I've read Rebecca (1938) by Daphne Du Maurier. It is a great book of suspense. I read it as part of the BBC book list that I was reading from when I started this blog. (I should get back to that.) I'm not sure why, but I stopped there with Du Maurier. I didn't think, "That... Continue Reading →
What happens when two children who murdered another child together grow up, are released from prison, and then find each other again? That is the premise of Alex Marwood’s thriller The Wicked Girls (2012). My sister Afton recommended it to me, and I’m glad she did. I could not put it down. The book flashes... Continue Reading →
Is a good wife somebody who is exact in self-sacrificing and serving her family? Is a bad wife one who is crazy, perhaps while pursuing autonomy? These are the choices presented in the character of Marta Bjornstad in Emma Chapman’s How to Be a Good Wife (2013). We review this novel as part of the... Continue Reading →
We finished reading Lord of the Flies (1954), number 49 on the BBC book list, by William Golding. I read it to my 11-year-old daughter, who has been recovering from a tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy this week. I've read it before, but I had forgotten most of it. Oh my. I feel a loss of... Continue Reading →
Welcome to the latest post in the Literary Wives series. Every two months, a group of bloggers reads a book with word “wife” in the title, and we attempt to answer the following two questions in our posts for that month. 1. What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being... Continue Reading →
I just finished reading The Girl on the Train (2015) by Paula Hawkins, and I have to say that I enjoyed the read. It wasn’t the best written book I’ve ever read, nor was it high literature, but it was fun, and just what I needed to take my mind off of dissertation writing and... Continue Reading →
A good friend recommended Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (2006), especially since she knew that we had both read Gone Girl and had both gone to see the movie version the weekend it came out. She recommended Sharp Objects to me because it was so disturbing that she really wanted to talk about it with somebody.... Continue Reading →
I had no idea what to expect when I picked up The Shadow of the Wind (2001), number 56 on the BBC book list, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I mentioned to my sister that I had started reading it, and she had an enthusiastic response. I realized then that I was in for a treat... Continue Reading →
When you’re a child who loves to read, there’s a lot of pride in being able to read what your parents are reading. It is a rite of passage to read a “grown-up” book. While I technically read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck in late middle... Continue Reading →
But you should read Dante’s Inferno. But that’s not what this post is about. It is about my disappointment after picking up Inferno (2013) by Dan Brown with enthusiasm. I expected it to be a fun, light read that I would enjoy, as I have appreciated some of Brown’s other books. But I did not... Continue Reading →
The Bookshelf of Emily J. 