Reader’s Reviews

This month’s review is by Tom Tomlinson Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II By Richard Reeves FDR’s famous declaration that the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor was a day that would live in infamy anticipated a less-well remembered, but powerfully consequential act aimed at Japanese […]

This month’s review is by Catherine Adde Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal By Greg Renoff Recently I attended a book signing at Vroman’s in Pasadena, in a standing room only crowd of my contemporaries, many of them Pasadena High School classmates. Greg Renoff, along with legendary rock and

This month’s review is by Richard Bellikoff Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life By Donald J. Trump Unless you’ve been marooned on a remote island, this author needs no introduction. He claims that “if you absorb only ten percent of the wisdom in this book, you’ll

This month’s review is by Tom Tomlinson The Geography of Bliss By Eric Weiner Had it with Southern California living? Searching for a happy place to be? Don’t leave home in search of a happier place without first reading Weiner’s book. Billing himself as a “Grump”—this former NPR journalist is skeptical about notions of happiness.

This month’s review is by Catherine Adde Atonement By Ian McEwan Stokesay Court is the name of a grand country house in England, and the subject of my Master’s thesis: a marketing plan for Caroline Magnus, who inherited the estate. The plan’s recommendation focused on attracting lucrative offers from location managers and movie companies to

This month’s review is by Richard Bellikoff Terrorist By John Updike If you’re freaking out about ISIS, this novel will give you no solace. But if you want to know what might drive someone to become a jihadi terrorist, this is the book for you. Set in New Jersey, it tells the story of a

This month’s review is by Tom Tomlinson Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles By Jared Orsi Here’s a book for our parched southern California time: it’s about rain, too much rain; it’s about floods and the region’s now century-long efforts to harness excessive, disobedient rainfalls and the property-destroying, life extinguishing floods. In

This month’s review is by Catherine Adde In the Woods by Tana French The Sierra Madre Library has had in the past an adult mystery reading program, and so I wanted to read this tense page turner from a talented voice and relatively new mystery author. One summer day in the 1980s on the outskirts

This month’s review is by Catherine Adde Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen It’s wonderful when a movie based on a book is well done. In this case, I much preferred the book! This big, atmospheric tale is told by ninety-three year old Jacob Jankowski and flicks back and forth between the present day, where

This month’s review is by Richard Bellikoff Life by Keith Richards Scrawled on the inside jacket flap of this autobiography is a handwritten message from the author: “This is the life. Believe it or not, I haven’t forgotten any of it.” Apparently he hasn’t. It’s all here, including his youthful passion for rock ‘n’ roll