Category: Prize Winner

June 7, 2014

An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson **** (of 4)

The year is 1942. Axis powers have taken control of Europe, east Asia and the Pacific, North Africa, and are threatening to consume Russia. Britain,...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

April 25, 2014

Hitler’s Furies by Wendy Lower *** (of 4)

Contemporary research on Nazi war crimes suggests most Nazis were Ordinary Men. Neither crazed nor fanatical killers, Christopher Browning’s landmark book in 1992 discovered that most...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

April 20, 2014

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward *** (of 4)

A fighting pit bull in southern Louisiana gives birth to puppies. A black family is squeaking by: Daddy drinks too much; Skeetah only cares about...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

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...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

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...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

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...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

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...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

September 3, 2013

Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum ** (of 4)

World War II came to an end in large measure because the Russian Army came to the aid of the Allied Forces. Irate at having...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

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...

Book Reviews

0 Comments

May 9, 2013

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon *** (of 4)

Four horse races are run at a bottom-of-the-barrel track inWest Virginia. The horses are knock-kneed, belligerent, over-the-hill, lazy, or used-up. So are the people that...

Book Reviews

0 Comments