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Reviews

Reviews

by Kent Haruf - Fiction

Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis’ wife. His daughter lives hours away in Colorado Springs, her son even farther away in Grand Junction, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in houses now empty of family, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with.

by Carol Berkin - History, Nonfiction

Revered today for articulating America’s founding principles, the first 10 amendments was in fact a political stratagem executed by James Madison to preserve the Constitution, the Federal government, and the latter’s authority over the states. In the hands of award-winning historian Carol Berkin, the story of the Founders’ fight over the Bill of Rights comes alive in a gripping drama of partisan politics, acrimonious debate and manipulated procedure.

by Louis Begley - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A horrified and incredulous Jack Dana digs into the facts surrounding the death of his uncle Harry of an apparent suicide. Aided by Harry’s most trusted associate, Kerry Black, and by his college friend Scott Prentice, who now works for the CIA, Jack discovers that Harry had pierced the secret of his most important client, Abner Brown, a right-wing multibillionaire notorious for backing extremist causes. The stakes and dangers are huge. Harry’s death now seems anything but a suicide.

by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge - Fiction

A year ago, Travis McKinley, an unknown golfing amateur, shocked the world by winning the PGA Senior Open at Pebble Beach. Now he's famous, he makes his living playing the game he loves, and everything should be perfect. Still Travis can't shake the feeling that he's a fraud, an imposter who doesn't deserve his success --- and after a series of disappointments and, to be honest, personal screw-ups, he might just prove himself right. A shot at redemption arrives in an unexpected form: a teenage outcast with troubles of his own --- and a natural golf swing. As this unlikely duo sets out to achieve the impossible on the world's most revered golf course, Travis is about to learn that sometimes the greatest miracles of all take place when no one is watching.

by Mary Doria Russell - Fiction, Historical Fiction

On October 26, 1881, Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers faced off against the Clantons and the McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona. It should have been a simple misdemeanor arrest. Thirty seconds and 30 bullets later, three officers were wounded and three citizens lay dead in the dirt. Wyatt Earp was the last man standing, the only one unscathed. The lies began before the smoke cleared, but the gunfight at the O.K. Corral would soon become central to American beliefs about the Old West.

by Erik Larson - History, Nonfiction

The sinking of the Lusitania is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. DEAD WAKE brings to life a cast of evocative characters --- from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.

by Peter Buwalda - Fiction

Siem Sigerius is a beloved, brilliant professor of mathematics with a promising future in politics. But there are elements of Siem's past that threaten to upend the peace and stability that he has achieved. When he stumbles upon a deception that’s painfully close to home, things begin to fall apart. A cataclysmic explosion in a fireworks factory, the advent of Internet pornography, and the reappearances of a discarded, dangerous son all play a terrible role in the spectacular fragmentation of the Sigerius clan.

by Stewart O'Nan - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In 1937, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long over. In poor health, with his wife consigned to a mental asylum and his finances in ruins, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood. By December 1940, he would be dead of a heart attack. Those last three years of Fitzgerald’s life, often obscured by the legend of his earlier Jazz Age glamour, are the focus of Stewart O’Nan’s novel.

by Andrew Levy - Literary Criticism, Nonfiction

Award-winning biographer Andrew Levy shows how modern readers have been misunderstanding HUCKLEBERRY FINN for decades. Mark Twain’s masterpiece is often discussed either as a carefree adventure story for children or a serious novel about race relations, yet Levy argues it is neither. Instead, HUCK FINN was written at a time when Americans were nervous about youth violence and “uncivilized” bad boys, and a debate was raging about education, popular culture and responsible parenting --- casting Huck’s now-celebrated “freedom” in a very different and very modern light.

by Richard Ford - Fiction

Through Frank Bascombe, we’ve witnessed the aspirations, sorrows, longings, achievements and failings of an American life in the twilight of the 20th century. Now, in LET ME BE FRANK WITH YOU, author Richard Ford reinvents Bascombe in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In four narratives, Bascombe (and Ford) attempts to reconcile, interpret and console a world undone by calamity.