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Sometimes a Great Notion

September 17, 2012

sometimes

When I learned that Ken Kesey grew up in Oregon I thought I was long overdue to read one of his books. I had seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and didn’t think I needed to revisit that subject so I opted for his second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion. The story is set in Oregon logging country in the early 1960s. It catches the Stamper family (aptly named) at the height of ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, classics, family saga, literary, Pacific Northwest, Penguin

The Chocolate Money

September 16, 2012

Call me twisted but when a book opens with a wealthy woman complaining that no one understood her nude-themed Christmas card, I’m going to laugh. And have high hopes that something snarky and fun is about to transpire. Unfortunately, this does not work out in The Chocolate Money. Babs is the heiress to the Ballentyne chocolate fortune. She and her young daughter, Bettina, live ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Chicago, coming-of-age, debut, Mariner Books, wealth

Those We Love Most

September 12, 2012

those we love

Those We Love Most begins with one of life’s greatest tragedies- the loss of a young child. James is riding his bike to school as his mother follows with his baby sister in a stroller. He rides out into the street and is killed by a teenage driver. An accident, but one that Lee Woodruff mines to look at the fragile web of relationships, communications and individual responses ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, debut, family, Hyperion

The People of Forever Are Not Afraid

September 10, 2012

people of forever

Coming-of-age in Israel means something very different than it does in most countries. At 18 all Israeli youth must serve two years in the Israeli Defense Forces. In The People of Forever Are Not Afraid Shani Boianjiu takes the stories of three friends and mixing past and present explores what this time means to them and later, what it does to them. The girls are given the ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, debut, Hogarth, Israel, Middle East, social issues

Dora: A Headcase

September 8, 2012

dora

Seventeen is no place to be. You want to get out, you want to shake off a self like old dead skin. You want to take how things are and chuck it like a rock. And guess what? If it’s bad for you, the only way to alleviate the pain is to make it that much worse for everyone around you and at that, Dora is a champion. Ida is her birth name but Dora is the name she gives herself. ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, contemporary fiction, debut, Tin House

In Between Days

September 5, 2012

in between days

He looks out the window to his left and notices a small row of brown stucco houses, all old and somewhat disheveled, and realizes then, with something like panic, with something like fear, that he doesn’t actually know where he is, that he must have made a wrong turn somewhere, that somehow, in this city where he’s grown up, this city where he’s lived all his life, he is ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, Knopf

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