Monthly Archives: July 2017

The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grant Ginder (Driver’s Education), which takes family dysfunction to its hysterical limit. I Need a Lifeguard Everywhere but the Pool by Lisa Scottoline offers laugh-aloud moments form the author’s event calendar.  In … Continue reading →

The Rusted Sun by Michael Zimmer takes a spin on the lone-hero-saves-town motif.  In The Long Hitch, also by Zimmer, a trail hand seeks revenge on the men who gunned down his boss.

There’s nothing like an unsolved cases to get a mystery-reader’s blood pumping.  In Knife Creek by Paul Doiron, feral pigs uncover the remains of a girl missing from a rafting trip. In The Child by Fiona Barton, the skeleton of … Continue reading →

In Secrets of the Tulip Sisters by Susan Mallery, the return of a wayward sibling psets life down on the (tulip) farm.  The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson offers more sisterly drama, southern-style.  Beach House for Rent by Mary Alice … Continue reading →

Rising up the bestseller is House of Spies by Daniel Silva. In it, Gabriel Allon and his team head to the South of France where a wealthy businessman is financing terrorism. In The Late Show by Michael Connelley, a detective gets stuck … Continue reading →

UPS was by on Wednesday with a big box of books.  Inside were westerns by Michael Zimmer, romantic suspense by Lisa Jackson and Suzanne Brockmann, summer drama by Susan Mallory and Mary Alice Monroe, psychological thrills by Mary Kubica, humor … Continue reading →

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is Arundhati Roy’s first novel in 20 (God of Small Things).  It is worth the wait: this is a “humane, engaged tale” about an outcast and a privileged journalist who both claim custody over an … Continue reading →

  In Huê 1968, Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) recounts the counter-attack against the NVA Tet Offensive.  A Great Place to have a War by Joshua Kurlantzick is an account of the CIA’s secret war in Laos.  Autumn of the … Continue reading →

   Join us over the noon hour this Wednesday to talk about The Zookeepers Wife by Diane Ackerman.  This is a true story about Dr. Jan Żabiński  and his wife Antonina (pictured), who used their station in the Warsaw zoo … Continue reading →

In The Zookeepers Wife, a zoo becomes a sanctuary during a time of war. A United Kingdom is the true story of a South African ruler and an English woman who broke the color line. The Silence by Martin Scorsese … Continue reading →