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Reviews by Shirley T. (Comfort, TX)

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This Strange Eventful History: A Novel
by Claire Messud

This Strange Eventful History (4/8/2024)

It was such a pleasure to read this excellent history of a French family with their travels across the world in the background of both WW2 and the end of Algeria as a French Colony, then moving on to the twenty first century. The novel is a study in the passing of time and …more

Leaving: A Novel
by Roxana Robinson

Leaving by Roxanna Robinson (12/1/2023)

LEAVING is a stunning love story which will appeal to very many readers.
Roxanna Robinson has an amazing ability to draw the reader into the plot so that the characters are real and believable from the start. The author describes past times of the lovers and their family …more

Day: A Novel
by Michael Cunningham

Day by Michael Cunningham (10/13/2023)

I found this novel both interesting and disturbing in several ways as it follows family relationships over a three-year period full of changes in the world. Although the author does not directly mention the virus pandemic which by the middle of the book was worldwide, he …more

The Wren, the Wren: A Novel
by Anne Enright

The Wren, the Wren (8/4/2023)

The Wren, the Wren ---how to describe this brilliant novel of a family who inherit both love and disturbing emotions?

The three women, Grandmother Terry, her daughter Carmel, who is Nells mother and Nell drive each other crazy but whose love for each other is the sustaining …more

Last House Before the Mountain
by Monika Helfer

Last House before the Mountain by Monika Helfer (2/15/2023)

The book is both a memoir and a novel based on the authors family history and the rather sad tale of a lonely poverty stricken family in rural Austria at the beginning of WW1 .

The style of the book, switching from the time of the war to the related story in the daughter's …more

Margot: A Novel
by Wendell Steavenson

Margot by Wendell Steavenson (12/8/2022)

After a slow start resembling a "young adult" novel with a neurotic, bullying mother, an absent father and a mentally impaired grandmother, the story starts in 1950s New York. The family is very wealthy and keeps to the manners of that time.

Surviving early school years and …more

Dinosaurs: A Novel
by Lydia Millet

Dinasaurs by Lydia Millet (9/18/2022)

The novel begins slowly with more than a hint of sadness as the principal character, Gil, walks away from a personal sorrow ending up a long distance from home. This is almost an old fashioned story, full of connections with nature and human behavior.

In the Arizona desert, …more

The Family Izquierdo: A Novel
by Rubén Degollado

The Family Izquierdo (8/7/2022)

This is a complex and unusual work presenting connected stories linking members of a large Mexican American family living on the Texas side of the Border.

The loving relationships between the family members remains strong, even while they struggle with their fate and the …more

Fly Girl: A Memoir
by Ann Hood

Fly Girl by Ann Hood (4/1/2022)

This is one of the best modern memoirs I have ever read. The author, Ann Hood, who is known for her excellent novels has now shared her career as a Flight Attendant, (Stewardess), mainly with TWA for 8 years traveling both domestically and internationally.

She starts with …more

Morningside Heights: A Novel
by Joshua Henkin

Morningside Heights (9/3/2021)

This novel about a marriage is both moving and compassionate. The hero of the story, Pru, is an amazing woman who is both adventurous and brave.
A fast paced start of the story is full of youthful hope for an exciting future but also holds hints of sadness to come.
In the …more

Everybody: A Book about Freedom
by Olivia Laing

Everybody by Olivia Laing (5/12/2021)

This is a very unusual book, well written and researched with information and ideas from the early twentieth century onward regarding the connection between freedom, the lack thereof, and the effect on the body and mind.

The author, Olivia Laing, writes about symptoms which …more

Crossing the River: Seven Stories That Saved My Life, A Memoir
by Carol Smith

Crossing the River (2/3/2021)

This memoir is immensely moving and engages the reader in the grief suffered by the author upon the birth and death of her damaged and brave, beloved son, Christopher.

The stories of the lives of others who had suffered are related by the author who is a journalist. It is an …more

The Blind Light: A Novel
by Stuart Evers

The Blind Light (10/13/2020)

This is a "true to the times" story set in England under the threat and fear of nuclear war from post World War II up to the present. It will be very nostalgic for older readers and provides a history of the times for younger readers.
The story is told through the friendship …more

The Woman Before Wallis: A Novel of Windsors, Vanderbilts, and Royal Scandal
by Bryn Turnbull

The Woman Before Wallis (7/3/2020)

The "Woman before Wallis" is an immensely enjoyable novel, revealing the intriguing but decadent lives of the aristocracy and the wealthy on both sides of the Atlantic during the years following World War I.

While the United States and the United Kingdom struggled with the …more

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
by Erik Larson

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson (12/29/2019)

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson is a well researched and very readable account of the power of leadership in the critical year of World War II from May 1940 to May 1941.

Winston Churchill's belated appointment as Prime Minister of Great Britain proved to be an …more

Beirut Hellfire Society
by Rawi Hage

Beirut Hellfire Society (5/8/2019)

Set in a war torn Beirut, a multi-cultural, multi-religious city, the story of Pavlov is both tragic and brave. The Hellfire Society, into which Pavlov is initiated by his father exists to deal with the final wishes of both the unconventional and irreligious after death.

…more

D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II
by Sarah Rose

D-Day Girls by Sarah Rose (3/17/2019)

This is a very well researched account of some of the brave women who worked for the Resistance in German occupied France during World War II.

The author has concentrated mainly on the activities of three of these women – Andree, Lise and Odette but also includes the …more

Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir
by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

Sounds Like Titanic (12/20/2018)

This memoir by Jessica C. Hindman is an intriguing story.

Written mainly in the second person style she also talks directly to the reader. It tells the tale of a West Virginia girl growing up in a modest family background. However she develops her musical talent on the …more

The Lost Man
by Jane Harper

The Lost Man by Jane Harper (11/3/2018)

The Lost Man is the best novel yet from Australian author, Jane Harper. Her description of the desolate desert and the extreme heat of Queensland sets the stage for an unusual and fascinating family drama. As the story unwinds from a death in the desert, the family members …more

So Much Life Left Over
by Louis de Bernieres

Review of "So Much Life Left Over" (7/9/2018)

This is a gripping novel about the effects of World War I on Britons with different backgrounds and experiences. In fifty short chapters the action oscillates between Ceylon, India, Britain and Germany as the British Empire begins to fade and Hitler's Nazis start their …more

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