I don’t often discuss personal issues in this blog, but for those of you who have been around long enough, you know I have multiple sclerosis. Recently, I read a book that resonated so deeply with me I knew it could have the same impact on other readers. The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke is a memoir of sorts about the slippery, nasty nature ... Read More...
The Displacements
In the late 70s, early 80s disaster books and movies were most often centered around manmade situations—The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, The China Syndrome, and Airport. It was man’s technical overreach that was going to take us down or at least had us worried. The latest crop of disaster novels is again looking at man’s hubris, but in relation to our abuse of the ... Read More...
June Reading Recap
June. What a month. Normally, this is a recap of my reading, but no matter how I try to stick to the subject of books my brain refuses to cooperate. By this time next week we’ll be starting the 2,200 mile trip from Ann Arbor to Seattle. The unending list of what needs to be done before then is one of the things that has me awake at 4am. But that’s not it, I can power through ... Read More...
This Time Tomorrow
I’ve had mixed success with time travel novels this summer (I’m looking at you, One Italian Summer) so I was a bit hesitant to pick up This Time Tomorrow. What swayed me is that it’s by Emma Straub, whose last novel All Adults Here was a favorite of mine. Thankfully, while I may not have loved everything about this father-daughter novel I did appreciate the relationship and how ... Read More...
My 6 Favorite Debuts of 2021
Happy Monday and welcome to my first yearend best-of lists. Today is a favorite category: best debuts. Finding new authors is one of my greatest reading pleasures and 2021 proved to be a very good year. Of all my reading, 38% was debut authors and of those debuts I rated 36% 3.5 stars or higher, with 3.5 being my baseline for a book I’d recommend to others. Finally, of ... Read More...
Shiner: A Novel by Amy Jo Burns
Stories of contemporary Southern mountain men abound (Bull Mountain, The Line That Held Us), but examples of women are a bit harder to come by. The fact Amy Jo Burns brings three such women to life in her novel, Shiner, is just one outstanding element of many in this lush debut. Raised in isolation in the West Virginia mountains, Wren doesn’t know much of the outside world. ... Read More...
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