Formerly Favorite Authors Suffer Simultaneous Brain Damage

by Donna | Jul 2, 2011 | Fiction, Merely Impassioned

Rating:  What a disheartening year it’s been for those of us who want to believe that an author’s subsequent book will be as good as the one that preceded it. Such a string of much-anticipated follow-ups that have fallen flat on their face…we at The Book...

The Namesake

by Donna | May 28, 2010 | Fiction

Rating:  The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. Houghton Mifflin Company (2004), 291 pages. This is a very well-written book in which nothing happens. Now, I have no gripe against a quiet book in which the point is merely to appreciate its evocative and...

To Siberia

by Donna | Oct 19, 2009 | Fiction

Rating:  To Siberia, by Per Petterson. Picador (2009), 246 pages. (Originally published in Norway in 1996.) The unnamed narrator in this book dreams of moving to Siberia when she grows up. She has read all about it, has studied photographs of it, and at the...

The People’s Act of Love

by Cindy | Aug 25, 2009 | Fiction, Five Star

(This review first appeared in February of 2007) Rating:  The People’s Act of Love, by James Meek.  Canongate (2005), 391 pages. This is a very strange story with a particularly tangled and complicated plot. It takes place in a small village in Siberia...