Have I told y’all how much I like my work colleagues? Well I do. They are such lovely, funny, cool, interesting people. Work Jenny is the one who alerts us all to things like the Treats Truck, free ice cream, Puppy Bowl, and news stories featuring hot Navy SEALS (“Guys, this is a tragedy, but this guy’s back is out of control); and she lent me Major Pettigrew Lives for a Day’s Last Stand (look, that is confusing right there, don’t tell me I’m the only one who’s made that mistake) after I expressed a passing interest in reading it.…
36 CommentsCategory: 3 Stars
It is never fair to finish up a book you liked a lot/loved (in this case, The Secret History — despite my best intentions of early bed, I stayed up past until midnight to finish it this past rereading time), and turn straight away to a book you haven’t read before that sounds vaguely similar. You’re going to compare them, and even though your rational mind knows that they are not in competition, one of them is going to lose out. However, there were a few things working to shield The White Devil from the inevitable failure when compared to…
17 CommentsThe beginning: Strangers at the Feast (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is about a family getting together for Thanksgiving dinner. Scholar Ginny has rebounded from a bad relationship by semi-legally adopting an Indian orphan called Priya, and she wants to bring her family together to meet Priya. The family is Ginny’s brother Doug, who has lost significant money since the housing crisis, and his wife Denise, and Doug and Ginny’s parents, old-school matriarch Eleanor and Gavin, a Vietnam veteran who missed out on his dreams as he worked to provide for his family. In a plotline across town, two…
19 CommentsI wish there were a whole section of the bookstore called “Journalists go do something really interesting and then write a whole book about it,” and it would include The Unlikely Disciple and Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers, and this book I want to read called Turkmeniscam, and it would also include The Husbands and Wives Club, which is the book that came out of Laurie Abraham’s sitting in on a couples therapy group. I got this for Indie Sister for her birthday, but didn’t have time to read it before mailing it off to her. Next time I should give…
22 CommentsAnd magical realism rears its ugly — no, I’m kidding. The Oracle of Stamboul has the tiniest ever amount of magical realism, actually the perfect amount. At the start of the story, when our protagonist Eleonora is about to be born, the author mentions a flock of hoopoes (they look like this, if you’re curious) that comes to settle near her house on the night of her birth. After that, I was on red alert, as my displeasure with an excess of magical realism is rapid and permanent. But first-time author Michael David Lukas has a light touch with the…
27 Comments