When I first started reading Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump, niece of Donald Trump, I honestly was not sure I’d have the stomach to finish it—but I did, in less than two days. Watching the Donald Trump horror show and the collapse of the United States has not been a pleasant experience…
Browsing Category Books
American Dirt exposes timely and shocking insights into the plight of migrants
Jeanine Cummins, author of the best-selling novel American Dirt has been roundly criticized for writing a book about a politically sensitive subject she wasn’t born into. The cultural appropriation accusation is frequently hurled at authors and it’s a nasty term. American Dirt is the story of a Mexican woman and her eight-year-old son who are fleeing the wrath of a cartel in Mexico by trying to illegally cross…
The Glass Hotel spins the Bernie Madoff story into some unputdownable fiction
This is one of those times I’m tempted to start my book review with a simple, “Wow! That was great!” I’m giving you the spoiler alert right upfront. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel is a current best-seller but it is hard to qualify by genre. It’s a bit mystery, a bit historical fiction and a bit ephemeral in spirit. It’s particularly satisfying for me…
It’s Not All Downhill From Here . . . a great story about the value of female friendships
For some strange reason, when I downloaded It’s Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan, I thought the author was a male Canadian humour writer. Obviously I somehow got my wires crossed because Terry McMillan is, in fact, a black American woman who has written several books including the best-sellers Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. You’d have thought the cover art would…
Big chemical and personal care companies are killing us slowly with their secrets
Last week I watched a horrifying two-hour documentary on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) television called “Toxic Beauty”. I stumbled on it while channel surfing and was stunned by the information imparted. A large portion of the program was dedicated to the coverup by Johnson & Johnson about the dangers of using their baby powder. A class-action suit initiated by thousands of women who developed ovarian cancer…
There’s nothing like a good murder mystery to help escape the real world
Several things appealed to me about reading The Tenant, a novel by Katrine Engberg. First of all, I’m a recent convert to the murder mystery genre and I love the escapism these books offer. And, one of the main characters has taken up writing in retirement. Also, the story is set in Copenhagen, a city I last visited as a twenty-year-old in 1967 when I…