“Moonglow” Michael Chabon’s new novel is a beautiful memorial to his grandparent’s lives and a fantastic exploration of family and memory. Although it is fiction, the narrator certainly seems to be Chabon himself, shaping and replaying his family’s story with characteristic talent. The focus is on his grandparents, whose history
Read More →‘Encircling’ “Encircling,” by Carl Frode Tiller, is the first book in the Encircling Trilogy. It’s about a man, David, who wakes up and doesn’t remember who he is. He then places an ad in the paper encouraging people to write to him in hopes that it will ignite his memory.
Read More →‘Pure Heart: A Spirited Tale of Grace, Grit, and Whiskey’ By Troylyn Ball with Bret Witter Troy Ball grew up happily shadowing her father through his many business enterprises, so at a young age she acquired a fierce entrepreneurial spirit. When she married and had two boys born with special
Read More →‘American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst’ By Jeffrey Toobin The events surrounding the 1974 kidnapping of heiress Patricia Hearst by a small band of revolutionaries who called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army were front-page news for most of the rest of the
Read More →‘Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill’ We know the Winston Churchill of World War II, much of his political career and maybe even his personal life during those years. However, his early years have not been written about to a
Read More →‘The Soul of an Octopus’ “The Soul of an Octopus,” by Sy Montgomery, is one of the most interesting books I have read of late. I started learning new things on literally page two. I discovered that the plural pronunciation of octopus is, in fact, octopuses, and not octopi. The
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Posted August 31, 2016in Book Review
In his latest historical spy novel, Alan Furst brings to life the French Resistance in the City of Light during 1941. Bombers are being sent from England, and numerous English flyers are brought down in enemy territory who need assistance to get back home so they can fly again. Mathieu
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Posted August 10, 2016in Book Review
Neil Gaiman is a master of many genres. Comic books, juvenile fiction, young adult, short stories, novels, fantasy, sci-fi, TV, video games… there seems to be no genre he can’t conquer with his signature prose and panache. His newest collection, “The View from the Cheap Seats,” collects a gold mine
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Posted July 27, 2016in Book Review
In the year 1951-1952, Judy Blume was a teenager living in Elizabeth, New Jersey, when three separate plane crashes in the city killed a total of 118 people. Her latest book, while strictly a work of fiction, centers around those events and their effect on Elizabeth’s residents. Many characters fill
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Posted July 20, 2016in Book Review
By Steve Rowley Simon & Schuster June 2016 $25.99 305 pages Every pet owner has a story to tell, and “Lily and the Octopus” is the dog book to read this summer. This humorous, compassionate and quirky story is about Ted (the owner) and Lily (the dachshund) and
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