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The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

July 17, 2019

nickel

Thanks to his strict grandmother, Elwood Curtis is the kind of young man anyone would be proud of. He's smart, honest, and dependable. He is a devoted follower of Martin Luther King, listening to a record of his speeches until he knows them by heart. After he graduates from high school he has the chance to take free classes at a nearby technical college. It’s on the trip to ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, Doubleday, historical fiction, literary, racism

A Prayer for Travelers

July 15, 2019

prayer

Cale doesn’t have a lot of people in her life. In fact, there’s only one since her mother left her in a hospital room when she was an infant. Her grandfather, a quiet old man who has no experience with children, who takes her to casinos while he gambles, but whose face, voice, and familiar smells are all she knows of love. It’s a small life in nowheresville Nevada until she ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, debut, literary, Riverhead Books

Delayed Rays of a Star

July 12, 2019

delayed

The premise for Delayed Rays of a Star is one I love. In 1928 young photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt took a photo of three women at a party in Berlin (see below). One of them, Anna May Wong, was already famous as a Hollywood actress, but the other two, Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl had yet to achieve celebrity. Author Amanda Lee Koe takes this one photograph and spins it ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, historical fiction, Hollywood, Nan A. Talese

How to Be Famous by Caitlin Moran

July 10, 2019

famous

Sometimes, when I enjoyed a book I like to give it a bit of renewed love when it comes out in paperback. This week it's How to Be Famous—a feisty hot pepper of a novel from Caitlin Moran. Ready to be re-invigorated about being female?! This is your reading… When we left Johanna Morrigan (aka Dolly Wilde) at the end of How to Build a Girl (which I loved) she had come into ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, Harper, new adult, social issues

The Most Fun We Ever Had: A Novel

July 8, 2019

eight

Where to begin about The Most Fun We Ever Had? To be concise: It’s a sweeping story of a Chicago couple who meet and marry in 1970s and go on to have four daughters. But that’s like telling someone the Grand Canyon is a big hole in the ground and not the way I work. Marilyn and David are the perfect couple to everyone around them, including their daughters Wendy, Violet, Liza ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 21st century, book clubs, debut, Doubleday, family saga, marriage, relationships

Stalled: Mini-Reviews

July 5, 2019

stalled

In the past I’ve done a feature called It’s Not You It’s Me to indicate books I didn’t enjoy but that I believe other readers might like. Today is a bit different because in those cases I finished the books. With these three books I stalled out, set the book down and never came back to it. This is likely due to my personal circumstances—namely moving across country with a lot ... Read More...

17 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature, Fiction Tagged: essays, literary, Russia

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