In today’s parlance, Noah Barleywater Runs Away, John Boyne’s return to children’s literature, is a Pinocchio knockoff with a delightful, yet serious, 21st century tone.
Ask any young person today if they know what vaudeville is and the closest they might come is to guess it’s a new online website
When Did You See Her Last? All the Wrong Questions To stop publishing Lemony Snicket—now that would be an unfortunate event. Fortunately, Little, Brown and
Wiles’ debut novel, Care of Wooden Floors, is laugh-out-loud, tear-making, hysterically funny. It is also mortifyingly funny as it is easy to identify with some
There’s something strangely familiar about Dan Simmons’ Drood. In mid-nineteenth century England Charles Dickens and William Wilkie Collins were successful writers and good friends. They
READING JOURNAL NO. 12 – BIJOU, THE GEM BENEATH TAHOE DARK. Todd Borg, a resident of South Lake Tahoe, is the author of the award-winning Owen
ANTHEM FOR A BURNISHED LAND: WHAT WE LEAVE IN THIS DESERT OF WORK AND WORDS Sitting alongside the Little Walker River last weekend, contemplating Nevada’s
WIDOW A classic cast of characters populates Sara Dahmen’s novel, Widow. The naïve easterner, a winsome heroine headed West for reasons revealed only piecemeal as
WHEN WOMEN RULED THE WORLD Kara Cooney, author of When Women Ruled the World, characterizes her book as one of “my little Egyptological ventures in
MCPHERSON THREE: MEASURE OF BRIMSTONE; QUIET NEIGHBORS; SCOT FREE Hoping to introduce myself to an unfamiliar mystery writer, I read three Catriona McPherson novels—A Deadly
SAINT X Alexis Schaitkin’s debut novel, Saint X, opens with the languid ennui of a mid-winter Caribbean vacation. An omniscient narrator sets scenes filled with
The Clockwork Crow, first in a new series by Catherine Fisher. I feel on pretty sure ground when reviewing children’s picture books, but lacking a
El Deafo – Cece Bell’s superhero, airborne with a red cape and, do our eyes deceive us, wearing a hearing aid? This is a graphic
Tahoe Moon – We know summer is upon us as Todd Borg’s Owen McKenna takes center stage. Mystery-thriller fans will not be disappointed. McKenna is
I am a sucker for books about books, so when my son-in-law gave me a copy of Jacques Bonnet’s Phantoms on the Bookshelves for Christmas
Reading the book cover, I learned I would be following in the footsteps of Gabriella Mondini, and I assumed I would be tracing a map
Since 2011, the very best in reviewing – connecting good readers with equally good writers
