reviews

All the Grey Spaces in Life Between Right and Wrong Author: Anthony Trollope In the small, English church village of Barchester, reform jostles with the stoic tradition of the church and the innocent every-man represented by Septimus Harding, Precentor and Church Warden. Harding is torn between a moral dilemma and the comfortable position afforded by corrupt society. The first in the Barchester Chronicles, and Trollope’s first successful novel, the sleeper story is more concerned with characters and quandaries than with enticing plotlines or great tension. This is both the charming appeal of the novel and its own tragic inability to [...]

"Chaos is coming, old son." Author: Louise Penny In the depths of the Canadian woods, near the quaint and quirky town of Three Pines, an old secret lies scuttling, weaving stories, and fearing the return of chaos. The Hermit, known only to the town’s BB and bistro proprietor, Olivier, is an isolated man, surrounded by priceless wealth, antiques missing for generations, first edition novels, and an outhouse ironically stashed with money, used as toilet paper. In this glade of seeming serenity, a dark secret is fostered, a fear kindled is enlivened, and greed takes over. When the Hermit’s body is [...]

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” (above quote from Napoleon because I, too, can be a smarty-pants) Author: Lauren Groff From the addicting Book of the Month club to the rave New York Times review with all its mentions of Greek choruses, Shakespeare, and Sophocles, to the teasing of female fury in NPR's review, and finally, the exquisitely intriguing Lit Up PodCast with author Lauren Groff the Internet besieged me to stop everything and read Fates and Furies. ‎Ostensibly a story of marriage, the narrative is more encompassing, a character study and a discourse on perception and the secrets we must withhold – how we never [...]