Category: Book Reviews

January 1, 2011

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

This super-sad, super-funny novel not only showcases its author’s super-caffeinated comic gifts, but also uncovers his abilities to write movingly about love and heartbreak. Set...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

December 25, 2010

Peony in Love by Lisa See * (of 4)

Hard to believe this sold as many copies as it did. The veil over this novel, that belongs on the mass market Romance shelf with...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

December 4, 2010

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux **** (of 4)

Fresh out of college in the mid 1960s, just before he became famous as one of the great travel writers of a generation, Paul Theroux...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

November 23, 2010

The Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold ** (of 4)

Griswold travels the around the globe hanging out approximately 10 degrees north of the equator. In Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines it’s...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

November 13, 2010

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen *** (of 4)

A depression era circus full of interpersonal and interspecies drama occurs as characters and the circus menagerie travel by train from city to city. The...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

October 31, 2010

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston **** (of 4)

Written in 1937, Hurston captures the lives of post-slavery, southern African Americans battling to overcome poverty and profound segregation. Janie, the story’s protagonist, is married...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

October 18, 2010

City of Thieves by David Benioff **** (of 4)

Lev Benioff, a 15-year-old Russian, Jewish kid and Kolya, a deserter from the Russian Army with an overactive libido and terrible constipation, find themselves trapped...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

October 6, 2010

Exodus by Leon Uris ** (of 4)

Still singed by Holocaust crematoria, Jewish rebels fight to throw off the yoke of British imperialism in Palestine. This is a book that launched a...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

September 8, 2010

A Fiery Peace in a Cold War by Neal Sheehan ** (of 4)

Bennie Schriever invents and promotes Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles to assure the mutual destruction of the Soviet Union (and the world) in the event that...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

August 29, 2010

Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt ** (of 4)

Rosenblatt’s daughter Amy dies unexpectedly from a heart attack at age 40 leaving behind a husband, successful career, and three young children. Roger Rosenblatt and...

Book Reviews

0 Comments