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A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult

October 3, 2018

spark

Jodi Picoult is a seasoned pro at presenting both sides to highly charged and complicated issues—which is one of the reasons I love her books. She moves me out of my comfort zone and gives me perspectives that I might not come to on my own. Generally, she finds hot-button topics shortly after they’ve hit the mainstream news, but in her latest, A Spark of Light, she is prescient ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Ballantine, book clubs, contemporary life, social issues, women

July Reading Wrap-Up

August 1, 2018

july

Oh boy, summer hit Seattle with a vengeance in July. I know for many other parts of the country temperatures in the high 80s are no big deal, but for those of us living in a region where air conditioning is not a thing in a most houses it got pretty wretched. In fact, I'll use it as the reason my reading foundered so much. I had a tough time bouncing between books I loved, but ... Read More...

10 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction, Reading Tagged: contemporary fiction, lists, mini-reviews

May Reading Recap

June 1, 2018

May

No other way to put it: May was a lovely month. Both the weather and my reading kept me charmed. There were a few misses, but overall it was my best reading month this year.   I have no idea how I managed this but somehow, I read A Rule Against Murder, book 4 in the Inspector Gamache series, before reading The Cruelest Month, which is book 3. Mea culpa! Major faux ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature Tagged: lists, mental health, mini-reviews, mystery, short stories

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain

May 7, 2018

love

  It wasn’t bravery when you did what you had to do. Paula McLain’s novel, Circling the Sun, was one of my favorites of 2015, largely because she portrayed Beryl Markham so well as a woman who wasn’t content to follow the norms of her times—get married, have children—but who understood that the only way to follow her own path meant the norms would never be an option. ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 20th century, Ballantine, historical fiction, war, women, world war II

Song of a Captive Bird

February 19, 2018

song

Remember its flight, for the bird is mortal.  -Forugh Farrokhzhad I was looking forward to learning about a time and culture, far away from my own, but I never thought I’d be so thoroughly seduced by Jasmin Darznik’s debut novel, Song of a Captive Bird. It is a fictionalized account of Forugh Farrokhzhad, the first woman in Iran to defy her country’s cultural bias and ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Ballantine, book clubs, cultural, debut, historical fiction, Iran, literary, women

June Reading Wrap-Up

July 3, 2017

june

  Quick disclaimer: it never got anywhere near warm enough in Seattle in June for outdoor swimming so this photo is fake news. There was no lounging and reading by the pool—I was wearing socks the last week of the month, but that’s all right for me. I spent three days in the 90° heat with 80% humidity that was Cleveland and it was more than enough to remind me why I love ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature Tagged: 16th century, Ballantine, contemporary life, England, family saga, historical fiction, India, literary, Mariner Books, mini-reviews

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