Monthly Archives: February 2018

In “The Viceroy’s House”,  Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville of “Downton Abbey”) is dispatched to India to oversee the dissolution of the British Raj and establish an independent India.  Making a peaceful transition, however,  is no simple matter, given the sharp ethnic and … Continue reading →

“The Snowman” is a gritty crime novel based on a story by Jo Nesbo.  When an adolescent disappears, detective Harry Hole ( Michael Fassbender) recalls a connection to an unsolved case bearing a similar marker–a snowman left at the scene of … Continue reading →

In “Goodbye Christopher Robin”, A. A.  Milne finds artistic inspiration in his son’ Christopher’s toys, creating the magical world of Pooh.  The stories strike a popular nerve after the grimness of a world war, but celebrity threatens the family’s peace. “Battle … Continue reading →

These cozy tales are a little bit silly and a little bit sappy, and breeze right on by.  In “Sill Me” by Jojo Moyes, Louisa Clark (“Me Before You”) moves to New York., eager to start a new life.  To her … Continue reading →

Here are the latest DVDs for those seeking entertainment for the holiday weekend. “The Snowman” is a gritty crime novel based on a story by Jo Nesbo.   “Tulip Fever”, a painter falls in love with the married woman whose portrait … Continue reading →

 “The Line Becomes a River” by Francisco Cantu is a border guard’s impressions on the hard realities of policing the frontier between the US and Mexico.  “South and West” by Joan Didion recounts her impressions from her travel notebooks  In … Continue reading →

A More Beautiful and Terrible History by Jeanne Theoharris offers a reappraisal of the civil rights movement, adding depth and nuance to the familiar outline presented in PBS documentaries and films like Selma.  We learn that Rosa Parks not simply … Continue reading →

The broad outlines of the Holocaust are generally known, but these two books offer a deeper understanding.    Anatomy of a Genocide by Omer Barton shows how mass killing can take root among neighbors.  The village of Buczacz  in western Ukraine … Continue reading →

In Need to Know by Karen Cleveland, CIA analyst CIA analyst Vivian Miller Vivian and her team is working to crack a system used Russian sleeper agents used to keep in contact.  As she navigates through the hacked computer of … Continue reading →

These two twisted debuts will be sure to keep you guessing.   In The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn, a psychologist gripped by a crippling agoraphobia hasn’t left her Manhattan townhouse in more than 11 months. When she’s … Continue reading →