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Review Date: 12/23/2007
Helpful Score: 1
Atmospheric and compelling, Joseph Kanon's ALIBI takes us to glittering post-War Venice, where La Serenissima's stunningly beautiful facade becomes a transparent scrim, barely hiding the ugly truths of the recent past. The young American narrator learns firsthand how moral absolutes can blur and become as evanescent as a glimpse of Venice in the fog. A thought-provoking and disturbing novel.
Review Date: 8/23/2008
Well-paced mystery set in an Outback town. Very descriptive, with a cast of odd and damaged characters.
Review Date: 9/8/2008
A historian, heartbroken and broken in body, searches for meaning through the reseraching of his grandmother's biography. A study of this woman, whose life led from the cultural salons of the East to the mud streets of mining towns on the Western frontiers, reveals a family tragedy and fragile reconciliation of sorts...one that may help strenghten him in the path of forgiveness he must follow to repair his personal tragedies.
Review Date: 10/1/2008
A funny, definitely quirky look at where religious fanaticism leads, reminiscent of Vonnegut in style and approach.
Review Date: 3/15/2008
Helpful Score: 1
Inspector Morse meets John LeCarre! A Cambridge policeman is drawn into a complex web after a student's apparent suicide leads him to suspect the presence of a Russian spy in Britain. Kept me guessing throughout, with a conclusion that had me flipping pages as fast as I could!
Review Date: 8/28/2008
A morality play of conflicted emotions, faith, and fidelity set against the vastness of pre-War Alaska. By turns amusing and heartbreaking, it had me hooked after the first few pages.
Review Date: 7/4/2020
Fancy a lapsed Catholic loving a book set in the Vatican. I did.
Review Date: 3/4/2010
Incomprehensible claptrap...and I'm being kind
Review Date: 9/19/2008
Helpful Score: 2
An absorbing, never-really-coming-of-age novel which traces the intertwined lives of two young boys in pre-gentrified Brooklyn. Heartbreaking insights into just what exactly the "school of hard knocks" knocks into people.
Review Date: 8/23/2008
Helpful Score: 1
Quirky and fun tale that debates the true meaning of "being good."
Review Date: 9/28/2008
Helpful Score: 1
Absolutely gorgeous writing! Sumptuous and seductive, this tale winds though a family's life with magic, joy and pathos.
Review Date: 10/12/2008
Helpful Score: 1
A wry, satirical look at Russian by dissident author Voinovich. More light-hearted than Solzhenityn, his take on Russian bureaucracy is more like Heller's Catch-22.
Review Date: 12/20/2007
Helpful Score: 1
It's bad enough being raised in an orphanage in Brooklyn..but to be an orphan with Tourette's who falls into a gang of petty hoods as he grows...ah! THEN you have a story! The plot's twists are matched by the Tourettic twists of the hero's language. An intriguing tale with a truly odd assortment of characters and absolutely delicious writing. Quite a few gems of wordplay made me laugh aloud.
Review Date: 9/7/2008
Helpful Score: 2
A Dickensian tale of the clumsy gropings of the early pyschologist/anatomists in the Georgian age that gives a wonderful sense of the era with pungent description and stinging social analysis. A study of class discrimination and the true nature of "monsters." If you are a fan of Caleb Carr, you should love this book!
Review Date: 1/1/2009
Excellent! Descriptive, enticing mystery with great character.
Review Date: 8/23/2008
Helpful Score: 1
The mental meanderings of an older man seeking refuge in scenes of his youth after the death of his wife. The language is brilliant and his personal stocktaking scathing. Evocative, twisting tale that knits past and present threads.
Review Date: 9/6/2008
Helpful Score: 1
A harrowing tale of murders in a small town; a town in which all the residents are damaged, it seems. Old and new personal clashes flare for the reporter/heroine, who must face her own painful childhood.
Review Date: 12/20/2007
Helpful Score: 1
Oliver Sacks' autobiography leads us on a tour of the development of a "scientific" brain, from reminiscences of his large and quirky family in London to a Dickensian boarding school during the Blitz bombings to his awakening love of chemistry. It is part memoir, part paean to the symmetry and infinite beauty of science. Funny, sad, tragic and inspiring by turns, it reveals how Sacks became both a scientist and a caring human.
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