2019-10-02 10:30
Carl Morck is a curmudgeonly Copenhagen police detective mourning the death of one colleague and critical injury of another in an ambush. Now he has been relegated to the basement to t… Read More
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2019-09-25 10:30
For me, this book was long and somewhat tedious. The writing is good, and the storyline is easy to follow, but it did not affect me emotionally as deeply as it should have. Sunja… Read More
2019-09-18 10:30
I did not really want to read this book and certainly did not expect to like it. Memoirs are definitely not my thing, but my dread was quickly dispelled. This book focuses on the… Read More
2019-09-11 10:30
The irony of the title is that there is no such thing as a small bomb. However, some bombings garner more international attention than others. In this novel, the bombing of a mar… Read More
2019-09-04 10:30
This book is truly weird, and I do not mean that in a good way. Plus, the grammar is atrocious, with the wrong pronoun used as often as not. (Nominative case should be objective… Read More
2019-08-28 10:30
Eleanor Oliphant is socially awkward but has a decent job in Glasgow, where she lives alone and drinks lots of vodka to get through the weekends. Then a computer virus causes her to me… Read More
2019-08-21 10:30
Arthur Less, a gay novelist, is about to turn 50, and his younger ex-lover Freddy is getting married. The last thing Arthur wants to do is go to the wedding, but he also can’t be… Read More
2019-08-14 10:30
This novel is mainly about trees, but there are some human characters as well. The author introduces the people in the first third of the book, and I was pleased that the table of cont… Read More
2019-08-11 22:35
I wanted to love this book, but really it’s a little haywire. Peter Els calls 911 when his dog dies, and this unfortunate error in judgment causes him big trouble. When the… Read More
2019-08-07 10:30
This novel takes place against the backdrop of a real event—a 1962 plane crash in which over 100 wealthy Atlanta art patrons perished. Civil rights issues also figure largely int… Read More
2019-07-31 10:00
Kudos to Marie Benedict for bringing to light the accomplishments of such women as Hedy Lamarr. Now if only her writing had a little more sparkle. Anyway, back to Hedy. Wit… Read More
2019-07-24 10:30
Coleman Silk is a classics professor at a small college. When he innocently refers to some students that have never shown up for class as spooks, his remark is interpreted by some as r… Read More
2019-07-22 00:35
This novel takes place during the McCarthy era, and Ira Ringold is a communist. He is also a radio star married to an even bigger star. His marriage is hampered by his wife&rsquo&hell…Read More
2019-07-17 10:30
Imagine that our country’s leaders have decided in the past year that women should not speak more than 100 words per day. In this novel they enforce this limit by requiring all w… Read More
2019-07-10 10:30
Peter Heller knows how to tell a suspenseful adventure story. This novel is as turbulent as its title waterway, in which two college students, Wynn and Jack, take a Canadian wilderness… Read More
2019-07-03 10:30
Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox are partners in the Dublin Murder Squad, and they have just received a case involving the murder of a 12-year-old girl, Katy Devlin, in Knocknaree. Unbeknown… Read More
2019-06-26 10:30
This book is fiction, but it has a lot in common with Orange Is the New Black. It takes place in a women’s prison, and the protagonist is an intelligent white woman who may not d… Read More
2019-06-23 22:44
My main problem with this book is that there’s no tangible plot. The setting is Cuba in the 1950s, and the characters are Americans living there in luxury, relative to the Cubans… Read More
2019-06-19 11:00
I have to admit that this book is LOL funny at times. However, it is also monotonous, and I don’t consider it a novel, epistolary or otherwise. It consists entirely of lett… Read More
2019-06-12 10:30
Eve Fletcher is an attractive 46-year-old, sending her only son Brendan off to college. Eve is divorced and has mixed feelings about her empty nest status, but she’s determined t… Read More
2019-06-05 11:00
At first this novel turned me off with its mediocre prose and frivolous subject matter—rich snobs spending lavishly on everything from couture to private jets. Then the storyline… Read More
2019-05-29 10:30
I’m not sure why creative people seem to lead such tortured lives, but it certainly seems to be the case. If I have one complaint about this novel, it’s that Peggy Lipton&r&hell…Read More
2019-05-22 10:30
The dust jacket of this book is so appropriate, as everything seems to take place in the dark or under a cloud of mystery, and the foggy London setting further amplifies the mood of the nove… Read More
2019-05-19 22:29
The mood that pervades the atmosphere of this novel is eerie, dark, and damp. How Ondaatje manages to envelop us in the ambience of Sri Lanka I’m not really sure, but it’s… Read More
2019-05-15 10:30
George Washington “Wash” Black begins life as a slave in 1830s Barbados. His life radically changes when Titch, the plantation owner’s brother, selects Wash to serve… Read More
