How I chose this: It actually had nothing to with that shiny 2005 Michael L. Printz Award sticker on the cover. The narrator, Kim Mai Guest, made me do it! Guest, who is apparently 43 (so says her Wiki bio), has one of those eternal voices, always...
I'm facing a bit of a conundrum with this book: just how little can I tell you and still entice you to check out this astonishing debut novel by emerging-fully-formed-like-Athena, new author Jeff Backhaus? Hmm ...
When Pancho Sanchez arrives at St. Anthony's Home, his 17-year-old self has already survived too much death, and yet he's planning on more. The last of his family – his mentally challenged 20-year-old sister – was found dead in a motel room. While the police insist what...
At 65, Harold Fry is a quiet, solitary old man, retired from the brewery where he worked much of his adult life. Although he married Maureen – his one and only love – decades later, their days, weeks, years together are rather lonely and withdrawn....
So, here's the last of the Lisa Genova oeuvre. If I had to rank her three titles thus far, the #1 slot – shelves ahead of her others – remains her stupendous debut, Still Alice, then continues with this, Left Neglected, trailed by her most recent, Love Anthony. Armed with their Harvard MBAs...
So enthralling was Lisa Genova’s Still Alice, I immediately went and got myself her other titles and hit 'play' one after the other. I don't remember the last time I read three books by the same author in such immediate succession. That I got through...
I'm not quite sure how this 2009 debut novel actually ended up on my iPod (surely I ordered it at some point) and why I decided to click on it when I did. How ironic that missing memory quickly became a point of concern when...
The Japanese word, kokoro, means 'heart' ...
The words "A Novel" adorn the top of the cover of Chopsticks – but that's definitely a debatable label. No such limits necessary here! A hybrid creation by novelist/short story writer Jessica Anthony and book designer/creative director (for Farrar, Straus, Giroux, who is not Chopsticks' publisher, in case you...
When Mimi and her little sister Nakkissi go to fetch the family's water from the stream one hot day, Mimi does something she knows she shouldn't: she realizes that tired Nakkissi can't walk all the way home without a drink, so she gives her "two handfuls...
Perhaps you might label me odd (true) or contrary (no way!) or even disrespectful (dohhh!) to post about cancer and death today of all days, but let me just assure you that this really does make sense. Books like this are the best reminders to...
Gilead and Home are parallel stories – that is, one is not a sequel or prequel of the other, but what happens in one, happens contemporaneously in the other. As satisfying as each novel can be alone, to read both one after the other will be...
Yan Lianke’s latest (Dream of Ding Village, Serve the People!) arrives superbly translated by Duke professor Carlos Rojas and auspiciously stamped with China’s Lao She Literary Award. Welcome to Liven, a mountainous haven populated by the disabled who enjoy bountiful lives, so remote as to have avoided governmental...
Soccer-loving fifth-grader Skye lives in Virginia, just outside DC, with her American mother and her Japanese father. Her best friend recently moved to San Francisco, but Skye's getting to know her All-Star teammates better now that she's finally made the team. On the other side of...
Exactly two weeks have passed since the London 2012 closing ceremony; still feeling Olympic withdrawal? Might I suggest a literary antidote: Chris Cleave's latest novel, made even more timely as the Olympic sport of choice here is cycling (albeit indoors). Road cyclist Bradley Wiggins emerged...
"To start with, look at all the books." Thus opens Jeffrey Eugenides third and latest novel with another memorable first-line zinger – most definitely three for three. Alas, what follows that fabulous start isn't nearly quite as zingy. So far, Eugenides is averaging a new title about...
The latest from Studio Ghibli, powered by the creative genius of legendary Hayao Miyazaki, introduces brave Arrietty, her auburn tresses pulled up by a tiny orange clothespin, ready to explore and conquer the "bean" world. Released by Disney in the U.S. last month, the animated...
March 11, 2011, 14:46 Japan Standard Time: A magnitude-9.0 earthquake lasts six minutes, followed by a 50-foot tsunami that, within 15 minutes, plows inland six miles and causes meltdowns in five nuclear plants. “In one’s wildest imagination, this is beyond conceivable,” write editors Elmer Luke...
While everyone else has been lost to Linsanity, I've been contrarily following baseball ...
At 91, Ptolemy Grey is "waiting to finally be a man." as he writes in his last letter, addressed to his young charge and heir Robyn. The novel begins backwards with an "Afterward" that summarizes the whole of Ptolemy's nine-decades-plus, but to understand why he's...
