Farrar Straus Giroux Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books

A Different Viewpoint: Cleanness

Catherine — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 05:48:09 +0000

It’s very likely that at some point in our lives we’ve all experienced feelings of loneliness and alienation, but it is unlikely that we’ve been made to feel unnatural or that we have no right to even exist where we are. This is a different viewpoint for me, one I’ll be exploring in my review […]

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gods with a little g

Catherine — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 07:58:45 +0000

On Monday, I reviewed a novel centered around the lives of two ministers, but it was not a book focused on organized religion. Today’s novel, gods with a little g, is the opposite, with religion at the center of everything in Rosary, California. An oil refinery town that has proudly merged church and state, to […]

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Death is Hard Work

Catherine — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 08:14:55 +0000

Bolbol’s father has just died in Damascus. Before he did, he made one final request of his son—he wants to be buried in the family’s plot in his hometown. It’s two hours away and without thinking Bolbol agrees. It’s only as he’s contacting his sister, Fatima, and his brother, Hussein, that the enormity of his […]

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The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Catherine — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 08:32:06 +0000

Everyone knows the old saying that the best things come in small packages. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to refer to jewelry, but I’m happy to report that it can also be true of books. For any number of reasons recently, a perfect storm on too many fronts had left me unable to process anything […]

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The Mere Wife by Maria Headley

Catherine — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 07:38:59 +0000

Maybe every monster is a miracle meant to change the world… Author Maria Headley dives into a modern-day retelling of Beowolf beginning with its title, The Mere Wife. This is no novel about a slight wife, a minor presence, a smudge of a life. No, the women in this tale are, for better or worse, […]

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The Transition by Luke Kennard

Catherine — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 08:02:50 +0000

What if you had broken the law and rather than being sent to prison you could opt into a program that would make you a better person? The upside is it’s not prison, you get to keep your job, you have no living expenses, and when you’re finished after six months you’ll be provided with […]

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Sourdough: A Novel by Robin Sloan

Catherine — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 07:19:56 +0000

September has already been a month of heavy (literally) reading. Namely, Ken Follett’s latest, which clocked in at a daunting 928 pages. It is one of those times when I have loved having an e-book because I have a tendency to fall asleep in bed while reading and a book like that could have […]

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The Answers: A Novel by Catherine Lacey

Catherine — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 07:48:49 +0000

Catherine Lacey’s new novel, The Answers appealed to me because of its premise: intimacy in the modern world of technology. At the novel’s center is Mary, a young woman, who used to be known as Junia, born in the Tennessee mountains to a father who believed the only way to truly worship God was […]

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The House of Hidden Mothers

Catherine — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 07:57:27 +0000

The House of Hidden Mothers is a melting pot of a lot of timely themes, but author Meera Syal manages them without overwhelming the flavor of the story. Forty-eight-year-old Shyama owns a successful beauty salon in London where she lives with her thirty-four-year-old boyfriend Toby and her daughter Tara, who’s attending university. By and […]

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It’s Not You, It’s Me: Mini-Reviews

Catherine — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 07:16:05 +0000

Happy summer, book lovers! I hope you’re all getting to enjoy nice weather, sunshine, and, of course, some great reading. In an effort to help, I’m back with three books that left me thinking It’s Not You, It’s Me. If Whitney Terrell’s goal in his novel The Good Lieutenant is to mimic warfare, […]

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