Before her epic Icelandic journey begins, Valerie Tobruk is first a toll collector, a job that is often hidden in plain sight. While Valerie enjoys her short interactions with her customers and even forms relationships with her regulars, most just pass right through her booth and pay her no time of day. In this way, Valerie is both deeply part of the world and tucked away from it, a dichotomy that seems a perfect fit for her personality.
Read MoreIn the early 1920s, the American soldiers who had survived the brutal trench warfare had returned from the Great War in Europe. They returned to their homes and to new lives in a rapidly urbanizing country. Except some people lived a rural existence, not much different than the lives of their parents before them. And some of those same people had spent the war deep underground in a coal mine.
Read MorePart thriller, part exploration of contemporary race issues in America, part mirror to our online selves, this novel is all heart and hard to put down. I tore through While We Were Burning in about two sittings in the course of 24 hours and found myself fascinated by the characters and the story. The tale is perhaps a tad melodramatic at times near the end, but it hovers in the realm of believable in the way that our online selves have created a society where there is more melodrama.
Read MoreOrphaned, alone, and working to survive, life has been rough for Annabel until her fortune changes with a chance meeting with lawyer George Craig. George has newly arrived from big city Knoxville and is educated, intellectually curious, and immediately smitten with Annabel. After a whirlwind romance that seems almost too good to be true, they settle in to a nice home with neighbors that Annabel befriends. For the first time, she is exposed to a middle/upper-middle class existence in her rural town of Dayton, Tennessee.
Read MoreThe Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese - In a small town in India, one family has a curse where each generation will lose one person to a drowning death. Sometimes they drown in rivers, sometimes in small puddles of water. It is from this unlikely starting point that this epic novel takes flight over multiple generations that confront class struggles, medical mysteries and ailments, loss and love, all against the backdrop of the medical industry in India and eventually a salvation.
Read MoreThe Woman with No Name by Audrey Blake is an engaging, well-paced story that was hard to put down. Set in World War II, the novel follows the true story of Yvonne Rudellat’s heroic and brave efforts to undermine the Germans in Vichy France by joining the world of espionage.
Read MoreI added twelve more books to my 2023 reading list in May and June: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, The Giver by Lois Lowry, Named of the Dragon by Susanna Kearsley, The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World by Patrik Svensson, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and many more!.
Read MoreThere are certain surface parallels between author Dominic Smith and his main character, Hugh. Like Smith, Hugh is an academic, enchanted by the crumbling Italian towns and has traveled to Valetto as part of a research effort. But Hugh has not picked just any Italian town; he comes from a long line of local inhabitants and plans to work on his academic research from the small, Medieval cottage in Valetto that his mom left to him as his inheritance.
Read MoreAs soon as I saw the title of *Close Your Eyes: A Fairy Tale* I was intrigued. What hooked me was the term 'fairy tale,' making me reflect about how rarely that term is used in contemporary fiction, even when the foundational elements are employed.
Read MoreAfter a slow-down in March, I picked up the pace and read a total of 19 books over the course of March and April in total, getting me a couple of books ahead of schedule again.
Read MoreThe ten short stories that comprise Sabina Murray’s latest work, Muckross Abbey and Other Stories, range in length from 16 to 34 pages, which means that each is bite-sized and a quick read. I quickly discovered that as I wrapped up each tale, I immediately wanted to move straight into the next and read the entire book in just a few short sittings before bed (more on that later).
Read MoreCrooked Plow begins with the curiosity of two young sisters going awry. Belonisia and Bibiana, enamored by a shiny knife they find tucked away in luggage under a bed, decide to explore the taste of the metal. They wonder: Will it taste like a spoon? This activity is as ill-fated as it sounds with both receiving serious injuries to their tongues, rendering one essentially mute for life.
Read MoreThe Appalachian Trail is established and well-known, perhaps making its greatest foray into general consciousness a quarter century ago with Bill Bryson’s 1997 tome *A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail*. I have lived in the shadow - or the dust, as it were - of the trail for about 30 years with sections running close to several places I’ve lived in Virginia.
Read MoreFebruary added 7 more books to the 8 completed in January, putting me on track!
Read MoreBenedict Arnold: It is a name that is immediately recognizable to most in the U.S. If you were to poll people about what they know about him, most would probably immediately describe him as a traitor and would hopefully also realize that the historic moment he was affiliated with was the American Revolution. Beyond that scratch on the surface of history, probably most people would come up blank with anything else to share about Benedict Arnold.
Read MoreI listened to the audiobook version of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Widsom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, read by the author herself, in what has to be one of the most soothing voices I have ever heard. Combining her voice with the content of the book itself, I found Braiding Sweetgrass to have a meditative quality, relaxing me the same in a way similar to when I listen to audio-guided meditation sessions.
Read MoreThe first story opens in the Place des Vosges, the first planned square in Paris, where Victor Hugo resided in the 19th century. His home, situated in the southeastern corner of the square, is a museum open to visitors. The ghost of Victor Hugo appears in the square and engages in humorous dialogue with a former teacher of his works. Thus begins Redkina’s romp around the city.
Read MoreWith a title like Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth, I was both intrigued and wary of a tome on the supernatural. Having read a prior well-researched book by the academic author, though, I cracked open the first page ready to go wherever Brown decided to tred.
Read MoreI’ve read 8 books, which means I’m on track. This does not give me great comfort - I like to start the year off further ahead!
Read MoreGil has decided it is time to make a change in his life and so, sight unseen, he purchases a home in Arizona and heads out - on foot - from New York. After months of walking across the country with long, desolate roads, truck stop food and truck stop companions, he arrives at his new home in the Arizona desert, a home he later nicknames “the castle”.
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