Publication Date September 12, 2023 I had not previously read anything by Kia Abdullah, but “legal thriller” is possibly my favorite genre, so I was happy to receive a copy of Perfectly Nice Neighbors from Penguin Group Putnam and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. The publisher’s blurb didn’t tell me much, other than …
Chicken Hill is a dilapidated residential area in Pottstown, Pennsylvania where immigrant Jews and African-Americans lived. In the early 1970s, workers were excavating in advance of building a new development, and were startled to find a skeleton. No one seems to know who it is or how it got there. A couple named Moshe and …
Publication Date June 15, 2021 Nathan Harris has written an amazing debut novel. The Sweetness of Water is set in a fictional Georgia town during the Reconstruction period just after the Civil War ended, with the main characters being a land-owning family and two brothers, recently freed from the neighboring plantation. George and Isabelle Walker …
I was in the mood for a character-driven novel, with strong women working to find out who they are, blah blah blah. Reading that Jeni McFarland’s book The House of Deep Water was reminiscent of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, and explored “… trauma, love, loss, and new beginnings found in a most unlikely place: …
The premise of Such a Fun Age attracted me: it sounded like it had a lot of potential to explore issues around white privilege, misogyny, racism, feminism, black fetishism, peer pressure…you get the idea. I figured it couldn’t do all that without turning into a polemic…surely the story would be lost? Seriously, it is Kiley …
What a great read! I had just read a blurb about The Guest Book by Sarah Blake when I received an ARC (thanks to Flatiron Books and NetGalley), and was totally in the mood for a multigenerational family saga. The family is the Miltons. The patriarch is Ogden who, along with his wife Kitty, totally …
I was REALLY looking forward to reading Hannah Pittard”s new book Invisible Empire. Thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley, I received a copy in exchange for this honest review. The book is based on the real-life crash of an Air France flight seconds into takeoff from Orly airport in Paris in 1962. 130 people …
I received a copy of Lisa Patton’s new book RUSH from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in return for my honest review. I thought it sounded like it would be light entertainment – what some call a “beach read.” Sounded perfect—I mean, I LIVE at the beach and with the crap going on in our …
Jake Tapper, CNN’s chief Washington Correspondent, has written The Hellfire Club, a political thriller set in Washington, D.C. the 1950s.The main character, Charlie Marder, has been appointed (thanks to his father’s political connections) to fill out the term of a Congressman representing a district in New York. Once there, Charlie dives in to his …
I remember the bare outlines of the Tawana Brawley case, when a young African-American girl was reportedly raped and beaten…this was around the time when there were well-publicized racist incidents in places like Howard Beach…and in my memory, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are always on the scene, outraged and speaking publicly at every opportunity. …
I haven’t read all of John Hart’s books, but the ones I have read have been terrific, so I was especially eager to read his latest, The Hush (thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley). This story happens to be a follow-up to The Last Child (2010 Edgar Award for Best Novel), which featured Johnny …
I can’t recommend this book highly enough. I love Matt Taibbi, so I admit to a preconceived bias toward this book. I went in wanting it to be good. And I thought I was familiar with the sad story of Freddie Gray, the African-American man shot as he was selling “loosies” (single cigarettes) in New …
I started a neighborhood book club a little over two years ago, not sure it would work out. The first book we read was Diane Chamberlain’s Necessary Lies, and it was a great choice: it was set in a small Southern town fifty or so years ago, it included social issues (mental illness, forced sterilizations, …
I remember a year or so ago when Justin Trudeau was asked a snarky question about quantum computing, and proceeded to explain it in language we could understand…and the whole concept of things being two things at once kind of blew my mind. “Things can be in two places at once. The coin is both …
Having both watched him for a few years on MSNBC and having read his work in The Nation, I love Chris Hayes, His earlier book Twilight of the Elites (called “a stunning polemic by Ta-Nehisi Coates), emphasized how out of touch America’s political leaders were with those they were elected to govern (and this was …
When I told a friend and former library co-worker that I liked Jodi Picoult’s books, she basically sniffed her disapproval – and our friendship was changed forever. I worked for several years in public libraries and tried not to be judgmental of people’s reading preferences, or to let the fact that someone thought Danielle Steel …