Mark Svartz’s I Hate You, Kelly Donahue is surely like no other book I have ever read in my whole life — and I have read thousands of books over my lifetime. I don’t want to give the gist of the book’s message away. But I will... more

What makes a good mystery?  First and foremost, there must be a cast of believable characters and plausible clues.  Characters and clues must come together in a plot that keeps the action moving forward without long pauses.  The reader... more

Many world travelers read others’ travelogues to get new destination ideas and to see if the described experiences, whether positive or negative, run about the same way as their own. Being no different, I read Letters to Zerky with the expecta... more

The Rules of Inheritance is a memoir of grief. Claire Bidwell Smith found herself without family early in adult life. An only child of older parents, her mother died of colon cancer at 58 when Smith was 18, and her father followed seven years later, ... more

So begins one of the most amazing World War II accounts I have ever read. “War is hell” is one of those clichés that nobody but those who were actually there can ever understand. If I did not grasp that concept before, I sure do af... more

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is a fictional 1987 novel set in 1960s Tokyo. The novel became popular with Japanese youth and propelled Murakami to new heights of fame. The narrator Toru Watanabe reminisces about his days as a college student in 1... more