10th Grade
10th Grade: A Novel by Joseph Weisberg is the runaway NY Times bestseller about -- what else -- the 10th grade. It is a hilarious romp through thi…
2024
32 Stories
Adrian Tomine’s Optic Nerve comics, published by Drawn & Quarterly, provide some of the best depictions of emptiness and the small comfor…
4th of July
Lindsay Boxer is a San Francisco homicide detective. She is on the trail of a serial killer who kills teenage boys when a car chase ends with her shooti…
500 Miles from You
500 Miles from You is the third Jenny Colgan novel to feature the Scottish Highland town of Kirrinfief, which she first featured in The Bookshop on the Corner and then returned to in The Bookshop on the Shore. But most of the characters from those previo
A Children's Bible
Millet's new novel A Children's Bible is a striking fable set in the present about a group of wealthy teens on vacation with their families. The teens hang out together and avoid the adults, and they soon head off on a boat to an island, where they plan t
A Demon in My View
If I were to describe Gasparini's stories as single narrative, I would say that a boy, abandoned by his father at an early age, and locked into a relucta…
A Dream of Wolves
A Dream of Wolves by Michael C. White is a knock'em dead, good ol' boy, backwoods murder mystery. It is as hot as a blazing fire, homey as warm apple…
A Fatal Lie
It turns out that this is the 23rd volume in the Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries. I only discovered this after finishing the book -- it does not give its own history away. It also turns out that author "Charles Todd" is actually two people, Charles Todd
A Heart of Stone
This is a troubling and often unnerving novel about the not so uncommon disorder called 'postpartum neurosis.' It is troubling because psychological post…
A Multitude of Sins
This collection of ten short stories by Richard Ford continues many of the themes familiar in his other work. His previous collection was Women and M…
A Parting Gift
I enjoyed this novel, not so much because of the story, as for the reason it was written. The author, Ben Erickson is an award-winning furniture maker, n…
A Quiet Place
This short picture book is aimed at children, but I'm not sure which children. It starts with the observation that "Sometimes a person needs a quiet pl…
A Red Heart of Memories
This is a very warm, wise, whimsical and "parallel" fantasy about a young woman, Matt, and a young man, Edmund, with opposite but complimentary…
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
This is one of those books that comes preceded by its reputation. Nominated for the Booker, shortlisted for the Orange prize; expectations are high. As…
Read the full review of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
A Slight Trick of the Mind
Mitch Cullin brings us Sherlock Holmes, but now the great detective is 93 years old, living in Sussex in the south of England, the year being 1947. Near…
A Stir of Bones
A Stir of Bones by Nina Kiriki Hoffman was a finalist for the 2003 Bram…
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
This is an amazingly conceived and written book for any writer (or reader) of short fiction. Like many thousands of people, I love to write and sometimes try my hand at fiction. I wish that I'd had this book some decades earlier. George Saunders is a prol
A Thousand Ships
A Thousand Ships is a novel of sorts. It tells the story of the battle of Troy from the point of view of the women in the story. This is not a completely new idea: Pat Barker did the same in her 2018 work The Silence of the Girls. Barker's approach emphas
A Town Called Solace
A Town Called Solace is set in a small community in rural Canada. There are three narrators. 7 year old Clara, her elderly neighbor Elizabeth Orchard, who is in hospital, and a middle aged man Liam Kane, who lived in the same house as Clara when he was a
A Wedding in December
A Wedding in December is a novel about marriage and infidelity. A group of seven people in their mid-forties gather together for a wedding. They…
About a Boy
Twelve-year-old Marcus gets annoyed after renting the video Groundhog Day…
Across the River and Into the Trees
Oral Interpretation is one of the oldest forms of Speech Communication. Long ago it was assumed that literature was meant to be read out loud. Before the…
Acts of God
This is curious read about a woman who reluctantly returns to her hometown for the first time in 30 years for her high school reunion. Old friendships, old…
African Psycho
I have decided to kill Germaine on December 29. So begins a chilling tale of murder by Congolese author Alain Mabanckou. The story is set in the…
After Dark
Murakami's previous novels have won high praise. This short book portrays a night in modern-day Tokyo. It starts in a Denny's,…
After You'd Gone
Beautifully written, After You'd Gone tells the story of Alice Raikes. Alice is in her late twenties, and she is lying in a hospital bed, comatose. H…
Afterwards
Gina Berriault writes a fabulous story about how a suicide affects the people one leaves behind. Though this is fiction, it is written in a fashion that…
Against the Loveless World
The author has written a beautiful, inspiring and enlightening novel that comes with my unqualified recommendation. Among the several treasures the novel provides are; a celebration of the strength and compassion of women in many of the complicated roles
Agenda for Murder
Agenda for Murder by Joan Albarella is the first in this series about a lesbian Anglican priest, former Vietnam vet and of course, amateur detecti…
All Alone in the Universe
As much as we may not want to admit it - we all lose friends. It's especially hard when there is no obvious reason for the end of a friendship. As we gro…
All Families Are Psychotic
All Families Are Psychotic is a great title for a novel, and story lives up to the promise. The book may be part of an emergi…
Altered Land
Altered Land is set mostly in the city of Bristol, in southwest England. It is told in alternate chapters by John, a deaf man who has a successfu…
Amanda's Wedding
OK, it's another comic novel about the trials and tribulations of twenty-something romance in London. But it is a worthy example of this rather tired genre…
Amelia Rules
Amelia is nine years old and her parents have recently divorced, so she, her older sister, and her mother have moved into a new house. This comic is about h…
America
The impact that America will have on a reader will be proportional to the degree to which he or she buys the political mantra that "we cannot…
Angels
Marian Keyes has cornered a niche market of psychologically insightful comic novels featuring Irish women. Indeed, three of them, Watermelon,…
Animal Wife
Animal Wife's, fifteen stories take place in worlds of fantasy, mystery, chance, contradictions and danger—a world where, "happiness has sharp edges." Women of various ages and stages, from childhood to adulthood, experience the real and the idyllic inher
Anne Sexton
Although Sylvia Plath may be the most widely recognized twentieth century poet who committed suicide, I venture to say that the name of Anne Sexton is no…
Anxious People
Anxious People is already a bestseller. Backman's previous book A Man Called Ove was a huge seller. It's surprising for Swedish novels that are not about grizzly serial killers. But Anxious People does feature plenty of existential dread, thoughts of suic
Are You Experienced?
