The Whole Town’s Talking When I taught creative writing, I always urged my students to think about audience. “Who will want to read what you
VICTORIA THE QUEEN: AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY OF THE WOMAN WHO RULED AN EMPIRE The inevitable question I am asked: is the TV series recently aired
ADULT BOOKSTORE – WHY POETRY TODAY? I love books, poetry, and bookstores (especially ones with used books). I write poetry, I read poetry, but I
A PIECE OF THE WORLD Any review of Christina Baker Kline’s novel, A Piece of the World, must begin with Andrew Wyeth’s masterpiece, “Christina’s World.”
THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON – A MORE TIMELY READ THAN EVER Totalitarian is an old-fashioned word but then the Democratic People’s Republic of [North] Korea
IN THE NAME OF THE FAMILY I am a great fan of historical novelist Sarah Dunant. When I wrote a “Bookin’ with Sunny” review of
GRANT After reading Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, I had some trepidation about opening his newest book, Grant. I didn’t think he could surpass Hamilton (see
LOVING ELEANOR AND WHITE HOUSES Blanche Wiesen Cook’s three-volume definitive biography of Eleanor Roosevelt inspired both Susan Wittig Albert and Amy Bloom to write novels
EDUCATED, A MEMOIR In 2014 at age twenty-seven, Idaho-born Tara Westover received a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University, UK. Remarkable? Yes. Made more remarkable
WHAT THE EYES DON’T SEE The contributions of immigrants to the articulation of and striving towards the “American Dream” are unassailable. Those contributions are still
THE PAINTER OF BATTLES A book worth reading is a book worth talking about, but not always. Arturo Pèrez-Reverte is Spain’s popular author of literary
KNOWN AND STRANGE THINGS If a picture is worth a thousand words, then my two photos of Teju Cole‘s collection of essays, Known and Strange
CASTE, MORE OF WILKERSON’S METICULOUS RESEARCH In Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson invites her readers to reconsider their inherent understanding of American
Facing the Wave, a Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami. Gretel Ehrlich faces the wave directly in her telling of A Journey in the
Yellow Bird, Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country – is freelance journalist Sierra Crane Murdoch’s deep dive into Native American
The Beekeeper of Aleppo gives voice to asylum seekers with compassion and complexity. People whose troubles we only thought we knew. Christy Lefteri’s novel The
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