Technically, Patricia Brigg’s Mercy Thompson series has been on my radar for some time; those who know me kept insisting I read them. And, wouldn’t you know, when I finally got around to it I ended up devouring the first two (with the third in progress) in a matter of days. Moon Called 1st in…
If you enjoy history, and can snag a copy of this popular read, do so immediately! Award winning historian Hodes does a masterful job of recreating the life of a woman, Eunice Stone Connolly, in the 19th century through her letters to her family before during and after the American Civil War. Connolly was rendered…
Set in World War II, Super Spy delves into the lives of spies: their motives, their tactics and their missions. Each chapter or “dossier” moves the story along, but not necessarily in a linear fashion. The dossiers are dated, so you could read it that way if you want. But, the original order allows Kindt…
Photographs that catch people in the act of everyday activities are among my favorites. Kertesz photographs people from all over the world and all walks of life reading books and newspapers. Some of the photos are great because they capture the way a book can possess and transport a reader while others tell stories about…
The “Master” is back!!!! A terrible construction accident takes Edgar Freemantle’s arm and scrambles his memory and mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. His marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish that he hadn’t survived. His psychologist suggest a “geographic cure”,…
Fresh from a six-month sojourn in Italy, Lady Julia returns home to Sussex to find her father’s estate crowded with family and friends— but dark deeds are afoot at the deconsecrated abbey, and a murderer roams the ancient cloisters. Much to her surprise, the one man she had hoped to forget—the enigmatic and compelling Nicholas…
When the Queen in pursuit of her wandering corgis stumbles upon a mobile library she feels duty bound to borrow a book. Aided by Norman, a young man from the palace kitchen who frequents the library, Bennett describes the Queen’s transformation as she discovers the liberating pleasures of the written word. Julie recommended this one;…
If you look over to the right on our sidebar, down where we’ve included links to other book bloggers, you may see the name Stainless Steel Droppings. A daily reading obsession for inkonvellum, Stainless Steel Droppings is run by a wonderful {insightful, fun, generous, puts-together-the-best-challenges} gentleman named Carl. He graciously agreed to kick off a…
This is a fun little book filled with photos of – you guessed it – band t-shirts. Did you know there was an Elvis t-shirt for Heartbreak Hotel? Most of the shirts are from the 80s but there representatives from the 70s onward. If you are looking for your favorite pop rock t-shirts you probably…
A Baker’s Odyssey is a rich collection of recipes and culinary history, all gleaned from Patent’s exhaustive research in the American home kitchens of immigrants from around the world. Through his travels across the country, Patent learned the secrets to traditional baked goods originating from thirty-two different nations. From Scotland and Austria to India and Thailand…
Who wants to be a librarian??? After holding many diverse jobs, the author takes a Civil Service Test and is soon hired as a librarian. His definition of a library is a place you can “walk in off the street, pull books off the shelf without an employee looking nervously, and take them home. All…
St. Francis Xavier parish is losing pastors. Over the years, three freaked priests have fled, having beheld Sights Too Terrible To Speak Of. Enter redoubtable replacement Father Rich Melos, who’s both fearless of Satan and Thornbirds-cute. Jane Edwell, plucky proprietor of the Sip and Sit Caf, joins Melos in his bid to blast open the…
The last unpublished work of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers may be close to being destroyed in fulfilment of the author’s last wishes, his son has hinted.Vladimir Nabokov requested in his will that his unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, should be destroyed on his death, saying that he abhorred the idea of…
Reviewing poetry isn’t an easy endeavor; it’s such a subjective creative field, moreso even then fiction, and whether you respond to a particular collection or poem relies entirely on the life you have lived. At the very least I’ve always found that to be true. The beauty found in Kirkey’s collection is of the best…
The results are in and all bets are off! We just didn’t see all that non-fiction coming. From Heaven to Starbucks and Harry to Stalin our staff has picked the best from all genres. Books published in 2007 The top picks with two votes each were: Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini The Book of…
It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength to turn catty schoolgirls into loyal friends, and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic…
