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Bark: Stories

February 28, 2014

bark

I’m going to start with a little confession: I’ve never read Lorrie Moore before (say that three times fast). Why not? Who knows? But now after finishing her latest collection of short stories, called Bark, I can say I’m fan. And if you’re one of those people who wants to buy free-range poultry, brine it, and slow roast it in the oven but accidentally sets the oven to Clean ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, Knopf, magical realism, short stories

Before My Eyes

February 17, 2014

before my eyes

It is summertime in a beach town meaning there’s only one place to be if you’re a teenager. Unfortunately, Max is there but it’s behind the counter of the Snack Shack where his father has insisted he works so that he, an affluent politician, can say, “My son works” and make himself sound like the common man. Barkley is Max’s boss, a twenty-on-year old whose lack of any hygiene ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: beach, book clubs, contemporary life, St. Martin's Press, young adult

Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See

December 16, 2013

too bright

  And that’s how it happens. Like a broken record, warped and scratched. Once I was music, now I am just noise.  It requires a special gift to bring forth a largely unlikable character who can also evoke sympathy but Juliann Garey has done just that in her debut novel Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See. Greyson Todd is from one of the most unlikable genres of men in fiction ... Read More...

13 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, Hollywood, mental health, Soho Press

This is Between Us

December 11, 2013

this is between us

  This is Between Us is an intimate look at the minutia that comprises a relationship. And not in that lovey-dovey, fictional way but in the real, confusing, tedious, painful way. Author Kevin Sampsell navigates the terrain of affairs, blended families, teenagers, and jealousy in quirky little vignettes. The story covers five years that begin as an affair on both sides, move ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Pacific Northwest, Portland, Tin House

Want Not

November 26, 2013

want not

In his new novel, Want Not, author Jonathan Miles explores the concept of wanting in contemporary American society. The story moves between the disparate lives of three groups: Elwin Cross, an overweight linguist professor whose wife has recently left him for a chef; Talmadge and Micah, a young freegan couple squatting in a tenement in Manhattan; and Sue, a 9/11 widow, her ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, literary

We Are Water: A Novel

October 25, 2013

we are water

How a work can be solid and delicate, earthy and of air is a mystery but describes Wally Lamb’s novel, We Are Water. Ostensibly it is the story of Annie Oh—wife, mother, artist and keeper of secrets, secrets that grow and beget other secrets, changing her life and the lives around her. When she is only five, she watches as her mother is swept away by a flood, along with her ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, literary, women

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