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As Close to Us as Breathing

March 23, 2016

as close to us

  Sisters Ada, Vivie, and Bec inherited their family’s cabin on the Connecticut shore and now they convene every summer, staying with their children during the week while their husbands drive up on Friday in time for Shabbos. In As Close to Us as Breathing author Elizabeth Poliner freezes, with the clarity of amber, a very specific time and place and within that the lives ... Read More...

11 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1940s, book clubs, family saga, historical fiction, Lee Boudreaux Books, literary, New England

Guapa: A Novel

March 21, 2016

guapa

  At 27 Rasa lives with his grandmother in al-Sharqiyeh, a large city in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. He works as a translator for foreign journalists because he speaks fluent English after going to college in America. The novel Guapa by Saleem Haddad spans 24 hours in Rasa’s life that are an emotional flash point. He has participated in the Arab Spring protests, ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, literary, Middle East, Other Press, social issues

All Things Cease to Appear

March 9, 2016

all things

  Last week I reviewed The Undertaking which is a marvelous read in that it allows the reader to fully revel in feelings of rage, disgust and retribution (which is necessary relief if you’re watching political news these days). This is not the case in Elizabeth Brundage’s novel All Things Cease to Appear. It is much more attuned to contemporary times, when even though a ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, Knopf, literary, marriage, mystery

The Undertaking: A Novel

March 3, 2016

undertaking

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of novels set in Berlin in the midst of World War II. Novels that document the trampling of many people’s lives into oblivion. Author Audrey Magee does not go the route of the victim or the innocent bystander. Instead, in her novel The Undertaking we meet Peter Faber, a German soldier stationed on the Russian front who decides to take ... Read More...

11 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, Grove Press, historical fiction, WWII

February Library Checkout

February 29, 2016

april library

  Month 2 of 2016 wraps up tomorrow and what a month it’s been. You would think that with this extra day I’d be overflowing with creativity and verve, but instead I’m in some kind of mucky mindset—lots of blah. Thankfully, the same can’t be said for my February library reading! It was a great month for discovering books I might not normally have ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature, Fiction, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, library, lists, mini-reviews, social issues

Green Island: A Novel

February 24, 2016

green island

  Past, present, and future too swirl together, distinguishable but not delineated by any sort of grammar beyond the one our hearts impose.    The narrator in Green Island is born on the night in 1947 when the tension between the factions in Taiwan explode into civil violence. Her father, a doctor, in attending a community meeting the next night and quietly asking ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, historical fiction, Knopf, Southeast Asia

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