Finally! Let’s talk reading again, specifically my favorite books of 2023 so we can move onto what lies ahead in 2024. It was an interesting year in that I don’t remember another time when I had this many 5-star nonfiction books. I’m not even sure I’ve ever read so much great nonfiction in one year (and I’m too lazy to go back and check)! Somehow, 2023 came ... Read More...
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
I love books about art, whether they’re fiction or nonfiction so Michael Finkel’s The Art Thief was an easy reading choice. It’s the true story of a modern day art thief in France and is a heady combination of both fiction and nonfiction in that it’s true, but reads with the pace and plot twists of a thriller. Stéphane Breitwieser was not a man who would stand out in person or ... Read More...
The Swimmers: A Novel
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...
February Reading Wrap-Up
February was a month of extremes. I either held onto a book for dear life or dropped it like a bad habit. There was no middle ground. Thankfully, the majority of what I read was outstanding with 6 of the 11 novels I read being 4 stars or higher. DNFs are painful, but that disappointment aside, it was a great month. This was definitely a case of my bored mind ... Read More...
A Burning: A Novel by Megha Majumdar
Jivan is a young woman living with her parents in a slum in India. She is a sales clerk at a nice clothing store. Everyone around her is shocked then when she is arrested for the bombing of a commuter train that killed over 100 people. She is the nexus at the center of Megha Majumdar’s novel, A Burning. The novel’s other two narrators are PT Sir, a gym teacher who knew her when ... Read More...
May Reading Recap
It’s getting harder and harder to tell the end of any month. Who knows when one has ended and a new one begun, but apparently May is over. The loss of normalcy and routine means that even as restrictions in Michigan ease I feel unsettled going out and saddened by the fact that what was once normal may not be that way for the foreseeable future. This ongoing uncertainty has led ... Read More...
