Don’t Dump the Dog

Don’t Dump the Dog

Rating:  Don’t Dump the Dog: Outrageous Stories and Simple Solutions to Your Worst Dog Behavior Problems, by Randy Grim.  Skyhorse Publishing (2009), 216 pages. This book on dog training is an unusual addition to the category.  Instead of the conventional...
The House at Sugar Beach

The House at Sugar Beach

Rating:  The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood, by Helene Cooper. Simon & Schuster (2008), 351 pages. Liberia was founded in 1822 by freed American slaves. It was an experiment of sorts, funded by white Americans who foresaw...
Little Bee

Little Bee

Rating:  Little Bee, by Chris Cleave. Simon  Schuster (2009), 288 pages. Little Bee is a fourteen-year-old girl from Nigeria who is living in England in a detention center for illegal immigrants. She shares the narration of this novel with a woman named...
The Book Thief

The Book Thief

(This review first appeared in February 2007) Rating:   The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Knopf (2006), 552 pages. This is the story of a German girl living in a foster family in a working-class town in Germany during World War II. Such a setting encompasses,...
Neither Here nor There

Neither Here nor There

Rating:   Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, by Bill Bryson. Perennial (1992), 235 pages. This was a gift from somebody who remembered that I enjoyed Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, a comedic account of his hike along the Appalachian Trail. Neither...