Monthly Archives: February 2015

The Forever Bridge by T. Greenwood

American Literature

Synopsis: A midwife derailed by grief struggles to repair her relationship with her troubled daughter, and a pregnant homeless girl seeks shelter as Hurricane Irene relentlessly approaches. Review: T. Greenwood is one of my all-time favorite authors, and her books are notoriously hard to synopsize and review. The Forever Bridge is perhaps her most conventionally plotted book, with a strong sense of narrative suspense, but it’s still a novel that takes its time in the nuances of character and relationships. There are so many moments…

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Two Books That Were Not Gone Girl

American Literature, British Literature

America’s Test Kitchen Radio has this great feature where they test kitchen gadgets and tell you one that’s hot and one that’s not. So I’ve got two Gone Girl knockoffs, one that’s hot and one that I read anyway. You: A Novel has an irresistible premise, in which a stalker narrates his growing obsession with a troubled young woman. He addresses her using the 2nd person, but within the context of a first person narrative. Author Caroline Kepnes had to use a teeny bit of…

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In the Kingdom of Ice, The Princess and Curdie, Luckiest Girl Alive

American Literature, Scottish Literature

I don’t tend to read a lot of non-fiction, but I’ve always been a sucker for stories about people trying not to freeze to death. In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Journey of the USS Jeannette was not only a suspenseful, exciting story, but it was exceptionally researched and suffused with narrative excellence. In 1879, the USS Jeannette headed off to the North Pole, captained by the capable and ambitious George Washington De Long. Their goal was to reach the North Pole…

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Katy Bowman, A Literary Polar Vortex

American Literature, British Literature

This week, I finished a review copy of The Disappeared by Roger Scruton, and a full review will run on the publication date (March 5, 2015). I had a passing awareness of Scruton from another lifetime ago, when I was Managing Editor of the now-defunct webzine New Pantagruel (.com). More to come. Katy Bowman‘s Move Your DNA is more of a reference book than anything else, but the first half tackles the science of biomechanics in a comprehensive and surprisingly readable way. The second section…

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Seraphina Sequel (Awesome!), The Princess and the Goblin

American Literature, Scottish Literature

I basically spent all my reading time this week finishing up Shadow Scale, the sequel to Seraphina. I’ll have a full review on the release date in March, but I will spoil you for it by saying that it lived up to the full promise of the original–and then some! In read aloud land, we finished up The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, the Scottish writer whom CS Lewis admired so such. I was deeply moved by the story, which is fey in…

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