I love just about everything Walter Mosley writes. The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray is one of my favorite novels ever, The Tempest Tales made me laugh and think, his Easy Rawlins mysteries make me cry and think, and his most recent series, starring ex-boxer Lenoid McGill, make me smile wryly and think even more. [...]
Continue Reading →Stephen King’s latest novel, 11/22/63, is a bit slow getting started but then it soars in a gripping and sometimes terrifying “what if” flight of fancy: what if you could change history, what if you could go back in time and prevent a hunting accident, a hot-blooded murder, or the assassination of John F. Kennedy? [...]
Continue Reading →I absolutely loved the novel Jamesland by Michelle Huneven, which was loaned to me by a cherished and bookish friend. I am glad to have sneezed all over the book, for now I can keep it for myself — and I have ordered a brand-new copy for my friend. Jamesland tells the story of two [...]
Continue Reading →Chihuahua Karma by Debby Rice is a great feel-good read that made me laugh out loud, tugged at my heart-strings, and left me smiling. Available only as an E-book, Rice’s lively, incisive, and addictive writing makes buying an E-reader a good idea (alongside previously reviewed E-books like Minks Rises by Eric Almeida and The View [...]
Continue Reading →The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar is a sparkling and sharp slice of life that, in presenting four personal stories, reflects and illuminates universal truths. Four women have been friends since their student days in Bombay, during the heady but dangerous years of the 1970s when protests and marches dominated university life and parents [...]
Continue Reading →I read another Christmas present yesterday, this one from my friend Fernando. The book is Leon’s Story by Leon Walter Tillage, as told to and illustrated by artist Susan L. Roth. Leon was born in 1936 into a sharecropper family, descendants of slaves and still subject to a no-win existence of working hard with not [...]
Continue Reading →Of the books published in 2011 which I read this year, my favorites are (in alphabetical order): Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obrecht Ghost Light [...]
Continue Reading →For Christmas, my uncle in Belgium sent to me a book written by the Flemish writer Stefan Brijs, titled The Angel Maker. The Angel Maker has been a huge hit across Europe and now that I’ve read it, I can understand why. Brijs creates, with creepy momentum and rich atmosphere, a thoroughly chilling and enthralling [...]
Continue Reading →I know it’s a bit late in the day to be offering my best gift idea for the mystery lover in your life but my life has been so hectic lately that I only JUST finished Twelve Drummers Drumming by C.C. Benison (I’ll admit I wasted time reading Mary Daheim’s The Alpine Winter which is [...]
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