The List: Great 19th Century Novels

Every so often I find myself in the mood for a sprawling, leisurely-paced work of fiction. There are a multitude of novels written in the 19th century that amply fit the bill. The list below includes some of my favorites. These are great stories and have such a strong sense of place that you are [...]

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One Second After, by William R. Forstchen

Connie in Outreach Services ends this week’s posts with a change of pace: It’s been a while since I read a book that kept me thinking about it long after I turned the last page.  One Second After grabs you in the first chapter and never lets go.  In the tradition of Nevil Shute’s classic [...]

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Discord’s Apple, by Carrie Vaughn

Vaughn takes a departure from her Kitty Norville werewolf series to write a page-turning standalone fantasy. In a future on the brink of world war, where Homeland Security has lost control of local militias, comic book writer Evie Walker leaves L.A. to  see her dying father in Hope’s Fort, Colo.  Worried about her dad and [...]

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Chasing Perfect, by Susan Mallery

Susan Mallery‘s latest contemporary romance series starts with Chasing Perfect. Fool’s Gold, a small community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, has an unusual problem.  There are plenty of women, but hardy any men.  The mayor is worried that if more eligible men don’t come to live in the area soon, the women [...]

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Looking for a Love Story, by Louise Shaffer

Francesca is at loose ends.  She had sudden success with her first novel a few years ago, but hasn’t been able to write anything worth publishing since.  Her marriage and whirlwind social life has fizzled.  And she needs a job or she’ll  lose her apartment.  She puts out offers to ghost write, and finally gets [...]

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Leaving Unknown, by Kerry Reichs

Have you ever started a book thinking you pretty much know where the plot will go, and then wham! it throws you an unexpected twist?  If it’s well done, like Reich‘s Leaving Unknown, it ratchets up the enjoyment level. Maeve’s story begins when, after squeezing time in for a little shopping therapy, her cell phone quits [...]

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The List: Great Train Stories

I doubt that any stories set in SUVs or on 727s will ever have the same oomph as stories set on trains.  Trains return us to a storied past where technology was both practical and magical – what better way for Harry Potter to travel to Hogwarts but the Express from Platform 9 3/4?  Trains [...]

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I’ll Steal You Away, by Niccolo Ammanití

In a picturesque town called Ischiano Scalo, located in a remote area between Genoa and Rome, Niccolo Ammanití unfolds a tale that begins like an Italian village movie—think Fellini’s Amarcord or perhaps Cinema Paradiso, except brought forward into contemporary times. Over the course of the story, we meet dozens of Ischiano Scalo’s citizens in all [...]

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Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans, by Dan Baum

We’re less than a week away from the fifth anniversary of the terrible events of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005. It’s worth taking some time to remember the plight of a city and region still under recovery. We mustn’t forget the sad mistakes made by individuals and particularly by [...]

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The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien (a trilogy of posts) Part 3

This is the third part of my paean to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.  For the first seven reasons to love LOTR, see Part 1 and Part 2. 8. THERE AND BACK AGAIN It’s the title of Bilbo’s biography, and no writer captures this spirit of the journey like Tolkien. His characters really travel, [...]

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The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien (a trilogy of posts) Part 2

I’m continuing my trilogy of posts celebrating Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings today with four more reasons why I love this great classic of fantasy fiction. 4. LANGUAGE Tolkien was first and foremost a linguist. He wrote the The Lord of the Rings so that someone could speak the languages he had created. That [...]

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The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien (a trilogy of posts)

It appears at or near the top of every popularly chosen list of the best books of all time. It cast a lasting spell on the fantasy genre, where it set the tropes that would be explored for nearly forty years before darker, more ironic low fantasy, Harry Potter,  and contemporary urban fantasy could even [...]

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The List: Great Southern Fiction

Story is at the heart of any great writing, fiction or nonfiction, but writers from the South seem to have an instinctive understanding of how important stories are to our daily lives. It is through stories that we remember and celebrate the lives of those who have gone before us. Stories are also how we [...]

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Horns, by Joe Hill

Let’s start with some sympathy for the devil: “Think about it. In his first adventure, he took the form of a snake to free two prisoners being held naked in a Third World jungle prison by an all-powerful megalomaniac. At the same time, he broadened their diet and introduced them to their own sexuality.” Hee [...]

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Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver

Samantha Kingston, the teenaged narrator of Lauren Oliver‘s debut novel, is that girl you hated in high school. She is smart and attractive and popular; she has a hot boyfriend; and she has not one, not two, but three best friends—which would be forgivable, if she weren’t such a snob. The lesser kids in the [...]

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The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Before switching to the euro, the paper currency in France was the franc. Featured on the fifty-franc bill was a picture of The Little Prince. Here in the United States, our fifty-dollar bill features Ulysses S. Grant. I mean no disrespect toward our eighteenth president, but geeze. It’s no contest. France totally wins. A culture [...]

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Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, by Piper Kerman

Shortly after she graduated from Smith College, Piper Kerman had a short-lived love affair with a woman embroiled in the exotic and dangerous world of international drug trafficking. Kerman herself was a tangential figure—her tiny role was to smuggle drug money through an airport one time—and before long she had moved on, settling into a [...]

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The Passage, by Justin Cronin

As a matter of principle I approve of the recent glut of books featuring vampires, werewolves, fallen angels, and things that go bump in the night. I like my horror villains like I like my coffee: dark, and needing to be cut with a knife. But there is one persistent logical fallacy among the recent [...]

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