The Vietnam War has been written about from many points of view in fiction, but for the most part my reading has focused on the years of the war, rife as they are with the atrocities perpetuated on the Vietnamese, both by their own people (ARVN soldiers in the South, Viet Cong in the North) and then the Americans. Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai takes a longer view by ... Read More...
This Other Eden
In 1911 there was a small island off the coast of Maine comprised of a group of families who were the descendants of the island’s original 1792 settlers—an escaped slave, his Irish wife, and later, other refugees from society. The island is still there, but its inhabitants are long gone. Paul Harding’s novel, This Other Eden, is the elegiac recounting of their history, lives, ... Read More...
Exit the Actress: A Novel
I’m sticking with historical fiction this week. Monday was mythological history with Stone Blind but now I’ve got a real bit of history set in 17th century England. Exit the Actress is by Priya Parmar and is the story of Ellen Gwynn, a poor commoner in 1600s London who goes on to become one of the world’s first celebrities and King Charles II’s longest lasting affair. Both ... Read More...
The Book of Everlasting Things
The Book of Everlasting Things is a multigenerational debut spanning the globe from India to Europe. Initially set in Lahore, India in the 1930s and 40s the novel encompasses 70 years in the lives of one Hindu boy and one Muslim girl. Two children, who despite different backgrounds, grow into love only to have it, and their lives, shattered when Great Britain partitions part of ... Read More...
2022 Wrap-Up
I started 2023 strong with The Light Pirate, a book I found riveting, but before I go full bore into the year, I need to wrap up 2022 as I read a lot more books (180 to be exact) and never reviewed some of them. I’m also going to do something I’ve never done before: recommend a book without a real review, just a sentence or two. Basically, you take my word for it that this is a ... Read More...
Best Books of 2022
I’m going to cut to the chase: it was a challenging year for my reading. Not due to a lack of options, I just lost my reading mojo for a while. However, there were 8 books that broke through my broken brain and gave me all the pleasure I look for in my reading. If you got gift cards for Christmas, buying any of these will ensure book happiness. There’s no particular ... Read More...
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