“Books to Die For” is a book you can’t live without. Mystery authors John Connolly and Declan Burke have compiled an anthology of the world’s greatest mystery writers and asked them to select their favorite story or novel and explain why each venerates it.
Healthy and peaceful parenting, Dr. Charlotte Kasl suggests in her latest book,“if the Buddha had kids,” is achievable without “screaming, shaming, humiliating, lecturing, punishing and hitting” children.
Prolific writer Ivan Doig’s new novel, “The Bartender’s Tale,” is a coming-of-age tale narrated by Rusty, abandoned by his mother and left with relatives until he was six years old when his bar-tending father, Tom Harry, rescues him and takes him to Gros Ventre, Montana.
Academic scholar and feminist Lois Banner’s unique analytical biography of Marilyn Monroe’s personas, “Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox,” includes previously-unearthed materials to establish how historical events and “geography of gender” intersected to produce a worldwide icon of beauty and glamour.
Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders is simply an absolute gem. Biographer, BBC broadcaster and British author Gyles Brandreth brilliantly wraps an inventive mystery around true characters and historical events.
Don’t look for a sizzling expose about actress Diane Keaton’s memorable romances with Woody Allen, Al Pacino and Warren Beatty in her memoir, Then and Again. Rather, it is a compassionate and educational collage of dying and loving, assembled from hers and her mother’s journals.
Bestselling author Adriana Trigiani’s newest novel, The Shoemaker’s Wife, is like devouring a chocolate cake with tons of icing. One must first slice through her extensive, but rich, details ranging from the architectural design of the New York Metropolitan Opera House to a Serbian dinner party in Minnesota before reaching the heart of her dramatic story inspired by her Italian grandparents who migrated to the United States at the turn of the century.
Former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins’ forte is his earthy narrative poems that focus on the familiar. In his recent book, “Horoscopes for the Dead,” Collins intertwines a melancholic tone with wit and charm as he reacts to death and his relationship with nature.
The parallel lives of an American woman and a world chess champion from the Soviet Union tragically disentangle in Jennifer Dubois’ historical fiction, A Partial History of Lost Causes, entitled after dissidents’ propaganda leaflets during the Cold War.
As a spy mystery reader, I was outraged after the first few chapters of Chris Pavone’s first novel, “The Expats.” His clues were obvious. Protagonist Kate Moore, a trained CIA operative wasn’t suspicious when a new acquaintance in a foreign country asked for the keys to her car or the use of her computer. I wanted to scream at the pages that Julia Moore was clearly planning a tracking devise and installing spyware.
