Shhh! Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays
Which books are you gifting this holiday season? I already offer many of my fiction and nonfiction book recommendations through this...
Nov 19, 2021
Review of This Shining Life by Harriet Kline
Kline's poignant, lovely book explores a family's emotional missteps and enduring love after a painful loss, and their hard-fought...
Nov 18, 2021
Three Books I'm Reading Now, 11/17/21 Edition
The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Jessica Anya Blau's 1970s-set music-focused story Mary Jane; I'm listening to Katherine May's...
Nov 17, 2021
Review of The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
Grohl is funny, self-deprecating, and irresistibly tender-hearted as he recounts his musical influences, the twists and turns of his...
Nov 16, 2021
Review of Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
Migrations features a tragic ecological setup of a world in which wild animals are largely nonexistent, a cold and relentless ocean...
Nov 15, 2021
Three Books I'm Reading Now, 11/12/21 Edition
The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Lily King's newest, her recent short story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter; I'm listening to...
Nov 12, 2021
Review of Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans
The book's pace felt halting at times and its substance somewhat light at points. The strongest aspect for me was Evans's ongoing...
Nov 11, 2021
Review of Forty Autumns by Nina Willner
ICYMI: Forty Autumns offers fascinating, wonderfully detailed perspectives in a rich, layered family memoir that reads like fiction. The...
Nov 10, 2021
Review of The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
ICYMI: Shattuck offers faulted protagonists and a fascinating, complicated set of factors in her World War II historical fiction. Jessica...
Nov 9, 2021
Review of Warcross (Warcross #1) by Marie Lu
You may see much of this young adult story coming, but Warcross is an action-packed quest to right wrongs in an immersive video game and...
Nov 8, 2021
Three Books I'm Reading Now, 11/5/21 Edition
The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms, which involves historical fiction and time travel; I'm listening to...
Nov 5, 2021
Review of What You Can See from Here by Mariana Leky
Leky's book is full of magical realism, friends who are like family, some absurd, fablelike elements, and an ongoing exploration of...
Nov 4, 2021
Review of Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Rooney's characters engage in extensive self-reflection while struggling to open up emotionally to each other. Their vulnerabilities feel...
Nov 3, 2021
Review of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Caste is consistently powerful, profound, disturbing, and absolutely necessary nonfiction reading from the brilliant Isabel Wilkerson....
Nov 2, 2021
Review of The Best of Me by David Sedaris
This collection of previously published Sedaris works is a gold mine of discomforting, edgy, offbeat observations--with more heart than I...
Nov 1, 2021
October Wrap-Up: My Favorite Reads of the Month
My very favorite books from October! These are the books I most loved reading during the past month. I included an immersive memoir...
Oct 29, 2021
Review of Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
Klune's newest novel is heartwarming, earnest, light, and sweet, with a vision of an in-between afterlife that is surprisingly romantic,...
Oct 28, 2021
Three Books I'm Reading Now, 10/27/21 Edition
The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Sally Rooney's newest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You; the brilliant Isabel Wilkerson's...
Oct 27, 2021
Review of The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
The Paper Palace is atmospheric and often disturbing. I didn't understand many of the characters' motivations or reasoning so didn't feel...
Oct 26, 2021
Review of Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
I love Elizabeth Strout's books, but I didn't feel connected to the character of Lucy or her ruminations in Oh William! the way I did in...
Oct 25, 2021