CategoryOther Reviews

I am a fan of this author and have read four of his books that I find very clever and quite fun. My favorite was the first one I read, The President’s Hat, that tells a tale of François Mitterrand’s hat changing the lives of the people who happened to have it for a time. I read this one because I discovered it is in the public library. The Portrait is narrated by a man who works as an...

It was the review in Reading Matters that took me to this book and the author’s focus on the importance of precise language that kept me reading. The main character is a translator at “the Court” in the Hague, an unnamed international court that brings charges against those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. She had left New York after her father died...

After Percival Everett’s visit to the book festival here in Charlottesville, I heard from Laura that she she was moved to read this book and liked it very much. Knowing that it was a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, I decided reacquaint myself with that story especially after she added that there was a notable surprise change in the story. What I did was less reading than skimming. It was as...

This one will certainly be on my list of favorites for the year. The story is set in 1910 and 1921 in Malaysia and is told in the style of Somerset Maugham’s stories from that location, and is written by a person whose ethnic group was on the receiving end of the racism of the British. While the casual racism and homophobia of the characters are apparent, they become fully human. The story...

Sally is a young woman who returns to the small village in England where she grew up when she finds herself “on the rocks.” The book was published in 1915; the war had put an end to her adventures in Paris. It was in response to a letter from a troublemaker in Little Crampton suggesting she could marry Mr. Bingley, the stodgy bank manager, that she returns to the home of her guardian...

I have previously read two books by the Irish writer David Park and think frequently of one of them, Travelling in a Strange Land. Though I don’t remember where I read about this one, I knew it was about an American CIA operative in Vietnam at the very end of the war and some consequent events 40 years later. Mike describes himself as a “prairie boy” whose family was mainstream...