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The Revolution of Every Day

September 30, 2013

revolution of every day

  By the mid-1980s there was an entire subsection of lower Manhattan that had been abandoned by the city. Landlords had neglected their buildings, tenants left, and the underworld took over. It was about this time that a small group of people began to reclaim buildings that were empty and close to demolition. They were known as squatters because they moved in but paid no rent. ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, Manhattan, Tin House

Mother Mother

September 20, 2013

mother mother

Koren Zailckas doesn’t waste any time. In her first novel Mother, Mother: A Novel she takes no more than one hundred pages to pull the mask off Josephine Hurst, a woman who believes she is the pinnacle of modern motherhood—raising two lovely daughters (one destined for Broadway) and a son so gifted she has to home school him. Whether this is true or not seems beside the point ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, Crown, debut, family, suspense

Burial Rites

September 9, 2013

Burial Rites

A young woman is condemned to death in Iceland at a time when there were no jails so a family is ordered to house her for her final months. A young priest is assigned to be her spiritual guide to repentance before her execution. All this in 1828 the summer before Agnes Magnúsdóttir is to be put to death in Hannah Kent’s debut novel, Burial Rites. Agnes has been mistreated her ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, historical fiction, Iceland, literary, Little Brown and Company

The Bone Season

August 30, 2013

Boene Season

The last time I read a YA book, I was a young adult. OK, not true, I read Hunger Games, but who didn’t? I saw The Bone Season at Book Expo America and thought I’d give it a try, partly because it sounded interesting and partly because it was the first in a seven part series which means, if I like it, I’m assured of future reading (running out of books is a very real book-aholic ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Bloomsbury, debut, dystopia, fantasy, London, science fiction, young adult

The Never List

July 17, 2013

The Never List

The Never List is the debut novel from Koethi Zan. It is also the name of the list best friends Jennifer and Sarah keep after they are in an accident where Jennifer’s mother is killed. Their obsession with what can go wrong in the world, and how to prevent it, fills notebooks and follows them to college. No walking home from bars or parties, no riding with strangers, no getting ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, mystery, suspense

Note to Self

June 28, 2013

Note to Self

While it seems to be a contradiction in terms to describe a novel as both sharp and sluggish, it applies (in the best way) to Alina Simone’s debut, Note to Self. She melds the jagged edge anxiety of an unemployed woman in NYC with the ennui that means getting out of bed is a Herculean task. She woke up in the mornings already exhausted by the possibilities.   The woman is ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, debut, Faber and Faber, unemployment, women

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