literature
Geek literature from the New York Times or the recesses of online. Our favorite stories showcase geeks.
Book Review: "Clean" by Alia Trabucco Zerán
Yes, I was perusing the cheapest possible books on the Kindle store again and yes, I was looking for things that were toeing the lines of psychological horror. It's currently late March of 2025 and I have enjoyed rediscovering one of my favourite subgenres: psychological horror. After folk horror, it has to be up there somewhere and I'm not going to lie when I tell you that there is a lot of great modern stuff out there. From the 'haunted house with a strange twist' novel to the 'good for her' narratives, from the 'dark past' characters to the 'Norman Rockwell painting' horrors, this subgenre has only grown with the 21st century. I am totally here for it. Clean is a book about a house maid driven to her limits in a life which feels strangely disconnected...
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
"Nothing Can Perish...Things Merely Change Their Appearance."
Background and Context: I love writing about the 19th Century and as I've said with my essay on 'Jane Eyre' I was thinking about starting a podcast about it all so I have lots of material. I thought and thought about it and I don't think anyone wants to listen to my posh British accent talk about literature so now, I just have tons of essays and nothing to do with them. So, I've decided to release them on here. At least I know some of you will appreciate them. If you look through my posts and my profile, you can see that these are coming out intermittently. I have to say though, this one perhaps contains some of my favourite ideas and literature. Enjoy.
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Shakespearean" by Robert McCrum
Full Title: Shakespearean: On Life & Language in Times of Disruption by Robert McCrum If you love Shakespeare and you want something that has a author anecdotes littered throughout like the book Mad About Shakespeare then I have to say this book is great. I am so glad I found this. Reading books about Shakespeare definitely makes me think I have friends. The bard is my friend, I hope the people who write these books are my friends and you, dear readers - are my friends. The best books about Shakespeare are the ones where the author goes through their own experiences with reading Shakespeare over the years, growing up and changing emotions are some of those universal experiences that we can all relate to. So, let's take a look at Robert McCrum's Shakespearean...
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Falls to Pieces" by Douglas Corleone
I have never ever heard of this writer and I have never ever heard of this book. But one day, I was browsing through Amazon and this randomly popped up. It had never been in my recommendations before, there was nothing that had ever suggested it to me but once I saw it and read the blurb, I was interested. Packed with tension and atmosphere, this book lays in on well and carries it along the whole text, through every character and in every crack and scratch. I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed it to be honest. Let's take a look at in then...
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Mad About Shakespeare" by Jonathan Bate
Ooh as we are on the topic of the books I read in university and now I'm re-reading them (or, in fact I started reading them in university and then had to abandon them for other books that were more required, boo), I would like to go through this one because as much as I read Jonathan Bate - I must have completely missed this one.*
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Bloom" by Delilah S. Dawson
We in Britain are experiencing a heatwave and I was at the library lately. I borrowed quite a few books and a lot of them seem to be very cool (but also very dark) novels. I was really looking for some Joyce Carol Oates and yet, they only had one or two that I had not yet read, the others I had not read were not available. Sometimes, that can be a pretty good thing and here, it has been. I managed to borrow a book called Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson. It was absolutely awesome and to be fair, I have to tell you all about it.
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Natural Beauty" by Ling Ling Huang
Oh alright, I never actually meant to read this book but it was cheap on Kindle. And plus, I'm sick and tired of people and Amazon recommending me David Foster Wallace books. I will say this on behalf of 99% of the female reading community: we cannot stand the man. He's mostly a terrible writer who got lucky once or twice. Anyways, Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang is a book about a woman who goes to work in a high-end beauty shop called Holistik which specialises in all the rubbish wellness routines you see on Instagram and think: wow, that's a scam. So, let's take a look into what actually goes on within...
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "A Sunny Place for Shady People" by Mariana Enriquez
I've read quite a few Mariana Enriquez books. I think her best one has to be The Dangers of Smoking in Bed - it is probably one of the better anthologies of its year as well. When it comes to her writing, it is more than often following this sense of being deeply emotional, but also quite conceptually frightening. In her anthology Things We Lost in the Fire, it is the outcasts who are followed into the psychological depths. This made me quite excited to read her other efforts, one of them being the renowned Sunny Places for Shady People. The stories within this anthology have proved to be some of her best. Will it knock The Dangers of Smoking in Bed off the top spot for me? Let's have a look...
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "My Search for Warren Harding" by Robert Plunket
I'm always happy when a Penguin Modern Classics' book comes out on Kindle for cheap and this book was no exception. My Search for Warren Harding was described as a book that would make me laugh out loud and even though it didn't do that (since I don't actually laugh very often at anything, nothing about the book), I still enjoyed it quite a lot. At the moment, the world is getting over the AI Studio Ghibli art crisis and has completely ignored the Myanmar earthquake. It's a tough world filled with entitled idiots but here we are, to get reading about one more and his name is Elliott Weiner.
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Genius of Shakespeare" by Jonathan Bate
I have had this book for years. It's true that when your mental health is bad, you should read Shakespeare or at least, something about him. It's March 2025 and I'm going full circle back to books I've read in the past. The last time I read this book was perhaps a few weeks before writing this review but, I have read it many times over the course of my degree and that was nearly ten years' ago now. If you think 'I can't read Shakespeare Literary Theory because I didn't do a literature degree' I want you to eject that thought from your mind because there is absolutely no reason you can't do it. It's like I always say, even if you read a paragraph a day and you finish the book in ten or fifteen years - you still read it. So if you want to read it, go ahead. There's no competition and you have your entire life to do it. That time will be wisely spent! Now on to the review...
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Bat Eater" by Kylie Lee Baker
This book has been quite literally everywhere. I've seen it on Amazon, on social media and even in real life. I've wanted to read it for a while but obviously, had to wait for it to become a price I could afford. Finally, it came down to something reasonable and I got it on my Kindle. Not able to sleep, I stayed up to read this book and honestly it was hilarious, underlined with deep social commentary and I think I saw a lot of myself in the young Cora at the beginning of the book. I would highly recommend everyone who wants a huge ride through the pandemic in a whole different way to read this book. It is fantastic.
By Annie Kapurabout a year ago in Geeks