2019-05-08 10:30
I liked the message in this novel, or, I should say, messages. The author addresses several topics, including global warming, wasting natural resources, and the dissolution of the midd… Read More
2019-05-05 22:29
It’s the 1980s in Arizona. Codi, a med school dropout, and her sister Hallie have been very close their entire lives, but now Hallie has gone to Nicaragua to provide agricultural… Read More
2019-05-01 10:30
Amagansettwas a hard act to follow. This novel does not quite measure up, and I might have enjoyed it more if my expectations had not been so high. The main character is Adam Str… Read More
2019-04-24 10:30
Kambili is a teenage girl growing up in Nigeria, but this book is not so much a novel about Nigeria as it is about an abusive childhood. Kambili’s family is extremely wealthy, bu… Read More
2019-04-17 10:30
This book swept me away to Cuba and the parallel love stories of grandmother and granddaughter. In 1959 nineteen-year-old Elisa and her family enjoy a carefree life of affluence in Hav… Read More
2019-04-10 10:30
I love thrillers, but this is more of a murder mystery set in a quaint English town in 1955. And it’s actually a murder mystery within a murder mystery, but you won’t reali… Read More
2019-04-03 10:30
The characters in this novel are so vivid and haunting that I could not get them out of my mind. The novel follows two related stories, one in 1985 and one in 2015. Yale, a young… Read More
2019-03-27 10:30
A dozen Native Americans from Oakland, some related, some not, each have their own sections in this novel. Their stories are mostly sad, saturated with drug abuse and alcoholism. … Read More
2019-03-20 10:30
This thriller has two blockbuster crimes. First, masked intruders hold Gamma and her two daughters, Sam and Charlie, at gunpoint, ultimately killing Gamma, although the killers really… Read More
2019-03-13 10:30
Do we really want to know when we will die? Four young siblings sneak away to visit a gypsy fortuneteller in order to learn just that-- the day on which they will each die. Only… Read More
2019-03-06 11:30
When a New England fisherman pulls up a woman’s body in his net, I know I’m reading a thriller. However, the prose is so elegant that I really did not want this novel to en… Read More
2019-02-27 11:00
This novel is largely a celebration of nuns, particularly nuns who administer to those who can’t, or won’t, help themselves. Annie’s husband Jim kills himself after l… Read More
2019-02-24 23:55
Another novel about a drunken Irishman? Really? Fiction writers continue to perpetuate this stereotype, and I keep reading their books. Shame on me. Anyway, this nove… Read More
2019-02-20 11:30
A dual storyline does not hamper the suspense in this novel. The mystery about what happened in the Dakota apartment building in Manhattan a hundred years ago stumps Bailey, a 30-somet… Read More
2019-02-13 11:30
August moves with her father and younger brother from Tennessee to Brooklyn as a young girl in the 1970s. She becomes close friends with three other girls there: Sylvia, who aspi… Read More
2019-02-06 11:30
The premise of this novel is fascinating; unfortunately, the novel itself is not. The premise is that a genetic mutation gives women a skein of electrical power alongside their collarb… Read More
2019-01-30 11:30
Ares (meaning god of war) Ramirez is the 12-year-old narrator of this novel, set in the 1970s. He lives with his mother Laurel and half-brother Malcolm in a trailer in the southern Cal… Read More
2019-01-23 11:30
Jende Jonga, his wife Neni, and their son are immigrants from Cameroon, living in Harlem. Jende lands a good-paying job as the chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a Lehman Brothers executive… Read More
2019-01-16 11:30
This novel does not come across as well-balanced. Its two main characters, Albert Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Maric, are both unbearably flawed. Since this is historical… Read More
2019-01-09 11:30
I can understand why Three Junes beat out this novel for the 2002 National Book Award, but I can’t understand why this book was a Finalist. Except for a startling incident in a f… Read More
2019-01-02 11:30
The opening to this novel revived old memories of The Bonfire of the Vanities. However, the hit-and-run accident takes place in Israel, and the victim is an Eritrean immigrant. T… Read More
2018-12-26 11:30
I have read a number of post-apocalyptic novels, and this one does not break any new ground. It borrows from The Stand (mental telepathy and derelict machinery), The Dog Stars (trackin… Read More
2018-12-19 11:30
A company team-building trek into the Australian bush goes horribly wrong, and only four of the original five women make it out. The fifth woman, Alice, apparently struck out on her ow… Read More
2018-12-12 11:30
Hans, our narrator, is a Dutchman who marries an Englishwoman, Rachel. They leave London for her new job in New York and then move to the Chelsea Hotel with their young son Jake after… Read More
2018-12-05 11:30
Joe Coughlin is a conflicted gangster in the 1940s. He’s killed a lot of people, broken a lot of laws, and spent time in prison, but, despite all that, he has a moral compass of… Read More
