Flush
School Library Journal Review: Gr 5-8?Noah and his sister, Abbey, are more understanding of their volatile dad's latest arrest than their mother, who begins talking of divorce. Dad sank the Coral Queen, a casino boat on a Florida Key because, he alleges, its owner, Dusty Muleman, has been illegally dumping raw sewage into the local […]
Half of a Yellow Sun
Publisher Weekly Review: Starred Review. When the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria seceded in 1967 to form the independent nation of Biafra, a bloody, crippling three-year civil war followed. That period in African history is captured with haunting intimacy in this artful page-turner from Nigerian novelist Adichie (Purple Hibiscus). Adichie tells her profoundly gripping story […]
The Emperor's Children
Publisher Weekly Review: Marina Thwaite, Danielle Minkoff and Julian Clarke were buddies at Brown, certain that they would soon do something important in the world. But as all near 30, Danielle is struggling as a TV documentary maker, and Julius is barely surviving financially as a freelance critic. Marina, the startlingly beautiful daughter of celebrated […]
I Feel Bad About My Neck : and Other Thoughts On Being a Woman
Publisher Weekly Review: Reviewed by Toni BentleyThe honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty," concludes Nora Ephron in her sparkling new book about aging. With 15 essays in 160 pages, this collection is short, a thoughtful concession to pre- and post-menopausal women (who else is there?), like herself, who "can't read a […]
Theft
Publisher Weekly Review: Starred Review. Two-time Booker-winner Carey (Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang) returns with a magnificent high-stakes art heist wrapped around a fraternal saga. Butcher Boone is an all-id all-the-time Australian painter of enormous talent and renown. Now divorced and bankrupted by his former wife, who tired of his […]
Terrorist
Publisher Weekly Review: Ripped from the headlines doesn't begin to describe Updike's latest, a by-the-numbers novelization of the last five years' news reports on the dangers of home-grown terror that packs a gut punch. Ahmad Mulloy Ashmawy is 18 and attends Central High School in the New York metro area working class city of New […]
My Life In France
Publisher Weekly Review: Starred Review. With Julia Child's death in 2004 at age 91, her grandnephew Prud'homme (The Cell Game) completed this playful memoir of the famous chef's first, formative sojourn in France with her new husband, Paul Child, in 1949. The couple met during WWII in Ceylon, working for the OSS, and soon after […]
Digging to America
Publisher Weekly Review: Tyler (Breathing Lessons) encompasses the collision of cultures without losing her sharp focus on the daily dramas of modern family life in her 17th novel. When Bitsy and Brad Donaldson and Sami and Ziba Yazdan both adopt Korean infant girls, their chance encounter at the Baltimore airport the day their daughters arrive […]
The Year of Magical Thinking
Library Journal Review: Starred Review. In her latest work of nonfiction, essayist, novelist, journalist, and screenwriter Didion (Slouching Towards Bethlehem) chronicles the grief she suffered at her husband's passing. John Gregory Dunne's unexpected death of cardiac arrest in the winter of 2003 ended a marriage of nearly 40 years, and Didion examines her complicated responses […]
Lucille Camps In
School Library Journal Review: PreS-Gr 2-When Dad takes Lucille's older brother and sister camping, the youngest pig is left behind, and her mother tries to console her with fun projects and some homemade cookies. Refreshed from a nap, Lucille wakes up with an idea. Dragging her quilt downstairs, along with a bag of favorite toys, […]