sensible shoes: a liberal librarian's blog

Book Review: Away by Amy Bloom

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:11:23 -0400

Lillian survives a Russian pogrom that kills her parents, husband and presumably her child. She flees to America where she finds work as a seamstress for a Yiddish theater. Then one day a cousin arrives at her door and tells her that her daughter...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: Three Junes by Julia Glass

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:09:52 -0400

I spent a couple of years thinking this book was about three women named June! In fact, it's about three distinct summers in the lives of a Scottish family and the people they love (or don't). The first section is about the family patriarch, P...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: While They Slept by Kathryn Harrison

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:54:49 -0400

Harrison's analysis of a boy's murder of his abusive parents and innocent younger sister got a huge write-up in the Sunday NYT Book Review, and all I can say is Harrison must have a hell of a publicist. The book held my attention, and I read it q...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:27:54 -0400

I love David. His humor is biting and dark but not mean or unfair, usually. Sometimes his self-deprecation goes over the top, as if he's begging to be reassured, but I fall for it; I think it's cute. This latest collection is close in tone to t...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: His Illegal Self by Peter Carey

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:26:33 -0400

This is my first stab at one of Carey's novels. Maybe I started with the wrong one. The premise is intriguing - a Weather Underground-type radical kidnaps a young boy from his wealthy grandmother and spirits him away to the Australian bush. How...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:22:14 -0400

The blurb on the back of my copy calls this “a cracking good yarn,” and indeed it is. Shortlisted for the Booker, this novel is about George Edalji, a country lawyer accused of a series of terrible crimes. Justice is in short supply in the rura...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: Marley & Me by John Grogan

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:18:34 -0400

This is a good airplane book: short, slight, diverting. The subtitle “Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog” is overstating the case; Marley, a slobbery, tail-wagging, galumphing yellow lab, is really just a run-of-the-mill bad boy. If you li...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: Lisey's Story by Stephen King

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:09:58 -0400

I read and loved most of Stephen King's early novels and then got sidetracked. This one is quintessential King, encompassing all that I enjoy about his books and also all that I find annoying. Lisey is the widow of a renowned novelist, Scott Lan...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:57:44 -0400

Genna Meade is the well-meaning daughter of well-to-do, radical hippie parents. Her college roommate Minette, the daughter of an African American minister, is reserved, prickly, eccentric and unpopular. Genna is almost desperate to win Minette's...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Book Review: Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller

nobody@vox.com(sensible shoes) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:37:36 -0400

The subtitle is Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--And the Journey of a Generation, so you can guess why I bought it. I cheated and only read the Joni chapters so far. The author managed to talk to a lot of people, and uncovered stories th...

Read and post comments | Send to a friend