Dear American Airlines
Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles An irresponsible husband, a drunk, and an unemployable poet and translator, Benjamin R. Ford will never be nominated for a distinguished citizen award. However, […]
Cloud Atlas
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell When the review in The New York Times stated, “it is not unheard of for a novelist of exceptional talent to write a deliberately difficult […]
City of Girls
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert After that ridiculous Eat, Pray, Love, I removed author Elizabeth Gilbert from my reading lists, forever. But on the recommendation of a friend, I […]
City of Thieves
City of Thieves by David Benioff At first glance, a novel about two young men who meet in Leningrad during the Nazi siege sounds unpromising. Russian novels (about or by) […]
All Adults Here
All Adults Hereby Emma Straub Astrid Strick is experiencing an unusual crisis of confidence. After a random traffic accident stirs up uncomfortable memories, the perennially poised and controlling sixty-eight-year-old widow […]
Circe
Circe by Madeline Miller The witch Circe, a resident of the island of Aiaia and a rather minor persona in the pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses, is best known […]
Bringing Home The Birkin
Bringing Home the Birkin by Michael Tonello BHTB is a chick-lit novel, although at first glance it violates a few standards of the genre. It is not written by a […]
Bridge of Sighs
Bridge Of Sighs By Richard Russo Last month I had dinner at The Palm with a dozen or so women. Toward the end of the meal I asked (apropos of […]
Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman
I love a late life success story, so I was thrilled when my book club chose a collection of short stories, Binocular Vision, by Edith Pearlman. In 2011, a young […]
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
When a reviewer declares that Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, “is as close to the Great American Novel as anyone is likely to come these days,” I am leery. Not […]
All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle
Hubert Bird is a busy retiree in London—lots of friends, bingo, and outings to the garden center. Or at least that’s what he tells his daughter in their weekly phone […]
An Artist of the Floating World
If you enjoyed The Remains of the Day, I recommend Kazuo Ishiguro’s earlier novel, An Artist of the Floating World (©1986) which also features an unreliable narrator and explores many […]
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care.” The heroine of […]
An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear
If you enjoy historical mysteries, you’ll appreciate the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear. Set in England between the wars, Maisie is a former domestic servant, whose current career as psychologist […]
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
By Marina Lweycka Nominated for the Man Booker Prize, this remarkable first novel concerns the daughters of Nikolai Mayevskyj, an elderly Ukrainian immigrant living in England. Nadezhda and her older […]