When you recommend a book the first thing you do is explain what the book is about. I sometimes struggle to accurately describe a book without giving too much away while still capturing the plot. For today's diversion you can throw that all away. Today we will attempt to describe a book in the … [Read more]
This Is a Door by Daniel Nayeri
Like many titles this year, I’ve wanted to read This Is a Door by Daniel Nayeri for a while. But I only had an online reader copy and the book was going to be around 400 pages, which did not seem plausible for me to read via an online reader copy on my (work) computer (never mind I can’t do picture … [Read more]
Room 239 by David Wiesner
Robobaby by David Wiesner
During the month of March, during the year 2027, the David Wiesner book, Room 239, is planned. The publisher is saying it is for ages four to eight, but since it is a wordless picture book anyone can read it. And while it has many of the elements of Wiesner we come to love and treasure, this time … [Read more]
Unfinished by Tom Neely
This might be an odd start to a review, but I am not the intended audience for the book, Unfinished by Tom Neely. Mostly because it was very “avant guard,” or even abstract-realism, and it felt over the top at times. However, while some of the images were very graphic (and even not for the adult … [Read more]
Behind Five Willows by June Hur
Behind Five Willows falls somewhere between a retelling and a re-imagining of Pride and Prejudice. It’s set in the late 1700s during the Joseon dynasty in Korea and focuses in part on the relationship between Haewon and Seojun, this book’s respective versions of Elizabeth and Darcy. The homage to … [Read more]
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
This book is 145 pages about a Red Lobster's last day of business. That's it, that's the plot. It's about the people - Manny, the manager, mostly, working the final shift in a closing chain restaurant on the outskirts of a parking lot of a sad, gray mall, just before Christmas during a bleak, snowy … [Read more]
The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt
There are some books which rely wholly on the plot; the prose just moves the plot along, and of course that's fine, and it doesn't mean the prose is bad. But sometime an author wields prose differently - in this case, our subject, whose name may or may to be Marguerite, is revealed by the style of … [Read more]
