Jul 2025

Olga Tokarczuk’s ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ is my latest read of 2025.

Like ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ and ‘Alias Grace’, this novel was a pick for my work’s book club. This month’s theme? Nobel Prize Winners. (Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018 – nine years after ‘Drive Your Plow…’ was first published.)

The story follows Janina, an older woman living on a wooded mountain near a rural Polish village. The novel starts with a bang. Oddball (a neighbour) awakens her in the middle of the night to say that Bigfoot (another neighbour) is dead. From the names alone, you can likely tell this is a dark, quirky little book. You’d be right. Bigfoot appears to have choked to death on an animal bone. From this point on, residents begin dropping off, one by one.

I enjoyed ‘Drive Your Plow…’ a lot. The beginning was excellent – strange, with a terrific hook. The middle sagged a bit under the weight of astrology talk. (We get it: Janina is eccentric!) But Tokarczuk brings it back under control for the final third. The dark Polish humour that simmers beneath the surface is perfect. And the English translation is top-notch – I often forgot I was reading a translated work.

I wouldn’t call this a ‘mystery’, though. It was clear where the plot was going. To me, the whodunit aspect is scaffolding for the real story (which I won’t spoil here).

Still, I’d recommend ‘Drive Your Plow…’ – if only because I’ve never read anything quite like it. It’s a peculiar book. If you can push past the astrology, you’ll find the ending rewarding, if unsurprising.

As for me, I’m keen to read more of Tokarczuk’s work – especially ‘Flights’, the book that helped her win the Nobel.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ☆

Rodman Philbrick’s (writing as William R. Dantz) ‘Hunger’ is my latest read of 2025!

I am part of several horror reader circles, and the theme of aquatic terrors has come up. As a fan of movies like ‘Jaws’ and ‘Deep Blue Sea’, it piqued my curiosity. Someone recommended ‘Hunger’, saying it was like ‘Deep Blue Sea.’ It seemed like a no-brainer for a breezy summer read, so I was in. Yet, it took me a few minutes to find a copy. I didn’t know that ‘William R. Dantz’ was Rodman Philbrick’s pen name, or that newer editions bore his real name. But find it I did.

The setup is classic sci-fi horror. Six mutant sharks break out of their caged-in cove and escape to the deep blue sea. (See what I did there?) The lab that created these creatures goes into panic mode, scrambling to reclaim them. Meanwhile, a local couple running a dive boat have been caring for two dolphins that fled from the same lab. It doesn’t take long for the carnage to begin.

I had an absolute blast reading ‘Hunger’. I wanted a fun B-movie horror novel, and that’s what I got – a high-quality B-movie horror novel, at that. The chapters from the sharks’ perspectives are fantastic. Philbrick captures the thought processes of these intelligent, primal animals. There are also some creepy moments, like the photographer exploring a shipwreck. And the chapter ‘What a Father Does’ gave me goosebumps with its moving, emotional quality. That last one caught me off guard.

As I said in my review of Steve Alten’s ‘Meg’, do you judge a book against other books, or do you judge it for what it’s trying to do? This novel is not Stephen King’s ‘The Shining’, nor is it trying to be. It’s a book about a bunch of mutated sharks ripping things up in a gory, spooky mess. And in that regard, it excels.

Are you looking for a fun summer scare? Do you, like me, have a salachian obsession? (That’s ‘shark’ for those of you who didn’t grow up reading/watching anything with a dorsal fin on the cover.)

Well then, look no further than Philbrick’s ‘Hunger’.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ☆

Month: Jul 2025

Book Review: ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ by Olga Tokarczuk

Book Review: ‘Hunger’ by Rodman Philbrick