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The Swimmers: A Novel

July 14, 2023

swimmers

A beautifully composed, but unusual novel, there's not a lot of action in The Swimmers so if plot and pace are a criteria for your summer reading, save this contemplative beauty for the fall.  It's the story of a swimming pool and the group of swimmers who churn, wade, bounce, and glide through its lanes. In the first half of the novel the narrators are the collective ‘we’ of ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction

Such Kindness: A Novel

June 13, 2023

kindness

I’ve been craving pace in my reading lately so am surprised to be here with an introspective novel spanning only a few days and very little action. Set in present-day Massachusetts, Such Kindness by Andre Dubus III is a tender, painful look at one man’s reckoning of an expansive life that once included marriage, a son, and owning his own business, but is now diminished to ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, literary, social issues

The Guest: A Novel by Emma Cline

May 18, 2023

guest

Alex has spent her adult years learning from her mistakes, especially when it comes to men. More specifically, men with money, the only kind who interest her. She’s 22 and has been living in Manhattan for years working as an escort, trying to live out the Pretty Woman script, where a wildly wealthy man falls in love with her and all her dreams come true. Except, this is the ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, literary, vacation reading

Clytemnestra: A Novel

May 9, 2023

clytemnestra

I may be struggling with my new release reading recently, but Greek mythology retellings continue to make me all kinds of happy. Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati is my latest favorite, a bold portrayal of a woman known only as the vengeful wife of Agamemnon, the King who won the war with Troy. The other ‘facts’ of Clytemnestra are these: Helen of Troy was her sister, she had an ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: mythology, retellings, women

The Covenant of Water

May 1, 2023

covenant

Abraham Verghese is back with a new novel 14 years after his critically acclaimed bestseller, Cutting for Stone. The Covenant of Water is a saga spanning 70 years about one family with an unusual history—in every generation there is a family member with an aversion to water who ends up drowning. Verghese uses this mysterious affliction as the thread woven through a sprawling ... Read More...

20 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 20th century, historical fiction, India, literary

The Trees by Percival Everett

April 24, 2023

trees

Percival Everett’s novel The Trees is a dark and darkly humorous look deep into the foul, blood-clogged engine of racism. Set in a small Mississippi town locked in the 1950s, the death of two good ole boys has left residents stunned. Not because they were particularly liked (they were not), but because the crimes are so gruesome, specifically the removal of certain body parts ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, literary, racism, satire, Southern life

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