Reader’s Reviews

This month’s review is by Richard BellikoffThe Trees By Percival Everett After decades of critical acclaim for his writing, Percival Everett finally hit the jackpot, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel James. Since I never judge a book by its cover or a writer’s work by just one book, I decided to […]

This month’s review is by Catherine Addé Books for Cooks: Several Reviews for Your Reading and Cooking Pleasure It’s summer and my mind turns to two things: recipes for summer and the delights of vacation travel and/or recipes from abroad. First up is this one: Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes By Jeanne Kelley Recipes from

READER’S REVIEW This month’s review is by Renee Kahl The Mighty Red By Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich, author of twenty-nine novels and countless short stories, has been a major indigenous literary voice since 1984. She is known for her strong Ojibwa consciousness, weaving magical realism from tribal sacred stories throughout her fiction, and for strong

This month’s review is by Tom Tomlinson Cry Wilderness By Frank Capra If the name Frank Capra is new to you or you can’t recall in what context you know the name, I recommend that you don’t read this book; instead go to the Capra film file and check out any two of his 1930s

This month’s review is by Richard Bellikoff Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem I’m from Queens, but Brooklyn is just a short ride away via the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. That thoroughfare and others are the locations of a long car chase scene that opens this novel, culminating in the murder of a small-time mobster who has recruited

This month’s review is by Richard Bellikoff The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine By Michael Lewis “In Bakersfield, California, a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $724,000.” This excerpt from the book describes an all-too-common situation in the

This month’s review is by Tom Tomlinson Alan Furst’s Spy Novels Wondering what to read on Summer vacation? How about one or all ten of Alan Furst’s spy novels? Furst’s works are set throughout Europe between January 1933 and May 1945, years that framed the beginning and end of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich. Bad times

This month’s review is by Tom Tomlinson The Swerve: How the World Became Modern By Stephen Greenblatt If you like the idea that an idea can reshape how we think about the world, then this is your kind of read: indeed, The Swerve is a book about a book, its unlikely discovery after nearly 1000

This month’s review is by Renee Kahl Born a Crime By Trevor Noah Race is an artificial construct. This idea is not new, but Trevor Noah’s South African childhood during and immediately post-apartheid (he was 10 when it officially ended) is the ultimate illustration of it. Born to a black Zulu mother and white Swiss-German

This month’s review is by Richard Bellikoff My Lunches with Orson Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles Edited by Peter Biskind Last October marked the centennial of Orson Welles’ birth. Too bad the guest of honor couldn’t attend the celebration, having died in 1985. Fortunately, he left behind more than the movies he wrote,