Briar Patch Books

Month: November 2011

  • Rita Mae rides again

    The prolific author Rita Mae Brown now gives us a new book in her “canine mystery series” each fall, to tide us over while we wait for the new book in her Mrs. Murphy mystery series (feline and canine) to arrive in spring. By Linda Brinson MURDER UNLEASHED. By Rita Mae Brown.  Ballantine Books. 267…

  • All aboard for a magical ride

    Because I listen to audio books when I drive, I’ve developed a rating system that involves how far extra I’ll drive to keep listening to a book if I reach my destination in mid-chapter – or even mid-book.  This one cost me a lot of extra miles and gas. But that investment paid off handsomely…

  • Brother, sisters, choices

    Anne Barnhill, who has written a memoir about growing up with an autistic sister, reviews a fictional treatment of a similar family situation. (Congratulations to Anne, whose novel, AT THE MERCY OF THE QUEEN: A Novel of Anne Boleyn, Debut will be published by St. Martin’s Press in January!) By Anne Barnhill THE WAY THINGS…

  • No laughing matter

    Bob Moyer takes a sobering look at a serious subject: humor in Nazi Germany, and what it tells us about that terrible time. By Robert Moyer DEAD FUNNY: Humor in Hitler’s Germany. By Rudolph Herzog. Translated by Jefferson Chase. Melville House. 256 pages. $26. It is unbelievable that Hitler was responsible for the deaths of…