The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gothic.

I wasn't expecting this.

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John Adams by David McCullough
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the things that has occurred to me while reading McCullough's biography of John Adams is that biographers seem to fall in love with their subjects. I mentioned this to my daughter the other day in a Skype call. We both thought "of course they must, spending so much time with the person." But then it occurred to me that none of Hitler's biographers fell in love with him. Who could, after all, but then perhaps that's also why biographies of Hitler always seem so unsatisfactory.

McCullough's bio of Adams is excellent, by the way. Unfortunately, it did little to shed light on the conflict between Adams and Hamilton. By the way, Fox News did not invent "fake news." It's been around a very long time.

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Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories by Sherman Alexie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sherman Alexie is always a fun read. His first person narrators have to be the most self-deprecating characters in literature.

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