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We have posted 323 unique book reviews in 321 days.
Update: Â See our Top 2009 List (so far)
May 3, 2009
Tags: Blog Thoughts Posted in: Xtra 
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TOO MUCH HAPPINESS by Alice Munro
Book Quote:
“But think. Aren’t I just as cut off by what happened as he is? Nobody who knew about it would want me around. All I can do is remind people of what nobody can stand to be reminded of.”
Book Review:
Review by Bonnie Brody (NOV 19, 2009)
It is an honor to review Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro, who I consider the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language. Ms. Munro is Canadian and lives in Clinton, Ontario. During her writing career she has garnered many awards including the Lannan Literary Award, the United States National Book Critics Circle Award, and the most recent 2009 Man Booker International Prize. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the Atlantic Monthly, as well as many other literary publications. I consider her an icon.
November 19, 2009
Tags: Knopf, Literary, Short Stories Posted in: Award Winning Author, Literary, Man Booker International Prize, Short Stories No Comments
EATING ANIMALS by Jonathan Safran Foer
Book Quote:
“Every farm, like every everything, has flaws, is subject to accidents, sometimes doesn’t work as it should. Life overflows with imperfections, but some imperfections matter more than others. How imperfect must animal farming and slaughter be before they are too imperfect.”
Book Review:
Review by Poornima Apte (NOV 18, 2009)
Full disclosure: I am a vegetarian. It’s not a label I really think much about because it was never a conscious choice. I was brought up in a Hindu vegetarian home and eating meat was totally out of the question. Over the years it has become a matter of habit and taste.
Jonathan Safran Foer’s path to veganism started when he became a new father. He wanted to research the foods he would soon be feeding his infant son and in no time came upon the juggernaut—the factory farm. “My personal quest didn’t stay that way for long. Through my efforts as a parent, I came face-to-face with realities that as a citizen I couldn’t ignore, and as a writer I couldn’t keep to myself,” he says as the impetus for writing his first work of non-fiction, Eating Animals.
November 18, 2009
Tags: Food, Nonfiction, Political Posted in: Non-fiction No Comments
DON’T SLEEP, THERE ARE SNAKES by Daniel L. Everett
Book Quote:
“I felt chastened and embarrassed. I realized that I had nearly disastrously misinterpreted the Pairahas’ perception of my role among them. I had thought that they saw me, the missionary, as a protector and authority figure.”
Book Review:
Review by Lynn Harnett (NOV 17, 2009)
The PirahĂŁ are the “Show me!” tribe of the Brazilian Amazon. They don’t bother with fiction or tall tales or even oral history. They have little art. They don’t have a creation myth and don’t want one. If they can’t see it, hear it, touch it or taste it, they don’t believe in it.
Missionaries have been preaching to the PirahĂŁs for 200 years and have converted not one. Everett did not know this when he first visited them in 1977 at age 26. A missionary and a linguist, he was sent to learn their language, translate the Bible for them, and ultimately bring them to Christ.
Instead, they brought him to atheism. Read the rest of this post »
November 17, 2009
Tags: Language, Nonfiction, Research Posted in: Non-fiction No Comments
TRAIN TO TRIESTE by Domnica Radulescu
Book Quote:
“But for one beautiful summer, it’s linden trees and vodka made from fermented plums and stars and mountains and raspberries . . . Drink in the gorgeous scenery, the Carpathians, Bucharest, the dark forests. Suspend all cynicism and believe in the possibility of this love story.”
Book Review:
Review by Jana L. Perskie (NOV 16, 2009)
Domnica Radulescu’ semi-autobiographical debut novel, Train to Trieste, is a fascinating page turner, full of contrasts. She describes, with nostalgia and much love, her homeland, Romania, with its physical beauty, it’s mountains, plains, rivers, forests, and extraordinary seaside resorts and homes on the Black Sea. She writes of “one beautiful summer,” with its “linden trees and vodka made from fermented plums and stars and mountains and raspberries….” The scenery is “gorgeous,” the Carpathian Mountains are dark and mysterious – a perfect place for our protagonist, seventeen year-old Mona Manoliu, to fall in love. It is the summer of 1977.
November 16, 2009
Tags: Around-the-World, Romania Posted in: Debut Novel, Political, Time Period Fiction, World Literature No Comments
TRUE COMPASS by Edward M. Kennedy
Book Quote:
“What binds us together across our differences in religion or politics or economic theory is that when each one of us is cut, our blood flows red. Mine does and yours does too. Those who would try to appropriate God or family or country for their own narrow ends…forget the width of God’s embrace, the healing power of a family’s arms, and the generosity of this country’s vision. God, family, and nation belong to us all.”
Book Review:
Review by Kirstin Merrihew (NOV 15, 2009)
Early in 2009, I read the account of Edward M. Kennedy’s life entitled Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. A synthesis of reports by Boston Globe reporters, it succeeded in presenting a balanced and quite thorough review of Senator Kennedy’s life up to the point where he was diagnosed with brain cancer. With that instructively under my belt, I was eager to study the senator’s own account, True Compass: A Memoir. How, I wondered, had he approached the delicate or controversial events of his life? Had he, for example, gone into as much detail about the Chappaquiddick tragedy as Last Lion had? How much had he wished to revisit concerning the assassinations of his famous political brothers? Had he gone into as many specifics about his major Senate battles as the reporters? What less well known facets of himself had he chosen to reveal? Were his reminisces more personal or more professional in nature?
November 15, 2009
Tags: Memoir, Nonfiction Posted in: Non-fiction 2 Comments
ANNA IN-BETWEEN by Elizabeth Nunez
Book Quote:
“I should have told you that a long time ago.” Her mother rests her back against the pillows. “I should have told you how beautiful you are,” she says softly.
When Anna was fifteen, the brother of one of her friends from school held her hand and said, “You are the prettiest of my sister’s friends.” She felt a surge of irrational happiness then. This is the feeling Anna finally recognizes in the confusion of emotions that swirl through her. Will they talk now? Will they have closure?
But the timbre of her mother’s voice changes, the softness that was there evaporates. “I’m sure I didn’t need to tell you that,” she says. No emotion, a chastisement even.
Book Review:
Review by Ann Wilkes ( NOV 14, 2009)
SPECIAL: Â MFÂ Author Interview
Anna In-Between is a novel about an unmarried, Caribbean woman in her late thirties, Anna Sinclair, who begins to understand herself as she comes to understand her parents. The novel explores issues of caste, race and culture in a moving, deeply poignant tale of mother and daughter. Anna goes back to the island of her birth as she does every year, but this time she stays for a month to spend more time with her aging parents. Her mother, Beatrice, reveals to Anna that she has a lump on her breast – one for which she has not sought treatment. Beatrice has not even mentioned it to her own husband, though she knows he sees it. And he doesn’t say a word about it, either. He respects her privacy. The whole “elephant in the living room” thing is hard for a modern American to comprehend, especially when we’re talking – or not talking about – a life-threatening disease. Read the rest of this post »
November 14, 2009
Tags: Family Matters, Latin American, Literary, mother-daughter Posted in: Award Winning Author, Caribbean, Class - Race - Gender, Immigration / Diaspora, Latin American, Literary, Motherhood, Top Picks No Comments
