I was not especially eager to read my book club’s recent selection, March by Geraldine Brooks for two reasons. First, it is a Civil War novel. Despite being dragged by my Dad to every Civil War monument in Middle Tennessee, I am not a Civil War enthusiast. The second reason is that the title ... [Continue Reading]
A Visit from the Goon Squadby Jennifer Egan
A word of advice before you read Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad--- it’s not a novel. It is a series of engaging, but only very loosely connected, short stories about a group of musicians. In the Random House Reader’s Guide, Egan offers the following ... [Continue Reading]
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler The Whitshanks, Abby and Red and their four grown children, are a close knit Baltimore family driving (mostly) merrily along the road of middle class happiness. However, when a domestic crisis brings an extended visit by the “black sheep” of the family, the ... [Continue Reading]
Someone by Alice McDermott
Someone by Alice McDermott Alice McDermott, a long time chronicler of the Irish American experience, has written the moving story of Marie Commeford, a short sighted girl from Brooklyn. Written in the first person, Marie’s wry and clear eyed observations, from her stoop in Brooklyn to the ... [Continue Reading]
Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set them Free by Hector Tobar If you were alive in August 2010, you heard about the collapse of the San Jose Mine in Chile which trapped thirty-three miners for sixty-nine days. The above ground rescue ... [Continue Reading]
Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar
Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar At the opposite end of the theater going spectrum from It's Only a Play is Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Price. This celebrity free, but certainly not talent free performance is riveting. Except for a collective gasp at a particularly scathing ... [Continue Reading]
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo Richard Russo is funny. Now you may not know this if you are only familiar with his Pulitzer Prize -winning novel Empire Falls, but when he is writing about the hot house world of academia (as he also does in Straight Man), Russo is LOL funny. Griffin has ... [Continue Reading]