Category: FOUR STARS ****

May 5, 2014

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson **** (of 5)

On the first page, Ursala Todd has the opportunity to shoot Hitler in 1930 and does so. No wait. A few pages later Ursula is...

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April 16, 2014

One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson **** (of 4)

The summer of 1927 begins with the worst rains the United States has endured in a century or more. The Mississippi has flooded millions of...

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March 31, 2014

Sycamore Row by John Grisham **** (of 4)

It is the mid 1980s in Mississippi and Seth Hubbard, a cantankerous old buzzard, and self made millionaire hangs himself. Just before setting out for...

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January 25, 2014

The Round House by Louise Erdrich **** (of 4)

Joe, the story’s thirteen-year-old narrator, is a Native American living on a reservation in North Dakota. His mother has just been raped, not unusual as...

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January 1, 2014

The Guns at Last Light by Rick Atkinson **** (of 4)

Like a great general, not a good one, but a great one, Rick Atkinson tracks the final battles for European supremacy as the Second World...

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October 29, 2013

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem **** (of 4)

Lionel Esrog, along with three friends, is plucked from a Brooklyn orphanage by Frank Minna, a self-made detective and small time Brooklyn nogoodnik. Early in...

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September 9, 2013

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson **** (of 4)

Jun Do, a North Korean John Doe, lives many lives. He is an orphan in a camp for throw-away children, he undergoes pain training and...

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August 6, 2013

Going Clear by Lawrence Wright **** (of 5)

It took great courage to write this book. Anyone that has ever crossed the Church of Scientology has, pursuant to church ideology, been hounded by...

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June 1, 2013

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra **** (of 4)

Half a dozen fully realized characters intertwine as the Russian empire disintegrates in the early 2000s and the Republic of Chechnya is obliterated by two...

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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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