Tag: fiction
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About Grace, A Novel by Anthony Doerr
Doerr is most recently known for his novel All the Light We Cannot See, which I’ve read and agree with the critics that it’s phenomenal accomplishment (also made into a short series for TV.) Literary, lyrical, and heartbreaking for much of the plot, a blind girl with only street memory has to overcome attacks from…
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Rabih Alamenddine and the “True, True” truth about his National Book Award novel.
“The True, True, Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) won the National Book Award for fiction in 2025. Written in English, billed as a dark comedy, the novel, like so many others I’ve read from award winning authors with different ideas, jumps all over the place – although the cover blurb says “the…
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Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
Some time ago I posted a review of Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. It was a cautionary post that suggested the content, and especially its treatment of women – while always wrong – was now so far beyond the norms of decency that his approach and his writing might be justifiably dismissed. It’s misogynistic, often horrifically…
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Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan Small Things Like These is another prize-worthy book of fiction. As maybe a unique element, it’s a novella of less than 30,000 words. It was published in 2021 and was cited by the New York Times as a top-rated book and top seller and it was winner or…
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The Dangers of Literary Hero Worship
In a previous post I praised John Updike’s writing and the story he told in his 2006 novel Terrorist. I still hold that all I said then is true. Yet now I’ve just finished his 1996 novel In the Beauty of the Lilies, and I have mixed feelings. With a career that started in the…
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Revisiting John Updike
I just finished reading John Updike’s Terrorist. Written in 2006, the shadow of 9/11 was still great over America. In this novel, Updike follows the development of a religious young man, Ahmed, and his journey toward terrorism through mentors using the words of the Quran that served as grooming by those wishing to punish America…
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The Evolving Nature of Artistic Growth
Many years ago I read Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Empire Falls. It takes place in a small New England town that is well worn and probably going to continue deteriorating. Lots of blue collar class issues and pitiable characters. But the writing is rich and one can’t help but care for the characters.…
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Martyr, by Kaveh Akbar
I just finished reading Kaveh Akbar’s novel Martyr. My copy of book has more than 25 effusive praises from mostly (but not entirely) east or west coast reviewers. So here again I find the number a bit overstated and feel like the inclusion of all this “doth protest too much.” And yet, not all the…
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Some Links
Here are some links to my books, reviews, and to a couple of literary accounts. You can also download from Apple Books to the app on your Apple device: https://bookfinity.com/reader-type-results-share/Bookworm/Time%20Traveler/Lifelong%20Learner/ https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/rodney%20nelsestuen/_/N-8q8 Rodney Nelsestuen on Amazon Too Many Stones, A Novel Neighbors, A Novel Quiet Desperation, A Novella Why Belize? A Novel Kirkus Books – Reviews…
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Why Belize: A Novel of New Beginnings
My novel Why Belize will be available within the next couple of months. Kirkus Reviews gives it a “Buy it” recommendation. “Nelsestuen has a musical sense of language., his sentences capturing the rhythms of both the landscape and the people who move through it…” Kirkus Reviews. Here’s some insight to the novel: Forty-seven-year-old “Eileen Sologoski…
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