If you like to read about other people’s lives, the In Their Shoes is a challenge for you. The rules are real simple: you pick the number of books that you want to read. They just have to be either a memoir, autobiography, or biography. This challenge started January 1, 2008 and it will end…
A patron recommends Ivo Stourton’s The Night Climbers; typically he’s a non-fiction reader, but he said this novel was wonderful. When James Walker arrives at Tudor College, Cambridge, he tries to create a vague air of mystery about himself in the hope of making the right kind of friends. By accident or fate he encounters…
In this edition of Marie’s Monthly Minutes, we’ll look at two novels that feature elderly main characters looking back on their long careers. The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield Former academic Setterfield pays tribute in her debut to Brontë and du Maurier heroines: a plain girl gets wrapped up in a dark, haunted ruin of…
One of our co-workers recommended this: Based on the true story of Hugh Glass – adventurer, pirate, frontiersman – Punke explores this amazing tale of survival. In 1822 Glass signs on as a trapper with Captain Andrew Henry. During their trip he is mauled by a grizzly bear: His throat nearly ripped out, scalp hanging…
Naomi Nowak’s second graphic novel is an intriguing little volume. Josephine or Posy, as she likes to be called, comes from a once wealthy family. Her overly critical parents send her to a sweatshop so she can earn money for nursing school even though she faints at the sight of blood. During her stay at…
Jaz Parks has enough trouble in her personal life. What she doesn’t need is more trouble with her vampire boss and another mission. This time she has to retrieve a vital piece of biotechnology by killing the maniac who stole it: an ancient Chinese vamp. Their cover in this mission: professional entertainers at the Corpus…
“Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.” These ominous words, slashed from the pages of a book of Psalms, are the last threat that the darling of London society, Sir Edward Grey, receives from his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent he…
NPR is hosting a new series called “In Character.” Each week they will explore a character in depth to see what makes them tick and why they are important. Listeners can submit their suggestions for characters to be discussed on the show. If you are interested in characters, you may want to check out the…
This is a great first novel about love, family relationships and the immigrant experience. The Karim family is full secrets. The father, Rashid, marries Henna who was supposed to be a sophisticated young woman, only to find out that she is an illiterate, 14 year-old who married him in order to improve her social status.…
If you’re starting to make your new year’s reading lists here are a few challenges to keep you busy. These little (and some big) challenges are addictive, so don’t say we didn’t warn you. We’ll bring you a couple of challenges each week during the month of January; we hope you find one you want…
“If you could invite any character(s) over for dinner, who would you choose?” that’s what we asked staff for the third part of our survey series. Here’s the guest list: Santiago – the Alchemist; Marilla Cuthbert – Anne of Green Gables; Dexter Morgan – Darkly Dreaming Dexter; Vivianne Rocher – Chocolat ******************************************************* Huck Finn &…
Sasha Goldberg, the main character in Anya Ulinich’s absurdly funny, coming-of-age novel, seems out-of-place just about everywhere. She’s a mixed-race, Jew living in a town in Siberia called Asbestos 2. Her only solace is in an after-school art program. When she becomes pregnant, her mother takes the baby and sends Sasha to an art-school in…
While her boss becomes entranced with a beautiful armoire at the countywide craft bazaar, Maggie can’t help noticing the Amish craftsman who made it. Though his clothes may be plain, he himself is more handsome than a man sporting a jawline-only beard has any right to be. And he seems pretty aware that the ladies…
In a mere 146 pages, Stewart O’Nan has managed to capture the essence of the working person. For all of us who have ever worked in retail or the food industry, there is much in this short novel to relate to. Manny DeLeon is the manager of a Red Lobster restaurant that is slated to…
The Painter of Battles Andrés Faulques, a world-renowned war photographer, has retired to a life of solitude on the Spanish coast. On the walls of a tower overlooking the sea, he spends his days painting a huge mural that pays homage to history’s classic works of war art and that incorporates a lifetime of disturbing…
Here’s a post from our resident pop-culture maven: Don’t You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes “The angst-ridden films of John Hughes remain vital viewing to a generation of writers old enough to have seen The Breakfast Club in theaters, and this collection of musings from 20 such contributors” is…
Jasper Fforde, author of the wonderfully funny and smart Thursday Next series, has written a short story for The Guardian Unlimited. It’s called “The Locked Room Mystery” and you can find it here.
