Further Reading – Caleb’s Crossing
Geraldine Brooks’s most recent novel, Caleb’s Crossing does what Brooks does best: takes a very specific time period and cast of characters and breathes life into them. In this novel, the narrator is young Bethia in the mid-1600′s Martha’s Vineyard who befriends the local Native American chieftain’s son Caleb. As Bethia’s Puritan world clashes with the...
Further Reading – Where She Went by Gayle Forman
Where She Went by Gayle Forman is one of the most highly anticipated Young Adult publications this year. The sequel to the acclaimed If I Stay was never supposed to happen, but author Gayle Forman couldn’t get the characters Mia and Adam out of her head. The first book, narrated by Mia after she is...
Further Reading – The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
In The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendly McClure, McClure tries to find what is left of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life in the modern world. What results is a trip through butter churning, road trips and various Laura Ingalls Wilder memorials, museums and festivals across...
Further Reading – Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell has long been making us think about history and how we learn it. Often there are opposing perspectives that don’t always put the winners in such a positive light. In her latest, Unfamiliar Fishes, Vowell tackles the topic of the year of 1898, when the United States “acquired” much of its territory that...
Further Reading: The Free World by David Bezmozgis
The Free World by David Bezmozgis is an impressive, sweeping first novel about three generations of Russian Jews and all the different places that life takes them. The Krasnasky family must stay in Italy for a time with other Jewish Russian refugees to receive their visas to move to Canada, the US or Australia. Samuil,...
Further Reading – Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
Recently released, Started Early, Took My Dog comes from acclaimed author Kate Atkinson, who wrote When Will There Be Good News. This novel follows the star of many her other novels, detective Jackson Brodie, but also follows the story of Tracy Waterhouse, who suddenly becomes the mother to a young girl after a surprising event....
TGILinks – March 18, 2011
Every Friday, we’ll post a collection of links to amuse you through this last work day! For explanations of the categories, please see our original TGILinks post! Made By Words – Found in Books at AbeBooks – What’s the weirdest thing you ever found in a library book or used book? AbeBooks has an article that...
Further Reading – A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness was released last month to an exciting amount of praise. The novel follows a young Oxford scholar named Diana Bishop who, while she is doing research, finds an alchemy manuscript. Diana happens to come from a long line of witches, but she’s not necessarily willing to go down...
TGILinks – March 11, 2011
Every Friday, we’ll post a collection of links to amuse you through this last work day! For explanations of the categories, please see our original TGILinks post! Made By Words – Cool Book Video: Flip Book Parkour by The Huffington Post – The Huffington Post recently linked to this amazing video that isn’t technically made by...
TGILinks – March 4, 2011
Every Friday, we’ll post a collection of links to amuse you through this last work day! For explanations of the categories, please see our original TGILinks post! Made by Words – “Brow Beat: Stanley Fish’s Top Five Sentences” in Slate Magazine What’s your favorite sentence? Stanley Fish’s new book How to Write a Sentence explores what...
Further Reading – Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
When putting together the Further Reading, it was difficult to decide where to put Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt. While one of the main characters in this book is a talking dog, the most important part of this book is not the dog himself, but what he represents: depression. Affecting the lives of both Winston...
The Reserve Shelf: “Late for Tea at the Deer Palace” versus “My Father at 100″
When I received Tamara Chalabi’s Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family, I knew I wanted to at least dip into it simply from its lush, colorful cover and overall heft ( it’s a substantial tome). However, the same might be said for My Father At 100 by...
