Child 44

So. How does a thriller about a serial child-murderer, set in Stalinist Russia, resemble a little girl with a curl right in the middle of her forehead? Well, I just finished Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44, and when it is good, it is very very good, and when it is bad it is horrid. Let’s [...]

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Sunday Salon: Reading–The Superior Hobby?

A few weeks ago, I went through a phase where all I wanted to do in the evenings was lie on the couch and watch TV. So I spent one evening watching nothing but favorite episodes of The X Files. (For fellow X-Philes, those episodes were “Bad Blood,” “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” “The Unusual Suspects,” [...]

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My Cousin Rachel

Surely I’m not the only person out there who has considered herself a Daphne du Maurier fan for years despite only having read one novel (Rebecca) and one short story (“The Birds”) by her. The truth is, I’ve meant to read more for years, but I seem to get my du Maurier moods confused with [...]

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The Great Divorce

Have I told you all how much I love my church book group? We meet every week and have extremely lively discussions of books that deal with different aspects of the Christian life. Even when the books aren’t so great, we have wonderful conversations about the ideas in them. We don’t always agree, but we [...]

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Family Roundabout

Families are strange animals. Bound together (typically) by blood and background, members often find taste and temperament driving them apart. Richmal Crompton’s 1948 novel, Family Roundabout, explores this push and pull of family ties as experienced by the two most prominent families in a small English town. Each family is headed by a widowed matriarch [...]

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Irma Voth

I’m about to offer some unconventional advice for reading Irma Voth by Miriam Toews: Start with Chapter 7 and read to the end. Then, if you’re curious about the back story go back to the beginning and read the first half. If you must. The first half is not very good. The second half, starting [...]

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Song of Susannah (Dark Tower #6)

When Wolves of the Calla ended, Roland’s ka-tet was broken, with one member whisked off to who knows where and others torn up with grief for lost friends and loved ones. Song of Susannah picks up moments after that breathless conclusion as the remaining members of the ka-tet and their new friends in Calla Bryn [...]

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The Leftovers

I have a sentimental attachment to Tom Perrotta because his last book, The Abstinence Teacher, was the very first book I reviewed here on Shelf Love. I liked the book for its sympathetic and gently mocking approach to the culture wars, an approach that feels refreshing in a society where polarization and rancor seem to [...]

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Readathon Day

Today, book bloggers and other readers are devoting an entire 24 hours to read as much as they can as part of Dewey’s 24-Hour Read-a-Thon. I’ve participated in this event several times over the years, and it’s always good fun. I have just about all day and all night free for reading, but as usual [...]

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The Romance of the Forest

Orphans. Villains. Mysterious forests. Ruined abbeys haunted by bats, owls, and other creatures of the night. Conspiracies. Bloodstained daggers. Illegible manuscripts. Betrayal. Ancient murders. Convents. Oppressed virgins in peril. Incarceration. Are we talking about Lemony Snicket and the ongoing trials of the Baudelaire children? No! Teresa and I read Ann Radcliffe’s wonderful, cobwebby, gloriously melodramatic [...]

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