“My Name is Lucy Barton” is a deceptively simple book that on first blush might seem to be about a relationship between a daughter and mother. Lucy is telling her story looking back over a nine-week period she spent in the hospital recovering from complications after removal of her appendix. While she is recovering,
I just finished Colum McCann’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking” and it is simply the antithesis of the last two books I reviewed (Purity and City on Fire). And that’s a good thing–in case you were wondering. None of the clutter or pretension. Simply beautiful writing, moving story telling and believable, recognizable
I finished City on Fire a couple of weeks ago and just couldn’t decide whether I liked it and what I wanted to say about it. The book has its highs and its lows, but overall I have decided it is overly ambitious, tries too hard and is simply too long.
A first novel, City
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“There’s a fashion now for fat, hyper-intellectual, cooler-than-thou novels that are loaded with lard and siphoned of believable feeling…” This is how Mary Karr, the poet and memoirist, has described today’s novel and this is how I felt about Jonathan Franzen’s “Purity”.
I loved “The Corrections”, and I always look forward to and read the
“The Fishermen”, by Chigozie Obioma, takes place in 1996 in Akure Nigeria and tells the tragic story of the Agwu family amidst a changing Nigeria. A first novel short listed for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, The Fishermen revolves around 4 brothers. The story begins with the transfer of their disciplinarian father to the town
I know I said I was a fiction fanatic, but when I read good nonfiction I just want to tell the world about it. So let me tell you about “H Is For Hawk”.
Helen Macdonald’s “H Is For Hawk” is a beautifully written and thoughtful book that includes patience as one of its many
Kent Haruf’s “Our Souls at Night” is a short, sweet story about the cycle of life. The main two characters are a widow (Addie) and a widower (Louis) in their 70s who, in an unlikely scenario, find each other and develop a slow moving romance. As the characters get to know each other and reveal
King David is a biblical icon about whom we actually know very little. If you want to experience (first hand) the highs and lows of King David in a way you never dreamed possible, then read Geraldine’s Brooks’ “The Secret Chord,” which will be released in October of 2015. This fictionalized history of King David’s