The test of a good book

When I first read The Gravity of Birds, by Tracy Guzeman, in 2013, I said, “This is one of those books that I wanted to turn around and read again as soon as I finished it.” After having… Read More

Quiet transformation

Still Life with Bread Crumbs, by Anna Quindlen, is a book that doesn’t have an initially heavy impact, but it sticks with you. It’s about a woman in a situation to which many of us in our 60s… Read More

What I wished for

The Unmaking of June Farrow, by Adrienne Young, is the book I have been wishing to read. It’s both an elegantly written and a beautifully told story that incorporates a curse, a murder, something sort of like time… Read More

Scalzi saves the day

So…I have a couple of rules that I rarely break here. One is that I don’t utterly pan a book, but rather try to say something nice even if it wasn’t a book I enjoyed, and if I… Read More

Witchy women

I just finished the book Weyward, by Emilia Hart. It’s one of those books that seduced me both with its cover (a crow and a bunch of beautiful botanical illustrations) and the first third of its description, which… Read More

Unhappy fans

I miraculously got a checkout from my library for Emily Henry‘s latest, Happy Place, in about a third of the time I expected to wait. Then I read the reviews on Goodreads, which may furnish some explanation. Don’t… Read More

Psycho Thriller

Yes, “psycho” is an abbreviation for psychological thriller, but also…well, there are characters in this book that might qualify for the title without the abbreviation. The Fake Wife was not my favorite Sharon J. Bolton thriller, but at… Read More

Life

Every once in a while I want a break from the drama of a murder mystery, a thriller, a fantasy of some kind. I want to read about and immerse myself in the personal and intimate details of… Read More

Fictional memoir

A Piece of the World, by Christina Baker Kline, is in a special category: Although the overall story is fiction, it is based on facts about real people, and reads like memoir. The book is based on Andrew… Read More

Literature as solace

I’m not sure what to say about Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse, by Faith Sullivan. I was intrigued by the title, since I love what I have read by Wodehouse, notably the Bertie Wooster and Jeeves pairing. This book… Read More