Category Archives: 2023 Fiction

This one needs a reread as it’s very confusing to start out – who is whom?  Especially amongst all those women! But it clears up about halfway and is pretty straightforward after that although there are times when the frame story … Continue reading →

There is so much enjoyment in reading a book a second time especially when the novel is a classic with so much substance as Hamsun’s The Growth of the Soil.   I read it maybe 15 year ago at the … Continue reading →

Claudia Rankine recently received a MacArthur Genius Award for her work,  so her name came up on the Booker Prize Reading Group and her book,  Citizen,  sounded like a good way for me to improve my virtually non-existent poetry reading.   I’ve made it a … Continue reading →

This caught my eye prior to publication and although I don’t buy pre-release,  it was ready for me when the date,  March 7, came.   I’d never heard of the North Pond Hermit of Albion,  Maine,  or at least I … Continue reading →

Well, at least I can say I’ve read a P.G. Wodehouse now.  I doubt I’ll read another.   ******* Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse  1917 / 165 pages (Kindle)  read by Frederick Davidson  – 8h 14m rating:   5 (out … Continue reading →

One of my reading groups has a real enjoyment for books about art – from the novel Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland to the non-fiction You Must Change Your Life by Rachel Corbett.  Some are great,  some are not so hot – … Continue reading →

Oops – I forgot to blog this one – I read it in January: It’s way too long.   King has said it was an idea he started when he was much younger and just didn’t have the skills to … Continue reading →

Oh this book started off so well.   A dead woman is found trapped beneath the ice at a pond by a boy who notifies adults who take it from there.   London Police Detective Erika Foster is on the … Continue reading →

I don’t know why I’ve never got around to this book or anything by LeGuin except maybe a short story in an anthology.   I enjoy science fiction,  but have a real problem with fantasy. Still,  it haunted me that I hadn’t … Continue reading →

Settling in on a mixed-weather Sunday to a cozy-ish mystery without a lot of graphic blood and gore and certainly no chases.   I say cozy-ish because the lead detective is not an amateur and the books take place in a … Continue reading →

It’s been awhile since I read an Australian novel,  crime or not,  but this came to my attention via the 4-Mystery Addicts reading group and I followed through,  glad to say.  I think it’s probably written for Australian readers because there isn’t … Continue reading →

The annual Presidential Rankings were released a few days ago (on Feb 22, President’s Day) and I  was intrigued by the complexity of the project.  This is the 3rd year C-Span has hosted this and it’s a pretty stable indicator … Continue reading →

The title of this book is so apt and intriguing and the Gilded Age in New York  used to be one of my very favorite settings.   Add a little legal aspect to it and it’s just my cuppa.  The Gilded Age  was a … Continue reading →

Born in May 1819 and living until January 1901,  Victoria, the Queen of England lived a long time and that period would have been a fascinating study with almost anyone in Britain at the center.  The Queen of England was not … Continue reading →

“Clotel: or, The President’s Daughter”  is the first novel published by an African American – it was published in London in 1853 while William Wells Brown, the author,  was still living there following his final escape from slavery,  an education and the … Continue reading →

Sometimes a book comes along and I am just not in the mood for it or something.  This is one of those times.   IQ has had plenty of great reviews and it caught my eye several months ago and … Continue reading →

I read this back in 1971 or so and knew it was great literature then,  a time when I didn’t have a clue about what constituted  great literature.   But I guess I knew it when I read it because it’s stuck … Continue reading →