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 …
Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher Crown Forum, 2006 For the past year, I’ve been reading Rod Dreher’s posts on American Conservative. I came to Dreher’s column after I read the account he wrote of his sister’s battle with cancer in The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming which I wrote about on this blog nearly a year and …
Nearly ten years ago I was captivated by Charles Shields unauthorized biography of Harper Lee, the legendary author of To Kill a Mockingbird. To write Mockingbird: A portrait of Harper Lee, Shields spoke to Lee’s friends and some friends of friends, piecing together a fascinating glimpse of a writer who had became all but a recluse. …
Zen Under Fire by Marianne ElliottSourcebooks 2013 Marianne Elliott documented human rights violations in Afghan prisons and police stations and trained local law enforcement officers and prosecutors about human rights and Afghan law. Her life, first in Kabul, and then in Herat, was one of contrasts. Rules and procedures narrowed her freedom: she needs a driver or …
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 …
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 …
The First Phone Call from Heaven Mitch Albom They teach you, as children, that you might go to heaven. They never teach you that heaven might come to you. I’m known as a pretty persnickety reader. I do mid-list fiction with a little dose of literary fiction thrown in. That’s about it. You know, books …
This is my symphony 