Youthful Accident or Racial Incident: Upper West Side Story by Susan Pashman
In Upper West Side Story, a first novel by philosophy professor and former attorney Susan Pashman, two families in Manhattan are pitted against each other after a tragic accident (possibly a crime)...
View ArticlePitch-Perfect Wry Charm: All Together Now by Gill Hornby
Some novels put the quirky charm front and center and try to win the reader over too quickly, but Gill Hornby’s All Together Now plays it cool in that stiff-upper-lip, British, deadpan way. The author...
View ArticleDeserves All the Big Praise It’s Getting: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
I’ve been very selfish with my library copy of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, and so I need to bring it back today. A Little Life is my #1 favorite book so far this year, and I had so many pages...
View ArticleFirst Book of 2016 with Sheila @bookjourney & Karen @BookerTalk #readinto16
I didn’t get many books for Christmas, but got a nice stack of them for my birthday in October. I read My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante on the flight back from Rome in October, and loved it, so it...
View ArticleSurreal Comedy of Manners: Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
Imagine two women of independent means – one unmarried, one married – going through the motions, more or less, of belonging to conventional (bourgeois) society and doing what’s expected of them, until...
View ArticleShort and Strout: My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (no spoilers)
My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout is a very short novel – just over 200 pages – but I’ve spent a disproportionately long time thinking about it before reviewing it! When I first finished...
View ArticleSocial (Media) Climbing: Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford (Audio)...
Everybody Rise, a first novel by Brooklyn journalist Stephanie Clifford, was the hot book this summer — seen on bestseller and Best Beach Reads lists – then quickly incurring the inevitable backlash to...
View ArticleMale Family Dysfunction in Maine (Even the Narrator is a Boy): The Miracle on...
The publisher of The Miracle on Monhegan Island calls it “another rollicking, summertime family saga” from author Elizabeth Kelly, but I think “rollicking” is a slightly misleading description, unless...
View ArticleIt’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR #BoneClocks2017
Reading and Bloggiesta-ing at the same time today, adding one more day to the weekend, thanks to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday! This week I’m reading Bone Clocks by David Mitchell for a readalong...
View ArticleReading Slade House by David Mitchell #RIPXII
RIPXII Group Read — Slade House I’ve started listening (again) to Slade House by David Mitchell (Random House Audio, 2015) for the RIPXII Group Read with Andi of Estella’s Revenge and Heather of My...
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