Current Book Reviews
FullReviews Index - page 3
Feeding A Yen
In "Feeding a Yen," Calvin Trillin's most recent collection of food essays, we tag along as he seeks out such delicacies as [i]pimientos de Padron[/i] in Spain, [i]pan bagnat[/i] in Nice and [i]boudin[/i] in Louisiana. These are foods that comprise Trillin's "Register of Frustration and Deprivation," foods that can't be found outside of their place of origin...
The Woman Who Found Grace
Johnson’s third novel in The Woman Who series, The Woman Who Found Grace, strikes me as a book straddling the line between genre mystery and literary whodunit. That’s a tough line to straddle, no doubt about it. Johnson succeeds at combining these two essentially irreconcilable forms as well as any author I’ve read to date.
To Live
"To Live" is an epic and heartbreaking journey spanning four decades of recent Chinese history. It begins in the 1930s around the time of China’s second war with Japan and continues into the late 1970s reform era. In between, Hua weaves great sorrow and struggle for Fugui and his family through the tempestuous Chinese Civil War, The Great Leap Forward, and The Cultural Revolution.
Discovering Joan Didion
Upon reading only a couple of the essays collected in "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," I knew two things immediately: her voice is one of an unbiased observer who doesn't judge, but merely collects people, places, events, information and structures them so that they are compellingly readable. Secondly, Joan Did ion's prose is some of the most artfully arranged I have ever read.
Review: "Tilting" by Robert Mellin
Eight miles off the Eastern coast of Newfoundland, Canada lies Fogo Island, an inconsequential spot of land 15 miles in length and 9 miles wide. "Fogo" is derived from "fuego," the Portugese word for fire, since in its rocky barrenness, the island appears to have "been swept clean by fire."