Book Box: Ambition and its fallout
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SINGAPORE – In this week’s Book Box, The Straits Times takes a look at ambition – financial, political and literary – and its fallout. Buy the books at Amazon
Book review: Lies And Weddings by Kevin Kwan rehashes old schtick
Lies And Weddings by Kevin Kwan opens on the cusp of a spring wedding in Hawaii.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF KEVIN KWAN, DOUBLEDAY
It sometimes feels as if I am not the target audience for Kwan’s brand of chi-chi lit (read: “Chinese chick literature”), being neither in need of scoring a rich handsome husband nor able to fit into any number of comely Valentino dresses.
Then again, if the writing is evocative enough, it should make this matron at least feel young and frisky again.
Alas, this book does not.
Book review: Amor Towles’ Table For Two offers well-crafted stories about how money drives people
In Table For Two, author Amor Towles again examines, in his inimitable, elegant way, the capitalist cogs that drive people.
PHOTOS: DMITRI KASTERINE, HUTCHINSON HEINEMANN
Amor Towles knows money.
This understanding informs the former investment banker’s breezy best-selling novels – whether they be dealing with the excesses of the American jazz age (Rules Of Civility, 2011) or aristocratic nostalgia in Soviet-era Moscow (A Gentleman In Moscow, 2016).
For the native Bostanian-turned-New Yorker author’s forte is in plumbing the depths of human decency as his characters negotiate the vagaries of economics.
In his latest, Table For Two, a short-story collection yoked to a novella, Towles again examines, in his inimitable, elegant way, the capitalist cogs that drive people.
Book review: Self-Portraits by Osamu Dazai rare translation of a cult Japanese author
Self-Portraits by Osamu Dazai is translated by Ralph McCarthy.
PHOTO: NEW DIRECTIONS, NEW DIRECTIONS
Born in 1909 in Aomori prefecture, the scandalous writer Osamu Dazai, though little known in the Anglophone world, still has a cult-like following in Japan.
In life, the decadent romantic was shunned by the Japanese literary community for his drunkenness, addiction to painkillers and generally antisocial behaviour.
But chief of the controversies surrounding him is his notorious record of multiple suicide attempts, usually with a young woman in tow.
Book review: Sunjeev Sahota’s The Spoiled Heart tackles race and politics
Sunjeev Sahota’s latest work is an unfocused attempt at dissecting the downfall of a politician who proves to be predictably problematic.
PHOTOS: GL PORTRAIT, HARVILLE SECKER
Booker-nominated author Sunjeev Sahota’s latest work is an unfocused attempt at dissecting the downfall of a politician who proves to be predictably problematic.
The narrative is especially bogged down by a chunky fifth chapter lasting 147 pages – nearly half the book.
Protagonist Nayan Olak, favoured front runner in the election to be general secretary of his local union, throws himself into a political career after the tragic deaths of his mother and son.
Divorced and caring for his dementia-addled abusive father, he takes an interest in former troublemaker Helen Fletcher, who moves back to town after disappearing two decades before.
The Straits Times’ Weekly Bestsellers May 18
PHOTOS: HACHETTE UK, INFINISKILLS, SCHOLASTIC
Nanae Aoyama’s A Perfect Day To Be Alone sees its second week as the No. 1 fiction bestseller.
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