Young Men and Fire, By Norman Maclean

Warmth is fine, but fire like any natural element can easily get out of control. Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire is a sobering look at the lives of those people who choose to go out into the wild to fight forest fires. In beautiful and precise prose, Maclean takes the reader through the intricacies [...]

Read Full Post »

A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth

If you are looking for a book in which to luxuriate while the cold winter winds blow, Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy would be a fine choice. The warmth here comes from a variety of sources. Seth’s lush and descriptive writing about his native India sets the stage for this complex novel. Seth writes with [...]

Read Full Post »

Dark Fire, by C. J. Sansom

OK, this one perhaps stretches my theme for this week. It is not really set in a warm climate, England not being known for its sultry temperatures or blazing sun. But Sansom’s story generates a lot of heat from the interplay of politics and espionage late in the Tudor period. Henry VIII has been reigning [...]

Read Full Post »

Farewell, John Updike

I firmly believe that we respond to books based on the times in our lives when we encounter them.  A book that you don’t get in high school suddenly triggers an “a-ha” moment in your late twenties.  Or a book you loved in your late twenties leaves you cold when you reread it on your [...]

Read Full Post »

Heaven’s Prisoners, by James Lee Burke

No one captures the sultry, humid feel of New Orleans quite like James Lee Burke does in his Dave Robicheaux novels. He understands the tactile nature of the air when the temperature and the moisture rise in the summer South, when “the air [grows] hazy with humidity and even your lightest clothes [stick] to your [...]

Read Full Post »

The Last Kashmiri Rose, by Barbara Cleverly

It is cold right now in Williamsburg (though not as bad as it is elsewhere), and as I get older I find myself increasingly less tolerant of chilly weather. So I have been thinking about warm places and looking forward to spring. For those of you who share these feelings, here are some books that [...]

Read Full Post »

The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig

The cast of Ivan Doig’s The Whistling Season has the potential of growing like Topsy – even in the small town of Marais Coulee, Montana. But Doig wisely focuses on two: Paul Milliron, the narrator remembering his pre-teen years, and Morris Morgan, the unexpected visitor whose mysterious background is forgotten in the face of his [...]

Read Full Post »

Cordelia Underwood, by Van Reid

Call a book “sweet” and I’m almost guaranteed not to read it.  Call it “charming” and I’ll politely demur.  Call it “gentle” and, although I know many people I will suggest it to, but I’m not very likely to pick it up for myself.  I prefer my fiction darker, that’s all.  So how do I [...]

Read Full Post »

The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian

While a college student, Laurel Estabrook is attacked on a lonely country road, brutalized and nearly raped before she is rescued by a group of bicyclists. Her experience both traumatizes her and puts her on the path of her life’s work. As a social worker in a Vermont homeless shelter, Laurel regains a sense of [...]

Read Full Post »

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

It would be difficult to make the residents of a small German town near the infamous Dachau concentration camp sympathetic, given their enthusiastic support of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, but author Markus Zusak succeeds brilliantly. By focusing on the children, especially the orphaned Liesel Meminger and her desire to rescue and read books, Zusak [...]

Read Full Post »

Go Down Moses, by William Faulkner

I blogged earlier about The Reivers, citing it as one of William Faulkner’s most accessible stories.  Reading Go Down Moses – more accurately, wrestling with it – confirms my feeling about The Reivers, but also left me in awe.  Finishing the book left me feeling like I had just eaten a full meal by a [...]

Read Full Post »

Farewell, John Mortimer

Mystery readers the world over should raise a glass Château Thames Embankment tonight in memory of John Mortimer, creator of the inestimable barrister, Rumpole of the Bailey. Ostensibly crime novels, Mortimer’s tales went far beyond the basics of solving a mystery. They offered a peek into the lives of a fascinating and delightful cast of [...]

Read Full Post »

Welcome to the Jungle, by Jim Butcher

I have not read Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series—I’ve heard it’s good, I’ll get to it someday—but I don’t like it, and here’s why: time spent writing Codex Alera is time not spent writing the Dresden Files. (If you’re not up to speed on Dresden, Melissa can give you the background). One new Dresden book [...]

Read Full Post »

100 Bullets, by Brian Azzarello

Revenge has never been so sweet—or for that matter, so easy. There will be no legal consequences, the mysterious Agent Graves assures us. These one hundred bullets are completely untraceable. Use them to kill the person who wronged you. Or don’t use them, it’s your call. Or hey, use them to kill anybody. Politicians, spouses, [...]

Read Full Post »

The Gunslinger Born, by Robin Furth

I sobbed my way through the final book of the Dark Tower series, not only because Stephen King kept killing off characters but because I knew there was nothing more to look forward to. I shall wax eloquent about the series, some other day, but for now I’ll tell you about the graphic adaptation of [...]

Read Full Post »

These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves, by Emily Flake

Are you a smoker who’s trying to quit? Are you a former smoker? Yes? Okay, sorry, you can’t read this book. I forbid it. This memoir of smoking is too powerful. Your cravings for nicotine will shoot through the roof. If you’re a smoker with no intentions of quitting, it can’t hurt anyway. And I’ll [...]

Read Full Post »

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, by Bill Willingham

I get a bit tetchy when people speak of graphic novels as genre. Graphic novels are a format, just as audiobooks or Large Print books are a format. It is incorrect to refer to them as a genre. Let’s say it all together now, to make sure it sinks in: Graphic novels are a format, [...]

Read Full Post »

Pitch Perfect, by Mickey Rapkin

Other than a brief career in the St. James church choir at the age of 10 or so, I have never been part of a large singing group. Most of my harmonizing is done in small ensembles, duets, trios, or at most a quartet. Nonetheless, I have always enjoyed listening to good a capella singing. [...]

Read Full Post »