Category: Book Reviews

February 28, 2016

Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya ** (of 4)

In the first half of the book, Pasha, an intentionally depressive poet, because without depression there can be no decent poetry, arrives from Odessa to...

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February 19, 2016

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell ** (of 4)

I love Sarah Vowell’s hip hop style of writing and she is hooked on an interesting fellow. The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the American...

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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

The Town that Food Saved by Ben Hewitt ** (of 4)

Hardwick was a down and out village in rural Vermont. Unemployment was high, farmers were struggling, and main street was worn out. As if almost...

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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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January 4, 2016

Negroland by Margo Jefferson *** (of 4)

Margo Jefferson is nearing the end of a successful career as an English professor and brings all of her skill as a cultural analyst and...

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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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December 24, 2015

Dead Wake by Erik Larson *** (of 4)

In 1915 the largest, fastest, and most luxurious ship on the ocean was the Lusitania. Crossing the Atlantic by ship was the only way to...

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December 1, 2015

Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett ** (of 4)

As these things go, not too bad. Consider it everything you ever wanted to know about the hydrological cycle (there are similar books on coffee,...

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November 22, 2015

Safekeeping by Jessamyn Hope ** (of 4)

Safekeeping is a description of common characters residing on an Israeli kibbutz in the late 1990s. At the center of the story is Adam, a drug addict...

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