Holly Winter and Kinsey Millhone are back again in their latest. Both deal with the issue of identity theft. ALL SHOTS by Susan Conant finds dog owner/trainer Holly Winter in search of the murderer of the “other” Holly Winter in town. While investigating, she learns of the existence of a third Holly Winter. Her advice…
Did you ever wish you could have picked out which books you were assigned to read in high school? To complement our list of books that staff hated reading in high school, we have a second list of books that staff wished they were assigned to read. We hope this generates some discussion as some…
“Amazon has purchased J.K. Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard at an auction held by Sotheby’s in London. The book of five wizarding fairy tales, referenced in the last book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is one of only seven handmade copies in existence. The purchase price was…
For the Jews of Buenos Aires there is one cemetery, but a high wall gates off the members of the Benevolent Self (pimps and prostitutes) from the rest of the dead. Kaddish Posnan, the son of a whore, is the only descendant who thinks it is important to honor the dead members of the Benevolent…
Just couldn’t pass this up…The Top 10 Most Manly Writers Ever From the eNotes Book Blog: “So who would win in a fistfight? Ernest Hemingway or Norman Mailer? James Fenimore Cooper or William S. Burroughs? This week we present the most burly, manly men of letters. In their world, or at least in their fiction,…
This is the first of a series of “Read This!” surveys designed to encourage debate. We asked staff what books they were assigned to read in high school that they absolutely hated. Next week we’ll post the results of the second part of the survey in which we asked staff to choose a book they…
The authorities have finally rumbled the nation’s most famous illegal immigrant. That’s right. They’ve got Paddington Bear in a jail cell, waiting to be interrogated. No, really; I’m serious… In a surprisingly political opening chapter to Paddington Here and Now police interrogate the duffelcoat-wearing stowaway from darkest Peru about his residency status and right to…
Dean Koontz has expanded in recent years from his straight horror. Some of his fans like this and some don’t. I happen to belong to the former group and his newest offering is along the same vein. Amy Redwing heads a rescue group for Golden Retrievers. Dogs are literally her life. Brian McCarthy while not…
The immigrant experience is often a great topic for fiction. In this edition of Marie’s Monthly Minutes, we’ll look at three books that explore the adjustments that immigrants and children of immigrants have to make when they settle in America. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides “Narrator Calliope “Cal” Stephanides is a Greek-American hermaphrodite who eventually becomes…
There are certain books that are intended for teens that adults can’t help but read. The Book Thief is one of those books. It is probably unlike any other book you have ever read. First off, it’s narrated by Death. Yeah, that’s right, Death. Here’s how he describes the book: It’s just a small story…
A private buyer has paid £5,400 at auction for a book alleged to be bound in the skin of a Jesuit priest executed over the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. Did you have to read that twice? ‘Cause I did. BBC News has the full report. And, in case you were wondering, that there book went for…
I’m Jaz Parks. My boss is Vayl, born in Romania in 1744. Died there too, at the hand of his vampire wife, Liliana. But that’s ancient history. For the moment Vayl works for the C.I.A. doing what he does best–assassination. And I help. You could say I’m an Assistant Assassin. But then I’d have to…
Here’s a review from Julie: I really liked this book. It’s wonderfully quirky; a mystery, but not so much about the mystery as about the detectives — a flock of sheep. Have you ever wondered how sheep think? Well, I can’t say as I really have, but I enjoyed finding out. Here’s the description from…
In 1811, murder has jarred London’s elite. The sons of prominent families have been found at dawn in public places, their bodies mutilated and strange objects stuffed into their mouths. Although Sebastian St. Cyr is distracted by his seemingly doomed relationship with actress Kat Boleyn, the oddness of these murders nags at him-and he becomes…
This novel came to my attention from a very unlikely source. It is an eclectic mix of several genres, including mystery, suspense, historical fiction, and the occult. The title refers to the art of “lace reading”, a method of fortelling the future. Some historical references to the Ipswich lace industry are made at the beginning of…
Poor Alcatraz Smedry has not had an easy life. As an orphan, he has gone through a succession of foster parents mainly due to his unfortunate propensity for breaking things. On his thirteenth birthday he receives a mysterious bag of sand and his life turns completely upside down. After a visit from his up till…
NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas keeps the streets of a near-future New York City safe in this extraordinary series. But even she makes mistakes, and is haunted by those she couldn’t save-and the killers she couldn’t capture. When the body of a young brunette is found in East River Park, artfully positioned and marked by signs…
“For a moment after the insult was hurled, the African went on eating, without looking up from the shatranj board, indeed without seeming to have heard the remark at all. Then, before anyone quite understood that calumny so fine went beyond the powers even of the myna, and that the bird was innocent, this once…
And the winners are: Fiction: Denis Johnson ~ Tree of Smoke Non-fiction: Tim Weiner ~ Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA Young Adult Fiction: Sherman Alexie ~ The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Poetry: Robert Hass ~ Time and Materials The Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters went to Joan…
Once he had scorched the world. Once he had driven back overwhelming darkness. Once he had loved with such passion, his name was legend… TAIREN SOUL Now a thousand years later, a new threat calls him from the Fading Lands, back into the world that had cost him so dearly. Now an ancient, familiar evil…
If you haven’t read GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens, this short novel may move you to do so…or not. It is told from the viewpoint of Matilda, a 14 year old girl living on a fictional island during a civil war among the soldiers and rebels. Only one white person remains, a man named Mr.…
London, 9th November 2007: New research released today by Costa, the UK’s fastest growing coffee chain, reveals that 77% of UK readers have enjoyed a book* so much the first time that they’ve gone back to read it again. {Full article here.} I’ll post the top twenty reread books, as listed in the article quoted…
My kids find it hard to believe, but when I was a child I’d never heard of zucchini….our lives changed forever the day [my father] brought home zucchinis. ‘It’s Italian food,’ he explained. We weren’t sure how to pronounce it. And while the artichokes had brought us to tears and throat lozenges, we liked these…
“It was the revelation of the millennium: witches, werewolves, vampires and other supernaturals are real. Fast-forward 13 years: TV reporter Delilah Street used to cover the small-town bogeyman beat back in Kansas, but now, in high-octane Las Vegas—which is run by a werewolf mob—she finds herself holding back the gates of Hell itself. But at…
One of our patrons really loved this book. After falling in love with Nigel Bevelstoke, Viscount Turner, as a child because of his kindness to her, Miranda Cheever is reunited with him years later, finding a lonely and harsh man, devastated by loss, but she sees beyond the bitterness to the man she has loved…
One of our patrons highly recommended this book. Making her way to a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland in the waning days of World War II, Sheilagh Fielding learns the identity of a man who has shadowed her for twenty years, a finding that coincides with the discovery of the fate of her…
I loved the first book in this series and the second definitely didn’t disappoint. There was one extremely tear-inducing moment though. In this entry, Zoe Redbird is coming to terms with her new life and evolving powers. She also has some complications popping up in her personal life in the forms of 3 men. If…
Anne Enright’s was announced as the winner of Man Booker Prize for her book The Gathering. Click here for more.
Tip and Teddy Doyle are the adopted sons of the former mayor of Boston and his late wife. They know nothing of their African American parentage. One evening, while attending a lecture with their father, Tip’s life is saved by an unknown woman who darts in front of an oncoming car. This act tips the…
“Though “Tree of Smoke” is hobbled by a plot that starts and stops and lurches wildly about, it’s a powerful story about the American experience in Vietnam, with unsettling echoes of the current American experience in Iraq. It is a story about bad intelligence and military screw-ups and people who have lost their way, a…
This month we’ve picked three books from Marie’s list of favorites in which a minor character becomes the focus of the story. The Red Tent~Anita Diamant “The story of Dinah, a tragic character from the Bible whose great love, a prince, is killed by her brother, leaving her alone and pregnant. The novel traces her…
Doris Lessing won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. Born in Iran and raised in what is now Zimbabwe, Lessing is only the 11th woman to receive the Literature Nobel. Read more in the New York Times. Links to past winners of the Literature Prize More 2007 Nobel Winners
The National Book Award finalists were announced today. Click here for more.
