I have been a big fan of Timothy Egan since I read his book The Worst Hard Time, so when Cathy mentioned this one in a comment recently, I read it right away. I listened to the audiobook read by an Irishman and that contributed to my thought that the part set in the US before and during the Civil War was very much the Irish immigrant’s view of a major event in American history. The story of...
It was Ron Charles’ review of this book that took me to the author’s previous book Writers and Lovers that also featured Casey, the novelist. So after a decent interval, I happily took up this one. That one was irresistible despite its happy resolutions of seemingly impossible situations. The review gave an indication of the heartbreak in this one and while it is accompanied by hope...
Having recently dipped into the British TV series Victoria from 2016, I looked for a reputable biography of her that was available as an audiobook. I was surprised to find that a book written in 1987 by an American academic whose special interest was George Bernard Shaw had been recorded. The reader spoke in accents and as she imagined Victoria, Albert, or others would have spoken. That made the...
It was Reading Matter’s post about Lisa Ellery’s second book, Hot Ground, that took me to her first book. This was a fast-paced murder mystery set in Perth. The central character is Andrew, a young attorney who works in the prosecutor’s office, called the DPP in Australia. He works closely with police, but despite that, when the murder of Lily, a young woman, is discovered, he...
When The Washington Post put this book on their list of the ten best for the year, I was interested, and it has turned out to be a great read for me. Stein was born in 1874 and was raised in Oakland, California in a wealthy family. Her parents died when she was young, but her older brother successfully invested the family money and sent money to the siblings. Gertrude attended Radcliffe and...
It’s taken me days to recover from the realization that I missed that this book purported to be written by one of the characters as her M.F.A. thesis. I only learned about that from talking to Jennifer when I had just finished the book. I listened to the beginning of the book again and yes, right at the beginning it says it was written by Robbie for her thesis. One of her motivations was to...
I learned about this book on a reading blog I have consulted for years, Tony’s Book World. I am sad to say it was Tony’s last entry before he died last summer. Tony worked in the world of computers, lived in Wisconsin, and was a great reader. I was emboldened by his writing to read much more ambitiously than I would have otherwise; I credit him with making me willing to read books that left me...
Initially I found this book to be a bit preachy with its earnest messages, but I was won over by the author’s unique life and her willingness to face the great complexities of life that affect us all. And of course she could write about those complex issues with clarity. She was born in Korea and lived there her first five years. Her father, a multi-generational Tacoma-based Jewish man...
This is my third Mark Kurlansky book and I marvel at his enthusiasm for his subjects and for his love of factual information. And a firehose of information it was; this time he writes about “The Adventures of a Curious Man,” Bob Birdseye, the man associated with frozen food, for whom the Birds Eye brand of frozen vegetables is named. When I wrote about Kurlansky’s book Cod, I...
The subtitle of this non-fiction book is Ireland to India with a Bicycle and just reading it was exhausting. It’s hard to imagine someone could do this, but doing it in 1963 is truly amazing. I must resist the urge to recount all Dervla’s stories, but hope that a few of them will give the feel for how she coped with the challenges and what beauty and joy she found. To begin this epic...