Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Harriet Leitch University of Minnesota Press Oct. 18, 2013 $24.95 127 pp. Of the many centennials observed this year, the one of which little is heard is the Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913. The author, Michael Schumacher, specializes in books about the Great Lakes
Read More →Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Julie Goodrich Touchstone Books 10/29/13 $17.99 384 pp. There aren’t enough synonyms for “awesome” to describe this book, “Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened.” Ridiculous, hilarious, emotional, awkward, brilliant, subtle, painful, comforting are all adequate
Read More →Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Cathryn Lang HarperCollins 11/05/13 $29.99 589 pp. When Amy Tan found an aged photograph of her grandmother, she was stunned to see that she was wearing the attire of a high-class courtesan in turn-of-the century China and labeled as one of the “Ten Beauties
Read More →Review by Shirley Shiffler Simon and Schuster Pub. Date 11/5/13 $30 414 pp. The untold history of Red Cloud, the great warrior and leader of the Sioux Nation, is captured with the pages of “The Heart of Everything That Is.” Told with epic detail illustrating his brilliant tactical role in
Read More →Courtesy of Beaverdale Books By Jayne Anne Phillips Scribner Pub. date: Oct. 15 $28 464 pp. Award-winning fiction writer Jayne Anne Phillips grew up in West Virginia haunted by her mother’s stories of the gruesome 1931 murders of at least two women and three children in nearby Quiet Dell. In
Read More →Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Fay Jones Tin House Books Pub Date: 7/16/13 $14.95 288 pp. In this new collection of short stories by Jodi Angel, each is headed up by a rough-necked, hapless teenaged narrator, from harsh backgrounds of poor, underclass, dysfunctional families, compromised by drugs or drinking.
Read More →Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Harriet Leitch Soho Crime Oct. 1, 2013 $26.95 345 pp. Magdalen Nabb was an expatriate Englishwoman who settled in Italy in 1975 and enjoyed success as an author of crime novels and children’s books. She published a series of 14 books featuring Marshal Guarnaccia
Read More →Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Cathryn Lang Simon and Schuster 8/06/13 $26 432 pp. Good historical fiction is difficult to write. The author must retell history and immerse the reader so completely in the character’s viewpoint that (already) known facts are forgotten. The reader becomes caught up in the
Read More →Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Julie Goodrich Picador USA 6/4/13 $15 288 pp. An out-of-work web developer stumbles upon an odd bookstore and begins the adventure of a lifetime. What follows is an artful, sparkling tale that twists together the past, present and future. Big ideas about tradition, passion,
Read More →Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Shirley Shiffler 9/10/13 $26 336 pp. “Burial Rites” is a beautifully written, if sometimes necessarily gory, account of the last case of capital punishment carried out in Iceland. In 1828, Agnes Magnusdottir is convicted of the horrific murder of two young men. She is
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