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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Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson

At first glance, Per Petterson’s novel is as bleak as an Arctic landscape – an old man, isolated in a small cabin, recalls for the first time the events from the summer that shaped his life.  But in Petterson’s gentle hands details begin to emerge, indistinct shapes take form and identity, and a real warmth [...]

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In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez

In a society that quadrennially pats itself on the back for a “peaceful transition of power”, it is difficult to imagine growing up in a dictatorship.  We have no experience of one person, publicly or behind the scenes, controlling every aspect of life.  Our cults of personality are iffy at best, and our multicultural society [...]

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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, [...]

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Ali and Nino, by Kurban Said

It’s an old and familiar story: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.  Except in Ali and Nino, getting the girl back involves committing murder, the boy and girl struggle with their differences, and they do not live happily ever after.
Often called the national novel of [...]

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A Very Long Engagement, by Sebastien Japrisot

I’m fascinated with World War I, mostly because I can’t understand on a visceral level what would keep so many men in absolute squalor long past the time they knew their lives were being cast away. Nor can I comprehend the numbers – at Verdun, 1.25 million casualties in nine months; at the Somme, [...]

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American Pastoral, by Philip Roth

Williamsburg Regional Library is the only Virginia site hosting Philip Roth’s online discussion of his new book, Indignation, on September 16. If you are interested in free tickets, please call the Adult Services desk at 259-4050.
American Pastoral is Roth’s attempt to process the fundamental changes to American society in the 1960s. That [...]

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The Reivers, by William Faulkner

This week I’m looking at books that I think are worth rereading – and that I’ve reread more than once. These stand up to my tests, and I’ll try to articulate what it is I like about them. If any of them intrigue you, I hope you’ll give them a shot. [...]

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Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold

This week I’m looking at books that I think are worth rereading – and that I’ve reread more than once. These stand up to my tests, and I’ll try to articulate what it is I like about them. If any of them intrigue you, I hope you’ll give them a shot. [...]

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Starting Out in the Evening, by Brian Morton

In the 1940s and ’50s, there was a vibrant culture of Jewish intellectuals writing, arguing, competing for limited attention spans and print space. With McCarthyism, the inevitability of illness and death, and the lure of Hollywood money, this culture died out. Now a struggling survivor, a veteran of those times, is brought to [...]

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