Monthly Archives: November 2015

 Four new stories using the past for imaginative inspiration.  Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams. The sale of a vintage Mercedes sedan in the 1960s reveals secrets about a dangerous WW2 romance.  The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro (The Art Forger).  The discovery of … Continue reading →

An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea by Patrick Taylor. This prequel reveals doctor Fingal O’Reilly’s coming of age. Stars of Fortune by Nora Roberts. All about “ancient mysteries and timeless love.”

The Crossing by Micheal Connelly. Ex-cop Harry Bosch and lawyer Mickey Haller defend a client who has been framed for murder.  These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly. An aspiring reporter explores the not-so accidental circumstances of her father’s death. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King. … Continue reading →

Ta-Nehisi Coates won the National Book Award for nonfiction Wednesday night for “Between the World and Me,” his “visceral, blunt exploration of his experience of being a black man in America (NYT).”

Twain and Stanley Enter Paradise by the late Oscar Hijuelos is an “absorbing and luminous” novel about the friendship between Twain and British explorer Henry David Stanley. As the story unfolds, they meet up while working on a Mississippi riverboat, two aspiring writers … Continue reading →

Colum McCann‘s “superbly crafted” novella Thirteen Ways of Looking is a “deeply moving” work of  fiction (Kirkus Reviews).  The story’s protagonist is an aging judge. He has just had dinner with his disappointing son when he’s assaulted on the street, just beyond the … Continue reading →

In Alloy of Law, author Brandon Sanderson returns to Scadrial, the scene of his well-regarded Mistborn trilogy, but casts his action forward three hundred years. Electric lights now illuminate the  streets and buildings soar into the skies. But in the frontier lands known as … Continue reading →

“America’s Bank”  by Roger Lowenstein tells how our Federal Reserve system came into being. At the start of the 20th century, the U.S. was the world’s sole industrialized nation to lack a central banking system.   In this unregulated banking system, says … Continue reading →

In Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty, author Dan Jones contends that the great charter was an unwanted child born of circumstance. England in 1215 was disarray.  King Richard Lionheart, had drained the treasury in his middle eastern wars and alienated his barons.  When his brother John … Continue reading →

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson.  When the younger sister of John F. Kennedy exhibited developmental delays, the family first tried to present her as  normal. In her twenties, her father, fearing  embarrassment, had her lobotomized.   Her story  should appeal not … Continue reading →