In the present Kate’s father is succumbing to dementia. As his memory flickers on and off, she wants to give his life’s work meaning and so takes his enormous and beloved stamp collection to an appraiser to see if any of the stamps are valuable. In the past, Kristoff is an orphaned artist working as an apprentice for the renowned master stamp engraver, Frederick Faber. ... Read More...
The Witchfinder’s Sister
The Witchfinder’s Sister is Beth Underdown’s dark novel of dark times. It’s 1600s England and Alice is pregnant, her husband is dead and she must return to live with her brother whom she hasn’t seen in five years. Her brother who wanted to become a minister, but due to their father’s death had to earn a living as a scribe. Now grown, he has become the man charged with ... Read More...
Feast of Sorrow: A Novel of Ancient Rome
One of the grandest things that can happen to a reader is coming across a book with a new perspective on a subject they’ve read about extensively. Recently, I read Crystal King’s Feast of Sorrow, a novel about Italy in the time of Caesar Tiberius, because, hello, I read all of the Colleen McCullough Masters of Rome books and just finished reading a novel about Nero. I ... Read More...
The Women in the Castle
At a German estate in 1938 a summer party turns serious when a group of men discuss their determination to stop Hitler from his ascent to power. Marianne von Lingenfels is the wife of the group’s leader and she makes a promise to take care of the wives and children of the men in the group if they die in their efforts to stop Hitler. They do fail in their assassination ... Read More...
The Confessions of Young Nero
Who hasn’t heard some version of the phrase “Nero fiddled while Rome burned”? It’s long been the standard epitaph for any ruler so decadent and foolish that they were more interested in entertaining and enriching themselves than running a country. Hhhhmmm. Current similarities aside, Margaret George decides to investigate the life of Emperor Nero to see what, if any, of ... Read More...
Lincoln in the Bardo
Witty, somber, irreverent—just a few of the words I’d use to describe George Saunders’s new novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. And because I know you’re wondering: bardo is the Buddhist concept of the interim place the soul goes before moving into its next reincarnation. In this case, the soul belongs to Willie Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son who dies of ... Read More...
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- …
- 52
- Next Page »
