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The Arsonist

July 25, 2014

arsonist

  In Sue Miller’s The Arsonist Frankie Rowley has returned to the small town of Pomeroy, New Hampshire- a beach town where she spent summers with her family and where her parents, Alylvia and Alfie, have now retired. She has left behind her life in Africa where she spent years working for an organization that helps feed children. She hopes that a quiet summer at the beach will ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, Knopf, literary, New England

Summer House with Swimming Pool

July 23, 2014

summer house

  Author Herman Koch has created the doctor we’re all afraid of in his new novel, Summer House with Swimming Pool. Not a horrific needle wielding monster but something worse: the one who pretends to care but really despises his patients. Dr. Marc Schlosser listens to his patients’ complaints and seems to be sympathetic and attentive but is really thinking about the beach and ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: American life, book clubs, family, Hogarth, literary, mystery

How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

July 9, 2014

toledo

  For many, there are few ideas more compelling than that of perfect love. To meet the one person who understands you at your deepest level and loves you unconditionally; a true soulmate. Lydia Netzer takes this dream and puts it on the page in the quirky How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky. Irene Sparks is a prickly astrophysicist attempting to create a black hole in ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, family, humor, literary, St. Martin's Press

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

July 7, 2014

close your eyes

Sweet sixteen—a time of so many changes. Learning to drive, first dates, preparing for college, and, if you’re Emily Shepard, a nuclear reactor meltdown near your tiny town in Vermont, your parents disappearing, and being evacuated from your school with only the clothes on your back. This is sixteen as seen by Chris Bohjalian in his new novel, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands. When ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, Doubleday, family, social issues, young adult

Young God: A Novel

June 13, 2014

young god

Within the first eight pages of Young God, thirteen-year-old Nikki jumps off a cliff into a pool of water below after being dared, flirts with her mother’s boyfriend, and then watches her mother die as she attempts the same jump from the cliff. By the end of the second chapter, she has had sex with the boyfriend, stolen his car and his bag of drugs, and moved back into her ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, debut, Farrar Straus Giroux

The Vacationers

June 11, 2014

vacationers

The second novel can be a stressful time for any novelist but more so if their first hit it big, as did Emma Straub’s Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures. How marvelous then when the second novel travels (literally) in a completely different direction but still delivers on-point prose and an engaging story. I’m talking about The Vacationers, Straub’s contemporary look at the Post ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, family, Riverhead Books

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