A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne Maurice Swift is very handsome. So handsome that both men and women fall in love with him. He is also very ambitious. His two goals in life are to become a renowned writer and to become a parent, and he has no qualms about achieving both by […]
Little Free Libraries come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are in the boxes sold as kits by the Little Free Library organization. Sometimes they are in repurposed newspaper vending boxes. And sometimes people just leave books lying around for strangers to pick up. I have seen them in airport lounges, on garden walls, […]
Any time that anyone mistreats, cheats, or defrauds one of my children, my momma bear claws come out. This week, Amazon turned me into a bear. My eldest son recently finished writing a novel. The work took over two years to complete and was created in the middle of the night on weekdays and during […]
Midnight Drive by Kenneth Price is available for pre-order at Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble, and will be released on June 1st. It is a gripping crime story that I would recommend even if I were not Ken’s mom.
Fair Warning by Michael Connelly If you have ever had doubts about what happens to your DNA after you submit it to a genetic analytics company, this book will add to your concerns. It raises the fictional (I hope) possibility that DNA information might be sold on to multiple other companies to do with as […]
Don’t get me wrong. I am still reading, but lately I’ve been abandoning some books. It all started when I thought I should work my way through some of the un-heard books in my audiobook files and unread books in my e-reader. Most of them have been there for many years, silently waiting for me […]
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow was published in 2008 and, although it discusses computer technology that is now dated, it still has relevance today. It is a book intended for young adults and has teenaged characters who find ways to challenge and disrupt their dystopian world. Marcus is a tech-savvy seventeen-year-old who has figured out […]
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo This intriguing story is written in an unconventional manner, which I found bewildering at first. I’m glad I stuck with it, though, because it eventually becomes clear that the underlying message is about women who endure hardship and triumph over adversity. It is set in a […]
When you hear a story read aloud, you can enjoy the emphasis and drama in the voice of the storyteller. Their expression of the people and events become yours, too. When you read a story, on the other hand, your imagination brings images to mind and so your own perceptions inform your understanding. That distinction […]
After I had reviewed The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, her book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was recommended to me. It is another brilliant and very readable analysis of the social and racial issues facing the United States. Those same issues are facing other countries, too, but the circumstances Wilkerson describes […]
These are two books that I heartily recommend, and both imagine worlds that could improve people’s lives. One is a fictional child’s world, the other is a social economic possibility. My grandmother sends her regards and apologises by Fredrik Backman Elsa is a bright and strong-willed seven-year-old who has an eccentric, devoted, grandmother. After Elsa’s […]
These two books about migrations within America and to America have given me a lot to think about. They go beneath the surface and find both heartwarming and unsettling consequences. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson Between 1915 and 1970 six million Black Americans fled the South for cities in the North and […]
These two books were both recommended to me, and I am happy to recommend them to you. They are both enjoyable and engaging, although they are very different in style and tone. One is about staying in a home town and the other is about travelling all over the country. Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout […]
E Is for Evidence by Sue Grafton Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone must solve a murder in order to restore her professional reputation, and she must do so without smart phones and with no internet to aid the detective work. She must rely on interviews and logic to figure things out. She records notes and compiles […]
The 19th Christmas by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro This is one in a series of the Women’s Murder Club thrillers. I had not read any of the other books in this series, but it didn’t matter because the story stands alone. It mostly revolves around only one member of the club, although she draws […]
Here are two books that I have recently finished. They are both well-written and engaging, but I am left wondering why I want to like the protagonists in the novels I read. The Last Trial by Scott Turow This is one in a series of books about defense lawyer Alejandro “Sandy” Stern. He is eighty-five […]
The three books I have for you to consider today came to me via my Kindle, a sale at the Indigo online bookstore, and my local library. It is fair to say that the cost of each is no indication of their worth. Out Of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper. This is a heart-rending […]
These three books are all very different and each is set in a different country, but all three have an understanding of women’s lives and women’s sorrows. Sweetness In The Belly by Camilla Gibb This story begins in Morocco, travels to Ethiopia during Emperor Heile Selassie’s reign, and continues to the London of Margaret Thatcher’s […]
This month I have read two books, each of which disturbed me for different reasons. I also re-read a book that I have previously enjoyed. The Widow by Fiona Barton Fiona Barton was a journalist before she became a novelist, and this book brings to the fore the complicated relationship that the press has with […]
My eldest son recently met an older woman who shocked him by saying “Our Prime Minister should be hit by a car and run over.” She was deadly serious. Her information sources had led her to believe that Justin Trudeau was such a threat that he needed to be eliminated. My response was first shock, […]
Snowbird of Paradise 