High Stakes: A Wild Cards Novel George R. R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass, editors Tor Books Release Date: August 30, 2016 ISBN 978-0-7653-3562-3 In 1983, author George R. R. Martin was given a birthday gift: SuperWorld, a roleplaying game. For two years, he and his Albuquerque gaming circle obsessed […]
Shadowshaper Daniel José Older Arthur A. Levine Books Release Date: June 30, 2015 ISBN 978-0-545-59161-4 I am not a teenager (nowhere near). I am not Puerto Rican (or even a person of color). I am not a native New Yorker (been there quite a few times, but never longer than […]
The National Book Critics Circle has announced the finalists for their 2015 awards, as well as the recipients of three annual awards. Take a look! AUTOBIOGRAPHY The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick Bettyville by George Hodgman Negroland by Margo […]
The Gates of Evangeline Hester Young G. P. Putnam’s Sons Release Date: September 1, 2015 ISBN 978-0-399174-001 It’s a compelling story. A woman is haunted by the sudden death of her young son. That it was from “natural causes” does not assuage mother’s grief, ease the sudden emptiness, blunt the […]
There are quite a few memorable first sentences in literature: “Call me Ishmael.” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Or, my […]
The Only Ones Carola Dibbell Two Dollar Radio Release Date: March 10, 2015 ISBN 978-1-937512-27-9 Books where you “hear” the story through the “voice” of the main character are a dime a dozen. Books where that voice seems to actually belong to someone real are rare, but author Carola Dibbell […]
10:04 Ben Lerner Faber and Faber Release Date: September 2, 2014 ISBN 978-0-86547-810-7 It’s not very often that I recommend a book where very little happens. I’ve got to admit that I like a book with at least a little action; I can take a lot of philosophizing, musing, and […]
The Girls at the Kingfisher Club Genevieve Valentine Atria Books Release Date: June 3, 2014 ISBN 978-1-4767-3908-3 “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” may not be the most well known of the Brothers Grimm’s German fairy tales. The story of a king trying to solve the mystery of how twelve princesses of […]
Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line Michael Gibney Ballantine Books Release Date: April 3, 2014 ISBN 978-0-8041-7788-7 I recently read an article on FirstWeFeast.com, where some of the country’s finest chefs were asked to name what they thought were the most influential restaurants in the United States today. Although […]
There’s something about settings of the past that just grabs us. We love the escapist notion of absolutely disappearing into a world unfamiliar and uncertain to us. Historical fiction does that and sometimes, when we are so lost in the mines of the mountains, in the exotic tragedies of 16th […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.