The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman

In a hotel in London, three stories play out over the years. The first is the story of a successful but jealous woman who covets her sister’s life, so much so that she sleeps with her fiance and must live with the repercussions of that act. The second is the story of the fiance’s mother [...]

Read Full Post »

Alison Clement’s Twenty Questions

June thinks of herself as lucky. She’s married to an attractive man, a chef at one of the more upscale restaurants in her small town. Every day she goes to work at the cafeteria at the elementary school, where she enjoys and understands the kids. She comes home to eat a meal her loving husband [...]

Read Full Post »

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

To me, childhood is this vast shadowy land that only begins to make sense the further you move from it. And by then, if you have a memory like mine, you probably only remember bits and and pieces. It’s a problem if you believe that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Maybe that explains [...]

Read Full Post »

In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje

What comes around goes around, and while I spend a lot of time at work trying to find good reads for people, on occasion they return the favor and suggest one that I might like. This book came highly recommended by one of my (or should I use the collective “our”) patrons; she raved about [...]

Read Full Post »

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

Based on the books I’ve read and liked, Librarything suggested that I might like The God of Animals. I’ve just finished and I have to say, I really loathed this book.
It is a well-written, compelling story of a girl growing up on a barely-making-it horse farm in a desert valley. She has no friends and [...]

Read Full Post »

Divisadero

I finished Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero a little while ago; I guess the reason I’ve been slow in writing the review is that I’m ambivalent. When I first started it I was thinking I’d stumbled upon one of those rarities – a book I was going to remember for years to come. It begins with the [...]

Read Full Post »

Uncommonly good

I’ve just finished The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. It took forever to get my hands on it — Multnomah County owns 12 copies but there were many people waiting. It took only a couple of hours to read, but what a pleasure. The premise is that the Queen, in wrangling her incorrigible corgis, discovers [...]

Read Full Post »

The Hearts of Horses

When was the last time you read a book that kept you up late, though you knew you should get to sleep? The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss was such a book for me. Martha Lessen is a sturdy girl with a love for horses. In 1917, when many of the men in Eastern [...]

Read Full Post »

At Last, a book to rave about – Run by Ann Patchett

I read a lot of books and, to tell you the truth, not many of them stick with me. Sometimes I can’t even remember the ones I enjoyed. But there are a few that I remember for years. I might not remember the story-line, but I can conjure up the place where I read the [...]

Read Full Post »

Up From Orchard Street

My partner and I visited New York City in the spring, to celebrate his 40th birthday. We stayed in a ‘bed and coffee’ in Alphabet city. Apparently this was a pretty rough area not that long ago, but has undergone a – is it revitalization, renewal, or gentrification? – I’m not sure. It was great [...]

Read Full Post »