Posts Tagged ‘ Book review ’

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 Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire, the first two books of a trilogy (the third coming out on May 25th and available now for pre-order) and really much more of a character study than your ordinary crime novels and proof that crime novels can be literature in...
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Welcome to minor league baseball, where men’s dreams are crushed yearly like bugs in the dust.  Pro catcher Chris Coste delivers the 13 year tale of his expedition through independent league ball to the majors, and every stop in between, all the while making you wonder:  was all of it really worth it just...
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No, this is not the number of electoral college votes Walter Mondale received in his race against Ronald Reagan in 1984 (he could only wish-in fact, he received only 13 votes), but instead the number of games Hoss Radbourn won pitching for the Providence Grays in the 112 game National League season in 1884....
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Dark and disturbing. In First Love, Last Rites, Ian McEwan makes sex and violence look intriguing.
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What’s more unreadable than the cover of conservationist Mike Bingham’s story about saving the penguins of the Falkland Islands from commercial fishing industries, backed by the local corrupt government?  The descriptive, highly graphic sexual encounters he narrates throughout the first half, in which penguins are barely mentioned at all.
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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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Probably the best novel ever written about Ethiopia and the overthrow of Haille Sallasie (not faint praise considering that the very talented Abraham Verghase also recently tackled this subject). Each character is interesting, fully formed and brings a different perspective to the historical events. Buy Beneath the Lion’s Gaze on Amazon or download the...
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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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