2018-12-02 23:17
I’ve finally read Dennis Lehane’s first novel after having been a fan for some time. Despite the inherent violence in this novel, the dialog between private investigators P… Read More
2018-11-28 11:30
I wish I knew which parts of this novel were fact and which were fiction. Chabon tells his grandfather’s life story as a novel, and if it were all true, his grandfather led quite… Read More
2018-11-21 11:30
Elisabeth is a child when she meets her elderly neighbor Daniel Gluck. He has written myriad song lyrics and introduces Elisabeth to art by describing paintings. They become clos… Read More
2018-11-15 23:13
This is one of those books which leaves a lot of questions unanswered. That didn’t bother me too much, because it is certainly more about the journey than the destination. … Read More
2018-11-14 13:00
Frances Gerety, working as a copywriter for the Ayers ad agency in the 1940s, came up with the grammatically incorrect slogan “A Diamond Is Forever” and helped initiate the perce… Read More
2018-11-13 22:33
Alice Kelleher is the elderly matriarch of the Kelleher family and owns a beach house in Maine. She has made arrangements to donate the property to the local Catholic church in an effo… Read More
2018-11-07 11:30
With a title like this, we at least know to expect the narrator to be unreliable, especially since she is in a coma for most of the novel. Amber Reynolds can hear everything that is ha… Read More
2018-10-31 11:00
David Sheff writes this memoir from the perspective of a father going through hell. His smart and charismatic son Nic becomes addicted to meth, but both father and son are in denial ab… Read More
2018-10-24 10:30
This novel bounces between WWI and the aftermath of WWII, with a young female protagonist in both time periods. Eve Gardner is prominent in both, but particularly in the WWI sections… Read More
2018-10-17 10:30
This novel may be about feminism in the 21stcentury or about mentors, but I got something else out of it. For me, it’s about good people doing good work but still making very ser… Read More
2018-10-14 23:57
What a disappointment. Joe Castleman and his wife Joan are on their way to Helsinki so that Joe can accept a literary prize that is a notch or so below the Nobel. Joa… Read More
2018-10-10 10:30
Lately it seems that all novels have a drunken female protagonist. In this book, Cassie’s drinking is the reason that she’s unsure if she’s responsible for a murder… Read More
2018-10-07 22:56
John is a public defender who has decided to take up deer hunting, since his wife Sara has recently given birth to a son. John’s sister Catherine is married to Spencer, who is th… Read More
2018-10-03 12:00
This is the first novel I’ve read in a while in just one day. In fact, I read most of it in one sitting, but it’s even shorter than the page count indicates. The unna… Read More
2018-09-26 23:28
Eli and Charlie Sisters are hit men for the Commodore during the California Gold Rush. Eli narrates their adventures in search of their next target, Hermann Warm, but Charlie is the bo… Read More
2018-09-19 10:30
Arturo Belano, a stand-in for the author, and Ulises Lima are two poets who call themselves visceral realists but seem to make a living selling Acapulco Gold. The original visceral rea… Read More
2018-09-12 12:00
Anna Fox, a child psychologist, is a PTSD sufferer with agoraphobia, meaning that, in her case, she is terrified of going outside. She spends her time watching Hitchcock movies, drinki… Read More
2018-09-05 10:30
This is my least favorite Nicole Krauss novel so far. Still, it’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve ever read. The two main characters are both in Israel and undergo… Read More
2018-08-29 10:30
Roy and Celestial have been married only a year and a half when their world is rocked by a rape accusation against Roy. Despite his pleas of innocence, he is convicted and sentenced to… Read More
2018-08-22 10:30
Fourteen-year-old Linda and her parents are the only remaining vestiges of a hippie commune in an isolated area of backwoods Minnesota. Her world changes when she meets Patra Gardner… Read More
2018-08-15 10:30
Don’t let the peaceful-sounding title fool you. This novel revolves around the real-life serial killer, Herman Drenth, aka Harry Powers, aka Cornelius Pierson, who preyed upon lo… Read More
2018-08-08 10:30
When an infant’s skeleton is uncovered at a building site, journalist Kate Waters is eager to get the scoop. The baby may be Alice Irving, who was abducted from her mother’… Read More
2018-08-01 10:30
Shelby was driving on an icy road when the car spun out, putting her best friend Helene in a permanent coma. Shelby is emotionally dead herself with guilt and spends some time in a men… Read More
2018-07-29 22:16
Alice Hoffman’s magical realism novels never disappoint, if you’re looking for a breath of optimism. All generations of women in the Sparrow family are born in March, start… Read More
2018-07-25 10:30
The title of this novel is an intentional misnomer. Plus, the main character’s daughter Merry is anything but. In fact, she’s the reason that Seymour “The Swede… Read More