Are You Experienced? is the perfect book for the reluctant traveler. This quick and entertaining novel is about a 21st-century explorer who'd real…
Arlington Park
Rachel Cusk has a profound ability to create a synergy of sensations. In the same way a head may turn when mistaking the ring on the TV as one's own…
Artemis Fowl
Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl, Book 1) by Eoin Colfer is a well-written, fun-filled fantasy for children. It tells the story of Artemis Fowl,…
As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me
Nanci Kincaid's novel, As Hot As It Was You Ought to Thank Me, is firmly in the genre of coming-of-age tales from small towns in the south of the…
Read the full review of As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me
Atonement
Ian McEwan's novel Atonement starts off with the theme of a fiction within fiction. Thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis is putting on a production of…
Babylon and Other Stories
Canadian born Alix Ohlin's debut novel The Missing Person has been widely praised, and with this book of seventeen short stories she reverses the…
Bad Seed
Bad Seed: An Alex Bernier Mystery by Beth Saulnier is a witty mystery about the bioengineering of food. The laughs keep coming a…
Bag Of Bones
Bag of Bones is set in Stephen King's home state of rural Maine. It also features a novelist as its main character, one who manages to get into t…
Baseball Dreams, Fishing Magic
A talented pitcher and cocksure small-town kid with big dreams, Nick Grimes is certain his blazing fastball will send him straight to the Major Leagues. And he's not the only one with big dreams. Jess, a young waitress who captures his heart, dreams of be
Beach Road
Set in the Hamptons, Beach Road is a mystery with a twist. It is narrated by many of the main characters, and as noted at the start of th…
Beautiful Girls
In this collection of eight stories Beth Ann Bauman explores the lives of girls on the verge of womanhood, and women who have made it, but found the glit…
Belly
William "Belly" O'Leary has just been released from prison for running an illegal gambling organization from his bar. Belly returns to his hom…
Beneath the Skin
Beneath the Skin by Nicci French is taut psychological thriller about a sexual predator. It is a chilling read that gets under your skin and leave…
Billy and Girl
Billy and Girl are two teenagers who live on their own. Their mother and father are absent: it isn't clear if they are even alive or dead. The facts are h…
Blue Madagascar
Many of us know Andrew Kaplan from the television series Homeland – an exciting and watchable series. Blue Madagascar may also be a prime-time television series, for it has all the makings of a taut, around the world story that will keep readers and viewe
Body Surfing
Anita Shreve is a prolific novelist; Body Surfing sticks to familiar territory, set on the New Hampshire coast, scrutinizing family troubles in…
Boomsday
Buckley's political comedy about the battle between Generation Whatever (Gen W) and the Baby Boomers is a riot of laughs. His lead character, C…
Border Crossing
Tom Seymour is a psychologist, married to his wife Lauren; their marriage is crumbling because she wants children and this has made him impotent. As the…
Bracket
Bracket is an anthology of twenty short stories by aspiring English writers, many fresh from 'creative writing' courses. The authors are young; of…
Brick Lane
Brick Lane aims to do more than just give a story about a central character; we learn not only of Nazneen's life as a young Bangladeshi woman new…
Bridget Jones
Bridget Jones's Diary
It hadn't occurred to me to read Bridget Jones's Diary, let alone review it, until I read the preface to the paperback edition of Oliver James'…
Bruises
I don't remember the actual strike, but I do remember my mother telling me that I mustn't tell my grandmother why and how my cheek bore the impression of…
Brüsel
Those readers who have ever browsed through French or Belgian book stores will know that the French-speaking world has a passion for graphic novels and comic books. While in north America it is mostly teenagers and overgrown teenagers who collect such wor…
Bully
I remember being bullied as a small boy -- I must have been 6 or 7 years old. The bullies were strangers to me, and I imagine they picked on me because I wa…
Burnt Sugar
Burnt Sugar is a novel of contemporary middle class India, told by a disaffected wife, burdened by her relationship with her demented mother. The narrator, Antara, has a bad attitude about most things. The first line is "I would be lying if I said my moth
By The Sea Shore
Are you seeking a lesbian "cozy" mystery – no blood, guts, or gore, just a hint of sex, a lovable pooch, and lots of food & drink? The…
Called to Kill
Call to Kill by Joan Albarella is the second in this series about a lesbian Anglican priest, former Vietnam vet, and of course, amateur solver of…
Caricature
These 9 stories were published previously between 1994 and 1998, mostly in Eightball comic. Clowes has a striking broad range in his style, but th…
Case Histories
Case Histories is a sprawling novel with many characters, full of death and murder. The reader is introduced to several families and comes to see…
Cell
Stephen King's novels are known for being psychological, generally in the horror or suspense genre. Cell is no exception. The book starts out dr…
Change of Heart
Change of Heart by Jack Allen is the first book in the Joshua McGowan series. This is an action packed spy thriller that just does not let up unti…
Chasing the Dime
Henry Pierce has a company that is developing new technology €“ a microtechnology of the future. He has an invention that will change the world, an…
Cinnamon Kiss
Walter Mosley's series of mystery novels featuring Easy Rawlins is reliable. Rawlins is by now a familiar figure to devotees of the series, and they kno…
Close toYou
Close to You by Joan Albarella is the third in this series about a lesbian Anglican priest and former Vietnam veteran who, of course, is also an a…
Cloud 9 Affair
Cloud 9 Affair is a light mystery about a missing heiress set in India. By most standard, it is your average "cozy" mystery. It has no b…
Coincidence
Coincidence by David Ambrose is part mystery and part science fiction dealing with the nature of reality as well as the ultimate…
Cold Case
Alan Gregory is a clinical psychologist. He is called into help with a decade-old double murder of two teenage girls in small town Colorado. The girls w…
Cold Hit
Cold Hit by Linda Fairstein is the third in the "Alex Cooper mystery series." Alex Cooper is an assistant DA and bureau…
Collected Stories
Collected stories is a retrospective from Barbara Anderson, spanning her own relatively brief career, but a much longer period of New Zealand hist…
Come Up and See Me Sometime
This short book of short stories, some of only a page or two, is a little too clever and smacks of writers workshops and conferences. The story that had…
Comfort and Joy
Comfort and Joy: A Novel is a Grim(sley) fairy tale of two lovers with vastly different families, their striking disparity and polarity swimming in a…
Coming From Nothing
Matthew McKeever's Coming from Nothing is the first fiction contribution to Zero Book's ambitious and interesting series, "Culture, Society & Politics." The series is based upon the idea that the present state of discourse about crucial matters is serious
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Published in the UK at The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic.
Confessions of an Ex-Girlfriend
Take the dating angst of Sex in the City add the mandatory “happily-ever-after” from a romance novel and you would have the concept beh…
Consider Love
This sweet book is a humorous contemplation of the nature of love, clearly designed as a Valentine gift. Sandra Boynton is best known for her greet…
Crispin
Crispin: the cross of lead by Avi is a Newbery Award winning story about young people confronting the harshness of life during 14th ce…
Cruddy
As I read Lynda Barry’s new novel Cruddy, I tried to remember how her voice sounded when she read excerpts to us at…
Cut
Cut is a novel about a thirteen-year-old girl who cuts herself and refuses to talk to anyone about why she does it, or about anything else. Callie…
Cypher
This comic does not seem to be available for purchase any more. However, you can get the 112 page hardback book at Amazon.com.``See Brad Teare's wonderful website including online galleries.
Daddy's Girls
From the first word it is obvious that the writer has an intimate knowledge of the depths and heights, the bewilderment and fear caused by 'a distorted fami…
Damage
Damage by A.M. Jenkins is a well-written story about teenage depression and suicide. It details the slow progress of a high school athlete who has…
Dancing After Hours
If you want to know what it would be like to lose the use of your legs, read this book. In a sparse, Faulknerian style Dubus evokes an emotional land…
Danger in High Places
Danger in High Places: An Alix Nicholson Mystery by Sharon Gilligan is the first in this series about a lesbian photographer and amateur detective…
Danger! Cross Currents
Danger! Cross Currents: An Alix Nicholson Mystery by Sharon Gilligan is the second in this series about a lesbian photographer and amateur detecti…
Dating Without Novocaine
Take the dating angst of Sex in the City add the mandatory “happily-ever-after” from a romance novel and you would have the concept behi…
Dead Canaries Don't Sing
Dead Canaries Don't Sing is a fun detective novel featuring vetenarian Dr. Jessica Popper. She lives with her menagerie of pets, dogs Lou and Max…
Deadly Butterfly
This is not your average "cozy" mystery and Toni Underwood is not your average mystery sleuth. In brief, if you are looking for a Murder She Wrote…
Deadly Gamble
Deadly Gamble: A Toni Underwood Mystery by Diane Davidson is the second in this series of lesbian mysteries. This one finds Toni sorting through s…
Death of a Department Chair
Death of a Department Chair is an academic lesbian mystery novel, so it might have plenty of cross-over potential. Isabel Vittorio, Chair of the…
Death of an Addict
Set in Scotland, Death of an Addict tells of constable Hamish Macbeth’s investigation into the death of Tommy Jarret, who has rented a small…
Deceit
Deceit by Clare Francis is an English novel and complex mystery. It seeks to explore the social dynamics of a family following t…
Demonology
In these short stories, Moody experiments. There's a sense of playfulness here, but it's serious too. Many of the stories are challenging to read, and some…
Disobedience
Apparently, Oprah has taste after all. She is largely responsible for turning the middle-aged, midwestern writer Jane Hamilton into a national superstar…
Disturbing Ground
