I was granted an ARC of this book via NetGalley in return for a fair and honest review. This book’s expected publication date is June 29, 2014. There are lots of books out there about Nazi Germany and World War II. Literally thousands and thousands. But there are few that bring the realities of day to day life which Germans were experiencing to light for the modern reader. By choosing to share the cache of letters she found in her family home, Hedda Kalshoven brings […]
This Town Should Have a Sign Which Reads: “Bad Things Happen Here”
Book Two in The Murder Squad series by Alex Grecian, The Black Country is the sequel to The Yard which I reviewed for Cannonball Read 4. As a refresher the books are set in 1890 and focus on Inspector Day of Scotland Yard, a member of the newly founded Murder Squad. The Black Country picks up a few months later with Day, Sergeant Hammersmith, and Dr. Kingsley being summoned to Blackhampton in the Midlands where three members of a family are missing and the local […]
I’m not sure I’d want the Wolves to know where to find me
I normally do pretty spoiler free reviews, but I cannot think of how to talk about my reactions to this book without spoiling the heck out of it, so if that’s a thing you want to avoid then you probably need to click right along to another review. Go ahead, I won’t judge. Promise. Anyway, now that we have that done, let’s talk about Tell the Wolves I’m Home. Our protagonist is June, age 14. She is telling us about the death of her Uncle […]
Dark Love Letter
“To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things.” I have had a bit of luck with first time authors of late, and Hannah Kent is no exception. Her debut work, Burial Rites, is a gripping novel- all mood and emotion. It’s a story gaining speed like a stone rolling downhill, for there is only one way to go. Ms. Kent writes in Burial Rites about the last instance of capital punishment in Iceland. But I […]
Well, there really wasn’t anything about diabetes, and I was hoping for more owls.
I am a fan of David Sedaris’s view of the world. I have read every book he has written, starting with Me Talk Pretty One Day shortly after its publication in 2000 and as I am want to do, I then began working immediately through his catalogue. And I have loved them. But something is happening, and I do not know if it’s me, or if it’s him, or if perhaps we are just in a rough spot in our relationship. I laughed fewer times […]
I prefer bookstores
“There is no immortality that is not built on friendship and work done with care.” (288). It’s hard to know what to make of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. It’s a quest, it’s a mystery, it’s one man finding himself, and it’s the coalescing of a group of friends. It’s all this and more. Clocking in at fewer than 300 pages, Robin Sloan manages to craft an epic adventure for his protagonist and his merry band of players. And it’s simply delightful. The story is based […]