one book leads to another
Published by Alex Johnson in 2012, bookshelf is a small, square ode to bookshelves and book-centric interior design. Hardly any of the featured bookshelves are traditional. Instead they’re mostly off-kilter, deconstructed, hanging, curved, abstract, and above all, imaginative. The shelf designers featured by Johnson are clever and inventive. There's lots of ladder-type shelves, cubes, honeycombs, … Continue reading bookshelf
First, I love a novella. Not too big, not too small, sized just right. Who has time for 900-page tomes? Not me. Short stories are great, I enjoy them, but they’re stories, not (mini) novels. Novellas rule by allowing just enough space to set the stage, round out a character, and develop a plot. Tenacity … Continue reading Family Curse: Field Notebooks (1880-2020)
What can I say about Where the Crawdads Sing that hasn't been said before? For four years you've heard the hype; you've seen the movie (or at least the trailer); you may have even heard about the controversy surrounding the author. And you still haven't read it? Okay, let me convince you. First, I'm still … Continue reading Where the Crawdads Sing
Hindsight is everything and Lawrence Wright knows it. Wright is the author of The Looming Tower, a methodical and sweeping history that's so engaging and interesting you feel guilty for enjoying it. He published it in 2006, won the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for it in 2007, and it was made into a mini-series … Continue reading The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11
May I Come In? is the most fun I've had in book form in a while. It's pure voyeuristic pleasure. If you're nosy, if you like to peek into people's homes, if you enjoy finding decorating ideas to steal... oh honey, you're going to love this book. The subtitle is 'Discovering the world in other … Continue reading Other people’s houses
The Plot landed on all the 2021 best-of lists and now that I've read it I understand why. Jean Hanff Korelitz strikes again with her clever and devious novel. I read and raved over her 2014 book, You Should Have Known (made into the HBO show The Undoing and reviewed here). Korelitz is an excellent … Continue reading Well-plotted
Trapped in bed after a bad fall. At the mercy of your nurse and your assistant. Out of it because of all the pain meds and the Ambien. It was a really bad fall. Wondering if you're losing your mind or if it's just the drugs. This is the setting for Laura Lippman's celebrated novel … Continue reading Dream Girl Nightmare
bookthrasher 