Tag: Book review
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“The Rachel Incident” by Caroline O’Donoghue
Rachel Murray is a twenty-one-year-old, tall (5’11, but to make it easier, she often says she’s six foot) woman living in Cork, Ireland. She studies English and has a crush on her professor. Her roommate, James, a closeted gay who works with her at a quaint bookstore, tries to help her attract the professor’s interest,…
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“Tabula Rasa” by John McPhee
At the beginning of his “Tabula Rasa,” John McPhee recalls when he was invited to lunch with the famous playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder. Asked what he was working on, Wilder replied that he was cataloging plays of Lope de Vega. About four hundred and thirty-one plays by Lope de Vega survived, and Thornton Wilder…
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“Murder at the Mill” by Debbie Young
Sophie Sayers, the budding writer working in the quaint Cotswold village’s bookstore, run by her boyfriend Hector, feels slightly out of place when she arrives at a writer retreat on a small Greek island. She didn’t plan on attending such a workshop, but Hector secretly entered her into a writing competition – which she won…
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“Empty Theatre” by Jac Jemc
King Ludwig II of Bavaria and his cousin, Empress Sisi of Austria, were the rock stars of the nineteenth century. If they lived today, we’d undoubtedly follow their everyday life watching reality TV. Unable to do it, I’m thrilled that Jac Jemc took on an ambitious project bringing those two to life in a fictionalized…
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“The Block Party” by Jamie Day
Alton Road is a neighborhood where you won’t see a Honda Civic in one’s driveway but Samir’s Lexus, Brooke’s Mercedes, and Riley’s Beamer. Only 17-year-old Lettie drives a rusty Hyundai Santa Fe, but everybody knows she prefers her bike to reduce her carbon footprint. However, as much as the flashy cars are for everyone to…
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“The Five-Star Weekend” by Elin Hilderbrand
Hollis’s life seems ideal: she has a great husband, a heart surgeon, a beautiful summer house on Nantucket in addition to her Wellesley’s home, and her humble food blog became so popular during the pandemic that now she has many followers who want to “cook with Hollis.”. Sure, not everything is picture-perfect. Her adult daughter…
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“The Girl by the Bridge” by Arnaldur Indriðason
A young man walks in the evening searching for poetic inspiration and stops on the bridge over the Pond in Reykjavik. He notices something unusual in the water: a doll, and he retrieves it. Then he sees a dead girl in the pond. Twenty years later, a young woman is found dead, a syringe stuck…
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“Birnam Wood” by Eleanor Catton
Did you think that gardening was a peaceful activity? After reading “Birnam Wood,” Eleanor Catton’s latest novel, you will surely change your mind. Birnam Wood is a clandestine gardening collective with a great idea: the group cultivates unused strips of land, abandoned construction sites, and such to grow vegetables. They are young, sharing their idealistic…
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“Getting Lost” by Annie Ernaux
In 1988 Annie Ernaux was 48 years old, living on the outskirts of Paris, and consumed by a love affair with a 36-year-old Russian diplomat based in Paris. She chronicled the next year and a half in her diary, the belated translation of which has just been published. Annie Ernaux is now eighty-four and the…
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“My Father’s House” by Joseph O’Connor
In his latest book “My Father’s House,” Joseph O’Connor creates a protagonist based on a real man, Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, a priest in the Vatican. It’s 1943, and the Nazis control Rome, putting a circle around the Vatican, which announced its neutrality. However, one can’t remain neutral in the face of evil, which Hugh O’Flaherty…
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