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So much left unsaid

Somewhere in France: A Novel of the Great War by Jennifer Robson

May 26, 2022 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

Historical fiction is one of my “go-to’s” when I need something to read, and fiction about WWI is usually grim but compelling. Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy is brilliant, as is the classic All Quiet on the Western Front. WWI lit and films bring home the terrifying reality of trench warfare and its horrifying psychological impact on soldiers who endured it. Somewhere in France looked interesting to me because it centers on the experiences of a young woman, an ambulance driver at the front. Author Jennifer […]

“Words are our tools of resurrection.”

The Dictionary of Lost Words: A Novel by Pip Williams

May 14, 2022 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

I would not have expected the story of the creation of the first Oxford English Dictionary to be a gripping topic for a novel, but I stand corrected. Pip Williams’ historical fiction encompasses not only the work of compiling the first Oxford English Dictionary but also events of historic importance that occurred during that same time period— WWI and the women’s suffrage movement. Many of the characters in this novel are real people, such as Dr. James Murray and Edith Thompson, but through the main […]

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin

April 21, 2022 by ElCicco 1 Comment

I remember hearing about this novel a few years ago and wanting to read it, then forgetting all about it until donttrustthe_bea reviewed it earlier this year. This winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize is set in contemporary South Korea, and through a plot involving a missing person, writer Kyung-Sook Shin examines a clash of generations and dreams dashed. Family is family whether in Korea or elsewhere, and the fact is, we don’t always understand our parents (and vice versa). Too late we regret […]

Let’s not go back there again

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

April 11, 2022 by ElCicco 3 Comments

Join us now through May 21 for the #CannonBookClub Discussion of Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a multi-award winning young adult novel that takes on several heavy topics and does so admirably. Set in early 1950’s San Francisco, the story’s protagonist Lily Hu is a teenager with big dreams. Yet she faces a number of formidable obstacles related to her race, sex and sexual identity. Through Lily, Malinda Lo shows the reader how dangerous it […]

“I’ll never be a footnote in someone else’s story. Everyone I meet is destined to be a footnote in my story.”

Dava Shastri’s Last Day: A Novel by Kirthana Ramisetti

March 17, 2022 by ElCicco 1 Comment

Dava Shastri’s Last Day is a fascinating novel with a provocative premise. Dava Shastri, age 70, is dying and decides to fake her own death so that she can see what the obituaries will say about her before she goes. You see, Dava Shastri is famous. She is one of the wealthiest women in the world, having made a name for herself in the music industry and as a philanthropist. She has been focused on her legacy for much of her life and expects to […]

A tale as old as time

The Women of Troy: A Novel by Pat Barker

March 9, 2022 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

The Women of Troy is the follow up to Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, her imagining of the Trojan War/Iliad from the point of view of the women and girls who saw their city fall and became enslaved to their enemies. The focal point remains Briseis, pregnant with Achilles’ child, with a few chapters from the view of Achilles’ teenaged son Pyrrhus. This novel finds its characters stuck in a sort of limbo; the war is over, the Greeks victorious but unable to […]

narfna on And now, jump back hundreds and hundreds of years…#BlameMalin on this one for me, too, because she literally sent me a copy.
narfna on “And that very same evening—that very same evening—Lord Edgware dies. Good title that, by the way. Lord Edgware Dies. Look well on a book stall.”That's gotta be the new headcanon.
drmllz on “And that very same evening—that very same evening—Lord Edgware dies. Good title that, by the way. Lord Edgware Dies. Look well on a book stall.”I like to think the wife packs Hastings off to England to hang out with Poirot and enjoys having a whole ranch to herself...
Emmalita on And now, jump back hundreds and hundreds of years…Oh yay! Another #BlameMalin victim. That was an expensive miscommunication. I'm glad your grandmother is ok.
Emmalita on I liked this more as an exercise in boundary pushing for meI have to admit, I really liked this one. But Anita Kelly's whole vibe just works for me. I do have a couple of non...

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