The first month of summer is wrapping up so before things get too far along I have a week’s worth of great books to share. Each one makes for perfect summer reading! It is every entrepreneur’s dream to have their creation sell for a boatload of money. For Mr. Jha the dream comes true when his website is bought for $20 million—the kind of money that changes lives. ... Read More...
Something Wicked This Way Comes: Mini-Reviews
In a surprising bit of synchronicity, I read two great novels recently that both referenced Shakespeare—which is why the quote from Macbeth for this post’s title. Also, because there is a lot of wicked in both these novels. In New Boy, Tracy Chevalier adapts the very grown-up themes of Othello to 1970s elementary school. Then M.L. Rio uses Shakespeare’s plays as the ... Read More...
The Shore: A Novel by Sara Taylor
The Shore by Sara Taylor may qualify as one of the most unusually formatted books I’ve read in a long time. Take a family tree composed of over fifty members, stretching from the 1850s to 2143. Close your eyes, throw a dart at the tree and wherever it land--that’s a chapter. So, even though Medora Slater is the matriarch who gets this clan started, she doesn’t make an ... Read More...
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
I could not pass up the opportunity to share the love again for a book that I adored. I'm not a big short story reader, but Marra connects the dots so well that The Tsar of Love and Techno reads like an abstract art of a novel. It comes out in paperback tomorrow so if you missed it the first time around, read it now! For art to be the chisel that breaks the ... Read More...
DNF: The Dreaded Did-Not-Finish
Much like the political noise that is sweeping our country right now there is a topic in the bookish world that tends to split itself into party lines. For some it is something they are proud of and shout from the rooftops. For others it is a personal failure and something they’d rather not talk about. I am referring, of course, to the decision not to finish a book or as many ... Read More...
The Tsar of Love and Techno
For art to be the chisel that breaks the marble inside us, the artist must first become the hammer. The Tsar of Love and Techno begins in 1937 Leningrad with a nameless censor. A man whose artistic skill is such that his sole purpose is to erase people deemed to be enemies of the state from any and all paintings and photographs in which they appear. His talent ... Read More...