Disturbing Gound is a murder mystery set in the Welsh mining town Llancloudy. Bianca Rhys is found dead in a pool of water in the center of town.…
Divisadero
"Divisadero flows like a symphony of distinct movements." Chicago Sun-Times"Ondaatje is a master at constructing…
Dixie Road
Although this is a story of the American south in the early twentieth century, it was first published in France in 1997. Although it has only 48 pages,…
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
Italian graphic artist Lorenzo Mattotti has created a striking adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. He…
Duplicity
Duplicity by Charlie H. Johnson, Jr. is a thoroughly engrossing novel about a psychic detective who tangles with the wrong spirits. Part mystery,…
Empire Falls
Empire Falls is another wonderful novel by Richard Russo, author of Nobody's Fool and Straight Man, and has recently b…
Empress of the World
Gifted teenager Nicola (Nic) attends a summer enrichment program for the ultra-bright. She intends to use her time discovering whether or not she wa…
End over End
Here's an unusual book in familiar trappings. A mystery about a young teenager murdered, described from the point of view of an anonymous narrator with acce…
Evenings at Five
Evenings at Five is a delightful collection from Gail Godwin, which includes the title novel, five stories, and a 'Reader's Guide', an interview w…
Family History
A novel in which a thirteen-year-old daughter might be schizophrenic and a toddler might have brain damage is certainly serious. Judging from the book j…
Fascination
Fascination is a collection of fourteen short stories encompassing a wide range of characters, situations, and time periods. There is no uniformit…
Fear of the Dark
Set in 1950s Los Angeles, Fear of the Dark is the third in the series of Mosley's "Fearless Jones" novels. The narrator is Paris Minton…
Feeling Sorry for Celia
This Australian first novel by Jaclyn Moriarty is fun. Poor Elizabeth is a teenager, but doesn't really feel that she deserves the title of teenager. She ha…
Fever 1793
Mattie Cook, a fourteen-year-old girl who lives with her mother and grandfather, tells this story of the epidemic of yellow fever in the summer of 1793 i…
Field of Blood
Denise Mina, author of the award-winning Garnethill and two others in the same trilogy, as well as the excellent Deception (reviewed in…
Final Jeopardy
Final Jeopardy by Linda Fairstein is the first in the "Alex Cooper mystery series."…
Flashpoint
Flashpoint: A John and Mary Bolt Mystery by Linda S. Bingham is the second book about an arson investigator and his new wife. While John and Mary…
Florid States
Ned Quinn has schizophrenia. He responds to a personal ad in a magazine placed by Jennifer Duncan. He has a job as a teacher in a big city. She lives in the…
Forgive the Moon
Every year I select one book that Idesignate as the best book that I read that year. This year that book will be Forgive the Moon…
Fortunate Son
Walter Mosley writes excellent crime novels set in 1960s Los Angeles that explore the African American culture of that era. However, he likes to write n…
Fortune's Rocks
Every year I select one book that I designate as the best book that I read that year. While this year is not over yet, Fortune's Rocks: A Novel by An…
Four Blind Mice
Four Blind Mice by James Patterson is the eighth in the Alex Cross series. In this novel, Cross is faced with a series of brutal murders perpetra…
Four Corners
This novel is told as the first person narrative of a ten year old, Rainey. Rainey's mother is in a mental institution when the mother's sister and her…
From Girls to Grrlz
Trina Robbins documents the checkered history of comics aimed at, or liked by, women. Comics have nearly always been predominantly for a male readership,…
Gallatin Canyon
The cover of Thomas McGuane's second book of short stories Gallatin Canyon shows the edge of a road, bounded by a scarred concrete barrier, its bl…
Gaudi Afternoon
Gaudi Afternoon is a lighthearted mystery about a missing person and sundry other kidnappings set in Spain. By most standard, it is your average &…
Georgia Under Water
Georgia Under Water is a set of stories about a girl, her younger brother and her warring parents, through her teen years. The early chapters are…
Ghost at the Window
Ghost at the Window by Margaret McAllister is a historical fan…
Gigantic
This book is a collection of ten fiction stories. Although the cover looks amateurish, the writing is fresh and creative. The stories are set in Baltimor…
Girl Walking Backwards
Skye is 16, and her mother is unstable and unsupportive -- joining new age cults and insisting that her daughter should stop talking about being a lesbian.…
Girls Closed In
This aptly titled novel by Canadian France Théoret explores the life of an unnamed sixteen year old narrator who begins with the reflection that "I…
God Head
What will he tell others? What he thinks they want to hear or what they will accept? Or will he tell them the truth he comes to know... That HE IS GOD? D…
Good Grief
p> Good Grief is a "feel good" novel about a widow in her thirties putting her life together after her husband of a couple of years di…
Hairpin Bridge
Hairpin Bridge is classified as a "psychological thriller." I'd put it in the class of "silly psychological gore." The audiobook is 10 hours long, but it seemed like it would never end. Nevertheless, I kept on listening.
Happiness Sold Separately
In Happiness Sold Separately, Lolly Winston shows a marriage in trouble. Elinor and Ted have been trying to have children, but despite goi…
Harley
Harley Columba is smart but troubled. She starts out without a boyfriend, and she hasn't even been kissed properly by a boy, at the advanced age of 14. (Don…
Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone
When the Controller of my company told me she was reading the Harry Potter books and enjoying them greatly, I took note. This is a fairly staid businesswoman whom I would not suspect of reading fantasy at all, much less children's fantasy. I decided they…
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Hell's Island
Hell’s Island by William D. Hardy is a supernatural thriller. It is a chilling tale of a man and his family’s struggle against the human…
Hey, Wait...
In this sad story of two children, Jon and Bjorn, we see the strength of their friendship, and when one of them dies, we see the how it affects him for the…
Hotel World
Hotel World is a short intriguing book from 2002 by Scottish writer Ali Smith, who more recently wrote The Accidental (…
House of Correction
"Nicci French" is the British husband and wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. Since 1997 they have written at least 24 crime novels together, plus several other books individually. House of Correction is a long book - over 500 pages and over 11 hours
How to Be Good
Nick Hornby again shows that he is head and shoulders above most of the crowd of British novelists with his latest work, How to Be Good. That’…
Hug Me
Hug Me is a picture book for small children. Elliot Kravitz is a porcupine who wants a hug, but nobody wants to hug him. He tries to get people to l…
In Plain Sight
Marion Todd is a new figure in crime fiction. Her series featuring Detective Clare Mackay is nicely done. Mackay has recently moved to the university town of St Andrews, on the coast, just south of Dundee. She has moved to get away from her former world,
Innocent World
The world of Innocent World is anything but innocent. Ami Sakurai's novella is a story of a nihilistic seventeen-year-old's improbable and violent…
Innocents
The blurbs on the cover of Innocents mention Nabokov's Lolita, but the resemblance is only superficial. It is well over twenty years since…
Inspired Sleep
Inspired Sleep is a clever novel with a fashionable focus on psychopharmacology. It has two main characters, and the format of the novel is to tel…
Ironshore
Ironshore by Pierre Renaldo is a 20th century gothic novel set on steamy Caribbean island. Based on "actual events" this novel has every…
Is This What Other Women Feel Too?
What is special about this book is its absolute ordinariness. The characters are ordinary and so are their stories. Kate McGhee, the main character, deals w…
It's Love We Don't Understand
It's Love We Don't Understand by Bart Moeyaert is a troubling and often unnerving novel about a very dysfunctional family. The brief novel contain…
Jacob Have I Loved
There are many reasons why Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson has won SO many literary awards, including Newbery Medal (1981), Outstanding Chil…
Jimmy Corrigan
Jimmy Corrigan is a lengthy graphic novel about its namesake. It is a difficult book to read because it seems to repetitive. The main character…
Khalifah
Khalifah is historical fiction at its best. It has plots and counter-plots. It is action packed and filled with evil villains, a…
Kim: Empty Inside
Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager by “Anonymous Teenager” and edited by Beatrice Sparks is another volume in the Sp…
Kisscut
Kisscut is a novel up to its elbows in deeply troubling subjects: child abuse, child pornography, pedophilia, incest, self-mutilation, suicide, to…
Kissing Doorknobs
Kissing Doorknobs is a novel by Chicago writer and playwright Terry Spencer Hesser. It is the story of a young girl growing up with Obsessive Comp…
Knockout Mouse
What happens when biotechnology goes from baaaad to worse? In this book, you do not get Daisy, the cloned sheep, rather you get the Knockout Mouse…
Last Chance Books
Madeline Moore is between high school and college. For the summer she is working in the family bookstore, Books and Moore. Their independent bookstore is going through a hard time, not only because of the usual competition from online stores, but also bec
Last Chance Saloon
Another bitingly humorous novel from the best selling author of Lucy Sullivan Gets Married, Last Chance tracks just that, the last chances…
Last Night
If an author commands such a reputation that the late Susan Sontag waited impatiently for his new books, you read his work with a sense of anticipation,…
Laura Numeroff's 10-Step Guide to Living with Your Monster
This guide is incredibly useful for children who need advice about monsters. Not about escaping from them or slaying them, but keeping them as pets. When…
Read the full review of Laura Numeroff's 10-Step Guide to Living with Your Monster
Lawnboy
Evan is a bright student who has been accepted into Princeton, Stanford, Swarthmore, and Michigan. But instead he moves in with William, who works at the lo…
Layover
Layover is a smart novel, cleverly written, with terrible grief at its heart. It is about Claire, a successful wealthy businesswoman (she sells medic…
Leisure
This book is not currently available in the US. You can buy it from the UK through Amazon.co.uk.
