Reviews by Shirley T. (Comfort, TX)

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This Strange Eventful History
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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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