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Dept. of Speculation

October 8, 2014

dept of speculation

  Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill is a tiny slip of a novel, small in size, only 156 pages long, and yet it chronicles a young woman’s life with as much intimacy as novels of greater length. Somehow, Offill uses words to their maximum advantage in a minimum of space. The narrator, who remains unnamed throughout the novel, recounts her life from her days as a single woman ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, Knopf, marriage

The Home Place

August 6, 2014

home place

  Alma Terrebonne is doing well as a corporate lawyer in Seattle until she gets the call that her younger sister Vicky is dead. Suddenly, she has to walk away from one of the biggest deals of her career and head back to Montana, the place where her family has lived for generations. The Home Place is both the title of Carrie La Seur’s debut novel and what the Terrebonne family ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, family, the West, William Morrow

Summer House with Swimming Pool

July 23, 2014

summer house

  Author Herman Koch has created the doctor we’re all afraid of in his new novel, Summer House with Swimming Pool. Not a horrific needle wielding monster but something worse: the one who pretends to care but really despises his patients. Dr. Marc Schlosser listens to his patients’ complaints and seems to be sympathetic and attentive but is really thinking about the beach and ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: American life, book clubs, family, Hogarth, literary, mystery

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

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

July 7, 2014

close your eyes

Sweet sixteen—a time of so many changes. Learning to drive, first dates, preparing for college, and, if you’re Emily Shepard, a nuclear reactor meltdown near your tiny town in Vermont, your parents disappearing, and being evacuated from your school with only the clothes on your back. This is sixteen as seen by Chris Bohjalian in his new novel, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands. When ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, Doubleday, family, social issues, young adult

Flying Shoes: A Novel

June 30, 2014

flying shoes

In spite of the rest of the world’s perception, small southern towns knew how to tolerate difference. There was always an old queer or old lesbian couple, or a Boo Radley in town. You just had to not be from away, and stay within in the unspoken boundaries, and you would have grown up knowing what those were.  Mary Byrd Thornton is the beleaguered, snarky protagonist in Lisa ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Bloomsbury, debut, family, mystery

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