it. Buy this book and read it. They have copies at Amazon for a penny! Thanks to Jane for the recommendation.

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED

I started reading this book about five years ago but gave up on it after ten pages or so. I read the first part of the book quite closely this time to see what could have made me abandon it all those years ago, but I still have no idea about what could have bothered me. Perhaps it was the way the story was told. I thought it was ingenious but it could so easily have been irritating. Chapters from a kind of magic realist novel about the history of a Ukrainian village interspersed with the story of an American in the present day trying to find the village, told by his tour guide. I really enjoyed this book. I loved the relationships between the characters. Hooray, I liked a book.

I MARRIED A COMMUNIST

I Married a Communist is beautifully written and as stout a novel as you would expect from Philip Roth, it's just not very interesting. There's little humour and it's so serious it's almost earnest. Uh-oh. Last time I disregarded a book by one of my much-loved authors he died. I hope Philip Roth is made of sterner stuff than George McDonald Fraser.