Latest Reviews
In 1958, Manchester United was flying high. The best-known soccer team in the world and reigning English champions, the team was led by a bright young group of star players nicknamed the “Busby Babes” after their charismatic manager Matt Busby. But on a snowy afternoon that February, a plane carrying the team back from a European Cup match crashed on takeoff in Munich, killing 23 people --- including eight Manchester United players and three team officials. The accident destroyed the team, traumatized fans all over the world, and devastated the tight-knit community in Manchester. In MUNICHS, renowned novelist David Peace reimagines the crash and its aftermath, dramatizing the deep scars it left on British society.
The first lyricist to win the Pulitzer Prize, Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) has been hailed as one of the masters of the Great American Songbook, a period that covers songs written largely for Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s. Now, in this first full-length biography devoted to his life, Michael Owen brings Ira out at last from the long shadow cast by his younger and more famous brother, George. Drawing on extensive archival sources and often using Ira’s own words, Owen has crafted a rich portrait of the modest man who penned the words to many of America’s best-loved songs, like “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Embraceable You” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”
In the blazing hot summer of 1994, there’s nothing for Cora Mowat to do but hang around in empty parking lots. Stuck in her mother's small house and tired of her own restless mind, she’s desperate to break free of the limits of Fife but unsure of what the future holds --- if it holds anything at all for a girl like her trying to find her way in the world. After her mother invites a new man to live with them, tensions quickly rise in the cramped house. Gunner is kind but also strange --- a one-eyed shoplifter with more than a few hidden secrets. But when tragedy strikes shortly after, Cora rebels against her small-town existence in search of love, acceptance and a path to something good. If only she can learn to navigate her grief and everything she thinks she knows about who she is and what she might be capable of, she finally may find the way forward.
Leo Parker's stay in Alphafen seems idyllic, but after he leaves, the nightmares begin. An airport turns into a labyrinth. His own words become treacherous, if not lethal. And what are those creatures in the photographs he took? Even the therapy Leo undertakes becomes a source of menace. Perhaps Leo has roused an ancient Alpine legend. Even once he understands what he brought back, his attempts to overcome its influence may lead into greater nightmares still.
For most of its 45-year history, The Mysterious Bookshop --- the oldest mystery specialty bookstore in the world --- has commissioned an original short story as a holiday gift for its customers. Written exclusively for the store and never published elsewhere, the stories were given as a holiday gift to its customers as a thank you for their business, handed out or mailed between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The prompt for the story requires three elements: that it be set at Christmastime, that it involve a crime of some kind, or the suspicion of one, and that it be set at least partially in the bookstore. And from these loose structural guidelines, diverse tales took flight. The dozen tales included in this volume are among the finest to be produced in this annual tradition, sure to charm any reader looking for a holiday-themed escape.
Randy Newman is widely hailed as one of America’s all-time greatest songwriters, equally skilled in the sophisticated melodies and lyrics of the Gershwin-Porter era and the cultural commentary of his own generation, with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon among his most ardent admirers. While tens of millions around the world can hum “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” his disarming centerpiece for Toy Story, most of them would be astonished to learn that the heart of Newman’s legacy is in the dozens of brilliant songs that detail the injustices, from racism to class inequality, that have contributed to the division of our nation. In A FEW WORDS IN DEFENSE OF OUR COUNTRY, veteran music journalist Robert Hilburn presents the definitive portrait of an American legend.
In this collection of 60 new poems, Billy Collins writes about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity but ends with a whiff of mystery. In WATER, WATER, Collins combines his vigilant attention and respect for the peripheral to create moments of delight. Common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination, be it a cat leaning to drink from a swimming pool, a nurse calling a name in a waiting room, or an astronaut reciting Emily Dickinson from outer space. With his trademark lyrical informality, Collins asks us to slow down and glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar.
Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells "small" fortunes, knowing from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences. Even if it’s a lonely life, it’s better than the one she left behind. But a small fortune unexpectedly becomes something more when a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary recruit her into their desperate search for a lost child. Soon, they’re joined by a baker with a "knead" for adventure, and --- of course --- a slightly magical cat. Tao starts down a new path with companions as big-hearted as her fortunes are small. But as she lowers her walls, the shadows of her past close in --- and she’ll have to decide whether or not to risk everything to preserve the family she never thought she could have.
Art historian Camille Leray has spent her career surrounding herself with fineries and selling pieces worth millions. But she harbors a secret: she has the ability to enter the world of any piece of artwork, and she can take others with her. But tapping into history comes with great risks. And someone has been watching, someone who knows about her magic…and her mistakes. After Camille ruins her career and reputation by misusing her powers, she vows to get her old life back. So when Maxime Foucault, an enigmatic aristocrat who owns a sprawling French estate, enlists her help in authenticating the statues of a mysterious artist, she knows this could be her chance to turn her career around and get the man she's always wanted. But something isn't right about the Foucault family and the grand chateau they inhabit.
After years apart from his criminal family, young Luke Crosswhite returns to their flock deep in the California desert. Luke’s father is serving time for a brutal murder that Luke himself witnessed. Now, his uncle vies for power and rival biker gangs encroach on the family’s various criminal enterprises. A sensitive boy grown hard man, Luke navigates the vicious pressures of “home,” and the loyalties to his cousin, Callie, who has hatched a scheme with her boyfriend, Pretty Baby, to escape the control of the gang, the Combine. Hanging over these desperate, lonesome parties is the gang’s motto, tattooed indelibly across the heart: Blood is Love.
