- October 4, 2019
This 2013 short story collection by Nathan Ballingrud won the Shirley Jackson award. I found it while combing around for good short stories that have monsters as central figures, whether real or imagined. After reading one of two in this collection, I couldn’t put it down. The author’s deftly woven and beautifully written ...
Read more… - September 27, 2019
Louisiana Elefante has a voice that can sing! In Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo, twelve-year-old Louisiana is going to need to use her talents and sing for her supper. You see, Louisiana has a family curse on her head and the day of reckoning (according to Granny) has arrived. Louisiana is separated ...
Read more… - September 19, 2019
Late
Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss, by
Margaret Renkl
In
this unconventional memoir, Renkl blends evocative recollections of her family
with insightful observations of the natural world outside her home in
Nashville.
Told
in brief essays, Renkl’s narrative eases seamlessly between the past and the
present, bringing the reader from the red dirt roads of her childhood in
Alabama to the ...
Read more… - September 5, 2019
I started The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead with low expectations. Because of my own tastes as a reader, I was not as awed as the rest of the world by his 2016 bestseller, The Underground Railroad. I could not completely buy into Whitehead’s magical realism and his fantastical vision of an actual railroad, secretly ...
Read more… - August 28, 2019
For the only time that I can remember, I finished a book, turned to the title page, and read it again. Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy: A Memoir is that good: witty, perceptive, and crafted. She’s a poet, and it shows, the imagery and the diction are that vibrant.
Priestdaddy is the story of a ...
Read more… - August 15, 2019
What to Do When I’m Gone is a collaboration of wisdom shared between a mother and her daughter in a graphic novel format. Suzy Hopkins, a former newspaper reporter, explores the topic of death and offers advice to her daughter about living. Her daughter, Hallie Bateman, is an illustrator and author, and provides ...
Read more… - August 7, 2019
“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”
“There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how ...
Read more… - August 2, 2019
Coco Chanel by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
Even fashion icons start out little and have big dreams! Coco Chanel challenged and changed the way women wear clothes forever. Follow the career of the infamous Coco Chanel, born Gabrielle Chanel in a charity hospital in France. As she grew up, she sewed by day and sang at ...
Read more… - July 23, 2019
Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
This amazing and epic tale begins as Ashley is being taken from her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, along with her half-brother Alex. “Sunshine,” her mother says, “You must mind the one taking care of you, but she’s not your mama.” Thus, the stage is set for years and years ...
Read more… - July 12, 2019
Rennie Airth, born in South Africa but now a resident of Italy, began the Inspector John Madden series in 1999 with River of Darkness. The novel was inspired by his uncle, a soldier in World War I. The crime the Scotland Yard detective takes on is set in rural England in the postwar years. A ...
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