The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

June 14, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Davina Porter. Recorded Books, 2002. Originally published 2001. 55 hours, 30 minutes. Library copy. The fifth book in Gabaldon’s Outlander series opens right at the conclusion of the proceeding book: Brianna and Roger have reconciled at the clan gathering in the colony of North Carolina where the Frasers have traveled to see Jamie’s Aunt Jocasta marry Jamie’s co-revolutionist from Culloden. The wedding, however, is interrupted by the arrival of the local magistrate, who proceeds to arrest […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Chunkster, Fiction, North America, Science Fiction, United States • Tags: Davina Porter, Diana Gabaldon

The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay

June 10, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Translated from the French by Sheila Fischman. Peirene Press, 2017. Originally published 2013. 160 pgs. Purchased. Twin brothers, Ahmed and Aziz, live near an orange grove established by their grandfather. The orange grove provides Ahmed and Aziz with a shaded, safe place to play-act, as young children are ought to do. When a bomb falls on the grandparents’ house, the people living on the other side of the mountain – people that Ahmed and Aziz have been […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Fiction, French, Middle East, Peirene Press, Translated • Tags: Larry Tremblay

Broken Harbor by Tana French

June 7, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Penguin Books, 2013. Originally published 2012. 450 pgs. Purchased. First introduced in Faithful Place, Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy returns as the main detective in the fourth novel in French’s Dublin Murder Squad series. Known for his high closure rate, Scorcher is his supervisor’s go-to guy for training new murder detectives and for cases that are sure to attract attention from the news media. Hence why Scorcher ends up serving as the primary investigator into the death of Patrick Spain […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Ireland • Tags: Tana French

The Buried by Peter Hessler

May 29, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Penguin Press, 2019. 480 pgs. Purchased. After years of living and working in China as a journalist for The New Yorker,Hessler moved with his wife, Leslie, and infant twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. The same year the Egyptian Arab Spring began, resulting in the overthrow of the dictator Hosni Mubarak and the election of the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi. As Hessler documents in his book, Morsi would serve as president for barely a […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Africa, Chunkster, LGBTQA+, Nonfiction • Tags: Peter Hessler

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

May 24, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Nan A. Talese, 2019. 337 pgs. Purchased. In McEwan’s alternative 1980s London, the British lose the Falkland War and Margaret Thatcher is pushed out of a power by a resurgent Labour Party led by Tony Benn. These events are minor, though, to the fact that Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, was never subjected to chemical castration for being a homosexual in the 1950s. As a result, Turning never committed suicide and the computer revolution of […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Science Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Ian McEwan

Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi

May 22, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter. Tin House Books, 2012. Originally published 2001. 110 pgs. Library copy. Rather than recap the book for myself, I’d like to copy the summary provided by the publisher as I think it best incapsulates the haunting tone of this novella: “A single mother takes her two sons on a trip to the seaside. They stay in a hotel, drink hot chocolate, and go to the funfair. She wants to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, France, French, Peirene Press, Translated • Tags: Véronique Olmi

Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski

May 20, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Persephone Books, 2008. Originally published 1949. 232 pgs. Purchased. In 1940, as the Nazis were marching onto to Paris, an English solider named Hilary Wainwright was forced to abandon his wife and newborn son. His wife, Lisa, was too ill from childbirth for a hasty evacuation back to England; his son, John, seemingly better off in the care of his mother and her friends than a single father. In 1942, the British War Office notified Hilary of […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Adoption, Europe, Fiction, France, Persephone Books • Tags: Marghanita Laski

My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley

May 17, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Flatiron Books, 2018. 336 pgs. Purchased. Twenty years after their marriage ended, David Hedges and Julie Fiske are living on opposite sides of the United States. Julie is going through her second divorce; her husband, Henry, is demanding Julie come up with the money to buy him out of their rambling Victorian along the coast north of Boston. He is also insisting their daughter, Mandy, come up with plan for college, or he’s going to push […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Fiction, New England, North America, United States • Tags: Stephen McCauley

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

May 15, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Robertson Dean, Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, Ryan Anderson, Johnathan McClain, Robert Younis, and Thom Rivera. Highbridge, 2014. 26 hours. Purchased.  On December 3, 1976, gunmen opened fire inside the Jamaican home of Reggae superstar, Bob Marley. The attack occurred against the backdrop of the looming general elections – a event the American government was afraid would sweep a pro-Communist government into power — and only two days before Marley was set to perform at a […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Caribbean, Chunkster, Fiction, ReadDiverse • Tags: Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, Johnathan McClain, Marlon James, Robert Younis, Robertson Dean, Ryan Anderson, Thom Rivera

The Space Barons by Christian Davenport

May 13, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Public Affairs, 2018. 320 pgs. Library copy. I work on the periphery of the aerospace industry, relying on the industry to build and launch optical satellites whose imagery I can process in support of environmental monitoring and natural disaster response. Despite this proximity, my knowledge about the aerospace industry is limited to the photographs NASA shares on Instagram. Which is why I was intrigued when I saw Davenport’s book on display at my local library. Subtitled “Elon […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Nonfiction, North America, Space, Technology, United States • Tags: Christian Davenport

Kings of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth

May 10, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – print. Little, Brown and Company, 2018. 288 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “One Summer Paddling Across the Far North”, Weymouth’s memoir covers the fourth months he spent canoeing the Yukon River from Canada’s Yukon Territory through Alaska to the Bering Sea. The Yukon is 2,000 miles long, the longest free-flowing river in the United States and the longest salmon run in the world. Each summer, king salmon (known as Chinook in Canada) migrate the distance of the Yukon to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Canada, Food, Indigenious Peoples, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Adam Weymouth

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

May 8, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Riverhead Books, 2013. Originally published 2012. 402 pgs. Purchased.  In the 1920s and 1930s, Louise Brooks became a famous silent film actress and dancer and was noted for her bob hairstyle, a unique take on the poplar flapper persona of the time. In Moriarty’s fictional account, Louise is a fifteen-year-old girl leaving Kansas for the first time to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Louise’s parents insist she be accompanied by a […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Book Club, Feminism, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Laura Moriarty