Monthly Archives: April 2018

Good solid crime procedural from Ireland during their “Troubles” in the 1980s with the Provisional (activist) IRA. Back in 1988 in Belfast,  Ireland,  a man is found dead in his yard with a cross-bow bolt in his back.   Homicide … Continue reading →

In a reading group discussion of the century’s Pulitzer winners – since 2001 –  I realized I’d read 16 of the 17 books and mentioned the one I’d missed.    So  many of the group said how great this book … Continue reading →

I’ve read quite a bit of Barnes and mostly enjoyed them and although this is by no means my favorite, I liked it better than  The Sense of an Ending (2011).   This is the first person tale of an … Continue reading →

A lucky, luck find for me!  (But it’s a darned strange little book!)  It’s YA but NOT a children’s book at all!  It means Young Adult – ages 16 to 22 or something –   like the The Fault in Our … Continue reading →

“Big Angel was late to his own mother’s funeral.” So begins the story of two Angels – “Big Angel” and “Little Angel” –  half-brothers by the same father,  Antonio de la Cruz,  and also related to a  whole lot of … Continue reading →

Extraordinarily compelling.  Not a bunch of scandal-sheet material,  but rather a thoughtful examination of the major national issues which involved the FBI during James Comey’s tenure as chief as well as his prior life – as much as is appropriate. … Continue reading →

I read the first few (4?) of the long running Amanda Peabody books and enjoyed them,  but haven’t had time to continue the series.   Elizabeth Peters (the pen name of Barbara Mertz)  died a couple years ago and her … Continue reading →

I think I was expecting something like James Joyce’s Dubliners but this is certainly not that!    Verga was a good socialist who wrote about the lives of the common people in the style of Zola –  realistically – even … Continue reading →

(all links to my reviews) I finished the Robert J. Gordon book,  The Rise and Fall of American Growth:  (2015) and it is superb.  Yes!    And I reread quite a lot of Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now:   and again,  excellent … Continue reading →

I started reading this in Kindle format about a year ago and got 1/3 of the way through.  It’s a macro-economics book and very, very detailed in the telling of the progress of the US between 1870 and 1970 (not … Continue reading →

Oh I do so love the way Pamuk writes –  I just get sucked into his books because it seems there’s always an underlying  meaning to the words which comes together in layer after layer along with the complexities of … Continue reading →

The plot is great, an old fashioned murder by poison –  in the tea – makes a death look like a heart attack.  And the characters are right up there with the best Lescroart has written – family issues and … Continue reading →

It’s a windy tale about love in many forms – a love of life and music and family and Paris in the springtime, and the fall and the winter and even in the heat of summer.    Maybe it’s a … Continue reading →

Nominated for the Booker Prize or I would never have come across it,  Elmet opens with an epigraph from Ted Hughes: “Elmet was the last independent Celtic kingdom in England and originally stretched out over the vale of York … … Continue reading →

Oh my it’s good to be back to a little light-weight,  almost cozy,  mystery.   I’ve read the first two in the “Gaslight Murders” series,  Murder on Astor Place (#1) and Murder on St. Mark’s Place (#2)  so it looks like I’ll continue. … Continue reading →

Heck of a book to pick up right after finishing How To Read the Bible!   But this book just fascinated me from the first mention I heard of it,  and then someone on the All-nonfiction List  mentioned it in a … Continue reading →

Now I travel way back in my reading  to the days of Harald Fairhair,  said to be the first king of Norway,  and his early times – late Viking times –  850-932 AD as he fought and made treaties to unite Norway. … Continue reading →