Lucky Usby Amy BloomRandom House I judged a book by its cover. I did. When I saw the tightrope-walking zebra and lion, the stage and red-I’m-assuming-velvet curtains on the cover of Lucky Us, I had visions of Water for Elephants, for some reason. The blurb sure didn’t give me that impression, though–two sisters, a “hopeful …
Painted Horses (NetGalley DRC)by Malcolm BrooksGrove Pressrelease date: August 13, 2014 Standing by the side of the road the first time I drove through North Dakota and into Montana, the Earth’s curve domed overhead. I recognized it at once–that wide expanse of sky so often described by McCarthy and McMurtry and Cather. Breathtaking. (I also caught …
A Man Called Ove (NetGalley DRC)by Fredrik BackmanAtria Books Time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us … One of the most painful moments in a person’s life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than …
The Dinner by Herman Koch Hogarth (Crown Publishing) Brothers Serge and Paul Loman meet for dinner with their wives Babette and Claire. You could cut the tension with a knife: Paul resents the choice of an expensive (and pretentious) restaurant and his brother’s celebrity (Serge is running for prime minister); Babette, red-eyed, has obviously been …
Small Blessings (NetGalley DRC)Martha Woodruffrelease date: August 2014 The worst thing you can do in this life is turn away from it, my dear. Professor Tom Putnam has patiently cared for his wife Marjory for twenty years; suffering from disabling anxiety and depression, Marjorie rarely leaves their home except to visit her psychiatrist. When Tom …
The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb (NetGalley ARC) Nicholas Rinaldi release date: August 2014 I know little of freak shows or P.T. Barnum, other than the circus. My exposure to little people came first from The Wizard of Oz as a child–pretty exploitive, I’m guessing–, and, more recently, the reality show Little People, Big World. So …
https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/0sPr4snZqcM&source=uds Rotten Tomatoes: 46%. IMBD: 7.6/10. Odd discrepancy, maybe. Of course, the focus of Rotten Tomatoes is more movie critics–I read just a couple and, for the most part, they were disappointing: “Death as a tooth fairy“, “not a little dull“, “no real feeling for the catastrophe“. The blurb on the site reads, “A bit …
The Book Thief Markus Zusak The Book Thief has been on my Amazon Wishlist for ages; published several years ago and a New York Times bestseller for now a second go-around, it seemed like good summer reading. Okay, so a novel about Nazi Germany might not be everyone’s idea of a beach book, but what …
Neverhome (NetGalley ARC) Laird Hunt release date: Sept. 2014 Ash Thompson sets off down the road to fight Mr. Lincoln’s War. The family farm in Indiana was an idyllic place–a barn with a hayloft, a grove of trees, horse corral, “good chairs”. A blissful place for a young couple to start their lives together. But …
Amity and Sorry by Peggy Riley “Two sisters sit, side by side, in the backseat of an old car. Amity and Sorrow. Their hands are hot and close together. A strip of white fabric loops between them, tying them together, wrist to wrist.” And with those first lines, I’m hooked. The girls’ mother, Amaranth, is …
This is my symphony 