Leo the Lightning Bug
This short book for very young children is very sweet. It tells the story of Leo, a lighting bug who can't make himself light up. His friends make fun of…
Leslie's Journal
Leslie's Journal by Allan Stratton deserves all the awards that it has won, including "Best Books for Young Adults List" (American Library…
Life Is a Strange Place
Lets, get this straight. Barry, a thirty three year loser, is tired with his shallow life. He chats up a 16 year old girl at the movies. As she undoes Ba…
Like the Red Panda
When Stella was in the sixth grade, her parents held a birthday party for her and died from accidental drug overdoses during the party. They were regula…
Like You'd Understand, Anyway
This is possibly one of the more unusual collections of short stories you are likely to come across. There are just eleven stories, but they span the con…
Likely to Die
Likely to Die by Linda Fairstein is the second in the "Alex Cooper mystery series." Alex Cooper is an assistant DA and…
Lil Santa
This graphic story about Santa is accomplished without words. In 46 pages, the artists show Santa and his little helpers going through several adventures in preparing for Christmas. Santa’s factory turns trash into gifts through a massive “Heath…
Lisa, Bright and Dark
Now 32 years old, Lisa, Bright and Dark, a novel about a girl's mental illness, aimed at younger readers, has not aged well. Teen readers will pro…
Lisey's Story
Lisey's Story is a portrait of a marriage between Lisey and Scott. Scott Landon is a major American writer, winner of major awards, and quite ser…
Listen to the Silence
It is not unusual for children to wonder if they are adopted. In some case, they might look quite differently from their parents or siblings. Some of the…
Little Children
Little Children is a pleasing novel of suburban marital discontent. It has moments of great humor, and some serious themes, most notably the pres…
Little Lit
This large format comic book comes with the following motto on the back cover: “COMICS—they’re not just for grown-ups anymore!” It in…
Little Scarlet
Little Scarlet is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery novel based in Los Angeles just after the 1965 race riots. It is narrated by Easy Rawlins, an ol…
Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is of the best known novels of the twentieth century, and the name has become synonymous with the idea that beneath the thin ven…
Losing Julia
In a world of careless writing, Losing Julia is a joy to read. Whether it achieves its aim as a novel is more difficult to assess. Woven through i…
Lost Boy
The best works of fiction reveal truths that are concealed by the often repressive and oppressive structures of culture. Ellis Amdur's new book Lost Boy opens a portal into a horror-filled world where survival is a matter of skill, luck, resilience, co
Lost Girl
A British family go on holiday at the beach with their two daughters. The elder daughter, Beth, is fifteen (but looks about thirteen), and is very curious a…
Lost in the Forest
Lost in the Forest tells of a divorced family, parents Eva and Mark, who had two daughters, Emily and Daisy, now teenagers. After Mark's infideli…
Love in the Asylum
The main story of Love in the Asylum is simple enough. Alba meets Oscar at the Abenaki Mental Hospital. She is manic depressive and…
Lovely Green Eyes
In an online interview, Arnost Lustig, author of Lovely Green Eyes: A Novel, poses the question, "Why is life precious for some people and fo…
Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married
Lucy Sullivan, living in London in her early twenties, is looking for romance. She is attracted to penniless artists and musicians, and seems blind…
Making Scenes
If you like Seinfeld, you’ll love Scenes because it’s a book about nothing. Unlike Seinfeld, this book does considerably mo…
Man and Boy
Tony Parsons' novel Man and Boy achieved considerable success in Britain when it was released in 2000, staying on the bestseller lists for months,…
Manstealing for Fat Girls
According to Amazon.com, one of the statistically improbable phrases occurring in this novel about high school girls is "dick sucked." Th…
Mary, Mary
Currently riding high in the bestseller lists, Mary, Mary is a proficiently written thriller about a serial killer. It starts with a triple murde…
Misfortune
Murder on Long Island. The lives on the rich and powerful people who live in the Hamptons are laid bare. A new novel dishes the dirt. As a somewhat unent…
Moby Dick
I've never read the original Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and I'm…
Mr. Commitment
Duffy loves Mel, and after four years they still have a great relationship, but when she gives him an ultimatum, he finds he is not ready to get married. So…
Mrs. Dalloway
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf is considered to be a classic of English literature. Woolf seeks to explore the meaning of life and death through…
Murder Book
Here's a hard-boiled detective story with a convoluted plot featuring a philosophical sleuth who is at the end of his tether. You gotta luvit. Billy M…
Murder in Byzantium
If your name is Julia Kristeva you would need to add the subclause 'A novel' to the name of a work of fiction. Given Kristeva's cultural and intellectual…
Murder in the Inn
Murder in the Inn by Barbara Fox is a cozy set in a Georgetown/Washington, DC Inn. A good mystery if you are more interested in reading about odd…
Music for Torching
It's an uphill battle for a novel setting out to document the tensions and hypocrisy behind modern American suburban life, because it's a topic that's now s…
My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up
Bondage and sado-masochism are not everyone's cup of tea. In the introduction to this collection author Stephen Elliott undermines any suspension of disb…
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My Heart Underwater
Corazon Tagubio is 17 years old. She likes girls. And it turns out she also likes her teacher, Miss Holden. Since they are at a Catholic High School, this is especially problematic. So eventually Carazon ends up staying with her family in the Phi
My Life with Corpses
If you were raised by corpses it would be understandable if you were lacking in some of the social skills most of us take for granted. You might, for exa…
Mystery Time Stories
This collection of three stories is described by the publisher as 'stories about passionate romance, thrilling suspense and unexpected events.' I must ha…
Nasty, Short and Brutal
Nasty, brutish and short was Hobbes' view of the life of man, and it is a theme Canadian writer Daniel Nemiroff has no trouble in exploiting in these…
Necessary Noise
The trouble with this book is that it's like childhood. The good bits are so good you want them to last forever and the whole thing is over to too fast.…
Neurotica
Neurotica is a very distinctively British novel, featuring lots of sex, toilet humor, a touch of the supernatural, and a relatively happy ending. The…
Never Fade Away
Never Fade Away: A Novel by William Hart is serious yet often humorous novel about a remedial English college instructor and his Vietnamese stude…
Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go is a bleak novel that offers little respite from its dystopian vision of a society that tolerates not just cloning of humans, but…
Nothing to See Here
Wilson's tale of fire children is entertaining and psychologically astute. Lillian is 28 and her life is a waste. She has no friends, and she has no serious job. She doesn't have a family worth speaking of. Then she gets a call from her old college roomma
Observatory Mansions
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to think and feel from a completely different prospective? I mean completely different! Edward Carey successful…
Odds
What are the odds that this 249-page novel, published by Counterpoint, would be a good book? Well, consider these questions. What are the odds of winning…
Old School
Old School is about writers and teachers, as well as prep school students. It's a well-told tale about a New England school sixth-former who lov…
On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan's latest work is very short compared to his previous novels, more reminiscent of his earlier work. It tells the story of the wedding…
On the Couch
There are some excellent pieces in this mixed collection, although the subtitle of On the Couch, "Great American Stories About Therapy"…
One Good Turn
