All Posts in Lit

As retribution for their failed uprising against the Capitol, the twelve outlying districts of Panem must send two children to the Hunger Games, an Olympic-like spectacle and horrific form of mandatory entertainment. I dare you to stop reading after the 24 children enter into the large arena knowing they are under constant surveillance and...
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According to Wikipedia, the characteristics of the Bel Canto as an operatic vocal style include: “the ability to execute fast, accurate divisions” and “a pleasing, well-focused timbre.” Without understanding these musical terms precisely, Ann Patchett’s PEN/Faulker award-winning Bel Canto seems to include similar characteristics as it floats seamlessly between narrative perspectives and introduces characters...
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The best Jane Austen book that Jane Austen didn’t write and if Austen had, it may be her best novel. Two fiftyish sisters and their mother are all forced for various reasons to leave Manhattan and share their cousin’s ramshackle cottage while they sort out individual and family issues and find new lives for...
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Dark and disturbing. In First Love, Last Rites, Ian McEwan makes sex and violence look intriguing.
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Authors & Publishers take note: If the book’s about vampire(s) — especially Vlad the Impaler himself — you may as well profit off a series. An edited version of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova would also be easier to lug around or read in bed. Buy on Amazon or at Alibris or download audiobook...
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You don’t often see a book written in the second person outside of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series, which most people have outgrown by the time they’re 20 13, but this one flawlessly drops you into heroin-dealing hot spots that are going to feel a little prickly.  O’Connor grabs you by the back of...
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A must read about one New Orleans family’s struggles before, during and after Katrina. One of those rare instances in which an author’s narrative and not his or her polemics allows the reader to feel deeply about the effects on individuals of injustice, hope and religion. Buy Zeitoun on Amazon or download audiobook from...
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Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery With an orgy of adjectives and one billion different characters, Slattery’s love/superhero/survivalist novel about a man searching for his lost lover in a colorfully futuristic New York will set your hair on fire with the sheer volume of verbiage.  Not often does an author fail to repeat themselves...
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Craig Thompson’s Blankets depicts the wonderful confusion of falling in love for the first time.  Awkward and romantic, his writing and artwork both enchant.
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Dear Macmillan and other arrogant publishing companies, I have a Kindle, first edition. I am part of a target audience for the Kindle and similar devices: I travel a lot, I’m overeducated, and an early adopter of technology (for another example, I bought my first Tivo in 2000). Recently, there has been a lot...
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