Once upon a time B.C. – that's Before Children – the hubby and I had four furry practice kiddies. One of them was named Bob. As in Bob Cat. He was named by my middle brother, who lived with us on and off (in between...
As we head into the holiday weekend, here's a debut novel to help you celebrate ...
Talk about timing ...
Here's proof that your questions really make a difference, at least to the imaginative Lisa Yee: "On one of her many school visits, a reader asked what happened to Marley from Stanford Wong, which inspired her to tell his story here," Yee's "About the Author" end-page...
Luis Alberto Urrea's "hymn to vatos who will never be in a poem" provides the lyrical frame onto which Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer José Galvez showcases the everyday challenges and celebrations of the Latino experience. This slightly sepia-ed homage to masculinity-on-the-fringe was a 2002 Quick Pick...
To reduce this rich, complicated, multi-layered story into a few sentences seems almost disrespectful ...
"'I hope other people – particularly women – listen to these stories and become kinder to their own sex,'" a woman laments, her life made unbearable by her female in-laws who condemn her because she literally flushed away the evidence of her virginal blood. "'I don't understand...
Vassar Spore is every Tiger Mother's dream come true. At 16, she's got her entire overachieving life perfectly planned out with the unwavering support of two control-driven-but-nurturing parents. The three seamlessly work together toward Vassar's goals: a 5.3 GPA – the new 4.0; a degree with...
I could cry over The Other. And not tears of the 'I'm so gratefully happy'-variety, alas; I'm talking truly disappointed waterworks. David Guterson writes quietly wrenching novels, including his bestselling Snow Falling on Cedars, and later East of the Mountains, which I actually found more effecting. The Other, too,...
My contrary self is taking me through Jennifer Egan's oeuvre backwards, having started earlier this year with her latest, A Visit from the Goon Squad, just before she deservedly won both the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award and 2011 Pulitzer for fiction. First things first about Egan's...
National Book Award-finalist Gene Luen Yang's latest title is a collaboration with a fellow high school teacher Thien Pham: their obviously convivial partnership is evident even before their comic begins. "Dedicated to our brothers Jon and Thinh, both of whom work in the medical field,...
Having read Luis Alberto Urrea's unforgettable Border Trilogy, I began the audible version of this novel that highlights illegal immigration with some trepidation. Alas, Urrea doesn't narrate this title; and although it's read with effective gusto by Susan Ericksen, I've gotten used to Urrea's flow, having...
If, like me, you don't like to know the whole story before you read the book (!!), then skip the family tree in these opening pages. Don't even glance at it. You can always go back to it after. Ahdaf Soueif's 1999 Booker Prize shortlister (J. M. Coetzee took...
Holly Thompson’s novel-in-verse begins with a jarring slam: "One week after / you stuffed a coil of rope / into your backpack / and walked uphill into / Osgoods' orchard / where blooms were still closed fists // my father looked up summer airfares to...
As her children grow, author Melissa Fay Greene decides to extend parenthood by adopting five more You just know that a book’s going to be good if you’ve already guffawed and the type has started to blur (even though you’re trying not to get overly emotional)...
In case you were unsure, that’s Jenny Han as in “Han Solo,” not Han as in “hand.” Befitting of the bestselling young adult author that she is, she can recite all the dialogue from the cult film Clueless, and she gladly admits her adoration for...
Leave it to master storyteller Louis Sachar (National Book Award and Newbery Medalist for his phenomenally successful Holes) to make bridge (yes, bridge! – as in the card game!) heart-thumping fun! Listening to Sachar himself read the audible version is definitely an added bonus, not to mention you get to...
Following up two unforgettable novels that earned her a MacArthur Fellows Program "Genius" Award (which comes with a no-strings-attached $500,000 "stipend" over five years!) in 2008 was surely going to be hard work. Last year, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie debuted her first short story collection ...
Even if you're not a dog-lover, you'll pause and sigh over these pages, especially to look more closely as these expressive, trusting faces. And if you've been waffling about adopting that four-legged addition your two-legged offspring keep begging for, you just might be convinced ...
'Collateral damage' is such a detached, sanitized phrase for the innocent people who pay the highest price for the tragic folly of war; and surely the youngest and the eldest suffer the greatest. "I want people to know the truth about what happened," Nawuth Keat told...
