January 7, 2012 – 9:14 am
The Book: Thirteen Moons, by Charles Frazier
The Story: When he is young, Will Cooper is orphaned and sent to live with his aunt and uncle. They don’t have time money to take care of him so they get him hooked up with a job running a small trading post out in the middle of Indian [...]
January 5, 2012 – 9:03 pm
The Book: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, by Catherine Howe
The Story: Connie is an academic who is challenged a bit by her academic advisor. He asks her to consider the possibility that the people accused in Salem in the 1690’s were actually just witches.
She kind of shoves his question to the back of [...]
December 20, 2011 – 9:09 am
The Book: Cloudsplitter, by Russell Banks
The Story: Cloudsplitter is a novel about the abolitionist John Brown (of Harper’s Ferry/Bloody Kansas fame), as told by his last surviving son, Owen. This book is Owen’s life story and confession.
Owen describes what it was like being John Brown’s son, kind of revealing him as a deeply religious father [...]
December 7, 2011 – 10:17 am
The Book: The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson
The Story: One chilly morning a hugely-pregnant girl named Lillie is found floating in the town’s reservoir. Initially, it is assumed to be a suicide and kind of swept under the rug. A detective notices some clues that say otherwise and a group of men start investigating and [...]
The Book: City of Thieves, by David Benioff
The Story: So, this is going to sound wild, but this is the story: a guy goes and visits his Grandpa and starts asking him questions about his experience in WWII. So the Grandpa, Lev, tells him what happened to him.
Which is this: He was living in Leningrad [...]
The Book: Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith
The Story: Here’s the thing: obviously communism did not work in the Soviet Union. They were shooting for this pretty perfect society and lots and lots of things went wrong. They were shooting for a society where murder was not committed, so when one was… well, they just [...]
Stones From the River, by Ursula Hegi
Wow. I feel like I have been reading this forever! I am only about 300 pages in but oh my word!
Here’s the thing: I kind of love it. It is beautifully written and it takes place during WWII, which I love… but I cannot sit down and read more [...]
The Book: Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks
The Story: Anna lives with her two children in a remote town in England. An infected bolt of cloth brings the plague from London and things start to get pretty crazy. The rector of the village calls everyone together and basically begs them not to leave. They have [...]
January 3, 2011 – 10:40 am
The Book: The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
The Story: In the Bible, Dinah’s story is sort of overshadowed by her dad and her brothers. She was the daughter of Jacob and had 12 pretty wild brothers. All we know was that she was raped and her brothers took revenge into their own hands. The Bible [...]
November 14, 2010 – 10:54 am
The Book: The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason
The Story: Edgar Drake is one of the top piano tuners in all of London. One day, he is pulled aside by officials and asked to go on a special mission. There seems to be a higher-up in the military that needs his piano tuned… trick is, he’s [...]