23 in 23!
Phew…I just finished reading my 23rd book in 2023, meeting my year-end goal by a whisker. Mostly fiction, I dipped a toe in 12 genres, with five books from the calendar year. Welcome your comments and recommendations as I go for 24 in 2024… Happy reading & Happy New Year! My Top 10 Favorite Books […]
Read MoreAnd the Winner is…
A lover of year-end lists, here’s “My Top 10 Books” of the 21 I read in 2022. Welcome your thoughts and recommendations for 2023. Happy New Year! The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood The Best of Richard Matheson – Richard Matheson The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen Edgar A. Poe: A Biography […]
Read MoreYEAR OF READING PLEASURABLY
Happy New Year! Another plague-ridden year for the world meant another ideal one for page-turning pursuits. My Goodreads account tells me I finished 21 books in 2021, the majority novels and several published during the calendar year. Joining the “best of” lists making the rounds, please find below my favorite books read over the past […]
Read MoreSee You in Court!
Past month or so got you down? Want to escape from it all? Feel like getting lost in someone else’s problems bigger than your own? William Landay’s powerful courtroom page-turner Defending Jacob might just be the cure for you. The Case: Assistant district attorney Andy Barber heads a high-profile murder trial of a brutally slain teen-aged […]
Read MoreA “Fall” Worth Taking!
One measure of any great thriller, I think, is its ability to keep you gripped and guessing until the very end. Or, in this case, until right “Before the Fall.” Noah Hawley’s edgy and absorbing 2016 novel tells the story of a private plane full of rich passengers that crashes off the coast of Martha’s […]
Read MoreArt Imitates Death in Turkey
I never met Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov, murdered here in Turkey yesterday. Had I, I’m fairly certain, like many others, I would have disagreed with his views and especially his country’s actions in Syria, which likely caused his death. But none of this in any way justifies the killing. This incident, coupled with last week’s […]
Read MoreNot Swept away by this Broom
In its own right, especially as a first novel by then 24-year-old MFA student David Foster Wallace, The Broom of the System is a clever and entertaining if quirky and meandering read. An arguably excessive (467-page) tale of an underachieving Cleveland telephone operator struggling to make sense of her 20-something life – populated with a […]
Read MoreJump on the Train!
Believe the hype: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins is a tensely taut thriller that delivers from start to finish and is well worth a read before going to see the just-released film of the same name, starring Emily Blunt. Half the fun of this best-selling novel comes in guessing whodunit, which, I’ll admit, […]
Read MoreKirk Wolcott’s First Novel
Politics, terrorism, and sports collide in this riveting debut novel by American diplomat and former sportswriter Kirk Wolcott, prompting a crucial question for our time: How far is too far when trying to change the world?
Add “A Simple Game” to Your Goodreads Bookshelf
Kirk
12/31/2023
Book Reviews
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