The Order of the Day by award-winning French novelist and film maker Eric Vuillard is a well-researched and creatively presented story of the Anschluss, Hitler’s move to take over Austria and incorporate it into Germany. It is a brief cautionary tale in narrative non-fiction form. Where direct quotes are available, Vuillard uses them. Where they …
Category: reading list
What’s in a name? Does it reveal our character or destiny?
The Names by Florence Knapp offers a rich exploration of identity beginning with our names – how much of our name defines how we see ourselves, how our name influences others’ perceptions of who we are – and expanding her characters’ lifelong searches for their authentic selves. The structure of this interesting debut novel is …
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European art: a man’s obsession and crime
The Art Thief: a True Story of Love, Crime and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel, published in 2023, is a well researched and documented account of one of the most unusual art thieves of all time. For years, his heists stymied collectors and investigators in Europe, especially in France, Switzerland and Germany. And he …
When a con cons a con in merrie olde England
The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson is a mystery set in London in 1749. It is a romp, filled with colorful characters, set against the well-detailed urban landscape of the Georgian era. The plot is full of surprises, twists and turns. It is a beautifully crafted page turner. A well-mannered beautiful widow in …
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The Mysteries of Life: from Darwin to the Genome Project
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1995 and was reissued with an afterword in 2023. This is a BIG book not necessarily in length (around 412 pages) but in the story it documents and the scientific mysteries it unfolds. …
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A lifelong journey with college mates
Heart the Lover by Lily King shares some themes with What We Can Know by Ian McEwan, the book I reviewed two days ago. They’re both set against the backdrop of academia. King focuses on four young people in college, their spirit and energy, academic pressures, dating issues, insecurities, crushes, parties, and card games (one …
Much awaited, the latest novel by Ian McEwan
What We Can Know by Ian McEwan opens in the year 2119, which technically qualifies it as science fiction. But the characters and the issues that preoccupy them have a very contemporary feel. It is the most recent in a string of books I’ve read with pleasure by Ian McEwan, including Atonement, Amsterdam, On Chesil …
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Letters that tell her story
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is a beautifully written novel in epistolary style, presented as a series of fictional letters, mostly penned by one Sybil Van Antwerp over eighty+ years. Even as a child, she wrote letters, finding it easier to write than to speak. Readers learn on the very first page that the correspondence …
A Lurid History with Lessons for Today
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild was first published in 1998, but its 2020 relaunch, with a forward by noted author Barbara Kingsolver and the author’s own afterword, attests to its relevance today. A dogged historical researcher, Hochschild documents the shameful capture of Africa’s Congo river and territory by the rapacious megalomaniac King Leopold II …
Why it’s us versus them
Paper Girl: a Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America by journalist Beth Macy is a perfect complement to my just-reviewed Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. Think of Paper Girl as small-town Ohio, part 2, the contemporary, non-fiction version. Macy grew up in Urbana, Ohio, graduating from high school in 1982. Though four generations …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 