Reviews: #9 (Keenan) and #10 (Oliver)
Before presenting today's capsule reviews, I should perhaps recommend that you all take them with a grain of salt. It seems A.M. Homes' THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE, which I panned here (and waffled about in Publishers Weekly [this version heavily edited from what I wrote, mind you]), is not only getting lots of praise elsewhere, but has just been optioned for a movie . So shows what I know. MY LUCKY STAR by Joe Keenan (Little, Brown, January 2006) A prescient publicity chap sent me this one, name-dropping P.G. Wodehouse as a comparison; how did he know that I am a passionate adherent of the Wodehouse school of novel-as-musical-comedy? I've actually been watching the BBC Jeeves & Wooster miniseries lately, and have been reminded how much I love all that goofy wordplay and lighthearted peril, averted at the last minute. But mostly the wit. Joe Keenan is an author I've heard compared to Master Wodehouse before, if Wodehouse was a gay TV writer. Keenan writes for Fr...