I loved this book because I love (and the book loves) libraries.
Centering on the mysterious fire that ravaged the Los Angeles Public Library in 1986, Susan Orlean ranges widely, both inwardly and outwardly. Inwardly, the book explains the multiple services that libraries offer their patrons and celebrates their staff's dedication, passion, and ingenuity. Outwardly, the book pleads for the importance of libraries to civic life, especially in an era of increasing social isolation and dependence on electronic media.
I find that everything that Susan Orlean writes is worth reading. I cherish this book above all her other fine work.
Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post).
On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished,…
I enjoy spy novels, and I think Mick Herron is the best person writing them since John Le Carré.
The “slow horses” are a young crew of failed British spies, members of MI5, exiled to a do-nothing outpost for various mishaps. I love their hard-won camaraderie. I also love Jackson Lamb, their boss. A heavy smoking, heavy drinking, unhygienic, and decidedly non-PC lout, he’s cunning, sarcastic, and cares deeply for his crew of misfits, despite constantly mocking and demeaning them.
This book is full of twists and turns and is often laugh-out-loud funny. I enjoyed how Lamb and the “slow horses” solve a massive problem created by Di Tavener, the ambitious second in command of MI5, outwitting her in a slam-bang climax. It is the first of six novels in the Slough House series. I’ve enjoyed all of them.
'To have been lucky enough to play Smiley in one's career; and now go and play Jackson Lamb in Mick Herron's novels - the heir, in a way, to le Carre - is a terrific thing' Gary Oldman
Slough House is the outpost where disgraced spies are banished to see out the rest of their derailed careers. Known as the 'slow horses' these misfits have committed crimes of drugs and drunkenness, lechery and failure, politics and betrayal while on duty.
In this drab and mildewed office these highly trained spies don't run…
I love the fact that Alice Munro, who died recently, won the Nobel Prize, the first ever given to a writer of short stories. Munro herself chose the seventeen stories in this book, selected from across her long career.
I encountered the first, “Royal Beatings,” in a college anthology, and I was blown away by its skill and audacity. I found the last story, “The Bear Who Came Over the Mountain,” especially touching because my sister suffered from the same condition, senile dementia, as the story’s central character.
Between these bookends are fifteen other stories, equally remarkable for their variety, humor, pathos, depth, and elegance. I loved all of them.
A dazzling selection of seventeen stories from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro—featuring an Introduction by Margaret Atwood
“Munro stands as one of the living colossi of the modern short story, and her Chekhovian realism, her keen psychological insight, her instinctive feel for the emotional arithmetic of domestic life have indelibly stamped contemporary writing.”—The New York Times
The stories brought together in Carried Away span a quarter century, drawn from Alice Munro’s earlier works. Here are such favorites as “Royal Beatings” in which a young girl, her father, and stepmother release the tension of their circumstances in a ritual of punishment…
My book explores the moral and ethical dilemmas that characters face, both inside themselves and in their interactions with others, in plays by William Shakespeare and novels by William Faulkner.
The book’s six chapters–three on each author–originate in my history as a teacher and published writer. They focus on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Othello, and Macbeth, and on Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and Intruder in the Dust.
My book speaks to the power of literature as a form of pleasure and of solace. It affirms the centrality of storytelling to human beings’ efforts to make sense of their journey through life and of the circumstances in which they live.
Stella is in kindergarten and just learning how to read. Her dad is helping her learn. He reads her a story at bedtime every night.
The stories in this book are among her favorites because of the way they’re written. Increasingly, she doesn’t just listen. She figures out words and sometimes whole sentences. It slows down her getting to sleep, but she and her dad say, “So what?”!
Join Pete the Cat for 12 groovy, cozy stories in this giftable 192-page hardcover collection.
Each of these awesome twelve tales is the perfect length to read aloud and includes full-color illustrations on every page. Readers will love snuggling up to these fun Pete the Cat stories, from Pete helping out the tooth fairy, camping in the woods, hosting a slumber party, and much more!
This collection includes lightly adapted versions of 12 favorite Pete the Cat stories from New York Times bestselling creators Kimberly and James Dean. If you're looking for 5-minute bedtime stories, Pete the Cat is a…