One Good Turn is Kate Atkinson's fourth novel. It is a rather lurid account of murder, betrayal and intrigue taking place over just four day…
One More Wednesday
This is a short book for very young children about dealing with the death of a grandparent. The child, who is not given a gender, tells the story of how he…
One Pill Makes You Smaller
This dark and powerful debut novel tells the story of Alice Duncan, an eleven-year-old girl. Like Lewis Caroll's famous heroine, Alice has long blond ha…
Over Tumbled Graves
Jess Walter's Over Tumbled Graves is not another novel about serials killers! It is not a psychological novel about why someone became a serial kille…
Paint It Black
1980s Los Angeles, the art/punk scene, a young woman distraught over the suicide of her painter boyfriend. Josie Tyrell is in her early twenties, a…
Paradise
Paradise is the fifth novel by A. L. Kennedy, one of Scotland's foremost authors. The ironic title of the novel belies its theme; there is little…
Paranoia
Paranoia provides an excellent case to consider the Amazon.com reader comments system. Readers are divided on the book: some declare it to be an…
Party Girl
More a short story than a novel, Party Girl tells the story of headstrong Kata's rejection of gang life. Kata and Ana are fourteen years old and best…
Peculia
The genre of comic horror is a venerable one: Young Frankenstein, Werewolves of London, The Addams Family, and on its cheerier episo…
Piano
What does it mean to have identity? To be a person with a past, a present and a future (even if the latter causes some anxiety)? What is it like to die,…
PopCo
PopCo is a 500-page novel about the excesses of multinational corporations, the exploitation of children through commercialism, the mistreatment o…
Poppy Shakespeare
Poppy Shakespeare is a difficult read. It is narrated by "N," who is a patient at the Dorothy Fish, a psychiatric day hospital i…
Prep
Prep tells the high school story of Lee Fiora from South Bend, Indiana who is on nearly full scholarship at Ault School, a boarding school for ric…
Privilege
Privilege is a morality tale for college students. In particular, for women, minorities, and the working class. There are three main characters, all young women associated with prestigious Carter University. Two are students, Annie and Bea. Annie, whose s
Prozac Highway
Pure
After having had a sharply negative reaction to Shut the Door, a novel about a dysfunctional family with self-destructive teenage girls, featuring…
Radiant Cool
Conscious experience must, in the last resort, be identical to neurological events and processes in the brain. The problem is to understand how this can…
Regretting You
Colleen Hoover has written 19 novels, and is only 40. Apparently, they are aimed at the "new adult" category, which is for those aged 18-30. Regretting You has some adult themes, but also feels like some combination of romance, young adult, and pop psycho
Remembrance of Things Past, Vol 1: Combray
Also reviewed here: Marcel Proust: A Life by Jean-Yves Tadié Viking; 2000…
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Return to Isis
Return to Isis by Jean Stewart is the first volume in this science fiction trilogy about an amazon colony in the year 2093. This first volume find…
Revolting Youth
Right Livelihoods
Rick Moody's latest offering is a set of three novellas, each of which has an apocalyptic theme of sorts. The novellas are also connected by a theme…
Samaritan
Reading the blurbs on the back cover for Samaritan, one would have high expectations. Stephen King waxes that "The tension mounts until the…
Saturday
Saturday's main character is Henry Perowne, a very successful London neurosurgeon. He is happily married with two adult children. His son Theo i…
Say You Are My Sister
Say You are My Sister is set in rural Georgia, U.S.A. during World War 2; this is an American narrative of family strengths and lineage ties. It t…
Saying It Out Loud
This short novel about Mindy, a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl whose mother dies of a brain tumor in the 1960s is based on the author's experience. Many of th…
Schopenhauer's Telescope
Gerard Donovan's Schopenhauer's Telescope is an exceptionally bleak and vaguely otherworldly novel set in an unnamed European country at the t…
Search for Her
On first look, Search for Her might look like a regular mystery, formulaic and with massive implausibilities in the plot. But Jennifer Jill Araya's performance of the audiobook shows that the novel is better read as a dark satire of contemporary life in A
Seed of the Dogwood Tree
“Do you like Mystery, Fiction, Folk Lore, History, Templar legend, Crusader legend, End-time Prophesy? Then you'll love ‘Seed of the Dogwood Tr…
Separation Anxiety
Laura Zigman's comedic novel of anxiety and parenting is awkward but entertaining. The awkwardness seems intended because it is so persistent. Judy is unhappy because her marriage with Gary is not working and they have separated even though they are still
Serious Girls
Serious Girls is a coming-of-age novel about two sixteen-year-old girls that reminds me of some old French films. Maya and Roe go to a secluded p…
Sex, A Love Story
Jerome Gold's Sex, A Love Story is about a young couple in early 1960s California exploring sex and its place in their world. The main character is Bob, who is sixteen at the start of the novel. He plans to be a writer and is keen to experience extremes i
Sexy
This is a book about Darren a boy struggling with his feelings of understanding compassion and quenching the fire raging through his body. Confused abou…
Shadow Baby
Shadow Baby is a novel narrated by twelve-year-old Clara winter, describing her short life and speculating about her twin sister who died when the…
Shattered
Adults debate the pros and cons of any war their nation engages in. Few people seem to stop and think about how the war is affecting children. Shatt…
Shed No Tears
Shed No Tears is the third Cat Kinsella detective novel by British author Caz Frear. She has been writing a book a year since 2018. Cat is 26 years old, a London detective with ambition. This mystery starts with the discovery of an old set of bones, which
Shooter
Shooter by Walter Dean Myers is a very engrossing novel about a shooting on a…
Short People
In most adult fiction the subject of stories is the world of adults. Children, where they figure at all, are seen through the eyes of adults; their lives…
Should We Stay or Should We Go
Shriver's new novel deals with old age and death. It's a philosophical work, and also manages to include the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores different themes and ideas by replaying the last years of a married couple, Kay and Cyril, with different possible
Shutter Island
Those who enjoyed the recent movie Identity should enjoy Shutter Island. Both are works in a well-worn genre with a slant of mental illnes…
Shy Girl
Alta is twenty three years old, and she lives in San Francisco. She's only ever had one serious relationship, with Shy, her next door neighbor, who left…
Silent Cruise
Silent Cruise is a collection of eight short stories and a novella from award-winning Canadian writer Timothy Taylor. The stories are sharp and ac…
Since You Ask
Since You Ask is easy to read and difficult to grasp. Wareham writes largely in dialog without much context setting. She disorients her readers w…
Sister Crazy
Sister Crazy, by Emma Richler, is a novel comprised of seven interrelated stories narrated by the main character, Jemima Weiss. The novel is about…
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty is a carefully plotted murder mystery that starts out with the rape and murder of a teenaged girl and the killing of the heroine's…
Snow
Snow (titled "Kar" in Turkish) is a fascinating novel set in modern Turkey, in a place called Kars. The Turkish poet Ka is visit…
Some Thing Black
Buy the book from BN.com: Some Thing Black
Sometimes It's New York
The title of this collection refers to the fact that thirteen of the stories are set in New York. The remainder are set in a variety of US cities,…
Song for Eloise
Every year I select one book that I designate as the best book that I read that year. This year that book will probably be…
Songs Without Words
Songs without Words is a novel mainly about the relationships between women. It is set between San Francisco and Berkeley, and the main ch…
Speaking With the Angel
If there's a theme connecting these twelve stories, it is that their authors are slightly irreverent, and there's a youthful sense they share, even when…
Sshhhh!
