Two hours into a charter trip off the Oregon coast, a woman is braced against the rail of a boat with a rod bending in her hands, screaming that she will not be bested by a Picasso-looking fish. A deckhand asks her to mind the children on board. Her firefighter roommate, who has caught nothing […]
On the first page of this book, an eighty-one-year-old widow serves her job applicant a cup of Earl Grey. The applicant never mentioned liking Earl Grey. The widow drinks coffee. It takes almost the whole novel to understand what that cup of tea actually was, and when I did, I went back and read the […]
There is a chapter in this book that is exactly one word long. A few chapters later there is another, also one word, and the second word is not printable on a family-friendly blog. Both belong to a frog. I have been reading fantasy for most of my life and I cannot remember the last […]
A thoughtful exploration of how classic books, plays, pieces, and artists can move you The classics aren’t just reading assignments. They can open your eyes to worlds and ways of life you’ve never seen before, from Ancient Greece in The Odyssey to Ancient Rome in The Aeneid and beyond. They’re timeless for a reason, with […]
An ambitious exploration of holistic healing that blends modern science with ancient wisdom, encouraging readers to think critically about health, healing, and spirituality The human body possesses remarkable healing capacities. Throughout The Living Temple, author Mehul bridges the gap between modern neuroscience with ancient healing traditions, presenting the two as complementary rather than contradictory. The […]
Somebody once told me the cruellest thing you can do to a person is find them interesting. I did not understand that sentence until I read this book. Fruit Fly by Josh Silver opens on a woman sitting on a closed toilet seat at her husband’s promotion party, playing Candy Crush and deciding she is a […]
A feral retelling of Irish myth where survival requires carrying the dead into the future D. Firth Griffith’s The Way of Salmon Moon is the third book in the Rimwalker series, and it reads a bit like a nightmarish creation story. A retelling of the Irish myth An Bradán Feasa (Salmon of Knowledge) through Paleolithic […]
A seemingly straightforward case for a cynical investigator turns sinister in this voicey horror novel. It’s December 1977, and Harvey is working as a private investigator in a rain-soaked New Æthelstan. Partnered with a suave French ex-special forces operative, Harvey is a cynical, hard-drinking, chain-smoking thug with a mysterious past, working out of a rundown […]
Ten years ago the sun cracked apart in the sky and fell. Nobody has seen a dawn since. Crops rotted, vampires came ashore, and humans learned to eat each other and call it practical. Into that permanent midnight walks Kyrene, a bounty hunter carrying a blade gifted by the goddess of justice, who has never […]
Synopsis: The past doesn’t wash away. It just freezes over. For fourteen years, Alex Neitzel has lived a life built on a foundation of silence and blood money. To the residents of Champaign-Urbana, he is a wealthy, solitary remote copywriter. To his teenage children, Sammy and Cecelia, he is a ghost—a cold, self-absorbed father who […]