Review of “The Eleventh Plague” by Jeff Hirsch

This post-apocalyptic story lines up the usual suspects for its plot: a combination nuclear and biological war that wipes out most of the world (“The Collapse”); ragtag stragglers divided into cutthroat opportunists on the one hand, and desperate remnants of people with morality on the other; rusted, twisted wreckage that sometimes yields a bonus item [...]

Review of “Reamde” by Neal Stephenson

This cowboy-in-cyber-boots action thriller is 1040 pages long. I had to prepare by: reading up on virtual gaming and “gold mining”; making a glossary of gaming terms; making a character spreadsheet; making a glossary of words in Russian and Chinese; and having a computer by me at all times to look up other miscellaneous concepts, [...]

Review of “Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story From the Underground Railroad” by Ellen Levine

This book caught my eye because of the fabulous illustrations by Kadir Nelson. It tells the story of Henry Brown, who, in 1849, escaped from slavery by having himself mailed to Philadelphia. Henry traveled 350 miles from Richmond, Virginia, in a nail-biting trip that took twenty-seven hours. Henry “Box” Brown became one of the most [...]

Review of “Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie” by Maggie Stiefvater

Ballad is not a sequel to Lament (reviewed here) but a companion piece. It would not be impossible to follow this story without having read Lament, but I think it is a much smoother read if you read Lament before Ballad. Lament tells a story of the interaction of humans and faeries from 16-year-old Deirdre’s [...]

Review of “Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception” by Maggie Stiefvater

Only the promise of Maggie Stiefvater’s gets-it-just-right imagination could make me eager to read a book about faeries. Lament was the first novel Maggie Stiefvater wrote, followed by the sequel/companion book Ballad, out the following year. While it’s clear to me that the author has gotten much better with her subsequent books, these are quite [...]

Review of “Cypress House” by Michael Koryta

I’m not sure why I picked this up, because it’s a combination of noir hard-boiled crime fiction (which I generally don’t like) and paranormal (or supernatural) (which I generally don’t like). But I did like this book. What makes this book work, in my opinion, are two factors. One is the eminent likeability of the [...]

Review of “Grant’s Final Victory” by Charles Bracelen Flood

This book is not about Grant’s military campaigns; rather, it concerns his struggle to finish his still-celebrated memoirs before cancer killed him, so that his wife and children would have an income after he died. It is also a love story: about how so many people adored Grant for his goodness and unwavering trust in [...]

Sunday Salon – Review of “The Scorpio Races” by Maggie Stiefvater

This captivating story, set on the west coast of Ireland on the island of Thisby, weaves a magical tale incorporating the myth of the Irish capaill uisce [pronounced CAPple ISHka] – dangerous fairy horses from the water. Every November these flesh-eating horses emerge from the water and some get captured by the men from Thisby. [...]

Review of “What Momma Left Me” by Renee Watson

This is not a sad book, but when I finished, I sure felt sad that a book with these themes needed to be written for kids who have been through similar trials and tribulations. Like the powerful book Pull by B. A. Binns (see my review here), this is another book about a boy and [...]

Review of “The Bookseller of Kabul” by Åsne Seierstad

Note: This review is by my husband Jim. Åsne Seierstad is a Scandinavian journalist who was allowed to live for a few months during the spring of 2002 with the Afghan family headed by Sultan Khan, the autocratic bookseller of the title. Despite the hospitality shown by everyone to the female author, the dominant theme [...]