Monthly Archives: January 2018

Benjamin Lay was an 18th century Quaker,  a dwarf – barely 4 feet tall – who lived in a cave, sewed his own clothes and ate as a vegetarian.  He was an avid reader, an autodidact,  and a writer as … Continue reading →

Long ago I read Josephine Tey’s most popular and famous book,  The Daughter of Time (1951) and very much enjoyed it . It’s often considered  one of the best mystery books of all time and Tey is also known for Bret Farrar … Continue reading →

I got this as one of the Daily Deal specials from Audible.com and the summary was intriguing and the narrator sounded okay on the sample.  So,  in spite of several reviewers who were disappointed,  especially by the narrator,   I … Continue reading →

I picked up this older book at Audible a week or so ago because:  1.  it was on sale and 2.     I enjoyed one of Lehane’s books in the past (the other one wasn’t so hot).   The premise  of … Continue reading →

Holy the Firm just struck me as something I wanted to read.  I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek ages and ages ago and loved it.    This is a bit different,  it’s Dillard on Lummi Island seeking 1. God in … Continue reading →

Oh my –   I really had no idea what I was getting into when I cracked this one.  It was scheduled for discussion in one of my groups with the idea that it was a take-off of King Lear. … Continue reading →

Having read Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser just three months ago, I wasn’t all that keen about finding Libertarians on the Prairie on sale at Amazon.   That said,  I did wonder what the differences in the two books would … Continue reading →

Many years ago I enjoyed Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto,  but later I thought her book State of Wonder was kind of lame, so I avoided Commonwealth in its year of hype and I’ve not read anything else by her.   … Continue reading →

I was attracted to this one because it has a nifty title and it’s a nominee for the  Barry Awards First Novel Award – 2018,  so it showed up on the 4-Mystery Addicts list.  It looked appealing from the title and … Continue reading →

The attraction here was that this was a historical novel of India as well as a crime novel.  I’m not big on the women detectives of Victorian London but …  maybe India? It was standard fare with a hint of … Continue reading →

Oh my –  what a magical mystical story –  typical of Smith in so many ways,  original in others.   The second in her Seasonal Quartet (the first was Autumn which I read a few months ago),  and she just … Continue reading →

Krueger is not my usual cuppa,  but the publisher hype and reader reviews hooked me because I am interested in border problems,  both drugs and immigrants.  So,  the outcome was mixed –  I enjoyed the setting,  plot and “themes” but … Continue reading →

From shortly after I finished reading Sarah Bakewell’s  How To Live,  a biography of  the 16th century philosopher Michel de Montaigne,  I started seeing Montaigne in Barn Boots on Audible and it intrigued me.   Michael Perry is a Wisconsin farmer  and … Continue reading →

Very slow moving book – read because it was the 4-Mystery Addicts selection for the second half of January.  I was not impressed for the first half of the book but then it kind of started making more sense to … Continue reading →

For some reason I’d never read this book although it seems I’ve heard of it forever.   So it was on sale at Audible and I snapped it up.   Then I waited for my next break in scheduled reading … Continue reading →

Sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s,  Sean Phillips, our 1st person protagonist.  is a man of early middle age (?) who is severely disfigured, handicapped,  having been shot in the face many years prior.  The reconstruction is not perfect – his face is … Continue reading →

This is a reread from when I first read it years ago –  1990s?   I remember it as being a really good book with thematic as well as character subtleties.  This is the first of Ishiguro’s works I read … Continue reading →