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Life from Scratch: a memoir of food, family, and forgiveness

March 4, 2015

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It’s often said that fact is stranger than fiction but as I’m a big fiction reader I don’t often test that theory. All that changed when I read Life From Scratch by Sasha Martin. Martin is well-known for her blog, Global Table Adventure, where, in the span of four years she cooked a meal from every country in the world. That alone is accomplishment enough to fill a memoir but ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, food, memoir, recipes

The Boatmaker

February 25, 2015

boatmaker

In a place where there is a Small Island, a Big Island, and a mainland, there is a man, given to very little speech, but too fond of drinking. When he is sober he is a carpenter A wonderful worker in wood. Every piece he works on comes out right, with nothing wasted. But this skill comes to him without effort. And because it came with no effort he has never respected it—or ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, literary, Tin House

Of Things Gone Astray

February 16, 2015

Magical realism is the moving force behind author Janina Matthewson’s, Of Things Gone Astray, an enchanting novel about the everyday realities of life. In it she follows six different people in London who wake up one day to find that something important in their lives has disappeared. For Mrs. Featherby it is the entire front wall of her house, for Robert his job—literally. His ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, magical realism, short stories, The Friday Project

The Jaguar’s Children

February 2, 2015

jaguar's children

  There is always some fact in fiction but in The Jaguar’s Children by John Vaillant there is likely to be much more than expected. The story is a simple one in terms of characters and staging because it takes place inside a water tanker truck over the course of three days when it is left in the desert near Nogales, Arizona after stopping due to mechanical problems. The ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, debut, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, literary, Mexico, social issues

The Girl on the Train

January 23, 2015

girl on the train

Take the unreliable narrator format from Gone Girl and multiply it times three and you’ve got Paula Hawkins’ debut novel The Girl on the Train. Three women—Anna, Rachel, and Megan—all pass through the same time and space but each from a very different perspective, varying from sad to what appears to be flat out crazy. For Rachel, being unable to conceive leads to solace found ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, mystery, Riverhead Books

The Secret Wisdom of the Earth

January 7, 2015

secret

When Kevin’s little brother is killed in a freak accident he and his mother go to her father’s house for the summer to try and recover. Kevin is wracked with guilt about his part in the accident or, at least what his father tells him was his part. His mother is a wraith, the life sucked out of her, leaving her emotionally comatose. Her father lives in Medgar, Kentucky, deep in ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, coming-of-age, debut, Grand Central Publishing, Southern life

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