Category: FOUR STARS ****

July 28, 2017

News of the World by Paulette Jiles **** (of 4)

The year is 1870. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, veteran of three wars, now age 72, is more or less handed a ten-year-old girl to return...

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July 17, 2017

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance **** (of 4)

The simple description is on the cover. J.D. Vance, a self-denominated hillbilly from Kentucky, describes what it took to grow up in a family devoid...

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March 31, 2017

Regeneration by Pat Barker **** (of 4)

Most of the action takes place away from the European trenches of World War I. Instead, Dr. Rivers uses the new field of psychoanalysis to...

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March 7, 2017

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman **** (of 4)

Ove awakens at the same hour every morning and sees no reason to change any part of his routine that begins with close inspection of...

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February 16, 2017

The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee **** (of 4)

Mukherjee begins with the ancient Greeks. They wondered from whom and how did children inherit characteristics that made them look like their parents. Mukherjee continues...

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December 1, 2016

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George **** (of 4)

It seems to me that even mediocre authors can write tragedies. As long as a protagonist is reasonably sympathetic and something awful occurs, the reader...

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October 31, 2016

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald **** (of 4)

Three parallel stories expertly told. In the first, the author trains a goshawk to fly from her glove to hunt pheasants and rabbits on the British...

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July 22, 2016

One of Us by Asne Seierstad **** (of 4)

Even if you do not recall the Oslo terrorist attack in 2011, the opening pages of this book make certain there is no surprise. Anders...

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June 23, 2016

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson **** (of 4)

In so many ways Tree of Smoke is easier to describe for what it really is not. The setting is Vietnam, and to a lesser...

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May 29, 2016

The Immortal Irishman by Timothy Egan **** (of 5)

The immortal Irishman is Robert Meagher, surely the most famous and interesting person I’ve never heard of. Meagher (pronounced Mar) was an incomparably gifted nineteenth...

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