Remember the movie The Shining? If so, forget what you thought about it in relation to Stephen King’s book and just recall its many amazing visuals. Now, turn it into a campy musical, turn it back into a novel and you have Kate Racculia’s Bellweather Rhapsody. Set in the Catskills in early November with a grand old hotel about to be the scene, once again, for a huge ... Read More...
The Queen of the Night
Alexander Chee’s new novel, The Queen of the Night works well for cold winter reading because you will need to settle in to really enjoy this massive piece of entertainment. This is not a book to skim through, like any grand diva, attention must be paid. And this Chee does by creating a world overflowing with the sumptuous and the over-the-top for Lilliet Berne, one of ... Read More...
Under the Udala Trees
In Under the Udala Trees Ijeoma is only twelve years old when the civil war in Nigeria begins and her mother must leave her behind while she tries to establish a life for them in the north, a safer part of the country. It is 1968 and they live in Biafra, a southern state that has seceded from the nation. The war has already claimed her father and now her mother asks a ... Read More...
Dietland: A Novel
Once I had a taste of real food, I always wanted more. I spent my days tiptoeing around food, the way one might tiptoe into a baby’s room while it’s sleeping. One wrong move and the baby wakes up and screams. That’s how it was with hunger, too. Once it awakes, it screams and screams and there’s only one way to quiet it. First of all, I promise to restrain myself from ... Read More...
The Jaguar’s Children
There is always some fact in fiction but in The Jaguar’s Children by John Vaillant there is likely to be much more than expected. The story is a simple one in terms of characters and staging because it takes place inside a water tanker truck over the course of three days when it is left in the desert near Nogales, Arizona after stopping due to mechanical problems. The ... Read More...
Slow Motion: A Memoir of a Life Rescued by Tragedy
I have always believed my mother would live forever. While I have never said goodbye to my father without the thought crossing my mind that I might never see him again, my mother has seemed indestructible, fixed in my consciousness like a gnarled and stately tree that has taken root there. If she is ripped away at this moment in my life, she will take her roots with her and I ... Read More...
