The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan
★★★☆☆ Former photographer Anne Quirk is fading away. She suffers from the early phases of dementia and her family and the neighbors in her assisted living co-op must accept that she’s in need of...
Run Spot Run Book Reviews
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
★★☆☆☆ Jonathan Franzen, author of the divisive and monumental novels Freedom and The Corrections carries with him an aura of literary importance. Since the publication of The Corrections nearly fifteen years ago, his books...
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
★★★★☆ Alice Hoffman is the author of 25 adult novels and a handful of young adult and children’s books. Her voluminous body work is sometimes critiqued as being uneven, but a reader beginning with...
A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball
★★★★☆ It is better to consider Jesse Ball a text-based artist than simply a novelist: his books are far from traditionally fulfilling narratives but instead captivating volumes of expressive, theoretical exploration. Dialogue-driven, A Cure...
Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of An American Cannibal by Harold Schechter
★★★☆☆ Speak of cannibalism in America and two names come to mind: the Donner Party and Alfred Packer. History has proven that, except for starvation and eating the dead, nothing untoward happened to the...
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ In The Library at Mount Char, Scott Hawkins has crafted a contemporary fantasy novel that is at once brutally dark and wickedly funny. The curtain opens on a woman...
Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami
It may be tempting to approach Wind/Pinball like you would pressing play on a favorite band’s demo tape, but Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 (Haruki Murakami’s first two novels) are surprisingly polished...
Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson
Fifty years after her untimely death, Let Me Tell You is a new reminder of just how excellent a writer Shirley Jackson was. The stories, essays, and lectures in this sparkling new collection include...
Neverwhere: Author’s Preferred Text by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew, a young man who leads an ordinary life in London until one day he comes upon an injured girl named Door who brings Richard into...
