His was a seemingly innocent question. I was prone in my dentist’s chair about to wait ten eventless minutes in the process of having a crown put in when Brian, my dentist, asked, “Did you bring a Kindle?” He was offering to retrieve it from the waiting room so that I’d have something to read. …
“This charming and moving picture book is William Joyce at the top of his form. A tribute to a man who loved books and lived his life devoted to them. Joyce’s marvelous illustrations carry the story along magically. This is the perfect book to show the wonder of reading to a little one and to …
“The wonder of the natural world really comes to life in Things That Are, a new collection of essays from award-winning writer Amy Leach. Moving from lilies to jellyfish, pandas to honeybees, Leach’s lyrical explorations of the wild offer the reader little respites from the techno-paced modern world. Sometimes she invites us to engage in …
“Day after day, middle-aged American consultant Alan Clay and his young IT team sit in a tent in the Saudi Arabian desert, waiting for King Abdullah to show. Their company has prepared a holographic presentation in hopes of winning the bid to supply technological infrastructure to the King’s un-built city. This is the backdrop for …
“With a title like that, how could I not pick up this book. I loved learning about Peggy’s journey and struggle as a midwife. And the way she sprinkles in her birth stories makes the book that much better. Being pregnant with my second and having a midwife this time around, reading this made me …
“This is the most accessible of the novels I’ve read by Toni Morrison, but it’s no less powerful for being readable. The story is about a Korean war veteran, Frank Money, who joined the army to escape from the home town in Georgia that he hated, and is now state-side again, suffering from what would …
“Recently orphaned eighteen-year-old Esther Chambers heads west to Century, Oregon to live with her only living relative, distant cousin and cattle rancher Ferris Pickett. As Esther stakes a claim on Ferris’s behalf alongside a small lake, she learns the ways of frontier life as well as the politics of the local town. In Century, the …
“As many readers may know already, Williams wrote movingly in Refuge about the history of her family as down-winders in Utah, the death of her mother from cancer and her own struggles. Her latest book harkens back to her mother’s death, but is more difficult to define. Before she died, her mother told Terry to …
“If there’s any hope for me of ever managing my ‘little piece of paradise in the sticks,’ or even just making the most of my city lot, it’s in the pages of this book. Kristy Athens offers a conversational and frank approach to what it takes to hoe that Eden. I won’t plant another carrot …
“If you enjoy a good laugh paired with a complex sci-fi plot definitely check out Alien Diplomacy. Koch is one of the very few authors I can honestly say makes me laugh out loud. Her newest book continues the Kitty Katt Martini series with fabulous gusto. Perhaps the most remarkable thing here is that her …
