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Great Summer Reading: The Windfall

June 26, 2017

windfall

The first month of summer is wrapping up so before things get too far along I have a week’s worth of great books to share. Each one makes for perfect summer reading!   It is every entrepreneur’s dream to have their creation sell for a boatload of money. For Mr. Jha the dream comes true when his website is bought for $20 million—the kind of money that changes lives. ... Read More...

9 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Crown, cultural, debut, family, India, wealth

Salt Houses: A Novel

May 15, 2017

salt

There are plenty of times when fiction ventures into territory that is unfamiliar—in fact, that’s one of the reasons I love it so much. But Salt Houses, the debut novel from Hala Alyan is about a subject that I almost can’t wrap my mind around. The fact of having been driven out, by force or war, from not just your home, but virtually every country where you’ve settled. For ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, family saga, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Middle East, war

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

April 7, 2017

tea

  I have always enjoyed Lisa See’s novels for their intimate portrayals of women in China at various points in its history. The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is her latest and, once again, See brings to life the stories about people and places about which I knew nothing. The novel is set in the 1980s in the Yunnan province, an area known for its tea. Li-Yan’s family, like ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: China, cultural, family, Scribner, social issues

The Book of Unknown Americans

March 6, 2017

unknown americans

  We’re the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they’ve been told they’re supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize we’re not that bad, maybe even we’re a lot like them. And who would they hate then?  When their daughter, Maribel, suffers a traumatic brain injury that ... Read More...

10 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: American life, book clubs, contemporary life, cultural, family, Knopf, social issues

The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma

December 19, 2016

private life

  Often the first person narrative is used by an author to create doubt in the mind of the reader. Ratika Kapur does the opposite in her novel, The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma, with a narrator who calmly tells the truth about her actions from the novel’s beginning to its end. She is a respectable woman—a wife and mother who works at a doctor’s office in Delhi, India. She ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Bloomsbury, book clubs, contemporary life, cultural, India, marriage

Behold the Dreamers

August 31, 2016

behold the dreamers

Imbolo Mbue’s debut novel Behold the Dreamers falls into a quirky category of mine—books with titles that perfectly encapsulate the story. This novel is the American dream from two vastly different perspectives—one, that of an immigrant here on a limited work visa and the other, an investment banker. Jende Jonga is hired as a chauffeur by Clark Edwards, the banker. His ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, cultural, debut, Manhattan, marriage

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