You’ll have heard of this book because of the awards it won in 2020, including the Booker Prize. This story of a young boy growing up with an alcoholic mother in 1980s Glasgow is worth the read. It’s dark, but once I finished it, I missed the characters. By the time you finish it, Shuggie…
I loved the first book by Knecht, Who is Vera Kelly? so I was very happy to receive a review copy of its sequel. These books combine a couple of things I really love – a complicated main character, a mystery, and the history and politics of other countries. In the first novel, heroine Vera…
The Great Believers was heartbreaking, but so good and very worth reading. I realize that reading a book about the AIDS crisis in the 80s isn’t a light read, but I feel like it’s really important to understand. It’s also a book for anyone who likes a long, layered, multi-generational story. Makkai tells this story…
I was recently in Chile and heard and saw a lot related to the Pinochet regime. We were told the country is still very divided amongst people who lived through that era. So S. R. Wilsher’s book, The Glass Diplomat, was particularly interesting. The Glass Diplomat is told from the perspective of Charlie Norton, who…
This book wasn’t what I expected but I appreciated Stefanovic’s unique perspective. I especially liked that this book gave me a much better understanding of what happened in Serbia in the 1990’s, with a focus more on the politics of Slobodan Milosevic’s reign. I’ve read other books, like Girl At War and The Unquiet Dead,…
I was excited to read this novel about Budapest by Jessica Keener. Annie and Will are a young American couple who take a leap of faith and move to Budapest with their infant child. Will has a business venture which he’s struggling to get off the ground, and Annie is wrestling with her doubts about…
The Sympathizer is a first novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, which won last year’s Pulitzer Prize for literature. It’s a fascinating look at the Vietnam War and its aftermath from the perspective of the Vietnamese. Right away it makes you realize how much Americans only see the Vietnam War from our own perspective, not those…
I read this book for the Read Around the World challenge, where a specific country is selected for each month. May’s selection was Colombia. Vasquez is a noted author in Colombia, having won numerous awards, primarily for this novel and for The Informants. He studied law in Bogotá, Colombia and studied literature in Paris at…
This was a really interesting novel about a real-life serial killer in Scotland in the 1950’s. I say interesting because it wasn’t quite like anything else I’ve read. It’s not a mystery or a thriller, or a true crime novel. It’s a little closer to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, although I hesitate to compare…
Part of my Reading All Around the World Challenge, this is a book written by a chef in the U.S. who was born in Iran. Café Leila tells the story of an Iranian family that experiences terrifying changes in the country after the revolution and establishment of the Islamic Republic in the early 1980’s. The…
I love T.C. Boyle because he takes really interesting true life events and people, and he always spins them into a fascinating story. I learn a ton from his books because he makes real events so memorable. At times he takes his characters a bit over the top, and this was true in this book…
I want to say I loved this book, but it was a little difficult for me to relate to, even though it’s well written and has important themes. Still, maybe this isn’t the kind of book you love. It’s more a book you read to increase your knowledge of the world. Sophie is a young…
I read, breathe, and live in bookish worlds.
Book Reviews & The Written Word
"Books are a uniquely portable magic" - Stephen King
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"She had read novels while other people perused the Sunday papers" - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
A Classic Literature Journey
Thoughts on Literature, Expressing Creativity, Being Authentic
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