“Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky.” Author Delia Owens These are the first lines of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, one of the best books I’ve read this year. The marshes and swamps of coastal North Carolina are…
It is almost impossible to write a proper review of Kate Atkinson’s Transcription without spoiling it. (Yes, it’s one of THOSE books.) (I’m sorry.) But it’s also impossible NOT to talk about it, because Transcription is, deservedly, one of the Big Books of Fall. Also, I want people to read it and then visit me…
"Greenstone was full of people who could make you sad just by strolling into view." Virgil Wander, Leif Enger’s eponymous new novel, is set in the hard-luck town of Greenstone, Minnesota along the stormy northern shores of Lake Superior. Although the town and its people have seen better days, together they muddle through by supporting…
“They meant well, all of them. How could she explain that this city was a graveyard? That they were walking every day through streets where there had been a holocaust, a mass murder of neglect and antipathy, that when they stepped through a pocket of cold air, didn’t they understand it was a ghost, it…
Sometimes, I need to let a book marinate before passing judgment on it. A clever twisty thriller might, after a few days' consideration, sprout countless plotholes. Far more rare -- and more enjoyable -- are the times that a "it was pretty good, I guess," book transforms into “I can't stop thinking about this story!" Happily,…
“The truth depends on who it is that’s telling the story.” Kate Morton, “The Clockmakers Daughter” Reading Kate Morton’s intricately plotted new novel The Clockmakers Daughter, is like pulling apart a Russian nesting doll until the last tiny doll is found in the center. At the center of this book is Birchwood Manor and…
I first encountered author Naomi Novik’s work with her delightful Temeraire series that featured talking dragons during the Napoleonic Wars. When the series ended, I read her standalone, Uprooted, an imaginative Grimm-like fairytale for adults that won the prestigious Nebula Award. Her newest book, Spinning Silver, continues along those lines and takes inspiration from the…
I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that I am not an avid fly fisherman nor do I spend my spare time tying salmon flies for fun. However, if you were to take a peek at my browser history, you might suspect otherwise. Some of my recent Internet searches have included “Greater Bird of…
I picked up Libby Page’s The Lido expecting a fast, cheerful read. The breezily illustrated cover suggested that I’d probably like it just fine, but forget about it after a few days. Delightfully, I was wrong. Yes, it’s a fast read. Yes, it’s cheerful (mostly). Yes, I had to look up how to pronounce lido.…
As a Nigerian-American girl and voracious reader growing up in Homewood Flossmoor and Hinsdale, Illinois, Tomi Adeyemi rarely encountered powerful characters who looked like her. Nevertheless, this 24 year-old recent Harvard graduate has burst onto the scene this year with a NY Times best-selling book set in the mythical West African kingdom of Orisha which…
