by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 21, 2021 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Just River by Sara B. Fraser is a novel about hopeless people in Wattsville, a small upstate New York town. Once a place with a booming factory, it’s now slower and sadder. It’s the kind of town people leave as soon as they can. And yet, Carol raised her daughter...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 10, 2021 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Wish You Were Here, to be released in late November by Jodi Picoult, is a pandemic novel. But it’s also so much more. It’s about the necessity of malleable hopes and dreams, whether we want to adjust or not. It focuses on one relatively young, upwardly mobile couple...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 5, 2021 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
City of Time and Magic gives Paula Brackston a chance to resolve the cliffhanger from her last book in the Found Things series. And in true Brackston fashion, the resolution includes history, magic, time travel, and a little romance. Our favorite time traveler,...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 30, 2021 | LEARN: Chronic Illness
Dr. MeiLan Han transfers years of knowledge as a lung doctor, or pulmonologist, to the printed word in her upcoming book Breathing Lessons: A Doctor’s Guide to Lung Health. With this book, she offers explanations of many lung-related conditions including asthma,...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 2, 2021 | RELAX: Historical Fiction
The Vanished Days by Susanna Kearsley is historical fiction set in both Edinburgh and Leith, Scotland. The time periods vary from the late 1600s to the early 1700s, which both included the famous and oft-chronicled Jacobite uprisings. It’s a story of a young woman and...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 11, 2021 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Catriona Ward takes an unsettling angle on horror in her upcoming book, The Last House on Needless Street. (Expected publication date is September 28, 2021.) Ted is a loner to the extreme. He’s got partial custody of his daughter Lauren and enjoys the company of his...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 7, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else
Douglas Abrams teams up with Jane Goodall to co-create The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. It’s a record of their conversations about hope, and focuses primarily on Goodall’s four reasons to be hopeful. Abrams is a skilled interviewer and captures the...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 3, 2021 | RESIST: Social Justice
Jarrett Adams tells his alternately inspiring and maddening story in Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System. At 17, he attended a college party with two of his buddies. Before the night was out, they had...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 24, 2021 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Silvia Moreno-Garcia combines noir detective style, vampire action, and Aztec legends in her upcoming reissue, Certain Dark Things. The supernatural mythology is compelling and her characters, human and otherwise, are unique. I’ve read eleventy million vampire books,...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 15, 2021 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Stephen Graham Jones (SGJ) is a prolific writer, delving deep into the horror genre. His 2021 entry to the canon is My Heart is a Chainsaw. (Anticipated publication on August 31.) In it, 17-year-old Jade Daniels is a rabid fan of slasher films. She’s watched them all...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 19, 2021 | LEARN: Medical Memoir
Renée Nicholson writes about two different parts of her life in Fierce and Delicate: Essays on Dance and Illness. Initially, she’s the young dancer making sense of competition, instructor corrections, and visions of the future. As the essays progress, Nicholson...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 6, 2021 | RELAX: Mystery-Thriller
The Maidens from Alex Michaelides is an erudite, binge-worthy mystery. Set in Cambridge, England among ivy-covered buildings many centuries old, it draws from Greek tragedy and mythology. But the murders at the story’s heart are definitely in the here and now. It’s...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 7, 2021 | RELAX: Memoir
Angela Howard is a brave woman. Her memoir, Sin Child, shows that she achieved this character trait because she survived. Oh my, what she survived. And in the process, she clearly developed some serious internal strength. Nobody could beat it out of her, though God...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 26, 2021 | RELAX: Mystery-Thriller
When the new book from Jean Hanff Korelitz, called The Plot, arrived on my doorstep, I dove right in. Even though it isn’t due to publish until May 2021, I just couldn’t wait. I have a thing for books about authors and the craft of writing. Especially when, like this...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 31, 2021 | RELAX: Memoir
Erin French details how she reached success in her upcoming memoir Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch. (Available early April 2021.) It’s not a straight A to Z path, but one that goes backwards, forwards, and even sideways. Of course,...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 14, 2021 | RELAX: Other Relaxation
Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour is many things—racial justice commentary, social satire about the sales industry, debut novel, and maybe even a morality play. But at its heart, it’s a good story with a compelling main character who indeed sold his ideas effectively to...
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