Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout

I’ve read a number of books that present themselves as short story collections, but which, when taken as a whole, comprise powerful novels.  I think one reason that this succeeds is that the author can approach the same topic from a number of different angles without losing the narrative thread that ties the whole package [...]

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Soda Pop Rockets, by Paul Jarvis

  The great thing about having kids is that you get to play kid games and pretend you’re doing it for the benefit of the children.  I’ve blogged about childrens books I’ve enjoyed, and about dangerous books I’ve come across – now I have the chance to combine the three in a single post.  Talk [...]

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The Gifts of the Jews, by Thomas Cahill

  What is it about a ragtag group of nomads that has both inspired and outraged civilizations for four millenia?  In the second book of his Hinges of History series,  Thomas Cahill digs into the larger themes that separate the Jewish peoples from the people around them, and shows how the evolution of a culture, [...]

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The Yard Dog, by Sheldon Russell

1943.  A dreary Oklahoma town, where the Dust Bowl and Depression still hang heavily over the residents.  Hook Runyon is drifting from one drunken spree to the next, moving the old caboose where he lives when he wants some variety.  Hook, you see, is a yard dog – a railroad bull – ok, a guy [...]

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Ordinary Heroes, by Scott Turow

Turow is well-known for his legal thrillers, including Presumed Innocent, which I think paved the way for a new generation of legal writers, including John Grisham.  Although he hasn’t scored as big since, his character development, courtroom drama, and exploration of the legal personality of the fictional Kindle County keep his books selling and circulating.  [...]

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Best Ghost Stories of J. S. LeFanu

Last fall, I wrote about M. R. James who many consider the master of the English ghost story. The other contestant for that title is the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan LeFanu. Born two generations earlier than James, LeFanu was a true Victorian, having lived from 1814 to 1873. If you like the leisurely-paced novels of [...]

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The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

As I mentioned yesterday, in England ghost stories are  common fare for the Christmas season. In that tradition, James begins his chilling tale as a story offered at a holiday gathering long after the events of the tale have occurred. The guests at a holiday celebration gather around to hear one of their members relate [...]

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High Spirits, by Robertson Davies

Although we generally associate ghost stories with Halloween and October, there is a long tradition in Great Britain of telling ghost stories around the Christmas season. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a classic example, with Scrooge being haunted by spirits who offer him one last chance to see the error of his ways. Robertson [...]

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Clockwork, by Philip Pullman

There are few writers who are as good at raising chills and creating an atmosphere of unease as Philip Pullman. Although they are shelved in the junior and young adult collections, Pullman’s stories of the macabre should find readers of any age looking over their shoulders on dark autumn nights. In Clockwork, Pullman starts off [...]

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The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories

When autumn rolls around, it is always good to pull out a scary story or two. I am generally not a fan of visceral horror writing, where the horizon is strewn with blood and body parts at the end of the tale. I prefer a more mannered, genteel approach to my horror; I look for [...]

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The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald

It is my unscientific but educated opinion that most authors are better at short stories than longer works. With full-length narratives, authors are prone to blathering on or cramming in unnecessary details or cluttering the story with extraneous characters. With short stories they are forced to make careful choices about each word and sentence. The [...]

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Northlanders: Sven the Returned, by Brian Wood

“Vikings finally done right!” effuses the cover blurb from Entertainment Weekly (whose reviewers obviously never saw the Viking Kittens doing Led Zeppelin, but I digress). If we understand “Vikings” to mean “violent” and “gritty” and “bleak,” then the Northlanders series succeeds with flying colors… …or, if we’re going to be literal about it, the Northlanders [...]

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Hell, by Robert Olen Butler

Welcome to Hell. The toilets are backed up, a new Wal-Mart opened today, and the weather forecast calls for scattered sulfurous fiery storms. There are cockroaches everywhere, but no trees or animals (but they don’t deserve to be here, do they?). There are lots and lots and lots of people—Stalin and Hitler (no surprises there) and [...]

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The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson

“You brought a veterinarian into this?” I asked, surprised. “Yeah, the guy was a friend of mine,” said Guy. “And he provided the goat?” “Yeah.” “What about the Hippocratic oath?” I asked. “What?” said Guy, a little crossly. “I’m just surprised that a civilian veterinary surgeon would provide a healthy goat so some soldiers could [...]

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Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney

Greg Heffley is being forced by his mother to keep a journal (“but if she thinks I’m going to write down my ‘feelings’ in here or whatever, she’s crazy”). Except we really probably ought to call it a diary, since that’s what it says on the cover, despite Greg’s instructions to his mother (“when Mom [...]

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When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead

One theory of time travel is that all moments are happening simultaneously, and we can shortcut from one to the other. In A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle called it tessering. In one of those moments, I have already finished writing this blog post, and I would appreciate it if my future self would tesser [...]

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The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, by E. L. Konigsburg

I’ve literally grown up—grown older, anyway—with E.L. Konigsburg. We share a love of artists and beautiful things. Mine might have started, in fact, with From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the Newbery award winner that made me, and a generation of readers, want to run away and live in the Metropolitan Museum [...]

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Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer Choldenko

You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you’re me. I came here because my mother said I had to. The original setting is the first great thing about this book: it’s 1935, and Moose Flanagan’s family has just moved to Alcatraz. His father works as an electrician and part-time guard [...]

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