“A great struggle for power and wealth goes on at all times over your head, and you are safer knowing nothing about it.”
This lovely, tautly written series for young adults blends Arthurian mythology with adventures in sixth-century Ethiopia and the Arabian peninsula, in kingdoms then known as Aksum and Himyar.
Wein’s books aren’t widely known, [...]
Read Full Post »
Short story collections generally don’t circulate well. I’m not sure exactly why, but I can certainly theorize. Personally, I enjoy immersing myself in a detailed, involved story, with well-thought out characters and vivid settings, but the very nature of short stories (They’re short!) seems counterintuitive to achieving those lofty goals. Honestly, [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in Adventure, Bluesocks' Picks, Books, Characters, Coming of Age, Literary fiction, Neil's Picks, Quick read, Sense of place, Sports, Subculture on June 16, 2008 | No Comments »
It’s a sign of a good book when an author can take subject matter that is completely alien and render it in a way that immerses you, fascinates you, moves you. The Australian Tim Winton did that for me with Breath, a coming-of-age tale about surfing and other extreme adventures.
In Breath, two boys in their early teens [...]
Read Full Post »
Helen is a ghost. She has been for 130 years. All she can remember from her previous life is her name, age, and the fact that she is female. She survives through an attachment to hosts–living people to whom she clings. She has had five hosts, none of whom knew [...]
Read Full Post »
In this collection, ten old-fashioned ghostly stories are connected by their unwilling and frequently-appalled narrator, the unfortunate Kyle Murchison Booth. Awkward, insomniac, painfully shy, the archivist participates in just one badly-orchestrated necromantic ceremony and now the dead won’t leave him alone. He finds skeletons entombed in his museum’s basement; he’s plagued by specters at his [...]
Read Full Post »
What goes together better than reading and chess? Actually, this unlikely combination has led to several interesting nonfiction books such as Searching for Bobby Fischer or The King’s Gambit that are accessible and interesting to all readers, whether or not they appreciate the game. Subtitled A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make [...]
Read Full Post »
Minnesota’s Jon Hassler, who died this past month, is noted for his thoughtful, well-drawn characters, his realistic settings, and his clear prose style. Hassler writes of people living ordinary lives who in some moment are caught up in events that change them in a variety of ways that they never expected. There is a sense [...]
Read Full Post »
Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow continues his tales of the Port William membership, which he began in Nathan Coulter in 1960. Berry’s writing is marked by a strong sense of place. He captures the beauty of the upland Kentucky farms, the forests, and the small towns along the Ohio River and tributaries. A farmer himself, [...]
Read Full Post »
Connie Willis is known for her clever, creative science fiction writing that deftly blends issues of importance with dry humor and intriguing characters. Willis’s work ranges from the somewhat dark and dystopian vision in The Doomsday Book to the much lighter, more hopeful, and certainly funnier To Say Nothing of the Dog. Her 1996 novel, [...]
Read Full Post »
Crime fiction has taken a generally darker tone over the past decade, with stories featuring more realistic approaches to detection that reflect the violence of the initial crime and the often devastating impact of the crime on people’s lives. But readers whose tastes run more to Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers than to George [...]
Read Full Post »
