People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks

People of the Book is, for me as a reader, the perfect union of an author I love with subject matter I love.  The author is, of course, Geraldine Brooks, famous for her Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel March, but even more admired (by me) for the haunting Year of Wonders, about a woman who survives the bubonic [...]

Skin Room, by Sara Tilley

This may come as a shock to those of my readers who aren’t also writers, but the sad truth is that writers do not always bathe one another in a warm glow of approval.  There is, I am chagrined to report, rivalry and resentment among writers. To the degree that, if you were, say, a [...]

Down to the Dirt, by Joel Hynes

It’s impossible to overemphasize the acclaim and hype that surrounded Joel Hynes’ first novel, Down to the Dirt, here in the Newfoundland literary community (for more on the incestuous politics of literary communities and the nasty emotions they breed, see my next review).  This brash bad-boy novel has such a tang of raw, honest firsthand [...]

Millions of Women are Waiting to Meet You, by Sean Thomas

In a lot of ways, this book reminded me of Around the World in 80 Dates by Jennifer Cox.  British thirty-something single journalist becomes disillusioned with single life, dreams of meeting That Special Someone, and gets a magazine or book deal to try out an exciting new way to meet people.  Wacky hijinks ensue, interspersed [...]

The Bride of Science, by Benjamin Woolley

The Bride of Science (subtitled: Romance, Reason, and Byron’s Daughter) is a biography of Ada Lovelace, an early 19th-century woman renowned for her mathematical ability and her friendship with Charles Babbage, creator of a very early version of the computer.  She was, of course, even better known as the daughter of the infamous Lord Byron [...]

The Lady Elizabeth, by Alison Weir

Awhile back I reviewed Alison Weir’s Innocent Traitor, the first product of a noted biographer who has made the leap to historical fiction.  Having written nonfiction about the Tudors for many years, Weir now allows her imagination free play as she roams about inside the minds and lives of the members of that famous and [...]

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead is a completely strange and lovely book.  It’s the sort of novel that shouldn’t work, on so many levels, and yet it does.  Brilliantly.  Which just goes to show that a truly gifted author can break every rule and create something utterly compelling.
It’s a slow story.  There’s no strong plotline to pull you along, [...]