A Widow’s Story
Rating: A Widow’s Story: A Memoir, by Joyce Carol Oates. Ecco (2011), 415 pages. Joyce Carol Oates, in my experience, is a writer you either love or hate (love because of how effortlessly and incisively she maps out the terrain inside her...
Blood, Bones & Butter
Rating: Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton. Random House (2011), 291 pages. Hamilton has written a smart, funny book that stands out in the glutted chef/memoirist category in that she writes...
Freedom
Rating: Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2010), 562 pages. Much like my favorite story-tellers of the 19th century (Tolstoy, Flaubert, Austen, the Brontes) Franzen begins his novels with the description of a family, and then simply...
Let’s Take the Long Way Home
Rating: Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship, by Gail Caldwell. Random House (2010), 190 pages. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is Caldwell’s story of her friendship with the writer Caroline Knapp who died of cancer in 2002....About Us
The Book Shark began as an independent book review website created by Cindy Pinto and Donna Long in 2002.
From the beginning our goal was not only to write great reviews, but also to recognize the most well-written books we read each year with an award...
Gustine Awards
The Gustine Awards were named in honor of the main character in one of our favorite books—The Dress Lodger, by Sheri Holman. Awards have been given out yearly since 2002 in three categories: fiction, nonfiction, and memoir...
Cover Art
A book’s cover is as important as the writing within it. We are aware that this may offend some authors who have toiled for years on their books and believe their words are the only thing that matters...
Reader Reviews
What’s the best or worst book you’ve ever read? What’s the most recent book that you’ve had a strong reaction to? Send us your thoughts, and we’ll post them in this spot.