Posts Tagged ‘book review’
Holiday 2019 reading (Part 2)
Over the summer holidays, I was back in New York, and armed with my beloved library card. I managed to read lots of good books during my time there, and blogged about some of them last week. This week, I’ll wrap up the reviews of my holiday reading … also giving me a chance to…
Read MoreBook review: Crazy Rich Asians
Recently, I’ve been reading books I first encountered as movies. Admittedly, if they’re not classics, I’m usually not in a rush to read the novel of a film I’ve seen. However, in the case of Crazy Rich Asians, I’m very pleased I did. I took my kids to see the film when it came out…
Read MoreBook review : Fog Island
I picked up this novel for the same reason I suspect many other readers did. I read the author biography, and was curious to see how the author would handle a thriller set in a modern-day cult. The novel’s author, Mariette Lindstein, is a Swede who spent twenty years in Scientology, including years at their…
Read MoreBook review: The Stars are Fire
Author Anita Shreve is a master at penning realistic characters and delving deep into their psyches, and The Stars are Fire is a brilliant illustration of her significant talent in bringing her characters to life. Grace Holland is a young mother of two toddlers in post World War II Maine. Her husband, Gene, has retruned from…
Read MoreBook review: The Burning Girl
This is the third Claire Messud novel I’ve read. I enjoyed her bestselling novel The Emperor’s Children, and her debut novel When the World Was Steady. The Burning Girl is her latest work. This novel set in small-town Massachusetts follows the lives and friendship of Julia Robinson and Cassie Burns. Julia and Cassie have grown…
Read MoreShivers on the slopes: Book reviews
I spent last week skiing with my sons. I always enjoy skiing, but one of the activities I enjoy most after an exhausting day of physical activity is curling up in a warm space with a steaming cup of tea and reading a good novel. When we ski, my kids and I ski from the…
Read MoreBook Review: Eligible
I’m a huge Jane Austen fan, and so I was very interested when I heard about The Austen Project: a plan to retell Austen’s six novels set in modern times, and reinterpreted by six different contemporary authors. I enjoyed the modern version of Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trolloppe. But then I pretty much gave up…
Read MoreBook review: Wake
Oddly, I’d had this book on my shelf for some time. I remembered it only after picking it up in French in a French bookstore and being drawn in by the story and the excellent blurbs – before realizing I shouldn’t buy it because I had the original version back home. : ) This novel…
Read MoreBook review: The Human Flies
I bought this novel when traveling in Norway. Embarrassingly, aside from Ibsen (whom I love), I’m completely ignorant about Norwegian writers. I know Norway boasts thriller writers, such as Nesbo, who fill the book shops, but I was looking for something different and picked up this debut mystery novel by contemporary author Hans Olav Lahlum.…
Read MoreBook review: Flawed
I picked up this novel, by Irish author Cecilia Ahern, by chance. I liked the premise, and I was struggling through a novel that infuriated me more than it interested me, so I decided to take a break from it with another, much different novel. It’s good I didn’t notice that the novel was the…
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