My younger millennial sister insisted I listen to this. “East of Eden,” I asked. “ Really? It’s like two hundred hours!” (Okay, it’s about twenty-five hours but really the same thing.) And though I admire Steinbeck, there are only so many depression-era train rides and murdered bunnies a gal can take. “Do it,” she insisted. So I did.
I was completely blown away. Like some amazing soap opera, this book has everything. Set in the Salinas Valley, California, in the early 1900s, the story is a sprawling generational epic of pain, sex, death, romance, a set of Cain and Able brothers, the American Civil War, a psychopathic Madam, lovable flawed characters, unlikely friendships overriding race and class, terrible feuds, growth, despair, and redemption.
It is a glorious, vast Americana treasure of a read that you’re going to wish never ended. Best of all, it’s considered literature, so bonus smug points. Thou mayest.
California's fertile Salinas Valley is home to two families whose destinies are fruitfully, and fatally, intertwined. Over the generations, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of the First World War, the Trasks and the Hamiltons will helplessly replay the fall of Adam and Eve and the murderous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
East of Eden was considered by Steinbeck to be his magnum opus, and its epic scope and memorable characters, exploring universal themes of love and identity, ensure it remains one of America's most enduring novels. This edition features a stunning new cover by renowned…
I’m a MASSIVE King fan, but some reads are better than others, particularly in the Bill Hodges Trilogy, but Holly Gibney (perhaps King’s all-time favorite character) is rocking out in this one.
Holly, now a successful private detective, navigates her way through a world still grappling with the devastation of COVID with fabulous neuro-diverse coolness. Her opponents are formidable despite their advanced years. There’s no one like King who can somehow take a quiet old couple and turn them into cannibalistic monsters (probably a good thing?)
Holly is, by turns, funny, gross, titillating, horrifying, and engaging. It is a wild and totally addictive ride.
Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.
“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” —BILL HODGES
Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against…
I admit that I’m currently averse to reading anything too ‘heavy.’ The news of senseless violence, tragedy, and loss of life seems endless. Our country appears polarized beyond recognition and my year, for personal reasons, hasn’t been easy. I tend to tune out and shut off when overwhelmed. However, if anyone was going to open my eyes to America’s opioid epidemic, then I’m glad it was Barbara Kingsolver.
Her characters are so real, so evolved, that you can’t help but route for, or despise them. I haven’t felt so connected to and empathic towards my fellow Americans in a long time, and that’s saying something.
Kingsolver’s language is prosaic but not flowery; each sentence feels necessary. Physically, I was in my kitchen stacking the dishwasher, but mentally, I was living in a trailer park in the Appalachian foothills, trying to survive broken bureaucratic systems.
If you also happen to love Charles Dickens (as I do), then this is a massive plus, but it’s not essential. Best of all, there’s hope at the end, and we could all do with a little of that.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
A strange child, Margaret was feared and shunned by her medieval English village after her mother’s brutal murder. When her father remarries, she realizes that she must leave the village for good.
Hundreds of years later, Katherine Emerson prays her horrific summer is over. She survived a killer’s attack, but her roommate Andrea was not so lucky, and now Katherine is raising Andrea’s son, Lucas. However, the rest of her world is in ruins: the man she loves has left her, and she’s pregnant with his child.
As Katherine begins to fall apart, Margaret’s fight to survive in a hostile world reveals she has inherited her mother’s extraordinary gifts, but will she use them for good or evil? Can Margaret change the destiny of Katherine and her unborn child?
