Blog Entries

The newest book by Liane Moriarty starts a little slower than her previous two, The Husband's Secret and Big Little Lies.  The two main characters are Erika and Clementine, who have been friends since childhood.  They are very different and it is not an easy friendship.  Erika’s neighbor impulsively invites them and their families to a barbecue.   Something goes very wrong at that barbecue.  Unfortunately, you won’t find out what that is until the middle of the book.   Some might want to peek ahead, especially those with vivid imaginations...

“Yada, yada, yada.” “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” “No soup for you!”

Whether you faithfully watched Seinfeld back in the ‘90s, have caught it on reruns, or have never seen a single episode, chances are you know a few of its catchphrases anyway. Seinfeldwas such a dominant hit, advertising on its 1998 finale cost more than Super Bowl spots that year. The overall success of the show gave NBC the money to diversify, invest in new technologies, and secure long-term rights to the Olympics just before the Internet and on-deman...

Jack Quinlan has secrets. Lots of secrets. Upon returning to his hometown after a close relative suffers a serious accident, the reality Jack has created and shared with his wife, Sarah, for years quickly begins to unravel. What really happened to Jack’s parents all those years ago? Just how much is Jack hiding? Sarah Quinlan must find out. But will she be able to fill in all the missing pieces before it’s too late? Sarah enlists the help of locals to get to the bottom of Jack’s dark secrets, which all seem to lead to the cellar in Jack’s childhood home.

Revi...

This debut thriller by Mary Kubica has been proclaimed as the next Gone Girl.  While I don’t think it was quite that caliber, it did make for a good read on my weekend getaway.   I recommend the audiobook, which is available for download from the library overdrive site. 

Mia is a young  teacher  who is kidnapped by her supposed one-night-stand, Colin. Eve, her mother, is beside herself with worry while grappling with her daughter's disappearance. Gabe is the investigator assigned to Mia's case.  Mia’s story is told from the points of vie...

Gardening season is in full swing and this charming book will appeal both to gardeners and to historians.

Beginning in the 1790s with George and Martha Washington and continuing through the 1990s and beyond, McDowell makes her historical canvas come alive through the paintbrush of flowers, plants, trees and shrubs.  Her ability to make what might have become a dull recitation of botanical facts fascinating lies not only in masterful writing but in her deep understanding of the human and family lives of the Presidents and how they influenced and developed the White House grounds....

This book starts with Tanya Dubois discovering her husband dead at the bottom of the stairs.  He fell while she was in the shower.  She knows the police will be suspicious and she doesn’t want them to look too closely at her past, so she packs a couple of suitcases and goes on the run.  She turns into Amelia and makes her way to Austin.  There she meets Blue, who convinces her to swap identities.  They go their separate ways.  It turns out Blue’s identity is a little more complicated than she let on, so she ends up on the run again.  She is rea...

Spoiler Alert: There is no place called Little Dribbling.

Bill Bryson hits up plenty of other offbeat and just plain odd locales in his latest travelogue, though. Whether he’s railing against greedy real estate moguls who want to develop pristine countryside, reporting on the prevalence of cow attacks in the UK, or simply relating his misadventures ordering fast food, a new book by Bryson is always worth reading.

It’s been twenty years since Notes from a Small Island, his first book about touring Great Britain, was published. Since then, the world has changed. Th...

The Guest Room is a poignant novel that offers insight into the dark world of human trafficking, the complicated nature of human relationships, and the basics that drive human nature. The story, which reads like a crime thriller, makes one think about how quickly a bad decision, perhaps even a decision you weren’t completely involved in, can derail your life.          

 Richard Chapman and his wife open their home for, what they anticipate, will be a run-of-the-mill bachelor party. The night is anything but ordinary; however, ending with two dead R...

This perceptive and eloquent novel explores the life of the renowned artist Georgia O’Keeffe with particular emphasis on her tempestuous love affair with photographer Alfred Steiglitz.  In her acknowledgments, Tripp mentions the work of numerous biographers, curators and scholars, so her novel is based on extensive research. 

O’Keeffe is fascinating and her struggle for her own artistic vision, recognition, and, finally, her need for independence make for sensual and engaging reading.  Tripp has captured the essence of both the woman and the artist beautifu...

This perceptive and eloquent novel explores the life of the renowned artist Georgia O’Keeffe with particular emphasis on her tempestuous love affair with photographer Alfred Steiglitz.  In her acknowledgments, Tripp mentions the work of numerous biographers, curators and scholars, so her novel is based on extensive research. 

O’Keeffe is fascinating and her struggle for her own artistic vision, recognition, and, finally, her need for independence make for sensual and engaging reading.  Tripp has captured the essence of both the woman and the artist beautif...

Every once in a while a reader will find a narrative that touches their heart in ways that most others do not. For this reader, The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George is such a book. 

The main character, Monsieur Perdu, owns and operates a most winsome bookshop, The Literary Apothecary, which is housed on a floating barge on the Seine River. From his bookshop he dispenses literary cures for the ailments of his customers. Perdu has an amazing ability for prescribing just the right book to remedy heartaches, loneliness, scarred souls, and for reenergizing spiritless psyches. The...

Based on the Russian story, The Snow Maiden, Ivey’s debut novel maintains a fairytale style.  Set in rural 1920’s Alaska, childless homesteaders, Jack and Mabel, are grieving the loss of an unborn child and,  while Jack is crumbling under the weight of the work he must do in the harsh Alaskan wilderness if they are to survive, Mabel is in depths of depression and contemplating suicide. Then, one evening, in a rare moment of levity, the two go out into the first snow and build a snowgirl only to find it destroyed the next morning. Suddenly, a little blond-haired girl ap...

Written by three authors, this book has three related love stories in three different time periods.  Olive lives in the 1890’s, her daughter Lucy is in 1920, and her granddaughter Kate is in 1944.  All are connected to a grand house in New York City.  Olive’s father was an architect and he designed the mansion for the rich Pratt family.  She went to work as a housemaid there after her father’s death.  Mr. Pratt had refused to pay him, and Olive’s middle class family had slipped toward poverty.  Olive is determined to find proof that her ...

Being a working mother with 2 children, 2 jobs, and a messy chef as a partner, it is often difficult to commit the time and effort to reading larger works of fiction. I recently discovered the benefits of short stories and novellas for this very reason. They give me the satisfaction of storytelling, but on a simplified scale. The novella, Camp Olvido, certainly does just that.

          A “Hispanic Heritage” read, it takes place in California in 1932, at a migrant labor camp, where a majority of its workers toil i...

This sequel of sorts to the bestselling memoir, “Not Without My Daughter,” is full of local interest. Mahtob was the young daughter in that story, and her memories stretch from Tehran to Saginaw.

In 1984, Mahtob’s Iranian-born father took her and her mother to his homeland for what was supposed to be a short vacation with relatives. At the end of the two weeks, he confiscated his family’s American passports and told his wife and daughter they weren’t leaving – ever. Mahtob was very young at the time, but she remembers a lot from her eighteen months...