The Coffins of Little HopeTimothy Schaffert Give me an octogenarian obituary writer–and one named Essie, at that–and you’ve got me hooked. And while it took nearly the entire book to figure out the title (and, quite frankly, I don’t really understand why it was chosen–although the wordplay was clever), I wasn’t disappointed. Essie Myles, twice-widowed, …
The Girl Who Fell From the SkyHeidi w. Durrow The review was glowing, the novel won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, it was on Best Fiction lists for the year–and yet I passed over this one for months. I shouldn’t have. I’ll be honest–I like plots that haven’t been done before (although I suppose in …
Peony in LoveLisa See [spoiler alert] This was a quick Kindle purchase–I needed something light and breezy and (in true Kindle fashion) I needed it now! Having read Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan I anticipated another story of love and friendship–and was eager to gain more insight into 17th century China. I …
Freedomby Jonathan Franzen A few years ago, following the recommendations of almost every book reviewer, I opened Jonathon Franzen’s Corrections with high expectations–winner of the National Book Award; Time’s Great American Novelist. About 40 pages later, I was done. Now I’m no wimpy reader, but Franzen’s prose was dense and I didn’t feel that “Me! …
22 Britannia Roadby Amanda Hodgkinson A book-loving friend of mine commented recently on my blog: “Don’t you like anything?!” But I think that reading with discrimination doesn’t mean I don’t like certain novels; it just means I tend to notice stylistic or plot devices that just don’t promote story. I am an avowed story glutton–give …
White Woman on a Green Bicycleby Monique Roffey The love story of George and Sabine Harwood begins as most love stories do: passionate and built on dreams. Their story ends as some marriages do: brittle, shattered, and, yet, somehow still connected. The whimsical cover threw me as I started the novel, which begins in the …
tinkersby Paul Harding So much of what the blurbs on the back cover of tinkers relate is true; the novel is “elegiac”, “heartbreaking”, “compelling”. I would add meditative. Tinkers is beautiful, plain and simple, and the first sentence had me immediately: “George Washington Crosby began to hallucinate eight days before he died.” What follows is …
Year of Wonders Geraldine Brooks The year is 1666; a small village tucked in the English countryside welcomes a new lodger–George Viccars, a tailor from London. Viccars luxurious bolts of fine cloth, however, harbor the unseen “seeds” of the Plague. After his death, we watch the lives of the villagers quickly spiral into despair. Anna …
Cookbook CollectorAllegra Goodman So I like to cook. I love to eat. I read cookbooks for fun. And the icing on the cake? NPR commentator Maureen Corrigan called author Allegra Goodman an “updated Jane Austen” and the novel a contemporary take on Sense and Sensibility. And while the basics are there (two sisters blind to …
Wenchby Dolen Perkins-Valdez Author Dolen Perkins-Valdez peels away another layer of the slave narrative we all know existed–that of the black women, treated “well”, who were mistresses of their white owners. Even school children know of Thomas Jefferson’s Sally Hemings, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs rose in popularity …
This is my symphony 