Jason’s previous publication with Fantagraphics Books was the black and white comic book story…
Stealing Time
April Woo is an NYPD detective. Heather Rose Popescue is beaten up in her apartment, and she lies comatose in hospital, while her baby has gone missing. The…
Stoner & Spaz
This book is a quick read, and the experience is like watching six Leave It To Beaver re-runs. In fact, it is easy to imagine the Cleavers living down th…
Stop Pretending
When Sonya Sones was thirteen, her elder sister had a breakdown, suddenly showing severe symptoms of a mental illness that was diagnosed as manic depression…
Straight Man
Straight Man is one of the best contemporary campus novels. Its hero, William Henry Devereaux, Jr is chair of the English Department at a small u…
Summer and July
Apart from setting out the psychological lessons of the benefits of friendship and learning sports skills, Summer and July also depicts the charms of a Californian surfing town. The friendship between the two girls is nicely drawn, and the story proceeds
Sunstroke
This collection of ten short stories by Tessa Hadley is a real gem. There's nothing flash, nothing dramatic, nothing out of the ordinary in this coll…
Swimmer
Swimming Sweet Arrow
Vangie is dating Del in her senior year in high school, and they continue together after they graduate. They spend much of their time drinking, getting high…
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath reads her own poetry carefully, enunciating each syllable and vowel, sounding very correct. Her poems from the late 1950s are reminiscent of Te…
Talking to Addison
In Jenny Colgan’s second novel, Holly Livingstone tells the story of her meeting the nerdy and insecure Addison, who she finds adorable. Naturally,…
The 101 Best Graphic Novels
This little book provides a guide to recent graphic novels that are (supposedly) still in print. They are listed alphabetically by the author's name. There…
The Abortionist's Daughter
The Abortionist's Daughter is a murder mystery set in wintertime Colorado. Diana Duprey, a doctor who runs a family planning clinic, is found dea…
The Accidental
Although the central theme of The Accidental is of an unhappy middle class family who do not communicate with each other, which is at best well-wo…
The Alienist
This has already been a bestseller and has been in paperback for three years. But I was recently in an airport waiting for a delayed plane and I'd done all…
The Arctic Incident
The Arctic Incident (Artemis Fowl, Book 2) by Eoin Colfer is the second book in the Artemis Fowl series. It is a well-written, fun filled f…
The Austere Academy
The Austere Academy broadens the world of the Baudelaire children, because they make new friends, Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, at their new school. T…
The Awakening
Every year I select one book that I designate as the best book that I read that year. This year that book will probably be,…
The Babes in the Wood
The Babes in the Wood is a compelling mystery set in Britain featuring Ruth Rendell's detective Chief Inspector Wexford. During a torrential down…
The Bad Beginning
This first book in A Series of Unfortunate Events introduces the Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. How unlucky they are! First, their pa…
The Beach House
It is Memorial Day Weekend in the Hamptons and the glitterati have gathered for a party at the multimillion-dollar “Beach House…
The Best Awful
The Best Awful tells the story of a Suzanne Vale's manic episode, during which she runs off to Mexico while high on drugs. She crashes and return…
The Big Kiss
The Big Kiss by David Huggins is a truly bizarre mystery about greed, murder, and hallucination. It is an English period piece a…
The Big Love
The Big Love is the story of Alison Hopkins, 32-years-old and a former evangelist Christian. She lives in Philadelphia and writes for a local alt…
The Bird Woman
Ellen McKinnon has an unusual and unwanted gift. More correctly, she has several gifts. She has premonitions accompanied by visions, she can heal people…
The Bitch Posse
Rennie, Amy, and Cherry spend their high school years together, facing down the normal trials of adolescence plus the additional traumas of Amy's drunken…
The Blue Notebook
This graphic novel was first published in 1994 in France, where the format is incredibly popular, and it was translated three years later. It features a lo…
The Book of Jamaica
This is an early novel by a now terrifically accomplished and well-known author. The plot revolves around a vacation to the seductive island of Jamaica…
The Book of Joe
In this entertaining and moving novel, an author returns to his hometown of Bush Falls, Connecticut after an absence of 17 years. To set up the story, n…
The Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the third in a trilogy of books about the amazing struggle between two brothers. The main location of this novel is the M…
The Brambles
On the back cover of Eliza Minot's second novel The Brambles, critic Mary Gordon makes a rather extraordinary claim: "If Katherine Mansfield…
The Brimstone Journals
I teach college students who range in age from 17 years old on upwards. Many of them are fresh out of high school, and so in teaching them I occasi…
The Castle in the Forest
What is Evil? What is it that produces an Adolph Hitler? Hannah Arendt famously wrote of "the banality of evil" suggesting, perhaps, tha…
The Children of Men
P D James is most widely recognised as a writer of fine and subtle detective stories set in England. This book is imaginative fiction, also set in Englan…
The Christmas Train
Already high in the bestseller lists, The Christmas Train is a light morsel of fun reading. Journalist Tom Langdon takes a train from Washington…
The Closers
In Michael Connelly's tenth Harry Bosch detective novel, the homicide cop returns to the LAPD from retirement to investigate a cold case. Bosch is long…
The Conspiracy Club
Jonathan Kellerman specializes in psychological thrillers, and his books are best sellers. It is not hard to see why, since the chapters go by fast and…
The Corrections
Family dramas at Christmas are as traditional in most households as the turkey itself. In Franzen’s The Corrections the “are we all going to Mum and Dad’s this year?” question becomes the fraught backdrop to the sudden breakdown of Al…
The Corrections
Family dramas at Christmas are as traditional in most households as the turkey itself. In Franzen’s The Corrections the “are we all goi…
The Cure
The Cure opens in the projected future of 2407. Main character Gemm and his genetically cloned twin and mate Gemma live in a society which is regu…
The Dark House
The Dark House is the first novel of John Sedgwick; it’s a psychological mystery set in Boston with some pleasing eccentricities. Edward Roll…
The Dark Room
Minette Walters has made a name for herself writing psychological crime mysteries, and several of her books have won high praise. The Dark Room…
The Dead Fathers Club
Philip Noble's father died in a car accident recently. Philip is 11 years old, and lives in…
The Dead Fish Museum
The Dead Fish Museum is Charles D'Ambrosio's second collection of short stories, the first (The Point) having been published in 1995. That'…
The Dead Hour
Following on from Field of Blood, Denise Mina's The Dead Hour is a…
The Deposition
This is a Lesbian novel. Paris in the springtime is the backdrop for this story. G.B. one of the main characters, is the mastermind behind the scheme to…
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
It is very tempting when reading a novel in the form of a confessional diary to speculate how much the book is taken from real life. That temptation is c…
The Disobedience Of The Daughter Of The Sun
The Disobedience Of The Daughter Of The Sun: Ecstasy and Time by Martin Prechtel has the appearance of a simple folktale. Appearance, as Prechtel poi…
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The Diviners
This is the first Rick Moody novel I've read. Based on the praise for his other writing from the likes of Thomas Pynchon I had high expectations. My expe…
The Dream Bearer
The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers is a colorful novel about a boy learning to cope with his father's mental illness and the adult…
The Ecstatic
The Ecstatic is a bizarre novel featuring a 315-pound African-American protagonist with possible schizophrenia, Anthony James, who relates his own…
The Education of Mrs. Bemis
The Education of Mrs. Bemis: A Novel by John Sedgwick is a good old-fashion mystery. Like Sedgwick’s previous novel,…
The Elementary Particles
Two half-brothers, Michel and Bruno, grow up in the 1960s and live through decades of major social changes. Bruno, probably because of the abuse he experien…
The End Of Alice
The End of Alice puts the reader into the mind of a rapist and killer of children. It is in many ways a disturbing experience, even for those who…
The End of Mr. Y
When a novel starts with quotations from Heidegger and Baudrillard, you can expect some intellectual pretensions. By the time you get to the theory…
The Eternity Cube
The Eternity Cube (Artemis Fowl, Book 3) by Eoin Colfer is the third book (and seemingly last) in the Artemis Fowl series. It is a we…
The Falling in Love Montage
While the same-sex love themes may what brings some readers to The Falling in Love Montage, they are not really a big issue in the novel. The theme of dementia is more deeply explored and makes Smyth's work stand out as interesting. Saoirse is going throu
The Field of the Dogs
The main character in this story is Josh, a little boy who is only slowly adjusting to life in a new town in Vermont, with his mother and new step-dad. His…
The Fig Eater
The Fig Eater, a novel by Jody Shields, borrows from noble references to weave a mediocre mystery. The jacket makes references to "Freud's Vienna", a…
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
This was an easy read... A rainy Sunday afternoon took care of it. I loved it for what it is: A story about a little girl lost in the woods. If I didn't kno…
The Green Parrot
This compact volume, by Princess Marthe Bibesco (1886-1973), has the thrilling depth of human emotion one expects of a Russian novel, without the characteri…
The Guardians
First let me say this is an excellent book. Second let me advise readers to read the author’s note at the end of the book. Third, pay attention to the news of the day.
