Monthly Archives: June 2016

Kyung Cho,  an immigrant Korean and professor at the local university and his Irish social worker wife Gillian are trying to sell their home because they have become over-extended  by  payments and bills.  This has been their own doing by living … Continue reading →

Oh I do so love my reading groups! Sometimes they offer convivial chatter, sometimes they give fresh insight into books I read awhile back, but other times they push me into reading something I would never read on my own. … Continue reading →

It glows – it radiates and shimmers and shines.  Amor Towles’ new historical novel,  A Gentleman in Moscow,  is so many things but basically a hotel-window view of Russia  from the time of their civil war following the Bolshevik Revolution,  through unification … Continue reading →

Rodeo Grace Garnett is an ex-rodeo star turned private eye living in an abandoned housing development  just outside of Tucson,  on the Sonora Desert,  in southern Arizona.  One day he comes home from vacation to find a dead man at … Continue reading →

I’m fascinated by North Korea and have no idea why.   I’ve read 3 books about it now and this is probably the one most fact-based.  The others were  “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson,  and “Nothing to Envy: … Continue reading →

Second reading – the 1st review is here and … well … this time round I think McCarthy’s book may be theme driven without pretense,  although there is a plot of sorts – and the theme may be there is no theme. … Continue reading →

What’s a poor orphaned girl,  raised from birth by her grandmother in a country home and then by a guardian named Doctor Leslie,  to do?   Nan Prince dearly wants to be a doctor and although that’s  not likely in 1885 or … Continue reading →

Hugely funny, insightful, and rather sweet tale of advanced medical technology, San Francisco Bay area (from Paso Robles to Humboldt Couny) socio-economics, love, Thorsten Veblen, Norwegian, and squirrels. ********* The Portable Veblen  by Elizabeth McKenzie 2016/ 448 pages Rating:  8 … Continue reading →