Reviews + Articles
The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny
Every year it becomes harder to summarize Louise Penny's exceptional books. While How the Light Gets In may have represented a culmination of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache's fight against good and evil, even in retirement in Three Pines, he continues to take part...
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
If you follow my blog regularly, you know I read for entertainment, no matter what I'm reading. But, I picked up Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me because it appeared on a bookstore's list for the subject "Black Lives Matter." This forthright...
Find the Good by Heather Lende
I cried over Heather Lende's earlier book, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name. Her stories about the people of Haines, Alaska, and the obituaries she writes for the Chilkat Valley News are so full of heart, full of love and caring. She's honest about her own...
Winners and a Les Roberts Giveaway
Congratulations to the winners of the last contest. Anita Y. of Barnesville, GA won Linda Castillo's After the Storm. Linda R. from Dickinson, TX will receive Donis Casey's Hell with the Lid Blown Off. This week, Les Roberts' publicist sent four copies of his...
Browsings by Michael Dirda
It feels a little odd to discuss a book by a critic who writes essays about reviewing books. It reminds me of those old cartoons about a TV scene inside an identical TV scene inside another identical TV scene. I don't really need to review a book by Michael Dirda....
Plantation Shudders by Ellen Byron
The other day, a friend referred to her reading, and said sometimes nothing is as satisfying as "death and mayhem". She's right. And, when that death and mayhem happens in a debut mystery, a mystery in which I don't guess the killer, there isn't anything more...