Ann Patchett’s compelling new family saga, The Dutch House, is one of my favorite books of the year. Danny Conroy narrates this contemporary fairytale, set over five decades. He tells his beloved older sister Maeve’s story, with the requisite absent mother, the clueless father, and a wicked stepmother. Strong-willed Maeve is the heart and soul…
Since it’s Halloween this week but I’m too chicken to read horror books, I figured I would cheat and review a not-so-scary book that has “ghosts” in the title! Tuesday Mooney is a “prospect researcher” for a large hospital in Boston — that’s fundraising-speak for someone who pulls together information on wealthy potential donors. At…
Cook Library’s own horror aficionados Lindsay and Mark deliver the thrills and chills with some horror book recommendations just in time for Halloween. IN THIS EPISODE The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson Blood Sugar by Daniel Kraus The Shining by Stephen King Full Throttle by Joe Hill Through the Woods by Emily Carroll |…
Near the end of Olive, Again, the eponymous character concludes: “I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing.” But the reader of Elizabeth Strout’s two books about Olive Kitteridge understands a lot about Olive and, if they’re like me, have come to love this tough old…
In Miracle Creek, a small town in Virginia, the immigrant Yoo family has started a new business: Miracle Submarine, a center for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT. Touted as a treatment for a variety of medical conditions, their HBOT chamber (basically a big pressurized oxygen tank) has drawn clients with cerebral palsy, autism, and infertility.…
