What began with the scare-every-parent-to-death middle grade/young adult novel, The Face on the Milk Carton, concludes (for now) after 23 years, four sequels books, and one e-story (What Janie Saw, which I confess is the only part of the series I haven't read, mainly because I can't bear to...
This is not a spoiler: If you take a good look at the cover of the recent memoir Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds, you know the pages will deliver a happy ending ...
Let's go back about seven years. So a writer walks into a bar. It's dark, but thankfully not smoky. The majority of the people there are more bookish (including Booker-ish!) than biker brutish. The writer finds a drink, and is standing slightly off the side with...
A busy Seattle hospital. Hip, young doctors. Desperate patients. Administrative hierarchies. Sound familiar? I heard the latest Carol Cassella title (Healing) even has a character named Addison! I started (because of an alma mater connection), then stopped watching Grey's Anatomy after the first season (although I've had to revisit...
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he married Maureen – his one and only love – decades later, their days, weeks, years together are rather lonely and withdrawn....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 late Anthony Shadid is back in the headlines today with happy news: the double-Pulitzer winner's resonating memoir is one of the autobiography finalists for the National Book Circle Critics awards for the publishing year of 2012. House of Stone recounts Shadid's restoration of his great-grandfather's home...
Through the 13 intertwined, overlapping stories of her 2009 Pulitzer winner, Elizabeth Strout’s eponymous protagonist Olive Kitteridge emerges from multiple angles – captured in close-ups and faraway distances; her intimate portrayal is greatly enhanced by sharing the lives of her fellow residents in the small...
Both the inside and outside covers here are exactly the same: a mostly well-ordered, three-generation family tree ...
As the mother of three young girls, Ellen Oh is constantly on the lookout for good books that showcase female empowerment. She's found a few here and there – say, The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, The Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy by Rae Carson, The Hero and the...
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...
"Based on the life of Princess Pari Khan Khanoom" seems to be the dominant short-hand description (even on its own back cover) of Anita Amirrezvani's historical novel set in 16th-century Persia, now modern Iran. Some might find that description misleading, and expect this to be...
The Spy Lover lingered on the top of my must-read pile for months, mainly because I just needed a break from the death and destruction of war (seems to be my reading theme for too much of this year!). I wasn't wrong to be afraid: set during...
At 18, Andy Go "had life all figured out," but then so much for best-laid plans: "None of it came true, of course. Not a single damn thing." One morning he wakes fully clothed on his bed, in his room, in his (parents') house ...
"Just yesterday a white guy asked me if I was a real Indian. No, I said, Columbus made a mistake. The Indians are in India." Presented as humor during a community festival, the deep irony remains striking throughout Louise Erdrich's award-winning, bestselling books that explore...
“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have spent all my time studying and done all the things I really wanted to do,” thinks Yukari Hayasaka, dramatically believing she’s about to die. As a diligent 18-year-old preparing for high school final exams, her academic goals have thus...
