Monthly Archives: May 2016

After 40 years and 3 children, the 72-year old Stanley Peke and his wife Rose are moving out of the big house on Westchester and headed out to California to be closer to the family.   The moving people load up their previously … Continue reading →

This is one of McMurtry’s earlier and lesser novels and it shows. His really good ones came later, Terms of Endearment, 1975; Lonesome Dove, 1985;  The Berrybender Chronicles, 2002;   Sacajawea’s Nickname (nonfiction), 2001).  I loved Lonesome Dove and it stood up quite well when I reread it … Continue reading →

Thoroughly enjoyable novel – beautiful, different and so sweetly told.   It’s the story of a boy/man, Bit Stone,  who was the first child born to a loving couple who lived in a commune in northern New York State circa 1968. … Continue reading →

Be warned – Give Us the Ballot is a powerful book,  but it’s not exactly an unbiased approach to the history of the Voting Rights Act.   This doesn’t bother me because there are a lot of  books out there by conservatives to … Continue reading →

I enjoyed the last book I read by Boyd,  An Ice Cream War (1982),  but there’s something off with this one.  I’m not quite sure what it is.  The novel is labeled as a “spy” novel but that thread doesn’t really get started until … Continue reading →

Another reread – this time of an old favorite author,  Barbara Pym,  who has a whole interesting life and her books are delightful and there’s even a fan club of sorts -The Barbara Pym society. ************* Quartet in Autumn by Barbara … Continue reading →

Amazing book, way better than its title!  Think Marra’s prior novel,  A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and mix it up with Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell) and you’re close.   This is the story of a small, outrageously polluted, town in northernmost … Continue reading →

Not overwhelmed here – there’s a good story and Frank has spent plenty of time on the characters and plot twists but it sometimes seems that the backstories on the major characters slow the main story down quite a lot … Continue reading →

Kweku Sai, who was an immigrant to the US from Ghana in the late 1970s became a brilliant surgeon,  but he later left his wife and four children in Boston to return to Africa.  As the book opens Kweku lies alone in his … Continue reading →

I just finished Chernobyl by the Nobel-winning Svetlana Alexievich in March and along comes Secondhand Time, a Random House release distributed by/ Netgalley, by the same author – due out May 10.   I jumped at it.  In the words of … Continue reading →

What do we remember about Benedict Arnold’s place in the American Revolution?  George Washington was the good guy and Benedict Arnold the bad one,  right?   But why – what drove Arnold to treason,  how did he commit it,  was … Continue reading →

This is yet another reread – I first read (and listened to) The Mathematician’s Funeral back in February just because I found it on Audible and it looked good,  kind of fun.  But from the narrative it was apparent there were little diagrams included … Continue reading →

In the Prologue (Kindle locations 292-294) Helm states her premise perfectly: I understood now what this book should be: a biography of Ravensbrück beginning at the beginning and ending at the end, piecing the broken story back together again as … Continue reading →