Tag Archives: literary fiction

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

Posted on March 28, 2018 by

Read  March 2018 Recommended for those with a passing familiarity with academia ★    ★   ★   ★   Dear Fellow Readers: I am pleased to endorse to you the short little epistolary novel, “Dear Committee Members.” This book will most likely be … Continue reading →

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Posted on February 28, 2018 by

Read February 2018 Recommended for fans of slow mysteries, great writing ★    ★   ★    ★  1/2   What is it about Brooklyn? A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Joe Pitt in Half the Blood of Brooklyn. Last Exit to Brooklyn. Not … Continue reading →

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Quin’s Shanghai Circus by Edward Whittemore

Posted on February 1, 2018 by

Read  January 2018 Recommended for fans of Vonnegut DNF #7 in my Clean Out the Kindle Project. Naw, I’m just kidding. I can’t count be bothered to count. I got a new kindle and the only thing going on it … Continue reading →

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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Posted on December 29, 2017 by

Read  December 2017 Recommended for fans of social awkwardness ★    ★    ★   ★   1/2   Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. Mostly, anyway. Except when she’s offering comfort at the scene of an accident: “Mr. Gibbons is calling an ambulance,” I … Continue reading →

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The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, read by Bryan Cranston

Posted on April 2, 2017 by

Read March 2017 Recommended for fans of war stories ★    ★    ★   1/2 This is quite the book, and Cranston is quite the reader. Well suited with gravely voice, solemn tones, perfect diction and flow that draws me in. I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Autobiography, Book reviews, Fiction, Non-fiction | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston

Posted on January 25, 2017 by

Read January 2017 Recommended  ★     ★     ★    ★   First there was ‘chick-lit.’ Then there was ‘hick-lit.’ I hereby dub a new sub-genre: dick-lit. No, it’s not about sex, porny-readers. I’m thinking of such books as The Goldfinch, Less Than … Continue reading →

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction, genre-bender | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

California by Edan Lepucki

Posted on October 26, 2016 by

Read October 2016 Recommended for fans of horror/thriller  ★     ★     If the world’s second-most annoying couple lives in the woods, will we care? Probably not.   Despite great potential, California is a mess of a navel-gazing couple looking for … Continue reading →

Posted in Apocalypse & dystopia, Book reviews | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz

Posted on March 2, 2016 by

Read February 2016 Recommended for fans of vague, undefined heroines  ★    ★ Two things attracted me to The Passenger: Lisa Lutz, the author of the daffy, emotionally complicated and entertaining Spellman Files series (review of the first), and the … Continue reading →

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Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

Posted on June 16, 2015 by

Read June 2015 Recommended for ??  ★    ★    ★    Tuesday, 16th June– “I come to my journal as a Catholick to a confessor.” The ache in my head was too grievous to ignore & proves that this experience though … Continue reading →

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American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett

Posted on May 24, 2015 by

Finished May 2015 Recommended for fans of mysterious, time-forgotten towns and searches for identity  ★    ★    ★    ★   1/2 Lovely language and enjoyable storytelling, but suffers from a mild case of W.o.K.S. (Way of Kings Syndrome).  I happen to … Continue reading →

Posted in Book reviews, genre-bender | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments