Tina Fey works hard in her 2011 memoir “Bossypants” to create a picture of herself as a big-hipped, thin-lipped, sarcastic loser from the suburbs of Philadelphia who by some stroke of luck became part of the world of celebrity. Nice try, Tina! There’s way too much within these pages that shows the charm, the...
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An online interviewer asked Francine Prose, author of 16 novels and several non-fiction books, how she would like to be remembered. She replied, “I’d like them to say books were substantial but fun, extremely serious but funny, and never boring.” That sentence alone could stand as a review of her 2011 novel, “My...
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I’m in awe of Geraldine Brooks. She takes on writing projects that require formidable research and exacting attention to detail like a plague-ravaged 17th-century village in “Year of Wonders” or six centuries of Jewish history in “People of the Book.” The resulting works are wonderfully convincing. Her latest winning work of fiction is “Caleb’s...
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Sometimes I forget how satisfying it can be to read poetry; Mrs. Vandling’s English classes almost killed the medium for me many years ago. But now, thankfully, there is Billy Collins, America’s Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003. I picked up my third collection of his poems, “Horoscopes for the Dead” (2011), couldn’t put...
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In 2006 Lisa Genova tried for over a year to find a literary agent to promote her first book project, “Still Alice.” “Not interested,” they said. “There’s no market for a story about a woman with Alzheimer’s.” Reluctantly Genova, who has a doctorate in neuroscience from Harvard, self-published her novel, and the professionals couldn’t...
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“Children and Fire” (2011) is the fourth of Ursula Hegi’s novels set in fictional Burgdorf, Germany during the dark years leading up to World War II. Readers who loved her well-drawn characters in the splendid “Stones from the River” will be pleased to see some reappear in her latest work. Hegi excels in depicting...
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“Just Kids” Written by Patti Smith It was impossible for me to ignore the singer Patti Smith’s 2010 memoir “Just Kids.” I couldn’t imagine it — a memoir written by a scraggly-haired rocker winning a Pulitzer Prize! The little I knew of Patti Smith was not all that flattering. To me, she was the...
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Written by Steven Galloway “The Cellist of Sarajevo” is a stunning book in every sense of the word. It is a stark yet surprisingly inspirational novel that takes us into the midst of war. Set in the capital city of Bosnia Herzegovena in 1992, during the first of the four years Sarajevo was under...
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“Noah’s Compass” Written by Anne Tyler I’ve been thinking a lot about Liam Pennywell over the last few days. Wondering how he’s getting along. Whether he and Barbara will be spending any holidays with the kids over the next months … That’s what Anne Tyler does to me. She introduces me to a character...
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“The Paris Wife” Written by Paula McLain I’m downright dizzy from the hours I’ve just spent with young Ernest Hemingway and his appealing wife, Hadley, in the apartments and cafés of the Left Bank of Paris in the 1920s. It’s exhilarating! One day we’re listening to Gertrude Stein tell Ernest to stick to strong,...
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