Category: FOUR STARS ****

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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February 7, 2016

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell **** (of 4)

This is a tale both microscopic in scope and biblical in scale. The scene is 1920s Illinois before the age of machines and corporations when...

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January 29, 2016

Murder on the Kibbutz by Batya Gur **** (of 4)

There are several reasons to read murder mysteries. After all, the expectation upon opening the book is something really awful must happen before the story can...

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December 31, 2015

The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret **** (of 4)

Somewhere near the end of Keret’s memoir covering the seven years between the birth of his son and the death of his father, Keret writes...

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August 27, 2015

The Son by Philipp Meyer **** (of 4)

This history of Texas is told through the lives of four generations of the McCullough family. Eli, the patriarch, is captured by Comanches as an...

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June 14, 2015

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown **** (of 4)

On the face of it an uplifting story of a group of eight hayseeds from Washington state who come together to become the world’s best rowing...

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May 13, 2015

Paper Love by Sarah Wildman **** (of 4)

Sarah Waldman’s grandfather escaped the Nazi Aunchshloss in Austria by the skin of his teeth. He settled in America, opened a successful medical practice, and...

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April 24, 2015

March: Books 1 and 2 by John Lewis **** (of 4)

These graphical biographies cover the early years of John Lewis, now a congressman, but formerly a preacher and activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Book one...

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April 5, 2015