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 about [...]

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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, a [...]

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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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Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), by Tom Vanderbilt

Traffic, Vanderbilt says, began when two people began using the same path.  It has been the topic of complaints and attempts to plan and regulate since the Roman Republic – yet we still have little idea what it is all about.  One of the most fascinating things about traffic (and here I’m talking about automobiles), [...]

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My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult

With every book she publishes, Jodi Picoult attracts new readers who go back to inhale her earlier works.  As hard as it is for us to satisfy the demand for her most recent title (at this writing, Handle With Care), we can’t even keep up with the demand for her books going all the way [...]

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The 25th Hour, by David Benioff

In David Benioff’s debut novel, a convicted drug “kingpin” spends his last night of freedom roaming the city, putting an end to the dreams and desires he is bound to lose in prison.
Three characters anchor the story:   the dealer Monty, a good-looking but tough kid;  Jakob, an introverted English teacher at an upscale private [...]

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The Foreign Correspondent, by Alan Furst

I really like the phrase “living forward into history,” partially because I coined it (I think), just after September 11.  To me, it means that at every great juncture in world events, no one standing at that juncture knows what is going to happen, how the whole thing will turn out, or even that they [...]

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Devil May Care, by Sebastian Faulks

Ian Fleming’s star rose when John F. Kennedy casually mentioned that he was reading one of the James Bond books.  Bond burned his way through 14 books, all of which became movies, before Fleming’s death in 1964.  Those movies, which departed the published canon in 1982’s Moonraker, have come to define James Bond’s image, despite [...]

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