So ends December and 2017! It was not an easy year. Initially, books didn’t even help but eventually reading became my escape again (to the tune of 183 books read). 2017 ended strong with November providing me with some of my favorite books of all time. December was a bit more hit or miss, with what I read below. You can check out my favorites for the year here and ... Read More...
Enchantress of Numbers
What kind of child might you get if you matched a world-famous poet known for his outrageous lifestyle and a genteel woman with a penchant for knowledge and restraint? If it was the early 1800s in England then you’d get Augusta Ada Byron, the only legitimate heir of Lord George Gordon Byron. Enchantress of Numbers is Jennifer Chiavarini’s new novel about Ada’s life—a ... Read More...
Mrs. Osmond by John Banville
“You seem to me, Miss Archer, a person possessed of a large potential; do be careful not to underspend your resource.” I read Henry James’s Portrait of Lady a long time ago, but still remember how bad I felt for its heroine, Isabel Archer. She’s a young American who goes to England and comes into a small fortune, is taken in by a worldly older woman who educates ... Read More...
When Breath Becomes Air
Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving suffering, virtue. Paul Kalanithi knew he would split his life in two—the first half would be devoted to his passion for ... Read More...
A Star Called Henry
There may be a lot about the reality of historical Ireland that I don’t like (being a woman and all), but fictionally, male Irish authors are some of the most lyrically gifted I’ve ever read. My longtime favorite was William Trevor (The Story of Lucy Gault, Death in Summer) and then this fall I added John Boyne (The Heart’s Invisible Furies, The Boy in the Striped ... Read More...
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
I wasn’t planning on making this my week of impressive, but painful, tragic books but here we are. Reading Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad is like watching 12 Years a Slave—both are extremely important, but neither are entertaining or enjoyable. They're too real for that. Cora is a slave who decides to escape from the brutal Georgia plantation that is the only home ... Read More...
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