Search within this blog
Categories
Category Archives: adult
The King’s Deception – Steve Berry
Gary Malone is one angry teenager. Not surprising, considering his mother has just revealed that he’s the result of an affair. That the man he has always called “Dad” isn’t really his dad. His mother has refused to tell him … Continue reading
Posted in adult, highly recommend, mystery
Cotton Tenants: Three Families – James Agee, photographs by Walker Evans
In the summer of 1936 James Agee, then a staff writer for Fortune magazine, was commissioned to write an article on sharecroppers in Alabama. He and Walker Evans, a staff photographer, spent two months observing three families, chronicling every aspect … Continue reading
Posted in adult, nonfiction
Tagged US - 1930s
The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code – Margalit Fox
British archeologist Arthur Evans was convinced that Mycenaean society was too advanced to be without writing, but no firm evidence had emerged. Clues began to point him toward Crete, and he eventually chose Knossos, the seat of Minos’ empire, for … Continue reading
Posted in adult, nonfiction
Tagged Bronze Age, cryptology, Crete
The Boleyn King: A Novel – Laura Andersen
On a summer’s night in 1536 a rush of falling stars accompanied the birth of a prince, Anne Boleyn’s healthy baby boy. Now, seventeen years later King Henry IX, known to his family as William, is impatiently entering the last … Continue reading
Posted in adult, historical fiction
Tagged alternate fiction, Tudors
For Adam’s Sake: A Family Saga in Colonial New England – Allegra di Bonaventura
Joshua Hempstead of New London, Connecticut was a rather ordinary man and lived a rather ordinary life in the first half of the 18th century. But he did an extraordinary thing. For nearly forty-seven years he kept a diary, dutifully … Continue reading
Posted in adult, nonfiction
Tagged Colonial New England, 1700s
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena – Anthony Marra
When she was only eight years old, Havaa’s father instructed her to pack her suitcase and have it ready, should she need to leave in a hurry. So when the pounding on the front door began he gave her the … Continue reading
Posted in adult, highly recommend
Tagged Chechnya
The Golden Egg – Donna Leon
Davide was quietly in the background, doing simple tasks for the local dry-cleaners in the San Polo area of Venice. Deaf and mildly mentally challenged, he was a sweet boy. No one knew his name; they just called him the … Continue reading
Posted in adult, mystery
Tagged Brunetti series, Venice
Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond – John Joseph Adams and Doublas Cohen (editors)
Oh boy, this was fun! What a delightful collection of tales from the Oz I remember, from an Oz that might have been, and from a completely impossible Oz. Fifteen of today’s best fantasy authors contributed to this anthology, providing all … Continue reading
Fever: A Novel – Mary Beth Keane
Her grandmother taught her how to make griddle cakes and brown bread, to make salmon with butter and cream, to tuck turnips and potatoes around the meat. And it was her grandmother who bought her a one way trip to … Continue reading
Posted in adult, biography
Tagged typhoid fever
The Mapmaker’s War: A Legend – Ronlyn Domingue
Aoife was a wild child. At least that’s what the nursemaid said. Her mother tried to tame her, make her into a child of her image. Her father loved her just as she was. He was the King’s most trusted … Continue reading
Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World – Matthew Goodman
Nellie Bly was a daring undercover reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York newspaper, The World. She had exposed the dreadful treatment in an insane asylum, worked in a paperbox factory, sought treatment in a medical clinic for the poor, trained … Continue reading
Posted in adult, adventure, nonfiction
Tagged Elizabeth Bisland, Nellie Bly
The Lady and her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley’s Masterpiece – Roseanne Montillo
The night of August 30, 1797, was stormy, with a dramatic display of thunder and lightning. It is fitting, then, that this night also saw the birth of Mary Godwin, for Mary Godwin Shelley led a stormy and unconventional life. … Continue reading
Posted in adult, nonfiction
Tagged Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
A Week in Winter – Maeve Binchy
No one had ever called her Geraldine. She had always been Chicky. The youngest of a large brood of Ryans, her job had been to care for the hens. Stoneybridge, on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, was a wonderful place … Continue reading
Posted in adult
Rushing to Paradise – J. G. Ballard
The French are considering a nuclear test on Saint-Esprit Island. In order to facilitate the building of a runway, albatross nests have been destroyed and birds were killed by the hundreds. Dr. Barbara’s mission in life, at least for now, … Continue reading
Posted in adult
Tagged environmentalism, utopia
All Standing: The Remarkable Story of the Jeanie Johnston, the Lendendary Irish Famine Ship – Kathryn Miles
Nicholas Reilly always gave his place of birth as The Atlantic Ocean. He was born on Easter Sunday the day his vessel, the Jeanie Johnston, embarked on its maiden voyage to North America. That he and his family and all … Continue reading
Posted in adult, historical fiction
Tagged 1847-185, Irish Emigrant Ship
