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The Diamond Lane

October 6, 2014

diamond lane

Life here was weighted with the vague feeling that if anything was happening, it was happening wherever one wasn’t. Maybe that accounted for all the driving…Eleven million people scurrying around, trying to find the exclusive exciting event that would make them feel at the center of something big.  Mimi Fitzhenry is the type of living-in-Hollywood character who chooses to ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Hollywood, satire

The Children Act

September 8, 2014

children act

Ian McEwan is one of those authors who can blend matters of life-and-death with everyday issues and give both equal weight. In his newest novel, The Children Act, he displays his skill with his elegant renderings of the life of Fiona Maye, a High Court judge in London. Maye presides in family court over the type of cases that bring out great emotion but she is widely known for ... Read More...

10 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, mystery, Nan A. Talese

Tumbledown: A Novel

September 5, 2014

tumbledown

Tumbledown by Robert Boswell largely takes place at the Onyx Springs Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Center, a residential facility where James Candler is a counselor. Through the novel we meet the individual patients James works with, the other counselors, his boss, his sister and his best friend. The novel is an ensemble piece of fiction in that almost every character has an ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, Graywolf Press

Dear Committee Members

August 20, 2014

dear committee members

  If every member of the human race evinced a fondness for literature and even a moderate level of dexterity with the written word, I would be a happier, if not more well-adjusted, man. Jay Fitger is an underpaid, tortured and tenured English professor at Payne University. His professional life at this B-level college has largely devolved into writing letters of ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Doubleday, humor

The Story Hour

August 18, 2014

story hour

  When it comes to the workings of the human heart there are few who tell tales so consistently unexpected and with such depth as Thrity Umrigar. Her newest novel, The Story Hour, is about the lonely Lakshmi and Maggie, the psychologist assigned to work with her after she tries to kill herself. Lakshmi came from India six years ago with her arranged-marriage husband. Her life ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, Harper, India

Friendswood: A Novel

August 13, 2014

friendswood

Friendswood, Texas is a good, old oil-based community. Rosemont is a small suburb built near a refinery and life is good there, until funny greasy black coils of goo start appearing in people’s yards like fat worms after a rain. Friendswood by René Steinke begins years after the fallout from the leakage of deadly chemicals in the field around which the houses of Rosemont were ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Riverhead Books

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