by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 7, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Nikita Gill is a twenty-something poet, of British-Indian heritage. She’s an Instagram poet, which is a social media phenomenon of the our new century. And, as such, I’m not really her audience.But, since I read another of her books earlier this year, her publisher...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 10, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Lindsey Lee Johnson takes readers deep inside the high school ecosystem in The Most Dangerous Place on Earth. Actually, the first chapter occurs in eighth grade, but the remainder are during high school. Her main characters are students, and one first-year...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 6, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Max Porter takes grief and gives it the face of a crow in Grief is a Thing with Feathers. You think I mean figuratively. But no, in this prose poem slash novel, there is literally a Crow character. The less fantastical characters are a dad with two sons, whose mom and...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 19, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Pickle’s Progress is a quintessential modern New York City novel. In it, Marcia Butler gives us identical twin brothers and the women in their lives. But it’s much more dysfunctional and convoluted than that. Fundamentally, that’s a good thing. Butler’s taut...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 8, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
There There by Tommy Orange wasn’t the book I’d hoped it would be. Where Heart Berries was a deep dive in one woman’s psyche, There There is a shallow dip into the lives of many, many characters. That they both center on the varied experiences of Native Americans in...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 3, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
R.L. Maizes tells stories of discovery, haunting, and the everyday rhythms of life. Her writing is by turns eloquent, poignant, and groaningly funny. And her characters are as unique as you’ll find in contemporary short stories.Maizes’ tales feature teenagers, grown...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 16, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Gregory Erich Phillips takes on a main character very different from himself in The Exile. First, Leila del Sol is a woman. Second, she’s a Colombian immigrant living and working in Phoenix, Arizona. But they both work in the chaotic bubble-bursting mortgage loan...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 14, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Taylor Jenkins Reid creates an iconic—and entirely fictional—band in Daisy Jones & The Six. It’s set in the wild and wooly 1970s in California. Daisy is everybody’s spoiled little sister, and a singer songwriter. The band is six musicians trying to collectively...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 12, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Bel Canto, published in 2001 by Ann Patchett, is a melodic story of an extreme case of Stockholm Syndrome. It’s an elegant and meaningful exposition of kidnapping, but also of love. A group of businessmen, diplomats, and important people gather in an unnamed...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 17, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
In Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver mixes two story lines chapter by chapter. The first focuses on Willa Knox and her present-day family. The second focuses on Thatcher Greenwood, who lived in the same neighborhood as Willa in the 1870s. Both are faced with...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 12, 2019 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Like imaginative authors everywhere, Ella Carey based Paris Time Capsule on a real-life occurrence. In late 2010, a Paris apartment that had been uninhabited for 70 years was opened after its owner’s death. She had left Paris during World War II and never returned....
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 19, 2018 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Rebecca Makkai tells two intertwined stories in The Great Believers. One starts in 1980s Chicago, the other in 2015 Paris. Held within are the lives of two friends, Yale and Fiona, along with many others. In the mid-1980s, the world was just beginning to understand...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 11, 2018 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Robin Sloan creates a story of the intersection of capitalism, science, and magic in Sourdough. And there’s a little romance too. But certainly not in a traditional sense. Lois is a computer programmer. When she decides to leave her comfortable Midwest life for a...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 8, 2018 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Mary Kay Andrews offers us a pleasurable trip to Beach Town in this romancey, character-driven read. I’m not much of a “chick lit” or romance reader. But our #Booked2018 challenge includes a “beach read” prompt. So I decided to go literal and pick a book with “beach”...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 19, 2018 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Elizabeth Strout invites us to visit small-town Illinois in Anything is Possible. It’s like being the new guest at your sister-in-law’s summer picnic. You meet one person, and spend a little time together. When they’re done telling you a story, you’re spun among the...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 15, 2018 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
With her novel, A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara makes a beautiful piece of pottery. Then she drops it on the floor, where it shatters into pieces. Yet before the book finishes, Yanagihara has created what the Japanese call kintsugi. Kintsugi is the art of taking...
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