Category: America

June 21, 2013

Calico Joe by John Grisham *** (of 4)

Warren Tracy, a journeyman pitcher for the 1973 New York Mets, beans Joe Castle of the Chicago Cubs during the August run at the National...

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May 20, 2013

That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx *** (of 4)

Proulx spins a tall Texas tale about a loner named Bob Dollar sent to the mythical panhandle town of Wooly Bucket. His objective is to...

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May 9, 2013

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon *** (of 4)

Four horse races are run at a bottom-of-the-barrel track inWest Virginia. The horses are knock-kneed, belligerent, over-the-hill, lazy, or used-up. So are the people that...

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April 28, 2013

Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff **** (of 4)

Detroit, once the nation’s industrial capital, is forty percent vacant. Politicians are corrupt, robbing what little money still flows through the city. Murderous thugs roam...

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April 14, 2013

The President’s Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy *** (of 4)

An interesting perspective on U.S. history as seen through the relationships of all the Presidents since Truman to their predecessors. It is a forgiving and...

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January 24, 2013

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers *** (of 4)

The war is Iraq. Young men are sent to fight an unseen enemy. No, not fight them, but kill them. Over and over. For the...

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January 21, 2013

The Oath by Jeffrey Toobin *** (of 5)

In a surprisingly so-so book, Jeffrey Toobin follows The Nine, his phenomenal account of the Supreme Court’s evolution from the 1970s to the Obama years, with a...

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November 15, 2012

Home by Toni Morrison *** (of 5)

An African American soldier returns from fighting in Korea with his mind in tatters. The army was integrated and ordered, but his experience was profoundly horrifying....

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October 28, 2012