Taking a break from my usual diet of treacherous-women/lecherous-men fiction, I happened on Man at the Helm, by Nina Stibbe. It was just what I needed to expel the bitter aftertaste of the psychological thrillers I habitually feast upon. A charming specimen of the eccentric-British-family-novel (see these classic examples), Man at the Helm begins with ten-year-old Lizzie and her family moving […]

A mother’s life is shattered in an instant when a speeding car runs down her five-year-old son. In  I Let You Go, by Clare Mackintosh, the story alternates between the police search for the driver and the stunned and heartbroken Jenna. She leaves everything behind as she escapes to a remote Welsh town by the […]

When librarians think about Carrie Fisher, who died on December 27 at age 60, we are just as likely to recall her autobiographical and semi-autobiographical writings as her movies.  She wrote with brutal honesty and humor about her struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, mental health, and Hollywood.  Starting with Postcards from the Edge, published in […]

Combining juicy bits of Victorian history and custom with some delightfully scathing social commentary, Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners, by  Therese Oneill, will delight and infuriate you. The author wishes to not-so-gently disabuse the reader of any romantic notions of a simpler and more gracious time by detailing the rigors of the […]

Having just finished You Will Not Have My Hate, by Antoine Leiris, I am shattered. His writing is beautiful; not just the words and the journey he creates with them, but the raw emotions of someone dealing with an unthinkable tragedy. The author was at home with his 17 month-old boy, Melvil, in November 2015 […]

If you’re already hooked on Ted Talks, you probably envy the abilities of TED talkers to engage, motivate, and win over an audience.  Who wouldn’t?  If you’re new to TED, the acronym stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.  It started out as an annual convention built around people, businesses, and projects that operate at the convergence of […]

So much has been written about the Beach Boys during their extraordinary fifty-five year history, but Mike Love as the group’s front man and principal lyricist has the inside scoop on the history of the legendary American band with his new book Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy. Their origins were middle class; […]

  There is a lot I could  say about Mischling, Affinity Konar’s new Holocaust novel; it’s heartbreaking and beautiful and horrific. Twelve-year-old twin sisters Stasha and Pearl are sent to Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather, and come to the attention of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, who specialized in grotesque experiments on twins,  subjecting […]