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Monthly Archives: September 2012

Case Histories

Loved this book.  It really is a mystery but doesn’t read with the heart-thumping-ness or detective-attitude that I associate with the genre. It unfolds like a novel, generous to its characters and written with enormous style.  I will try to read Kate Atkinson’s other books.

Skeletons at the Feast

Ew.  Terrible cover.  Thank goodness the copy I got from the library had a different one or I never would have picked it up!  Bohjalian wrote Midwives which I found really readable and compelling.  This is too.  Set in Germany during the final year of World War 2, Skeletons at the Feast is the story […]

The Uninvited Guests

An English manor house party ghost story.  Sadie Jones writing is a magical spell.  I devoured this book.

The Last Girls

This novel is about  group of girls who meet in a college creative writing course.  We meet some of them years later when they gather on a Mississippi cruise boat to scatter the ashes of the wild girl of the bunch, Baby Ballou. What a name.  Baby’s college roommate Harriett has never been in a […]

The Art of Fielding

LOVED this book.  Chad Harbach writes with such simplicity and measure plus emotional realness that is gentle and incisive.  I loved his character — Henry, Mike, Owen, Pella, etc — and I could tell he loved them too.

Rory O’Shea Was Here

Karl went to sleep at 9pm the other night and I was wide awake.  This happens about once every 2 years.  So after I got the kids to bed, I watched this movie, mostly because it starred James McAvoy.  Turned out to feature Romola Garai, who we had just seen in an awesome British miniseries […]