Category: Book Reviews

January 17, 2023

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan **** (of 4)

The perfect follow up to We Didn’t Know Ourselves, Claire Keegan’s novella describes in exquisite detail the conflict between religion and morality within the mind...

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January 17, 2023

Mercury Pictures Presents *** (of 4) by Anthony Marra

Anthony Marra starts off well enough. His lead characters Art Feldman, a 1940s B-lot movie producer and his plucky assistant, an Italian immigrant named Maria...

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January 5, 2023

Ducks by Kate Beaton *** (of 4)

Newly graduated from college with artistic talent, a liberal arts degree, and a mountain of college loans, 21-year-old Kate Beaton departs her economically depressed home...

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January 4, 2023

We Didn’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole **** (of 4)

The book’s subtitle is accurate: A Personal History of Modern Ireland. This history of Ireland begins in 1958, more or less, when O’Toole was born....

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December 7, 2022

Ultra by Rachel Maddow **** (of 4)

Not a book or, at least, not yet a book, but a podcast. The genius of the production is that it is ostensibly a recounting...

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December 7, 2022

The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian *** (of 4)

A somewhat predictable, but well-told story about a motherless, white daughter with an abusive father living in a 1920s Mississippi swamp. Once Dad disappears from...

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November 18, 2022

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich **** (of 4)

A fictionalized account of Louise Erdrich’s grandfather, who worked as a night watchman in a factory on the Chippewa nation in North Dakota. He battled...

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October 24, 2022

Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar **** (of 4)

The title says the book is a novel, but the voice is the author’s and the story is about his life. News events, timelines, and...

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September 30, 2022

The Last Slave Ship by Ben Raines *** (of 4)

On the face of it, the story of 100 enslaved Africans smuggled into Mobile, Alabama does not feel that significant among the 12.5 million Africans...

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September 16, 2022

How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith *** (of 4)

Clint Smith educates white Americans who likely never learned the true extent and depth of slavery in the foundation and enduring legacy of the country....

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