All Blog Posts Tagged 'family' (157)

Open, honest, and compelling reading.

Books are escapism, and Susie Kelly’s books about her adventures and life in France have kept me entertained over the years.

I knew this book was going to be different, but nothing prepared…

I loved this book!

As soon as I started reading the foreword, I knew I was going to love this book.

Many books have been written about people’s new lives in France, but not so many about the upheaval and organisation the move takes,…

4 out of 5 stars

A look at the ugly side of life

What if a computer…

By Jeanne Ray

Broadway Paperbacks, 255…

About Jesus Is Already Here:

Changing racial perceptions in the tumultuous 1960s brings conflict to a rural Southern family. A short story.

About Author Augusta Trobaugh:

Augusta Trobaugh is a native Southerner…

ISBN 978-0-8143-3412-6

Rating: 3 - Pretty good…

From my personal library

Rating: 4 - Really liked this read

"I had a wife. Her name was Hailey. Now she's gone. And so am I."

This…

From my personal library

Rating: 5 of 5 - sheer perfection

Have you ever smelled the magnolias, tasted the gumbo, seen the Spanish moss strung like Christmas garlands in the live oaks, heard the rain play on a tin…

Michael Perry is an interesting man. He leads the life that so many nameless drones in the city think they would trade a left arm for: bucolic, picturesque, wholesome. I'm sorry if that seems…

by Antoinette van Heugten

Jennifer Egan

Anchor 352 pgs

978-0307477477

From my personal library

Rating: 5 - Sheer Perfection

 Goon = Time

And in the immortal lyrics of Don McLean's American Pie: Can music save your mortal soul?

A Visit From the Goon Squad says yes it can. Visiting the present and the past and back again, this infuriating and lovely novel is about the ravages of  time and how it affects a cast of characters whose lives…

By Louise Erdrich

Harper Perennial 272 pgs

978-0061536106

Rating: 4

This book is excruciating. Also spellbinding. You will be appalled by the mind games being played but you will also come to understand them. At first you won't believe that you would ever play these games. But then you will begin to reflect and wonder if you haven't played some of these games yourself. I enjoyed this book greatly. It is a pleasure to read. Just be…

By Keith Richards

Back Bay Books 576 pgs

978-0316034418

From my library

Rating: 5 - Sheer Perfection

 Full disclosure: I am hopelessly in love with Keith Richards

OK, now that you know that I'd like to talk about rock and roll for a minute. Rock and roll is a force of nature. It can and does work radical change on every culture it touches. Remember back in the day when parents were horrified by it and teachers warned of a break down…

re-demp-tion [re demp shuh`n] noun 

1. an act of redeeming or the state of being redeemed.…

Coming September 2011 from Texas Christian University Press

By C.W. Smith

TCU Press 268 pg

978-0-87565-437-9

Submitted by Taylor Made Press

Rating: 4

You know when some horrible accident occurs and you can't look away? Something that commands your reluctant…

Submitted by TCU Press

Rating: 4.5

Home Truths is Gerald Duff's memoir of a boyhood spent on the Gulf Coast and deep in the piney woods of East Texas. I am a native Texan and I…

Stories

By Tom Franklin

Harper Collins, 192 pgs

0-688-17771-9

Rating: Read This Book!

Poachers is a collection of 11 short stories. I have gone back to my roots with this one. I "discovered" American regional short fiction 20 years ago and my favorite region is the south. It's all so very Gothic. Spanish moss…

By Gerald Duff

moon city press, 315 pgs

978-0-913785-34-8

Rating: 4

Gerald Duff has mad skills. Blue Sabine is lyrical, it reads like poetry but in a good way. This is the story of the Holt family as they relocate from Louisiana to Texas after the Civil War and unto the present day, told by the voices of its women, who have always been the strength of Texas. Everybody knows that, right?

Don't come to Blue…

By Monica Drake

Hogarth, Random House Group, 318 pgs

978-0-307-95552-4

Rating: 4

Sarah, Georgie, Nyla and Dulcet, all women approaching middle age in Portland, Oregon, have been friends since high school. The Stud Book follows a short interval in their lives filled with upheaval…