July 22, 1840 My Dear Maclise, Kate has a girl stopping here, for whom I have conceived a horrible aversion, and whom I must fly. Shall we dine together today in some sequestered pothouse….?…If nay, whither can I turn from this fearful female! She is the Ancient Mariner of young ladies. She ‘holds me with [...]
Continue Reading →Pure by Andrew Miller is a mesmerizing book, a stunner of historical fiction set in 1785 Paris, when an ambitious provincial engineer is commissioned to clear out the oldest cemetery in Paris, disposing of the bones, destroying the attendant church, and filling in the holes left behind any way he can. It quickly becomes apparent [...]
Continue Reading →Suffering post-SuperBowl, mid-winter, pre-chocolate-of-Valentine’s-Day blues? Pick up any and all of three wonderful new mysteries and escape from the blahs. All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley, Ghost Hero by S.J. Rozan, and Motor City Shakedown by D.E. Johnson provide five different sleuths (yes, Rozan gives us not one, not two, but [...]
Continue Reading →How It All Began, the new novel from Booker Prize Winner Penelope Lively can be read as a clever and fun romp, where we the reader get to play peeping tom, peeking into ordinary lives turned sideways by one incident. Charlotte, the eye of the storm, recovers from the incident in the home of Rose, [...]
Continue Reading →I love just about everything Walter Mosley writes. The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray is one of my favorite novels ever, The Tempest Tales made me laugh and think, his Easy Rawlins mysteries make me cry and think, and his most recent series, starring ex-boxer Lenoid McGill, make me smile wryly and think even more. [...]
Continue Reading →Stephen King’s latest novel, 11/22/63, is a bit slow getting started but then it soars in a gripping and sometimes terrifying “what if” flight of fancy: what if you could change history, what if you could go back in time and prevent a hunting accident, a hot-blooded murder, or the assassination of John F. Kennedy? [...]
Continue Reading →I absolutely loved the novel Jamesland by Michelle Huneven, which was loaned to me by a cherished and bookish friend. I am glad to have sneezed all over the book, for now I can keep it for myself — and I have ordered a brand-new copy for my friend. Jamesland tells the story of two [...]
Continue Reading →Chihuahua Karma by Debby Rice is a great feel-good read that made me laugh out loud, tugged at my heart-strings, and left me smiling. Available only as an E-book, Rice’s lively, incisive, and addictive writing makes buying an E-reader a good idea (alongside previously reviewed E-books like Minks Rises by Eric Almeida and The View [...]
Continue Reading →The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar is a sparkling and sharp slice of life that, in presenting four personal stories, reflects and illuminates universal truths. Four women have been friends since their student days in Bombay, during the heady but dangerous years of the 1970s when protests and marches dominated university life and parents [...]
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