The Guy Not Taken
Jennifer Weiner's stories all tend to focus on similar themes: overweight women in their twenties with skinny sisters, women writers thinking about marri…
The Hours
The Hours by Michael Cunningham is the Pulitzer Prize winning reinterpretation of…
The Ice Queen
Alice Hoffman is a prolific novelist who has won high praise from a wide range of newspaper book critics; The Ice Queen, her latest novel, is acco…
The Illness Lesson
Clare Beams' debut novel The Illness Lesson is a smart story about an innovative school for young women in 19th century America, complex enough to defy simple analysis. Caroline is the central figure, old enough to be a teacher in the school, but a junior
The Kindness of Strangers
The description of The Kindness of Strangers on the book cover is rather vague, referring to a "shocking and unbelievable revelation"…
The Last Bookshop in London
The Last Precinct
Patricia Cornwell has written another satisfying detective mystery. Her forensic pathologist and Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia, Kay Scarpetta, endures…
The Lay of the Land
Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land is a sprawling novel covering just a few days in the life of 56-year-old Frank Bascombe, who has previous…
The Lincoln Lawyer
There's a sense of proficiency in the detective writing of the prolific Michael Connelly. He is a one-man factory, and several of his novels have been r…
The Little Friend
The first thing to say about this novel is that it is a wonderful book. The second is that it is not perfect. There seems to be an…
The Lost Girls of Devon
The Lost Girls of Devon is the story of 4 generations of women, of good and bad mothers, and the vulnerability of girls. The central character is Zoe Fairchild, who lives in New Mexico with her teenage daughter, Isabel. Zoe is called back to England by he
The Lost Mother
It seems that everyone but me loves this novel, although it has not become a bestseller. On the back cover, the feared and respected New York Times…
The Love Hexagon
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The Lovely Bones
The Lovely Bones starts out with its narrator’s rape and murder. Susie Salmon was fourteen years old when a man from her neighborhood, Mr. Ha…
The Man in My Basement
Walter Mosley's short novel The Man in My Basement is an intriguing and dark piece of fiction. Its narrator is Charles Blakey, who lives in an ol…
The Man of My Dreams
The Man of My Dreams traces the life of Hannah Gavener from the age of 14 to the age of 28, with snapshots at different times in her life. …
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Kim Edwards' novel The Memory Keeper's Daughter is already a runaway success. It has received hundreds of reader comments on Amazo…
The Mercy Room
In wartime France a language teacher is enlisted as a translator by the Gestapo. Knowing that to refuse is to risk death, the teacher agrees, committing…
The Ministry of Special Cases
Imagine a country so paranoid that it empowers its police forces, its military, and its paramilitary forces with special powers to arrest, to detain, to…
The Miracle
The Miracle by John L'Heureux is a thought provoking and engrossing novel about death, dying, and faith. The novel focuses on three Ca…
The Miserable Mill
The Baudelaire orphans now find themselves exploited by an unscrupulous relative who runs a wood mill. The workers are paid in vouchers for discounts for mo…
The Missing Professor
Perhaps I'm a cynic, but shouldn't a mystery story be mysterious? And shouldn't a funny story make you laugh? The Missing Professor is a novel tha…
The New Yorkers
The New Yorkers is set on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on a block with lots of dog owners. Polly, in her early twenties, moves into a…
The Night Listener
Gabriel Noone: he has a regular show on National Public Radio, telling stories about himself, but he has been unable to write for months; he lives in San…
The Notebook of Lost Things
Always, the act of living is a struggle against the shrill of death. In the end, inconceivable as it is, death finds a rag-tag home with us; it sets up h…
The One With the News
It is not unusual to find a work of fiction that provides a more profound description of the experience of illness than that provided in scientific or me…
The Other Americans
The Other Americans is a multicultural novel set in California. The central narrator is Nora, from an Iraqi family, whose father was walking from his restaurant and was killed by a driver. She thinks it makes no sense and wants the police to investigate t
The Other Side of the Story
The Other Side of the Story is Marian Keyes' most sophisticated novel so far. It is told from three perspectives. The book starts in Ireland wit…
The People of the Veil
The People of the Veil by Andrew M. Warren is an action packed thriller ripped from today’s headlines. It is a frightening account about the…
The Promise of a Lie
Howard Roughan's The Promise of a Lie is a competent psychological thriller. Roughan is able to piece his sentences together in a conversational…
The Push
The push refers, of course, to the mother's push to give birth to the child inside her – a moment of pain and pleasure that produces a new being. And perhaps another push as the story unfolds. Written mostly in the second person it comments on relationshi
The Red Room
The Red Room by Nicci French is popular mystery this Fall (2001) and spent a number of weeks on the New York Times’ Best Seller List. It is a…
The Reporter
Take a heaping portion of Entertainment Tonight, add a pinch of personal interest from People Magazine, liberally…
The Reptile Room
In the second book of this series, the Baudelaire children must again endure terrible misfortune. In psychological terms, the obvious message is that it…
The Resurrection Stone
This odd novel mixes a young teen boy’s sexuality with a baffling mysticism. It is set during a summer vacation on a small island where thirt…
The Rule of Four
The Rule of Four is the story of four Princeton undergraduates becoming involved in the work of scholars solving the riddles in a five-hundred-yea…
The Same Stuff as Stars
The Same Stuff as Stars by Katherine Patterson is an award wining novel for young peop…
The Sapphire Child
The Sapphire Child is the second in a series, but can be read on its own too. It's an historical romance set mostly in India during the 1930s and 1940s. It is a long book at 532 pages, or 13.5 hours in the unabridged audiobook performed pluckily by Elizab
The Savage Girl
The Savage Girl takes a unique look at the current state of consumer culture. We are taken behind the scenes where trends are orchestrated,…
The Schopenhauer Cure
Rich, broad ranging, skilful, imaginative, absorbing -- all these can be applied to Irvin Yalom's latest novel. But they do not scratch the surface of t…
The Searcher
Like Tana French's previous novel, The Witch Elm, The Searcher is a standalone novel. French is best known for her Dublin Murder Squad series, and it seems that fans of that series may have a harder time with her standalone works. The Witch Elm was a tour
The Secret
The first two pages of this novel remind me a bit structurally of the first two pages of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Heavy on the philosophical i…
The Secret Life of Bees
The Secret Life of Bees is a Southern coming-of-age small-town novel set in the era of emerging Civil Rights in segregated South Carolina. Lily O…
The Secret of Lost Things
Eighteen-year-old Rosemary grew up with her single mother in Tasmania, until her mother died on her birthday. The other woman in her life, a bookst…
The Shutter of Snow
You are in the delivery room in a hospital. A mother just delivered her first baby. Everyone is counting the fingers and toes and waiting to hear the baby c…
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
This year, four best friends have to spend their summer apart after spending nearly every previous summer together. Just before they have to go their sep…
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The Sky Changes
The Publisher describes the book as follows:``Divorce in America is the subject of Gilbert Sorrentino's relentlessly disturbing first novel. Tracing the New York-to-San Francisco journey of a family as the husband and wife try to maintain the illusion tha
The Speed Abater
The Speed Abater is translated from the French, and was originally published in 1999. It has won the author the prize for best new talent at the…
The Speed of Dark
Elizabeth Moon is known for writing science fiction and fantasy novels, but while The Speed of Dark is set in the near future and assumes that sci…
The Syndrome
John Case's The Syndrome is a fast paced thriller about international terrorist. It will keep the reader awake long into the night listening to every…
The Tenth Circle
The Tenth Circle is packed with different themes and references. Trixie Stone is fourteen years old, and her hockey-star boyfriend Jason broke up…
The Third Victim
Originally published in 2001, Lisa Gardner's The Third Victim has now been released in audio format, performed by Teri Schnaubelt. It's a solid narration, making the main protagonist, Rainie Conner, sympathetic. This was Gardner's second published novel.
