Tag: Philosophical

Olga Tokarczuk – Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead | Review

Title: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Author: Olga Tokarczuk

Category: Fiction

Page Count: 272

Rating: 4.5/5

This is potentially a late entry into my list of favourite books of the year, and so I’m definitely glad that I picked it up. I think I heard about it from BookTube, although I can’t remember where I first saw it. I mentioned it to my girlfriend in passing and then she grabbed me a copy for Christmas, and it turned out that Charlie Heathcote was reading it at the same time, so we did a buddy read.

It’s a Polish book that’s been translated, a sort of noir-ish literary fiction murder mystery, and it has some deep takes on life and philosophy that we can all learn from. It’s one of those rare books with a delicious mouth feel where for me at least, it was just a pleasure to read all of the way through. I didn’t want it to stop, but I guess eventually and inevitably, it had to.

If you’re looking for philosophical fiction with a poetic feel, you’re in luck. It also scores a few diversity points if that’s your thing, being written by a woman and originally in Polish. But those are all little bonuses, the icing on a delicious cake that I’m super glad I heard about.

I have no idea whether Charlie liked it as much as I did, but I’m sure he’ll be posting about it on Goodreads and on his BookTube channel, so you can find out there. Enjoy!

Learn more about Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.


John Steinbeck – The Pearl and Burning Bright | Review

Title: The Pearl and Burning Bright

Author: John Steinbeck

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 160

Rating: 3.75/5

This isn’t the best Steinbeck that I’ve read, but then it’s up against Of Mice and Men and a couple of his short stories, so that’s hardly surprising. That doesn’t make it any less of a worthwhile read though, and I’m happy to have been able to add this one to my list of completed books.

The Pearl reminded me of The Old Man and the Sea, although that’s not necessarily a good thing because I didn’t particularly like that. Luckily, I thought that The Pearl was a lot better, mainly because it looked at the gritty subject of the way that people take advantage of people as opposed to having a more philosophical bent.

Burning Bright was great too, but I have a self-imposed word count to stick to, so I’ll leave you hanging. Sorry.

Learn more about The Pearl and Burning Bright.