Tag: Book review
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“Touched” by Walter Mosley
“Touched,” the new novel by Walter Mosley, recognized mainly by his crime novels, is rooted in our fear for the future of humans and our planet. It finally happens: the different beings from “a vast range of planes and realities,” as the author suggests, have decided that our species has entered the stage when our…
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“Murder on Mistletoe Lane” by Debbie Young
“Murder on Mistletoe Lane” by Debbie Young is the fifth installment in Stella and Lyndy’s historical mystery series. I enjoyed listening to the first four novels, and this was the first one I read on paper, happily discovering that it’s as charming as the audiobooks. Stella, a wealthy American heiress, and her aristocratic Viscount husband…
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“Wandering through Life” by Donna Leon
Comissario Brunetti is one of my favorite mystery characters, and for years I enthusiastically followed him on the streets of Venice. So when I learned that Donna Leon wrote a memoir, I got excited to learn more about the woman who created not only Brunetti but also Paula, Signorina Elettra, Vianello, and Patta. I knew…
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“Small Worlds” by Caleb Azumah Nelson
“Small Worlds” is the second novel by a young British-Ghananian writer and photographer, Caleb Azumah Nelson. It’s a contemporary coming-of-age story of Stephen, whose family emigrated from Ghana to find a better life in England. The novel is written in a poetic, documentary style as we follow Stephen’s path to adulthood. He is a gentle…
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“The Pole” by J.M. Coetzee
“The Pole” is the second book by J.M. Coetzee I read, “Disgrace” being the first one, remaining one of my favorite novels of all time. This time, the author tells the story of love between 70-year-old Polish virtuoso pianist Witold and a 50-year-old woman, Beatriz. Beatriz is a patron of arts, living in Barcelona, and…
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“The Raging Storm” by Ann Cleeves
The residents of Greystone, a small fishing town in North Devon, England, like to keep their problems hidden from outsiders. But when the celebrity sailor and adventure seeker, Jem Rosco, is found dead, his body lying in a boat in the legendary and feared Scully Cove’s water, they have no choice but to accept the…
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“Inside Information” by Eshkol Nevo
“Inside Information” is an excellent title for this novel by Eshkol Nevo. We are given three very loosely interconnected stories, all told in the first person narrative, so the reader is looking at the events from the narrator’s point of view, favoring his or her interpretation. But there are mysteries, and things may differ from…
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“The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp” by Leonie Swann
“Getting old isn’t for the faint of heart,” the American movie star Mae West once said, and the residents of a senior citizens’ home share in the quaint English village of Duck End can attest to it. In addition to the common ailments of old age, they face an unexplained murder at a next-door house…
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“Open Throat” by Henry Hoke
“Open Throat” by Henry Hoke is a slim but perhaps the most beautiful novel I read this year. It’s told from the perspective of a mountain lion who lives in the desert hills below the Hollywood sign. The mountain lion is queer: his lover, “the kill sharer,” was another male mountain lion. The hunt becomes…
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“How to Be” by Adam Nicolson
The question “how to be” is perhaps the most essential question humans have been trying to answer since our conscious existence on Earth began. Adam Nicolson’s book with the same title takes us into the world of ancient Greeks and shines a new light on the famous philosophers, thinkers, and ordinary citizens of those distant…
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