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Virgil Wander: A Novel by Leif Enger

October 10, 2018

virgil

Greenstone, Minnesota is a hard luck little town. Once known for its taconite mines it has settled into a slow decline when Virgil Wander’s car goes over a cliff and into the lake one night in the midst of an unexpected snowstorm. He’s only alive because the local junkman was on the shore, dove in and saved him, but he suffers brain trauma that leaves him with vertigo, an ... Read More...

12 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Grove Press, literary, magical realism

Gone So Long: A Novel

October 8, 2018

gone

Gone So Long is both the title and the main situation in this new novel from Andre DuBus III. Daniel Ahearn is dying of cancer. He lives a quiet life alone in a small New England town and works repairing fine furniture. Before he dies he is determined to find his daughter, whom he hasn’t seen in 40 years. Twenty-five of those years were spent in prison for murdering his wife, ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, literary, New England, W.W. Norton

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult

October 3, 2018

spark

Jodi Picoult is a seasoned pro at presenting both sides to highly charged and complicated issues—which is one of the reasons I love her books. She moves me out of my comfort zone and gives me perspectives that I might not come to on my own. Generally, she finds hot-button topics shortly after they’ve hit the mainstream news, but in her latest, A Spark of Light, she is prescient ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Ballantine, book clubs, contemporary life, social issues, women

September Reading Wrap-Up

October 1, 2018

september

What a month! I read much less, but found some great, less publicized books that were exactly what I needed. Sadly, the end of the month has found me floundering as American politics have taken over. Despite knowing it would be difficult I felt I owed Dr. Ford the respect of listening to her testimony. It broke my heart and brought back a lot of very painful memories—as I’m ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature Tagged: family, lists, mini-reviews

Katerina: A Novel by James Frey

September 27, 2018

katerina

Last week I wrote about The Golden State, a novel that literally flowed, with very little punctuation or grammar, from the protagonist’s mind. Oddly, enough immediately after that book, I read James Frey’s Katerina and he utilizes the same style. The good news? In both cases it works. Katerina is the story of Jay, a writer at two very different points in his life. In 1992 he is ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, contemporary life, Paris

The Silence of the Girls

September 24, 2018

silence

Whether you read The Iliad in the original Greek, in an academic translation, or watched Brad Pitt and Eric Bana glisten as they warred on a sandy beach what everyone knows of the Trojan War is the men. And why not? It’s a story of men told by men. Author Pat Barker is having none of that. Instead, she’s looks at the war that lasted nine years and was set off by one man’s pride ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Doubleday, mythology, war, women

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