I’m not sure how Katherine Hayton’s The Three Deaths of Magdalene Lynton ended up on my Kindle. But I gave it a whirl. It’s a workable murder mystery in which we have two detectives, Ngaire and Deb, possibly meant to be the Cagney & Lacey of Christchurch, New Zealand. A man walks in off the street and confesses to a forty-years-past murder. He’s got nothing to [...]
How about you and I sit down to a lunch of these tasty Easy Salsa Sloppy Joes, and I’ll just reach over and help myself to half the chips on your plate. You don’t mind, do you? Oh, you do. Well then. How about you and I take a hike at state park together? Go ahead and strap on your backpack. And wait just a [...]
Elissa Schappell wrote a collection of short stories, Blueprints for Building Better Girls. I did not like it. It commenced with a story of two teens having sex, blow-by-blow detail. In the following stories I met characters that I tried to like, but couldn’t. Here it is, the month of June, my favorite. It’s finally warm enough to sit on the deck and read. I’d [...]
We’ve all harbored at least one impossible dream. Mine was to perform magic like Samantha from Bewitched. I’ve got a few others, too. But, based on how my prayers about twitching my nose got answered, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for the rest of my list. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, a black girl in an Ohio town wishes for blue eyes. [...]
Some books you love right away. This one opens with a weekend on an English estate. I meet an ingenue that I’ll call “Jillian.” She eagerly awaits the arrival of her college brother, “Henry.” And his friend, “Garrard.” (Picture hearts floating in the air here.) Not only am I enchanted by Jillian, but by the way the author weaves emotion into every line of dialogue. [...]
I’ll just start today by assuring you that I’m not Kristen Carson, the soccer star. You can look her up if you want, but it ain't me. I’m also not Kristen Carson, the owner of kristencarson.com. That’s some chick in Texas who owns the domain and isn’t interested in selling it, though all she’s done with it so far is save it in a drawer [...]
If you or your loved ones are currently battling cancer, you might not be in the mood to read Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer. But the rest of us might find Mukherjee's book an illuminating read. How did they understand the disease centuries ago, when medicine was little more than blind supposition? The list of cures might make you [...]
This week, we take a look at Big in China by Alan Paul. If you happen to recall our discussion of Foremost Good Fortune a few weeks ago, you might think this blog is turning into Your Primer on Expat Living, China Edition. Paul was the “trailing spouse” of his wife, Becky, who accepted the assignment of the Wall Street Journal’s Beijing bureau chief. Becky [...]
Once again, my strategy for making spring appear has worked. Here’s how I did it: I pretended I wasn't wishing for it. I sprinkled my calendar with days reserved for pajamas, donuts and Netflix. It’s all about hiding under good blankets and waiting out chilly misery. I’ve had an Ugly Betty winter, a Grey’s Anatomy winter, a Parks and Rec winter (two of them, actually) [...]
So you think you know the people next door? In the charming English village of Bishopthorpe, you could live next to the Radley family and never know that they are vampires. In Matt Haig’s The Radleys, mom, dad and the two children work pretty hard at “passing” for normal. They often consult "The Abstainer’s Handbook," which offers this helpful advice: “Confine your imagination. . . [...]
