Clarissa's Blog

Before I share my list of the books I really enjoyed in 2013, I want to acquaint you with some of the books I detested this year.

1. Zygmunt Bauman’s Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All. The great philosopher disappointed me majorly with this book. All it contains is a collection of worn-out platitudes about the idiocy of trickle-down economics that he seems to consider a huge revelation. There wasn’t a single interesting, new insight in the entire book.

2. Elizabeth George’s Just One Evil Act. An unbelievable snoozefest.

3. Jeremy Treglown’s Franco’s Crypt. An obnoxious Franco apology of a self-involved, stupid Brit.

4. Paula Treick De Board’s The Mourning Hours. Absolutely nothing whatsoever happens in this book. The author is a product of a Creative Writing program. I wish I had known that before I started reading the book. An MFA is always a sign that a person can’t write worth a damn.

5. Janice Steinberg’s Tin Horse. Immigrants, Jews, sisters – how can you spoil such a great premise? Fear not,  this writer can do that, and then some.

Gosh, one has to sift through a lot of garbage to uncover something good.