“You know what I dislike? When people use the future as a consolation for the present.” Tess arrives in NYC in the summer of 2006 from somewhere, but it doesn't matter where because as far as she is concerned she didn't exist before passing through the tollbooth onto the island of Manhattan. And we shouldn't care either, which we don't, because in short ... Read More...
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
Bill Clegg's Did You Ever Have a Family was one of my favorite debuts for 2015. It came out last week in paperback so if you missed it last year you need to get after it now. A wonderful novel that lends itself to book club/reading group discussions. If you take a major event and separate out all the people involved in that event—whether responsible for it or ... Read More...
Back to Moscow
Having recently read and adored The Tsar of Love and Techno I wasn’t sure I needed another book about contemporary Russian life. Happily, I ignored myself and read Back to Moscow anyway. Guillermo Erades’ novel looks at the modern day Russian experience from the microcosm of a young man in Moscow. Martin is twenty-four and has arrived from Europe as a graduate student ... Read More...
Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice
In case you weren’t aware or hadn’t noticed the subtitle, Curtis Sittenfeld’s new novel Eligible is a retelling of the Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice. If you’re a purist about your classics, then you probably ought to stop reading now, pour yourself a glass of sherry and go back to your needlework by candlelight. If, on the other hand, you’re in the mood for ... Read More...
Before the Wind
At the most basic level Jim Lynch’s new novel Before the Wind is the story of the Johannssens—a sailing family in Seattle, Washington. Or as Josh Johannssen’s younger sister Ruby liked to claim “And there’s a reason we’re so good with boats: we have a higher salt content in our blood!” A fact which his long suffering older brother Bernard would point out was based on ... Read More...
It’s Not You, It’s Me: Commitment Issues
When I was young, I got around—reading three or four books at the same time, juggling plots, themes, and characters with abandon, but now I’m a responsible reader—no longer one of those flighty, ‘I’m-going-to-read-around’ kind of gals. Or so I thought, but the last two months have found me playing fast and loose with my reading again. Starting a book, then ignoring it ... Read More...
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- …
- 14
- Next Page »
