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The Word Exchange

April 7, 2014

word exchange

A meme (/ˈmiːm/ meem) is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. - Coined by Richard Dawkins, 1976 ... Read More...

12 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, dystopia, science fiction

The Anatomy Lesson

March 12, 2014

anatomy lesson

Aris Kindt was not necessarily a bad man but he was a thief. For every town where he was caught he was whipped and branded so his torso and neck told the painful history of his life. It isn’t until he returns to Amsterdam and is caught stealing a burgher’s fine coat that he is not only whipped but then has his hand amputated. Shortly after this, he is condemned to hang—an ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1600s, art, book clubs, debut, Europe, historical fiction, Nan A. Talese

Kinder Than Solitude

March 7, 2014

kinder than solitude

  A trio of friends haunted by a mysterious accident are the key characters in Yiyun Li’s new novel, Kinder Than Solitude. They all live within the same housing compound in Beijing, where life moves along without much disturbance, until an older girl living in one of their houses is overcome by a mysterious illness that later turns out to be chemical poisoning. She is not ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: China, contemporary fiction, cultural, debut, Random House

The Widow’s Guide to Sex and Dating

February 21, 2014

widows guide

  While still in her early twenties, Claire Jenks married Charlie Byrne, renowned sexology author and twenty-three years her senior. For ten years she gave up her own writing career to support his fame. One morning as he is walking home from his mistress’s apartment he is killed by a bronze statue that falls from a crane moving it from an apartment. The Widow’s Guide to Sex ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: chick lit, debut, Henry Holt and Company, New York City

Belle Cora

January 20, 2014

belle cora

  I know a man who had a colossal stone mansion dismantled to be taken by sea from New York to California, with every block labeled and numbered so that the house could be reassembled at its destination. Whenever in my life I have moved a great distance to a new place and new circumstances, I have felt like that house. I seem to have spent some time in pieces, waiting for ... Read More...

11 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 19th century, debut, Doubleday, historical fiction, San Francisco

The Visionist

January 13, 2014

visionist

In The Visionist: A Novel, Polly Kimball, her brother Ben and her mother are running for their lives. After her drunken father passed out on his bed, Polly accidentally dropped an oil lamp in his room and set the entire house on fire. As the three ride off in their wagon she looks back to see her father running out of the house. She knows, without a doubt, his punishment, if he ... Read More...

15 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, Little Brown and Company, mystery, religion

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