Its blurbs claim that the excellent novel The Little Stranger is haunted by the spirits of Edgar Allen Poe and Henry James. I would say that author Sarah Waters, so successful in channeling Dickens’ and Wilkie Collins’ Victorian London in Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, took on, with this gothic-tinged novel set after World War [...]
I slipped into this inviting novel like a warm bath. It’s soothing and sensual, comforting and relaxing. There’s no psycho behind the shower curtain either – if you are looking for a reading experience that is the equivalent of a good long soak, and are willing to shed some tears and giggle a bit as [...]
If you haven’t read Emma Donoghue’s novel Room yet, you’re probably sleeping well—but we’re here to warn you that you’ll be staying up until the wee hours once you start reading it. It’s a gripping story of a most unusual mother-son duo, told solely from the 5-year-old boy’s perspective, and it’s both terrifying and uplifting. [...]
Spring, even in Southern California, provides exhilaration, variety and a great excuse to curl up with a cup of tea and read. Here’s a literary suggestion to complement a wet, cold weekend that follows a warm, mock-orange-scented week: Tana French’s three-novel cycle of crime and (not much) redemption. With French’s luminous writing, you are in [...]
If Miss Marple investigated social consciousness instead of murder mysteries, Agatha Christie might have written this book. Set in a charmingly upscale village on the Sussex downs, this novel is a charmingly upscale commentary on British snobbery as widowed, bookish and oh-so-English Major Pettigrew falls inevitably in love with the village’s Pakistani shopkeeper. Consequences ensue, [...]
Pasadena’s selection for the upcoming One City One Story program is Mudbound. This debut novel by Hillary Jordan is set in the Mississippi Delta just after World War II, as two families play out the South’s eternal conflicts over race, land and class. Six main characters alternate in telling the story, which begins with a burial [...]
The first time I heard of Frank Lloyd Wright, I was standing in the living room of the Hollyhock House, transfixed by my Occidental College professor Bob Winter. He was re-enacting the suicide of Mrs. Barnsdall’s goldfish. The tyrannical genius architect Wright (I believe the epithet Winter used was “Napoleonic”) had designed an indoor fishpond [...]
For the price of a good bottle of wine, you can gift your holiday hosts and hostesses with a book they won’t be able to put down. But careful, because Bill Bryson is probably a more charming party guest than you can ever hope to be. I will read anything Bill Bryson has written. I [...]
If you’re looking for a great holiday read, something to pick up and put down easily, to get a bit lost in, and to make you look at life and your relatives in a whole new way, get The Art of Racing in the Rain. Amusing, cogent and undemanding (a bit like Enzo, the narrator), [...]
Sebastian Barry’s novel The Secret Scripture takes us to the contemporary west of Ireland, to a decrepit, ancient asylum that is about to be torn down. This poses a dilemma for the director, Dr. Grene, who must unearth the history of his oldest patient, 99-year-old Roseanne McNulty. Was she committed against her will? Is she really [...]
