Category: Book Reviews

April 16, 2014

Still Foolin’ ‘Em by Billie Crystal *** (of 4)

Billy Crystal is turning 65 years old and writing his memoir. It’s one-third stand-up (far and away the best part), one-third autobiography, and one-third Hollywood...

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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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March 30, 2014

Frozen in Time by Mitchell Zuckoff *** (of 4)

To ferry supplies, munitions, and personnel to the European front in WW II required skipping across allied airfields in Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. The major...

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March 19, 2014

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris *** (of 4)

Robert Harris makes his living fictionalizing famous historical events (see Pompeii). In this case, it is the end of the nineteenth century, and the French...

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March 9, 2014

In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh *** (of 4)

Ghosh recounts the life of a Medieval Jewish trader, Ben Yiyu, who transported goods by ship from India to Egypt. Evidence of his trader emerge...

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February 23, 2014

We Need New Names by Noviolet Buluwayo *** (of 4)

A young girl growing up in the disintegrating country of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe escapes by moving in with her aunt in Detroit, Michigan. Her account is...

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February 12, 2014

Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George ** (of 4)

I loved Rose George’s, The Big Necessity about toilets and the lack of them around the world. I’m also fascinated by the sea and even...

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February 9, 2014

Black and White and Dead All Over by John Darnton *** (of 5)

A despised editor of a very thinly disguised New York Times is found spread-eagled and more than dead in the basement of the paper’s headquarters....

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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 9, 2014

Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman *** (of 4)

It’s hard being female in a Hasidic community. It’s impossible to question authority in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, inside the dense community of Satmar Hasids. If, however,...

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