A Cineaste’s Bookshelf
Click here for information about my book review policy.
REVIEW: Murder After Christmas
First published in 1944 (the same year it is set), it intertwines the reality of Britain at war and a delightfully unserious tone. Amidst food rations, petrol shortages, and city evacuees are hidden mince-pies, vapid couples, and a doddering lawyer. Read More »
Best Books of 2022
It's time to look back on the year and take stock. I reviewed dozens of titles, and read even more. Here were my favorite reads in 2022. Read More »
REVIEW: The Album
The setting is The Crescent, an enclave of five old houses inhabited by five old families. Although it is now firmly in the 1930s, these families live apart from most modern cares, employing Victorian traditions in their Victorian mansions. Then someone is murdered...Read More »
REVIEW: These Names Make Clues
Chief Inspector MacDonald is invited to an unusual party. Each guest is sent around the country estate with cryptic clues, full of puzzles and puns, to unravel, which will lead them to the next clue. Unfortunately for the players, a brief electrical outage reveals a dead body in the telephone room.Read More »
REVIEW: Sister Novelists
Before Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters, or the historical novels of Walter Scott, there were the Porter Sisters. Devoney Looser traces the fascinating, if difficult, lives of the influential authors that have been largely overlooked.Read More »
REVIEW: The New Yorkers
On the eve of the New York City's 400th anniversary, author Sam Roberts chose to tell the history of the city through 31 people who left their mark on the metropolis. Read More »
REVIEW: The Dame of Sark
The story of a fiesty woman who resisted the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands was so inspiring and, in many ways, hilarious.Read More »
Books for September
This month I'm highlighting some titles that were released in the last few months worthy of some attention and notice.Read More »
REVIEW: The Half Life of Valery K
Regular readers of Natasha Pulley will find this novel to be least like any of her others. While there are some winks to her other universes (a pet octopus, a lighthouse), this may be her most grim. The alternate realities explored by her previous characters exist only in the author's imagination. Here it is a battle of conflicting realities -- the one which is killing people covertly and the one which the government wishes to portray.Read More »
REVIEW: In the Houses of Their Dead
Like most American families in the 1840s and 50s, the Lincolns and the Booths practiced a religion that also embraced aspects of Spiritualism. By using this framework for the biographical history, Alford explores the societal turmoil that allowed Lincoln to become president and John Wilkes Booth to become an assassin. Read More »
Top Ten Tuesday: Time In Title
This week, the suggested topic is books with units of time in the title. At first this seemed kind of random, but it actually made for a fun list that crosses genres. Read More »
Books for June
I'm walking across England this month! 84 miles along Hadrian's Wall, plus some wandering around. Aside from a long transAtlantic flight, I don't think I'll be doing too much reading in June, but here are some new and forthcoming books to check out.Read More »
REVIEW: Two-Way Murder
The cast of village characters becomes a network of suspects, amateur detectives, and gossips -- each trying to piece together the events of the evening.Read More »
Top Ten Tuesday: Comfort Reads
Sometimes embarking on a new literary journey is just too much to contemplate. Sometimes, you just need to read a known quantity, a story you love -- something comfortable. Here are some of my favorite comfort reads.Read More »
Top Ten Tuesday: Still Not Read
We all do it -- get really excited for a new book, make sure it's preordered or on the library waitlist, count down the days until we can get it in our hands, hug it all the way home, then add it to pile and promptly begin to feel guilty about not reading it immediately.Read More »