The Gilmore Guide to Books

Connecting Books and Readers One Review at a Time

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Reviews
    • Reviews by Author
    • Reviews by Title
    • Reviews by Genre
  • Podcast
  • Policies
    • Review Policy
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Policy

Let Me Be Frank With You

November 5, 2014

let me be frank

  Frank Bascombe is back in Richard Ford’s Let Me Be Frank With You and I, for one am happy to see him again. Ford’s last novel, The Lay of the Land, covered Bascombe’s travails through his mid-fifties in a way that perfectly encapsulated the middle-age process of fight and accept. In Let Me Be Frank With You, Bascombe moves through four vignettes that are comprised of ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, ecco, short stories

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing

October 22, 2014

girl half formed

  The heart cannot be wrung and wrung. Eimear McBride brings her main character to life with prose so fractured that A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing reads a bit like Clockwork Orange. There is no made-up language, but McBride uses a combination of Magnetic Poetry and Yahtzee to throw out words in random order with punctuation as an afterthought. Abandon any hope for sentence ... Read More...

12 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged: Coffee House Press, contemporary fiction, debut, literary

September Mini-Reviews

October 3, 2014

I know it's October but somehow the onset of this fall is making me slow down rather than speed up to greet the cooler weather. Apparently, I'm moving into a mental hibernation before winter even hits! September is a big month in the book world and I was fortunate to read and review of number of anticipated novels. There is more to come in October but here are some ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, lists, mini-reviews, mystery

Tumbledown: A Novel

September 5, 2014

tumbledown

Tumbledown by Robert Boswell largely takes place at the Onyx Springs Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Center, a residential facility where James Candler is a counselor. Through the novel we meet the individual patients James works with, the other counselors, his boss, his sister and his best friend. The novel is an ensemble piece of fiction in that almost every character has an ... Read More...

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, Graywolf Press

The Arsonist

July 25, 2014

arsonist

  In Sue Miller’s The Arsonist Frankie Rowley has returned to the small town of Pomeroy, New Hampshire- a beach town where she spent summers with her family and where her parents, Alylvia and Alfie, have now retired. She has left behind her life in Africa where she spent years working for an organization that helps feed children. She hopes that a quiet summer at the beach will ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, Knopf, literary, New England

How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

July 9, 2014

toledo

  For many, there are few ideas more compelling than that of perfect love. To meet the one person who understands you at your deepest level and loves you unconditionally; a true soulmate. Lydia Netzer takes this dream and puts it on the page in the quirky How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky. Irene Sparks is a prickly astrophysicist attempting to create a black hole in ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, family, humor, literary, St. Martin's Press

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • Next Page »
  • Bluesky
  • Email
  • Goodreads
  • Instagram
  • Substack

Save time and subscribe via email

No time to keep checking for new reviews? Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email. No spam!

Bookshop

Currently Reading

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
by Emily Nagoski
The Dutch House
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
by Adrienne Brodeur

goodreads.com

Affiliate Disclosure

I’m an affiliate for Bookshop. If you click on a link that takes you to their site and make a purchase I’ll earn a small fee, which goes towards the costs of maintaining this site. Your support is appreciated. Thank you!

Archives

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2026

Copyright © 2026 · Beyond Madison Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in