Claire and Dora Williamson are wealthy British women using their inheritance to travel the world in the early 1900s. Like many people of the time they are convinced that they could be in better health and like many women, with so little understanding of their own bodies, they believed that the slightest discomfort was indicative of a greater disorder. To that end they abandoned ... Read More...
Casebook: A Novel
From the time he is nine years old Miles Adler-Rich is a snoop. Not just a hanging around snoop, a hiding walkie-talkies and wiring-an-extension-into-the-family’s-phone-line snoop. Initially, he just wants to know if his parents are going to relent and let him watch Survivor but when his efforts to know all fail and they announce they’re getting divorced, it becomes ... Read More...
Astonish Me
Joan Joyce is a dancer who has wanted to be a ballerina her entire life. Unfortunately her desire outweighs her talent and so she is relegated to the corps. The center stage she longs for does not become hers until she is the woman who helps a young Russian dancer escape from the Soviet Union to the United States. She had seen Arslan Rusakov dance in Paris and had kept in touch ... Read More...
Empress of the Night: Review and a GIVEAWAY
Power lies in hearing what is not meant to be heard. In understanding what motivates those who plot against you. In knowing what could make them turn about-face, come to your side. Empress of the Night, Eva Stachniak’s new historical novel about Catherine the Great, begins at the end by opening with the last days before her death. Catherine is in the 34th year of her ... Read More...
Kinder Than Solitude
A trio of friends haunted by a mysterious accident are the key characters in Yiyun Li’s new novel, Kinder Than Solitude. They all live within the same housing compound in Beijing, where life moves along without much disturbance, until an older girl living in one of their houses is overcome by a mysterious illness that later turns out to be chemical poisoning. She is not ... Read More...
Bark: Stories
I’m going to start with a little confession: I’ve never read Lorrie Moore before (say that three times fast). Why not? Who knows? But now after finishing her latest collection of short stories, called Bark, I can say I’m fan. And if you’re one of those people who wants to buy free-range poultry, brine it, and slow roast it in the oven but accidentally sets the oven to Clean ... Read More...