The Time Traveler's Wife
Audrey Niffenegger's debut novel is quite an achievement. Neither a straightforward romance, nor a conventional narrative, The Time Traveler's Wife…
The Torn Skirt
In Rebecca Godfrey's The Torn Skirt, the narrator is Sara Shaw, a sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her stoner father. Her mother left long ag…
The Trick Is to Keep Breathing
Last Spring a colleague of mine finished her 8-hour shift at a Minneapolis group home, drove to a nearby bridge and jumped. It took days to find her car,…
The Usual Mistakes
The Usual Mistakes is a collection of twelve short stories; the first anthology from Erin Flanagan. Flanagan is no novice, having published numero…
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
Iris Lockhart lives alone, but is having an affair with a married man. She gets a phone call about an elderly relative she has never heard of befor…
The Virgin Blue
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier is an interesting, but also a very disturbing historic novel. The novel portrays the lives o…
The Wave
Walter Mosley is best known for his detective novels based in 1960s Los Angeles featuring African American sleuth Easy Rawlins. But he also publishes di…
The Whitby Murders
The Whitby Murders features DCI Jim Oldroyd, who is the main police detective in all the Yorkshire Muder Mystery series by J. R. Ellis. I reviewed #4 in the series, The Royal Baths Murder, in 2019. The audiobook is again performed by Michael Page, who ham
The Wide Window
Following a rational plan, I am listening to the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events in the order they were released, and I am pleased to repo…
The Witch Elm
The Witch Elm won high praise in 2018 from critics, but was received less warmly by fans of Tana French's previous crime novels. It's a lon…
Therapy
As someone who is fascinated by clinical psychology and who also loves a good murder mystery, you might have thought that I would be a great fan of the n…
Thin Girls
Lily and Rose are twins. Thin Girls starts when they are in their early twenties, with Rose living in an in-patient eating disorders program. She has been there a year, because she has found a way to keep herself at her weight, eating just enough to stay
Things You Should Know
Things You Should Know collects 11 short stories from the last ten years by A.M. Homes, author of the powerful novel Music for Torching. A…
Thinks...
Lodge has always been a clever novelist, and in his last two novels he has gone one step further, using his fiction to explore philosophy. His previous nove…
Third Class Superhero
Charles Yu's collection of eleven stories reads like a sort of Postcards from the Edge of Reality. Third Class Superhero is a bunch of pith…
Thirty Nothing
If you have watched British TV comedies or read British comic novels recently, you'll know that there's a distinctive style to them, whether it's…
Timothy Tunny Swallowed a Bunny
Timothy Tunny Swallowed a bunny The bunny got lodged in his throat "That bunny looks funny," His mom said, "but Honey, Be thankful it isn't a goat." Yo…
Tis
This sequel 'Tis (what 'Tis indicates I have no idea and I find it vaguely irritating) is about the main character going to the United States of…
Tooth and Nail
Police detective John Rebus is called down from Edinburgh to London to help with the case of a serial killer, known as the Wolfman. Rebus isn't sure he…
Touching Spirit Bear
Cole Matthews is a violent, out-of-control, angry teen. He has been in and out of trouble with the police for most of his teenage years, committing first cr…
Touchy Subjects
The title of this collection of Emma Donaghue's short stories applies to both the protagonists and to the subject matter of the stories: sensitive indivi…
Trailer Girl
Trailer Girl And Other Stories, by Terese Svoboda, consists of the novella "Trailer Girl," followed by a series of unrelated, vignette-like…
Transparency
Transparency is a first collection of short stories by Frances Hwang, an American fiction writer who has collected a number of awards and fellow…
Treacherous Love
Treacherous Love: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager by "Anonymous Teenager" and edited by Beatrice Sparks is another volume in the Spark's…
Tucker Peak
Tucker Peak by Archer Mayor is the twelve in this series of Vermont mysteries staring Joe Gunther. This one finds Gunther investigating murder an…
Turing
There are many things that could have gone really wrong with a book like this. The good news is that none of them did. Things could have gone really wr…
Twentieth Century Eightball
This is a collection of short comic book pieces from the last thirteen or so years by Daniel Clowes. They are in a mixture of styles, some in color, othe…
Two Little Girls in Blue
Two Little Girls in Blue is a lightweight mystery novel. It has a relatively simple plot: Steve Frawley works for a large financial company. He…
Under the Dam
The stories of Under the Dam are compelling depictions of singular individuals whose lives are overshadowed by immanent tragedy. Showing an assure…
Unholy Stories
In the final line of the final story of this collection author Carole David tells us: "At my age, it goes without saying". That aphorism serves…
Unkempt
With Unkempt, New York writer Courtney Eldridge has delivered a snappy collection comprising seven short stories and a novella. The stories cover…
Up in Flames
Up in Flames: A John and Mary Bolt Mystery by Linda S. Bingham is the first book about an arson investigator and his lady love. In this book, the…
Upstate
Upstate is an unusual novel since it is in the form of letters between two people, Antonio and Natasha. Antonio is in jail, at first, waiting for…
Valencia
Valencia is a great read, almost a stream of consciousness, told as if Tea were talking with you in one of her self-obsessed monologues. Even if your…
Venus Drive
Sam Lipsyte's Venus Drive, a collection of short stories revolving around a nameless small town that is home to the title street's shattered land…
Veronika Decides to Die
Veronica Decides to Die is an interesting story about a young woman called "Veronica" who wants to die but her suicide is not successful and she find…
Violet & Claire
My introduction to Francesca Lia Block was her short story collection Girl Goddess #9, which I read last spring at the suggestion of a teacher friend…
Visits from The Drowned Girl
For most books, the fact that the reviewer listened to the unabridged audiobook version rather than read the paper version should make little difference…
Wake
In Wake, Beth Goldner's first collection of stories, the author presents us with a range of characters whose lives are connected by loss, a yearni…
Wasteland
Wasteland is a short novel for young adults about the forbidden love between a brother and sister, Lex and Marina. She is sixteen and he is a lit…
Well-Remembered Days
Viewers of Father Ted will already know the work of Arthur Mathews,…
Wemberly Worried
Wemberly, a little mouse, worried about everything. She was often anxious, fearful, upset, and timid. She became especially worried about her first day of n…
What Became of Us
What Became of Us tells a comforting story about a group of three women, Annie, Manon, and Ursula, who were all at Oxford University together as u…
What It Means to Love You
This novel is a gritty view of Chicago’s sexual underground. In terse almost unemotional style it chronicles just under a year in the lives of two m…
What the Birds See
What the Birds See by Sonya Hartnett is an international award winning novel. It is a…
What Waiting Really Means
It’s not at all clear what this very short novel is about, but that may be deliberate. “If you’re looking for the point, forget it. I keep…
What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal
Zoë Heller's novel What Was She Thinking is a sly and uncomfortable work. Barbara Covett, a schoolteacher and a spinster, narrates the events lo…
Read the full review of What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal
What We Don't Know About Children
What a dark little book. Published in Italy in 1997, it has been translated into eight languages, was was published in the USA in 2000. The description on t…
What's So Terrible About Swallowing an Apple Seed?
Katie tells her little sister Rosie who just swallowed an apple seed that it will grow into a tree. Over the following days Katie looks in her Rosie's ears…
Read the full review of What's So Terrible About Swallowing an Apple Seed?
When We Were Orphans
In a crucial passage, the narrator of When We Were Orphans, Christopher Banks, reflects on his life. He says, "for those like us, our fate i…
Where We Lived
Christina Fitzpatrick's first collection tells the stories of girls and young women who cannot trust men. They have been hurt, abandoned and threatened b…
White Hot
A family mystery set in small town Louisiana starts with the death of Danny Hoyle. At first it is thought that he committed suicide, but then the sherif…
Why Did I Ever
The reason for the title of the book, Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison, is never really made clear in her 200-page novel. The book is written in a d…
Will@epicqwest.com
Tom Grimes' novel is a smart and funny look at the modern world of medication and cyberspace. Its hero is Will, who has just started college. Will is o…
Willful Creatures
Aimee Bender inhabits a strange world. It is a world populated by people who fight and love and work and cry and laugh just like ordinary people, but wit…
Wit
Consider the semicolon you see in the title of this Pulitzer-winning play as something like a logo. Aside from being eye-catching, the typographic libert…
With Teeth
Kristen Arnett's With Teeth is a novel that you will remember, though it may take some effort. At first, you think what's going on here? But then you get the hang of it, and you start to enjoy it. Then afterwards, you think, wow, that was great.
With You All the Way
Ada is 16. She lives in San Francisco, California with her family: her mother, step-father, elder sister Afton and her 5 year old sister Abby. As the novel opens, she is at her boyfriend Leo's place and he says they have the whole night along, so they can
You Know I'm No Good
Mia's mother was murdered. Her father remarried and had twins. Mia is very bright, but she is also angry and is making bad choices. Drink, drugs, promiscuous sex, and even violence. Finally, her father decides she has gone too far, and sends her to a ther