I recommend this book heartily to all storyreaders, wherever you went to college. It really should be a Yale SR long, although it might be a little too long for that. Anyway, that's what I was thinking when I dashed off the following Goodreads.com review ( Read more... )

I'm not giving anything away by telling you that the Fourth Crusade is the one where the crusaders sack and loot a series of Christian cities, most famously Constantinople (capital of Byzantium). Knowing that, you might expect this book to be depressing. It's actually highly entertaining--a "rip-roaring adventure yarn" (tm)--with lots of action, ( Read more... )

Deeply imaginative and always fascinating, this novel imagines a Noah's flood scenario in which a (wait for it)children's hospital becomes an ark. Preserved by angels for some unknown purpose, the colorful cast of characters include a medical student who receives strange healing powers; your typical roster of doctors, residents, fellows, nurses; ( Read more... )

My Goodreads.com review of Treblinka

Based on firsthand testimony (written in the 60s), this boor recounts the successful Jewish uprising that destroyed the Treblinka concentration camp. And I thought I knew basically everything about the Holocaust! Steiner puts us inside the world of the organizers of the revolt, telling their story in a way that ( Read more... )

 They beat me to all the good post titles.

okthxbai

OMG. If you are or ever have been overeducated, a faculty brat, bookish, socially awkward, or in high school (preferably two or more of those): read this book. If you're into thrillers, conspiracy theories, postmodern prose, the movie Heathers, and/or Wildean wit: read this book. Blue van Meer has spent her life traveling the country with her ( Read more... )

er,yay, The Opium Season: A Year on the Afghan Frontier has its own NYTimes review!

And I was worried that

( Read more... )

Here's my Goodreads review--more a riff/comment, which is probably fine, since many including (
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Here's my Goodreads.com review of the above book. Sometimes I love to snark ( Read more... )

I read this book a couple of months ago, and it's definitely my fave stand-alone book of the year (HP7 being in a separate catagory for series). Like the work of Dave Eggers (yep, I'm uncool enough to admit to liking him), this was the kind of subway reading that had me hoping for an unexplained 20-minute delay in service.

Cloud Atlas by David ( Read more... )