I'm a few years behind on this train but let me be the most recent person to tell you this: The Golden Mean (Random House Canada, 2009) by Annabel Lyon is a great book. Lyon brings an extraordinary amount of humanity and relevance to the historical story of Aristotle in Macedon. While the action of… Continue reading Book Review – The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon
Category: Book Reviews
Book Review – The Blondes by Emily Schultz
Since I first heard the premise of Emily Schultz's novel, The Blondes (Doubleday Canada, 2012), I've been eager to read it. Set in a world much like ours, but one in which a virus has begun to spread. Its victims become disoriented, clumsy, and then savage, reacting violently to everything around them until they kill… Continue reading Book Review – The Blondes by Emily Schultz
Book Review – The Keep by Jennifer Egan
The Keep (Anchor Books, 2006) begins with a castle, an unnamed European country, and a spectacularly annoying character. Danny has just arrived, with a one-way plane ticket to meet a cousin he hasn't spoken to in years, at a dilapidated castle. He doesn't know where he is or why his cousin has brought him there.… Continue reading Book Review – The Keep by Jennifer Egan
Book Review – Galore by Michael Crummey
For a long time I've wanted to visited the Canadian East Coast. Pictures of lighthouses in Nova Scotia look beautiful. I'm a big fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery, who set the majority of her books on Prince Edward Island. But every book I've read about Newfoundland makes it sound like a cold, desolate place. (See:… Continue reading Book Review – Galore by Michael Crummey
Book Review – Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
I love hearing other people's testimonies. You will never hear two the same. Every Christian has a unique story of how they came to be in relationship with Jesus Christ. I think that's so amazing. Testimonies continuously remind me of God's love for us, individually. So I like reading testimonies too. I appreciate when authors… Continue reading Book Review – Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
Book Review – News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is undoubtedly best known for his beautiful "magic realism" prose. In novels like Love in the Time of Cholera or The General in his Labyrinth, Marquez masterfully joins fiction and fancy so that it becomes beautifully impossible to tell what's based in reality and what is not. Even his personal memoir, Living… Continue reading Book Review – News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Book Review – Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Secret Daughter (William Morrow, 2010) is a book about adoption, cross-cultural marriage, and familial rifts. The "daughter" of the title is Asha, a baby girl born into an India where high dowry prices mean daughters are undesirable. Her father wishes to get rid of the baby girl, as he did with the daughter born previously.… Continue reading Book Review – Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Book Review – The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
Primarily, when I think of G. K. Chesterton, I think of Orthodoxy. Then I remember that he also wrote the Father Brown mystery stories. After reading The Man Who Was Thursday I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Chesterton in the non-fiction world far more than I do in the fictive. This… Continue reading Book Review – The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
Book Review – Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster
I had two reactions to Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster (Henry Holt, 2007). The first – and perhaps thus the truest- came right when I finished reading it. Peter and I were on the ferry, on our way home. I closed the book and set it down on my lap. Peter looked up… Continue reading Book Review – Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster
Book Review – The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Casual Vacancy is not Harry Potter. This obvious fact needs to be stated because, I’m willing to bet, 90% of The Casual Vacancy’s readers have picked it up because of the author’s name. I certainly was one of them – driven by a certain curiosity to see what else J.K. Rowling can do. Of… Continue reading Book Review – The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Karissa Reads Books 