Category: Review

The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale Joseph Conrad (1907) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Shakespeare-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’76’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Ruud Rating 4 Shakespeares [/av_image] Back when I was in school, if you were reading Joseph Conrad it meant you were reading The Heart of Darkness, that haunting portrait of human depravity and horror… Continue reading The Secret Agent

Banana Split Benjamin Kasulke (2018) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Tennyson-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’77’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] In our current state of affairs, in which closed movie theaters force us into streaming whatever new fare we can find on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime, one flick that might be a little under your radar… Continue reading Banana Split

Parable of the Talents Octavia E. Butler (1998) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/3-12.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Three Tennysons/Half Shakespeare[/av_image] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] “Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a… Continue reading Parable of the Talents

The Way Back Gavin O’Connor (2020) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Tennyson-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’77’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] What with the movie theaters closed for business and all y’all sheltering in place, it’s a little more difficult to post movie reviews. But a number of films, cut short in their wide theater releases, are being… Continue reading The Way Back

Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel (2009) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Shakespeare-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’76’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Ruud Rating 4 Shakespeares [/av_image] Like a lot of people, my concept of Thomas More, or I suppose I should say “Saint Thomas More,” has been shaped by two major texts. The first, his famous literary text Utopia,… Continue reading Wolf Hall

Emma. Autumn de Wilde (2020) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/3-12.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Three Tennysons/Half Shakespeare[/av_image] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] When I first heard there was a new version of Emma coming out, I admit to being a little bit skeptical. Didn’t we just have one of those? But that was just… Continue reading Emma.

The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 James Fenimore Cooper (1826) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Tennyson-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’77’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] In my ongoing quest to read in my retirement a slew of books I neglected to read in my youth, I pulled this classic novel off my shelf a few… Continue reading The Last of the Mohicans

The Call of the Wild (Chris Sanders 2020) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/SusannTennyson.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] When I was in eighth grade, I was given a copy of Jack London’s classic dog-and-Yukon adventure novel The Call of the Wild, and it opened up a whole world of… Continue reading The Call of the Wild

The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead (2019) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Shakespeare-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’76’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Ruud Rating 4 Shakespeares [/av_image] In his much anticipated follow-up to his Pulitzer-Prize winning Underground Railroad, Whitehead tells the story of life in a Florida reform “school” for boys, returning to the genre of historical fiction, but… Continue reading Nickel Boys

Rabbit Is Rich John Updike (1981) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Tennyson-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’77’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Rabbit Run, John Updike’s classic 1960 novel introducing the antiheroic everyman Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom into American literature, was listed on Timemagazine’s famous 2010 list of the “100 greatest English-language novels published since 1923” (the year Timewas born) I’d… Continue reading Rabbit is Rich