The Jazz Palace begins with a tragedy, the sinking of the SS Eastland while it was still tied to the dock in the Chicago River. The boat was full of workers for a local company headed out for a day of picnicking when the top heavy ship rolled over on it’s side trapping and killing 844 people. In this way author Mary Morris introduces us to Chicago in the early 1900s and ... Read More...
The Sympathizer: A Novel
So it was that we soaped ourselves in sadness and we rinsed ourselves with hope, and for all that we believed almost every rumor we heard, almost all of us refused to believe that our nation was dead. It is only fitting that the narrator in The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel, is never named. He is a Communist spy, a man who has spent his entire life turned inside ... Read More...
Euphoria by Lily King
It’s that moment about two months in, when you think you’ve finally got a handle on the place. Suddenly it feels within your grasp. It’s a delusion—you’ve only been there eight weeks—and it’s followed by the complete despair of ever understanding anything. But at that moment the place feels entirely yours. It’s the briefest purest euphoria —Nell We meet Fen and Nell as they ... Read More...
The Socratic Salon
Happy Friday, everyone! As you saw from my Wednesday reviews, I’ve been in a reading slump and rather than post more reviews of 'meh' books today I wanted to end the week on a positive note. The best way to do that is to talk about a new site I’m involved in, The Socratic Salon. Earlier this year there was a lot controversy in the book blogging world. Things got very ... Read More...
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Goldfinch won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It will be out in paperback this week so I'm reprising my original review. If you have not read the book yet it is well worth it. If you have, what did you think? Did it deserve the Pulitzer? Donna Tartt’s latest novel is The Goldfinch. Oh My. This is a B.I.G. book, figuratively (Tartt’s first novel ... Read More...
Rodin’s Lover: A Novel
I have been intrigued by the life of Camille Claudel since watching the 1988 movie by the same name. She was a sculptor, living in Paris in the late 1800s, a time that was not conducive to female artists of any kind. At seventeen her talent was already such that, because of her father’s belief in her, he hired a real sculptor as a tutor for her. This is where Heather Webb’s ... Read More...
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