Reading this novel took me back to middle and high school when I read a lot of science fiction—including Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, etc. Like all good speculative fiction, it says as much about the time it was written (1974) as it does about the future. I missed that it was subtitled, “An Ambiguous Utopia,” but that seems a fitting title. Set in the far distant future where mankind (one assumes) has spread to many galaxies and planets, […]
A Tail-Wagging Tale
I’m a sucker for stories that involve dogs saving their human owners and this tale is a true one. Dan Dye tells the story of how adopting a deaf and partially blind, albino Great Dane puppy named Gracie changes his life and the life of his roommate, Mark Beckloff. Dan has spent months mourning the loss of his dog, Blue, but a friend, Anne, who recently adopted a Great Dane puppy, calls on Dan to rescue her dog’s sister-who desperately needs a loving home. Gracie […]
Too Sweet??
This book has been on my to-read list for a while and I’m not sure why I thought it was a southern gothic tale; perhaps I didn’t pay close enough attention to the reviews. When I finally got a copy of Alan Bradley’s novel, I was surprised to find that it’s set in the world of early 1950’s Britain, where Flavia de Luce, a precocious young woman with a keen interest in chemistry, lives with her father and sisters in a crumbling but once grand […]
Waving Not Drowning
[Finished 8/06/14] Anna Quindlen’s novel tells the story of an aging New York City photographer, Rebecca Winter, who once was famous, but now is struggling financially—to keep her NYC apartment and to pay for her parents’ different nursing home situations. She is divorced but has an adult son. She rents a run down cottage in upstate New York both to escape the pressures of her life but also to save money and to take some time to rethink her life. A gunshot-like noise in the […]
Listen to Lloyd
[finished 7/14/14] This novel was a nice summer read—moving but not too strenuous. The novel begins as Rocky, a psychologist, finds her veterinary husband, Bob, dead on the bathroom floor. In the subsequent months, she struggles to deal with his death and ends up taking a leave of absence from her job and fleeing to Peak’s Island off the coast of Maine. There she takes on the job of Animal Control Warden—something as far away from her old life as she can think of. […]
Let The Great World Spin . . . Or Not
[Finished 8/2/14] This novel is what all good speculative fiction should be—an intriguing set up with characters you actually care about. The story begins as three young people—Tyler Dupree and Jason and Diana Lawton—are out late stargazing when they witness history. A shield suddenly surrounds the planet—and as a result, the stars go out. The story then follows what happens to these three characters in response to what is known as the “Spin.” One of the things that scientists/astronomers figure out early on is that […]
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