THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR A simple precis of Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor cannot do justice to the mystique of this very
THE MEMORY OF OLD JACK With the Stay-at-Home admonishment still in place for those of us well-beyond our 60th year, I’ve begun reaching for books
RUSSIAN WINTER Years and years ago, I was served a roasted onion. I’ve never forgotten the crisp softness as I peeled away the layers, the
THE SECRETS OF WISHTIDE The Secrets of Wishtide is another Victorian murder mystery with a smart, articulate sleuth and dark Dickensian overtones. The premise of
SPEAK NO EVIL Uzodinma Iweala’s Speak No Evil left me not only speechless but breathless, too. It’s not often I encounter such a novel. Speak
Hollow Kingdom Are you a nature lover? A hiker? A botanist? A stargazer? A bird watcher? If so, please consider Kira Jane Buxton’s debut book,
BLACKOUT You probably shouldn’t read (as I did) Marc Elsberg’s thriller, Blackout, while cable news is concentrating on the catastrophic outcomes of a spreading coronavirus.
THE FENCING MASTER Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte and his translator, Margaret Jull Costa, have created a novel that may best be described as a
ORDINARY WOLVES Not long ago in Bookin’, I described Susan Orlean’s nonfictional achievement, The Library Book, as a moving meditation coupled with journalism and research.
STAR OF THE NORTH D.B. John’s thriller, Star of the North, pulls back the curtain on North Korea’s secretive milieu. The novel explores the terrain
MERCY HOUSE Alena Dillon’s novel, Mercy House, uniquely blends laughter with tragedy, pain with redemption. Its setting is a Bedford-Stuyvesant shelter for abused women. Run
DOG ON IT Please don’t wait for the dog days of summer to read Spencer Quinn’s Dog On It. Based on our present pandemic restrictions,
TINY LITTLE THING Tiny Little Thing, a novel written by Beatriz Williams, advertises itself as “a perfect summer read.” I’m prejudiced against catalogs like “100
THE BOOKSELLER Much to my delight, I accidentally discovered a new mystery series (or new to me, at least) at a library book sale, where
A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD Therese Anne Fowler’s latest book, A Good Neighborhood, is one very good novel. The first thing that will catch your attention is
THE COLOR OF ROCK As a stuffy retired academic curmudgeon, I have an old-fashioned notion of what a university press should publish. Namely, any book
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