reviews

King David: A Mystery or a Monster? Author: Geraldine Brooks Ploughing into chilly weather, cozy sweaters, and holiday season galore, my final book club read for the year (we don’t meet in December) was the one I had been anticipating the most: Geraldine Brooks' The Secret Chord. The fictionalized narrative is a look into the secret world of King David, renowned historical and Biblical figure, progenitor of the line through which Christ was promised and born. Being religious and being raised religious, I was excited to see the chaos and drama of David’s warrior life and his later political and personal judgement [...]

A maddening and madcap day in Seattle Author: Maria Semple Much like her splendid Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Semple’s newest novel is a delicious, unforgettable, impeccably written treat that I, for one, could not put down. Eleanor Flood is at the center of Today Will Be Different and she might remind you of, well, Bernadette. She’s an endearingly frazzled, Seattle-based woman of wit and intelligence. She’s got a rewarding professional career behind her (in this case, in television animation), and now she’s trying to raise her child (in this case, 10-year-old Timby) without losing her marbles. Like Where’d You Go, [...]

Going off the rails on a crazy train Author: Saroo Brierley Imagine a five-year-old accidentally boarding an empty train carriage in Chicago and traveling 1,000 miles alone across the United States, disembarking 24 hours later in, say, New Hampshire. Picture this same five-year-old without money, identification, or the ability to remember his last name. Now consider that there is no Internet available to track down this five-year-old’s parents, no nightly news to post his little face on a television screen, and no one who notices him as he scavenges around the station for food. Can you wrap your head around [...]