Miriam Gershow’s debut novel, The Local News, is an excellent story narrated by 15 year old Lydia Pasternak, whose older brother Danny has mysteriously gone missing after shooting hoops with a couple of friends at the local elementary school.
Lydia doesn’t exactly miss her brother right away. Her feelings are complicated. Danny and his football playing [...]
The Beauty of the Hedgehog
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is a great book. This beautiful, moving, and occasionally very funny novel tells the story of an amazing woman and a startling young girl, and their parallel and eventually joined paths to recognition of beauty, in the self and in the world.
Renee is [...]
I am constantly surprised by the knowledge books provide, the way they let you experience and imagine things that could never have been possible otherwise. The way they tell stories that surprise, horrify or humble you. Mommy I’m Still in Here is one such story. As the tag line says ‘It is the story of [...]
Six novels in one.
The word genius is bandied about in several of the reviews I read of David Mitchell’s fourth novel, Cloud Atlas, and so I decided to read it, thinking Shakespeare, Beethoven, Einstein, Michaelangelo, etc., people who in my opinion, fill this billing. I found no genius in Cloud Atlas, but what I did [...]
Breathing in Art
Reading Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark is like breathing in art, instead of air. It’s in the words chosen by the author, in Thea’s artistic pursuit of her voice (a lark, of course, known for its beautiful songs), and in Thea’s love of the painting, ”The Song of the Lark,” by [...]
Full Circle
In July, I read Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk, a writer I’d never read before. Upon finishing the novel, I immediately wanted to reread it. Instead, I began a journey that has lasted four months: reading each of Rachel Cusk’s books in the order she wrote them. With this post, we come full circle, [...]
A brief synopsis:
A lost child…
On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her – but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace.
A terrible secret…
On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell O’Connor learns [...]
Back in 2006, before my blogging days, I read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and it became the book in which I’ve compared everything else to since. When The Angel’s Game came up for review on Shelf Awareness, I knew I had to read it as soon as possible. I dropped [...]
Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin is one of most intense, disturbing, well-written, and deeply affecting books I have ever read. I finished it in awe of Shriver’s considerable writing talent, as well as the horrifyingly real, unforgettable story she created. I’ve struggled with this review, which is unlike me - usually I [...]