If you loved Empire Falls, you’re in for a treat. Richard Russo’s latest is another peek into a small town and its collection of quirky inhabitants. The story is told as a biography of the main character, “Lucy” (Lou C.) Lynch, the only son of a milkman and part-time bookkeeper. The storyline develops as the…
“In Shaggy Muses, we visit Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Flush, the golden Cocker Spaniel who danced the poet away from death, back to life and human love. We roam the wild Yorkshire moors with Emily Brontë, whose fierce Mastiff mix, Keeper, provided a safe and loving outlet for the writer’s equally fierce spirit. We enter…
Silver Master tell the story of matchmaker Celinda Ingram and security specialist Davis Oakes. They’re both psychics (as is just about everyone on the planet Harmony), and they are trying to figure out the mystery behind what looks like a red plastic knob which Celinda’s dust bunny Ariminta pestered her into buying but is in…
“Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fuku – the ancient curse that haunts Oscar’s family for generations,…
I enjoyed Devil May Cry much more than the last couple of Dark-Hunter books. This book focuses on Katra, the secret daughter of the Goddess Artemis, and Sin, an ancient Sumerian God who has had his powers stripped. Sherrilyn Kenyon also gives you much more background and history of Ash and Artemis. While the book…
Have you ever read the glowing reviews of a book, yet when you read it you hated it and found yourself wondering what was wrong with you? Well, that’s how Divine By Blood made me feel. It’s the last book in the trilogy (first are Divine By Mistake and Divine By Choice). I loved the…
After much arguing, Kate talks her life partner Willy into having a baby by way of artificial insemination. To Kate’s surprise, she is contacted personally by a mysterious company who offers their services. After the first try, even though Kate is told she is not pregnant, she starts experiencing the symptoms of a mother in…
I’m not a football fan, but in this case, I’ll make an exception. Most everyone was inspired by Tedy Bruschi’s amazing comeback from a stroke to play football again. This biography, co-authored with Michael Holley details the severity of the Patriots player’s attack precipitated by an undetected heart condition. His perseverance and courage in the…
A patron said that she loved these books, and was glad to have found a new author: “Daddy’s Girl by Lisa Scottoline Natalie Greco loves being a law professor, even though she can’t keep her students from cruising sex.com during class. She loves her family, too, but as a bookworm, doesn’t quite fit in. Then,…
Poor Ann Smith is not having a good day. After transforming herself from a Plain Jane into a knockout, she drives all the way out to her boss’s secluded hideaway to seduce, ‘ahem’, drop off papers for him and she finds out he’s a werewolf. Not only that, but Jasha and his family have been…
Robert Jordan, author of the popular fantasy Wheel of Time series, passed away on September 16th as a result of a rare blood disease. According to a BBC News story, Jordan’s personal assistant said: “the disease caused the walls of his heart to thicken.” For more information on Robert Jordan and his books, take a…
In her first novel, The Septembers of Shiraz, Dalia Sofer examines the life of a wealthy, Jewish family living in Iran after the revolution. Isaac Amin, a gem trader, has been taken prisoner and accused of being an Israeli spy. Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the four Amin…
Madeleine LEngle, author of “A Wrinkle in Time” has died. Many of us will remember reading this Newbery Medal book. Not a big fan of fantasy and science fiction, this is one of the few in that genre that I have read and enjoyed. In my earlier days as an Asst. Children/Young Adult Librarian, I…
Raise your hand if you thought that The Animals were the only ones to record “House of the Rising Sun”? Even if you knew better, you just might be surprised to find out how rich the history of this song truly is. Anthony traces its origin as far back as he can, managing to sweep…
This series just gets better and better! “The Wheel of Darkness” opens with both Pendergast and Constance recovering from their final battle with Pendergast’s evil brother Diogenes. They travel to Tibet, where after staying at a monastary and learning new meditation techniques from the mystical monks there, they are asked to retrieve a sinister artifact…
This is the first Simon Green book I’ve read and I thought it was absolutely brilliant! Being a huge fan since childhood of the original James Bond books, I was a little hesitant about trying a book that borrowed so liberally from that series, but Green’s wonderful writing and irreverent humor completely won me over.…
“Lucifer and the Creator have entered, yet again, into a wager they’ve made many times before, but this time, the existence of creation itself is balanced on the outcome. Born in California during the twilight years of a weary millennium, nine year old Joby Peterson dreams of blazing like a bonfire against the gathering darkness…
“The Alchemyst” is the first book in a new series called “The Secrets Of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel”, and it’s one of those Young Adult novels that will also appeal to adults. It introduces us to twins Sophie and Josh Newman who are destined to be the deciding factors in a war between “Humani” and…
Sunny’s other two books (Mona Lisa Blossoming & Mona Lisa Awakening) dealt with the Monere, who are decendants of a race of people who came to Earth after the Moon became uninhabitable. Where the Mona Lisa books were extremely similar to Anne Bishop’s “Black Jewel” series and Laurell K. Hamilton’s books, what set them apart…
If you’re looking to read something a little different, try this novel. The main character is Tessa Riley, a 12 year old girl living on a farm in Kansas. She just can’t seem to fit in. She is unusually petite, which makes her farm chores more difficult. Her family has very little use for…
“The Siren Song” picks up where the “Shadow Thieves” left off. Charlotte Mielswetzski and her cousin are still recovering from saving the world from an evil demigod named Philonecron. To make matters worse, Charlotte has been grounded by her parents and forced into therapy because she won’t tell them why she was out all night,…
An eight year old girl is abducted from a soccer field after a game. What appears to be a simple kidnapping turns out to be much more. The author of The Color of Law has written another novel that will keep you guessing and reading through the night.
