The Face of Water by Sarah Ruden
★★★★☆ Water is capricious. Even when it seems still, it is ready to change, to appear and be different. Place a measuring device into a body of water and you have affected its flow....
Category: Book Reviews
How America Lost Its Secrets by Edward Jay Epstein
★★★☆☆ Many of Edward Snowden’s detractors contend that while his 2013 NSA surveillance revelations began with good intentions, he acted egotistically and in so doing compromised the efficiency of America’s counterterrorism operations. Author Edward...
The Lost Book of the Grail by Charlie Lovett
★★★★★ The existence of the Holy Grail may be the most enduring legend in Christendom. It first entered our permanent consciousness in an unfinished romance by Chrétien de Troyes in the late 12th Century....
The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
★★★★☆ Following his 2013 parable The Childhood of Jesus, J.M. Coetzee returns to Simón, Davíd and Inés’s story in The Schooldays of Jesus (longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize) as they settle in the...
The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
★★★★☆ A compulsively readable contemporary fable, The Childhood of Jesus is an allegory about two immigrants, a boy and his guardian, and their difficulties acclimating to life in a new city. Davíd is a...
The Woman on the Stairs by Bernhard Schlink
★★★☆☆ It is a common enough image in painting: a nude woman descending stairs. In his new novel The Woman on the Stairs, Bernhard Schlink turns this single motif into a complete world with an...
Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
★★★★☆ Ottessa Moshfegh writes great stories about terrible people: from perverts to addicts to the cripplingly lonesome, her stories illuminate the fetid, mildewed corners of society with a critical yet surprisingly forgiving eye. Moshfegh...
And Then All Hell Broke Loose by Richard Engel
★★★★☆ In twenty years of foreign correspondence throughout Egypt, Iraq and Syria, journalist Richard Engel has no doubt covered a myriad of horrific incidents. Consider this episode from 2005 that occurred on Baghdad’s Imma...
The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak
★★★☆☆ Undoubtedly operating in the shadow of Ernest Cline’s 80’s nostalgia-fest Ready Player One, debut author Jason Rekulak offers The Impossible Fortress. It’s the story of a high-school nerd with a knack for video...
