-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
I’m participating in Read an E-Book Week!
Time of Grace
A Knight’s Tale on Goodreads!
The Leaving
The Captain and Claire
Category Archives: Reviews
Beyond Piety: A Review of “Dearest Sister Wendy…” by Sister Wendy Beckett and Robert Ellsberg
Dearest Sister Wendy: A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship, Orbis, 2022, $24.99 paperback; $16.99 on Kindle A collection of letters between a religious publisher in upstate New York and a cloistered nun in Norfolk, England, has enraptured me. I … Continue reading
Posted in Health, Reviews
Tagged Catholicism, connection, faith, friendship, health problems, holiness, letters, mortality, Orbis, Pope Francis, Quidenham, Robert Ellsberg, Sister Wendy, spirituality
Leave a comment
After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: A Review of ‘Too Early to Know Who’s Winning’ by Karla Huebner
Karla Huebner’s latest book seems as if it’s the story of a friendship between two women during the harrowing Trump years. Superficially, it is, but it soon becomes clear that it’s a thinly veiled autobiographical novel about the anxieties of … Continue reading
Posted in Personal, Reviews
Tagged aging, autobiographical fiction, feminist fiction, friendships, Health, Karla Huebner, loss, middle age, Midwest, review, stress, Too Early to Know Who's Winning, Trump Years
Leave a comment
Review: Putting the Rabbit in the Hat by Brian Cox
What a life Brian Cox has had. The weird zaniness of some of his memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Grand Central Publishing, 2022, $14.99 on Kindle), is amplified by the fact that the “Editorial Reviews” section on the … Continue reading
Posted in creativity and its discontents, Reviews
Tagged acting, brian cox, putting the rabbit in the hat
Leave a comment
The Letters of Shirley Jackson—a Preview!
I’ve been busy reading the delightful, yet somewhat vexing Letters of Shirley Jackson (Random House, 672 pp., $14.99 on Kindle) and writing a long review of it! Finding a home (irony alert, as Shirley was always focused on the physical … Continue reading
Posted in creativity and its discontents, News, Reviews, Writing
Tagged 1950s, cruelty, dysfunctional relationships, female breadwinners, feminism, husbands, marriage, mental health, Morris Minors, Shirley Jackson, The Internet Review of Books, The Letters of Shirley Jackson, Vermont, women writers, women's lives
Leave a comment
Review: Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Occasionally, I will pick up a library book (and I vow to do this more, post-pandemic). I wanted to review a striking, mostly forgotten novel by 20th-century English author Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978), whose long life spanned almost a century … Continue reading
Posted in creativity and its discontents, LGBT, Reviews, Writing
Tagged 20th-century women writers, bisexuality, Communism, feminism, historical fiction, Jewish fiction, lesbian fiction, NYRB, Penguin, relationships between women, revolutionaries, Summer Will Show, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Valentine Ackland, women in love
Leave a comment
Once You Are Mine by Gabriella West ~ Book Review
Originally posted on Lily Michaels:
In this pandemic love story set in the tense, unpredictable summer of 2020, 21-year-old Alex Martinez gets out of San Quentin after serving three years for a nonviolent crime. He’s hardened by his time inside…
Posted in LGBT, Reviews, Writing
Tagged Alex, Bookbub, Lily Michaels, MMRomance, Northern California, once you are mine, pain, pandemic, real, Terry
1 Comment
Review: H Is for Hawk
I wanted to do a belated review of a memoir I bought last summer and finished late last year, Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk (Grove, currently $4.96 on Kindle). Hard to write a short review of this gorgeous book. … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged England, grief, hawks, healing, Helen Macdonald, memoir, naturalist, nature, outsiders, power, T.H. White, wildness
Leave a comment
Review: Moving On—Two Ex-Beatles’ Very Different Lives in the 1970s
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Beatles lately. Perhaps it’s because I started off the New Year by reading Mark Lewisohn’s masterful Tune In (2013), the first book in his proposed Beatles’ trilogy. It’s long and exhaustive, but you … Continue reading
Posted in creativity and its discontents, Reviews
Tagged 1970s, Astrid Kirchherr, Beatles, Bermuda, Coming Up, depression, diaries, Double Fantasy, ex-Beatles, Fred Seaman, Future, John and Yoko, John Lennon, Man on the Run, Mark Lewisohn, Murder, Myth, Nowhere Man, paul mccartney, Robert Rosen, Starting Over, Tom Doyle, truth, Wings
Leave a comment
Review: Between Heaven and Hell by David Talbot
Between Heaven and Hell: The Story of My Stroke (Chronicle Prism, 176 pp, $22.95, January 2020) David Talbot—journalist, popular historian, longtime San Francisco resident, and author of Season of the Witch—has written a surprisingly vulnerable, intimate, often funny and engaging … Continue reading
A Knight’s Tale: Montargis Gets a BookBub Promo, Starting Today!
The follow-up to A Knight’s Tale: Kenilworth is now featured on BookBub and available for 99 cents at all the major ebook retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Google Play)! Writing the book in the winter of 2017 through … Continue reading
Posted in LGBT, Reviews, Writing
Tagged A Knight's Tale: Montargis, bisexual romance, Bookbub, desire, historical romance, kindle book reviews, LGBT, love, medieval france, promotion
Leave a comment