[simpleazon-image align=”left” asin=”1627792104″ locale=”us” height=”500″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RH0ldUDPL.jpg” width=”329″][simpleazon-link asin=”1627792104″ locale=”us”]The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories[/simpleazon-link] by Hilary Mantel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Because this was a book of short-stories and I was in the process of reading other novels simultaneously, I had planned to read one story each night and finish in ten days. When I reached the second story, my plan went out the window because I became swept up in the psychological dramas that were playing out on the page. I ended up reading the book in two days instead of ten. Mantel’s gift in these stories was the ability to reach into the heads of her characters to convey, in a short span, a range of human nature, emotion, cruelty, insanity and more that was captivating. The complex inner-lives of the characters made most of the stories surprisingly rich.

Quotes:

“..her head looked like a badly tied parcel” (p. 40) – Comma

“We dress for the weather we want, as if to bully it, even though we’ve seen the forecast” (p. 74) – Winter Break

“She lives on the fumes of whiskey and the iron in the blood of her prey” (p. 232) – The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher