Entries by Jay Ruud
Atonement
Atonement Ian McEwan (2001) If you have read much of acclaimed contemporary novelist Ian McEwan’s work, you are well aware that Atonement, which did not win the Booker Prize, is a much better novel than his Amsterdam, which did win it. (Shortlisted in 2001, Atonement lost out to Peter Carey’s impressive True History of the Kelly Gang.) A wider ranging […]
An Artist of the Floating World
An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro (1986) Ishiguro’s second novel is not as well known as his Booker-prize winning Remains of the Day, or his popular and acclaimed Never Let Me Go, but it is in An Artist of the Floating World that Ishiguro hits the stride that will eventually lead him to his 2017 Nobel Prize […]
A Quiet Place II
A Quiet Place II John Krasinski2020/2021 Facts for You: Where to Watch: Exclusive to theaters Length: 97 minutes Names You Might Know: Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Djimon Hounsou, John Krasinski Language: English She Said: I’ve been waiting for this film since it almost came out in 2020. When the pandemic shut down theaters, I was waiting […]
Damages (season one)
Damages (season one) Todd and Glenn Kessler with Daniel Zellman (2007) Facts for You: Where to Watch: Originally on FX, now streaming on Hulu Length: Thirteen 1-hour episodes in the first season Names You Might Know: Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, Ted Danson, Željko Ivanek Language: English He Said: If you were disappointed last month to see Glenn Close fail once […]
Under the Net
Under the Net Iris Murdoch (1954) I’m definitely late to the party as an admirer of Iris Murdoch. I’d heard the name but her novels were always a bit off the radar for me and for what I was reading and studying at the time. But in my late-life mania to read important things that […]