Dashiell Hammett's starter detective offers a hard-boiled holiday
"The Big Book of the Continental Op" by Dashiell Hammett. Edited by Richard Layman & Julie M. Rivett. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. 733 pp. Paperback, $25 Have I got a treat for those who prefer to...
View ArticleUncovering how my father broke a famous heart
"His Other Life: Searching for My Father, His First Wife, and Tennessee Williams" by Melanie McCabe, New Orleans. 252 pp. $19.95 paperback I was only 16 years old when my father died. Shortly after the...
View ArticleTalking to kids about the Constitution and other best books for young readers
It may be surprising that a nonfiction book for kids about a venerated, centuries-old document contains some of the doomsaying of a dystopian thriller. In "Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers,...
View ArticleNovel is so timely that it seems almost clairvoyant
"Three Daughters of Eve" by Elif Shafak, Bloomsbury. 384 pp. $27 Elif Shafak's new novel reveals such a timely confluence of today's issues that it seems almost clairvoyant. Sexual harassment, Islamic...
View ArticleHenry Louis Gates Jr. on his never-ending quest to excavate African-American...
Pioneering feminist Anna J. Cooper once wrote, “black people have to stop imitating white people and white culture.” She went on to say that black Americans in 1893 had to find their own voice, the...
View ArticleQuick wits get the laughs
“Improv Nation” by Sam Wasson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (449 pages, $28) If dying is easy and comedy is hard, then improv is darned near impossible. In his studious but breezy book, “Improv Nation:...
View ArticleAmerica's bitter divisions propel Brad Meltzer to launch a graphic novel...
Brad Meltzer was becoming deeply concerned about the tone of our national discourse. It was a toxic form of cross-talk that he believed needed visual antidote."The election was Bruce Wayne's bat...
View ArticleImprobable spy's incredible deeds in WWII France
The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France's Most Daring Anti-Nazi CommandoBy Paul KixHarper. 286 pp. $27.99---Robert de La Rochefoucauld had a lot to lose when he enlisted as a clandestine...
View ArticleEnvoys to the cosmos
If we need anything at the end of this year, it's perspective. And these four dazzling books can give it to you. No, they can't explain the political upheaval in Washington or the #MeToo backlash in...
View ArticleSow what? Old Farmer's in the age of fake news
A couple of months ago, a writer friend proudly tweeted about his annual donation to Wikipedia. He noted its function as the world's first resource when looking into factual topics and admitted that it...
View ArticleHow to read more books in 2018
Will this be the year you hit the treadmill for an hour every day, make all your meals at home, learn a new language and max out your retirement savings accounts? Perhaps. But more often than not, New...
View ArticleTwo books explain the rise of Marvel and DC — and the clash between them
Stan Lee, who turned 95 last week, still commands the center spotlight as the greatest living ambassador of comics. His towering presence as editor and showman runs through two of the most notable...
View ArticleA deliciously dark tale of paranoia and consumerism run amok
"The Night Market" by Jonathan Moore, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 304 pp. $24 Jonathan Moore sets his new thriller in the near future, when San Francisco has become a hellhole of rampant street crime...
View ArticleAuthor Kim Fu talks about her haunting second novel, ‘The Lost Girls of Camp...
In the early pages of Seattle author Kim Fu’s haunting second novel, “The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore,” 10-year-old Siobhan has arrived at sleepaway camp, ready to become part of a story. She’s been...
View ArticleEverything goes south for a family in Alaska
"The Great Alone" by Kristin Hannah, St. Martin's. 440 pp. $28.99 Kristin Hannah's new novel makes Alaska sound equally gorgeous and treacherous — a glistening realm that lures folks into the wild and...
View ArticleWhere are romance novels headed given the current state of women’s issues?
Romance is a genre about women, by women and pored over by women — 84 percent of readers are female, according to Romance Writers of America. It’s a $1 billion industry, and 35 percent of romance book...
View ArticleThe 1880s outback is no country for young men
"Only Killers and Thieves" by Paul Howarth, Harper. 336 pp. $26.99 The hero of Paul Howarth's blood-soaked debut novel, "Only Killers and Thieves," is a 14-year-old boy who can't do anything right,...
View ArticleBook Notes: Franklin and Eleanor — and Lorena
“White Houses” By Amy Bloom. Random House, New York, February 2018. $27. 218 pages.What’s most surprising about “White Houses,” Amy Bloom’s thought-provoking novel about Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena...
View ArticlePsychic to be featured at Monroe book expo
Want to meet a bonafide psychic?Karl Petry, author of Absence Witness, will be one of 22 writers featured at the Monroe County Public Library’s fourth annual Monroe County Book Expo on April 14 from 10...
View ArticleA twisty tale of deceit, friendship and death
"Tangerine: A Novel" by Christine Mangan, Ecco. 308 pp. $26.99 "Tangerine," Christine Mangan's first novel, opens with three men pulling a corpse from the waters off Tangier, wondering what kind of...
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