Characters and world building. Those two devices drive Anne Bishop’s remarkable dark fantasy trilogy. But if picking up an oversized paperback comprised of over 1200 pages seems a bit daunting, don’t worry; you can still enjoy the trilogy, novel by novel. Start with Daughter of the Blood – you’ll immediately find yourself in a complex…
Let us introduce you to our new monthly feature. Marie’s Monthly Minutes. Why minutes? Because it just takes a minute to recommend a few great books. What will you find in these posts? Just straight ahead fiction – no vampires, aliens, or other worlds here. Marie likes a lot of historical fiction, literary fiction and…
Excerpts of 80-Year-Old Poet John Ashbery’s poems will appear on mtvU this fall. mtvU which is available only on college campuses will also sponsor a poetry contest for college students. For the full article click here.
I just read on Maud Newton’s blog that Grace Paley died today. Here is her obituary from the New York Times. “Grace Paley, the celebrated writer and social activist whose acclaimed short stories explored in precise, pungent and tragicomic style the struggles of ordinary women muddling through everyday lives, died Wednesday at her home in…
” Laura Lippman writes mostly about private investigator Tess Monaghan. Monaghan is a made-up name and what she does is a matter of fiction. But when Lippman puts Baltimore on the page, she’s got to get it right.” Fans of Lippman’s novels will want to read or listen to this piece on the setting for…
Stephenie Meyer’s Eclipse. We waited patiently for it. We read it as soon as we could get our hands on it. ta calmly enjoyed it; kimb8 was quietly dismayed; and inkonvellum wanted to throw it across the room. Here is a collection of thoughts on the third installment in Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling young adult series……
The Hugo Awards {recognizing sci-fi and fantasy novels} will be handed out in September. The nominees in the Novel category are: Blindsight, Peter Watts Eifelheim, Michael Flynn Glasshouse, Charles Stross His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge For more nominees, check out The Locus Index to SF Awards listing.
This is a very nice looking book with short essays by over sixty authors. They talk about where they write, how they get started and any talisman’s they like to have on hand when writing. My father was a supremely organized man. After he died, my three sisters and I read through countless letters, papers…
“Those who have an orphan’s sense of history love history. And my voice has become that of an orphan. Perhaps it was the unknown life of my mother, her barely drawn portrait, that made me an archivist, a historian. Because if you do not plunder the past, the absence feeds on you.” That is the…
I was very excited to discover this author. He has written a very suspenseful legal thriller about a lawyer that puts his highly successful career and affluent lifestyle on the line to defend a black prostitute. She has been accused of murdering the son of a prominent Senator who is considering a run for the White…
The following titles are on the longlist for the Booker Prize: Darkmans by Nicola Barker Self Help by Edward Docx The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng The Gathering by Anne Enright The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones Gifted by Nikita Lalwani…
In Sansom’s second Mobile Library Mystery, we find our hero, Israel Armstrong, BA (Hons), in another ridiculous predicament. Our beloved underachiever has just finished his mobile-library-sponsored five-panel display on the history of the Dixon and Pickering’s department store, when he is apprehended for the robbery and kidnapping of Mr. Dixon. Sansom’s characters are wonderful and…