Monthly Archives: June 2019

Recommended by a friend in a reading group I’d also read The Ruin, McTiiernan’s first novel and the first in the series, a few years ago and quite enjoyed it. This seemed like a little change of pace. Emma finds … Continue reading →

It’s been awhile, but I used to follow various developments in the study of history – historiography, the philosophy of history and kind of gave up in the mid-1990s when it looked like the post-modernists had the upper hand and … Continue reading →

Robert Dugoni usually writes some pretty fair crime thrillers (I’ve read two) but he occasionally takes a break from all that and pens some general fiction. This one turned up on sale at Audible a few weeks ago and I’m … Continue reading →

Rabih Alameddine has a LOT of stories and in this book he spins out quite a number to entertain us. Think along the lines of One Thousand and One Nights. He is Lebanese by birth, but divides his time between … Continue reading →

On Daily Deal at Audible it was only released yesterday and there were some positive sounding messages about it on Facebook. I grabbed it and started in yesterday evening. It’s an interesting book. The obviously fictional setting is somewhere in … Continue reading →

I finally got around to reading this classic wartime-thriller-mystery tale of adventure. I wasn’t impressed but I’m sure it was a hit ini it’s own day – WWI era. Richard Hannay gets caught up in a strange spy scheme including … Continue reading →

This book finally came up on the Booker Group schedule and as promised, I’m re-reading it. My original reading was back in March. I really enjoyed reading Kushner’s prior novels but I’d put off reading this – no good reason. … Continue reading →

Balson has written 5 books so far and all in one series. I saw today that he’d just released another one so I figured I’d better catch up with the one I’d missed, Karolina’s Twins. It’s number three in the … Continue reading →

I read this again for the Allnonfiction reading group and got a fair bit more out of it on the second reading. I’ll have to up my rating some, but that’s about as high as I can honestly go. More … Continue reading →

Three women: Evelyn Carter, the prime suspect in her husband’s murder; D.D. Warren, the detective on the case; and Flora Dane, a woman who was horrendously victimized several years prior to the events in the book. The latter two join … Continue reading →

Definition of barracoon from Merriam-Webster:“Barracoon definition is – an enclosure or barracks formerly used for temporary confinement of slaves or convicts —often used in plural.” Although Hurston, the author of “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” (which I’ve read a couple times) wrote … Continue reading →

Not my favorite crime novel of the month, but it was on sale and filled the blank between more meaty books. It does have an interesting premise and the execution of that premise was good, but after that it falls … Continue reading →

I’d been wanting to read this for a long time so when it was on sale I snapped it up. The book had amazing reviews when it was first published in 1993 (1986 in Japan) and several of my friends … Continue reading →

I wasn’t impressed, but the book was cheap and marginally interesting. I consider myself to be fairly spiritual of a kind of Jewish/Buddhist/Christian variety (if pushed to make that distinction) and this is some kind of easy-read fluff of it. … Continue reading →

Years ago, like 2012 or so, I read Nathan Englander’s “The Ministry of Special Cases”  and thoroughly enjoyed it. I read it in January and it made my best of year list for 2012! Unfortunately I’ve lost the full review, … Continue reading →

Read for the 4-Mystery Addicts group and this is why I belong to many reading groups. I would likely never have picked up this book on my own and I would have missed a goodie! Julianna Rosales and Wyatt Rivers … Continue reading →

Fascinating book by a Dominican/Canadian author I’d not heard of before but is apparently quite a highlight in some literary circles. This is the third novel to be published (but the 4th book chronologically) in the 5-book Quincunx Cycle. The … Continue reading →