Tag: Takes

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.


William Shakespeare – Troilus and Cressida | Review

Title: Troilus and Cressida

Author: William Shakespeare

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 130

Rating: 4/5

I didn’t know much about Troilus and Cressida going into reading this, and so that made for a pretty interesting read. It turns out that I was already loosely familiar with the plotline from other takes on mythology, but I wasn’t really reading it for the plot anyway.

As usual, I was mostly gripped by Shakespeare’s masterful control of the English language, and it was an inspiring little read that left me wanting to read more. Fortunately, I have a bunch of other stunning Folio society editions of Shakespeare just waiting in the wings, so perhaps I’ll get to them sooner rather than later. Make of that what you will.

Learn more about Troilus and Cressida.