“Roger that” – the first words spoken by Michael Connelly’s new detective heroine, Renee Ballard, tell you what you can expect: a woman of few words, one of the boys, ………………………
BOOK REVIEW: A Little Life by Hanya Yanigihara — April 2018
Hanya Yanagihara’s novel A Little Life (2015) is a masterwork in the realist tradition of American writing, showing what can still be done that is new and inspiring more than a century after Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and Henry James. ……………………………………
BOOK REVIEW: Torch by Cheryl Strayed – March 2018
Reviewer …the story is not a downer. What it is, is real. Its fidelity to the way things actually are and to what people actually feel is inspiring.”
BOOK REVIEW: Pachinko by Jin Min Lee – January 2018
Lee secures our attention and keeps it on a tight leash throughout. Her characters are complex, sympathetic, and highly individuated.
BOOK REVIEW: Fortunes of War :The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning – December 2017
Our guest reviewers recommend The Balkan Trilogy as a compelling story and a look into troubled Europe in the late 1930s
BOOK REVIEW: Surfing with Sartre: An Aquatic Inquiry into a Life of Meaning, by Aaron James — October 2017
Reviewed by Jane Tompkins I’ve always had a vague idea that in another life I’d like to be a surfer. Now I know for sure I’d like to be one, having read Surfing with Sartre, and wish I weren’t too old to start now. This is a book of popular philosophy—not written for academic philosophers…