2018-07-22 22:05
Philip Roth’s novels are hit or miss, and this one is a definite miss for me. His great American novel is about the great American pastime—baseball. Although I watch… Read More
2018-07-18 10:30
If this final novel of Tom Wolfe’s had held my attention just a little more tightly, I would have given it five stars. The setting is Miami, with its mélange of ethnicitie… Read More
2018-07-15 22:06
They say that if you can remember the 60s, then you weren’t really there. I’m a bit younger than the people in this book, and I wasn’t in California in the 60s, where… Read More
2018-07-11 10:30
Riley, now in her twenties, was two years old when her sister Lisa, a 17-year-old violin prodigy with a very promising future, apparently committed suicide. Riley’s mother never… Read More
2018-07-04 10:30
I was afraid that this sequel to Plainsong would not live up to the standard set by its predecessor, but it absolutely does. Cattle ranchers Raymond and Harold are back, and their ward… Read More
2018-06-27 10:30
How refreshing it is to have a heroine who is a 60-something female private investigator. Celine’s specialty is reuniting family members, and she has a personal reason for pursui… Read More
2018-06-20 10:30
I didn’t like this book as well as his first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park, partly because the formula was pretty much the same. We’re still in a New England college tow… Read More
2018-06-13 11:00
I read this book for book club, and it did not change my opinion of Dan Brown. The subject matter is as thought-provoking as ever, but the writing has not improved. Still, you ha… Read More
2018-06-06 12:00
Fern and Rosemary were raised as sisters for the first five years of their lives. Then Fern had to leave the family, and this book deals largely with her departure and subsequent where… Read More
2018-05-30 11:00
At least the reader of this novel doesn’t have to deal with multiple unidentified narrators or a wacky timeline. However, the author interrupts the narrative on almost every page… Read More
2018-05-23 10:30
This book was more incomprehensible than incomparable, if you ask me. It has several first person narrators, none of whom are the primary character, a Bosnian named Josef Pronek. … Read More
2018-05-16 12:30
I liked this book, but did I like it enough to read the other two books in the trilogy? Probably not. Four women, identified only by their occupations, have come to Area X as the… Read More
2018-05-09 12:00
The subject matter of this book is so disturbing that it tarnished my opinion of it to some degree. This novel addresses a time in Memphis history in which representatives of the Tenne… Read More
2018-05-02 12:00
Historical fiction writers should take a few pointers from Geraldine Brooks. I like Alice Hoffman’s works, except for her historical fiction, which bores me to tears. … Read More
2018-04-25 12:00
When the Inn at Lake Devine in Vermont unceremoniously advises the Marx family that they are unwelcome because they are Jewish, young Natalie Marx makes it her mission to get even. Fir… Read More
2018-04-22 19:14
After having struggled through several books lately that were challenging in either length or format, I enjoyed reading something light and lively for a change. Harriet’s bagel-b… Read More
2018-04-18 12:00
Too many characters and too many pages. That’s my assessment of this ponderous 2008 National Book Award winner. Each chapter of Book I has a first-person narrator, and I co… Read More
2018-04-11 12:00
Do all teenagers cheat and lie? In this novel, most of them do, and the parents are not that truthful, either, for that matter. This book is the story of the collision of two fam… Read More
2018-04-04 21:41
Why would a young American woman move to Russia of her own accord in the 1930s? For a man, maybe. Ideals, maybe. Family heritage, maybe. Ultimately, it is an adventur… Read More
2018-03-28 12:00
For me, this book was a challenging read, particularly at the beginning. The narration jumps around between the General (obviously former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon), who is i… Read More
2018-03-25 01:16
I don’t usually read short story collections, but this one has been on my bookshelf for a long time. Suffice it to say that these stories are all very Jewish, although the themes… Read More
2018-03-21 12:00
I really enjoyed most of this murder mystery that takes place in 1910 Vienna. It’s full of gypsy lore and superstitions, giving it a sinister flavor that just enhances the rather… Read More
2018-03-14 11:30
This much we know is true: Henry is a 39-year-old dentist, married to Carol, and his older brother Nathan is a writer. Everything else is fluid. In the first section Henry… Read More
2018-03-07 14:00
This novel may be more suited to young readers, but I couldn’t resist the story of an 11-year-old paperboy in 1959 in my hometown of Memphis. My brother also had a paper route fo… Read More
2018-02-28 12:00
Kavya and Rishi are a young married couple in Berkeley, trying a little too hard to have a child of their own. They finally opt for adoption. Soli is a Mexican teenager who, afte… Read More
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