Briar Patch Books

Category: Contemporary literary fiction

  • Love, war and murder

    Chris Bohjalian is without a doubt one of the finest writers in America today. His novels are literary without pretension and compelling stories without unnecessary artifice. He writes about terrible events so that we comprehend their enormity without being blinded by our horror to their greater truths. Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE LIGHT IN…

  • When things heat up

    While it’s still summer, read Maggie O’Farrell’s latest novel, the aptly named Instructions for a Heatwave. If you read it, as I did, as an audio book when driving, you’ll really get the atmosphere right when you begin to listen upon returning to your hot car after it’s been parked in the sun. The emotional…

  • Life, love and friendship – retold

    Here’s a good, rather old-fashioned novel that relies on excellent writing, skilled character development, vivid descriptions and considerable insight into human nature to tell its story. In print, it would be a great choice for a vacation or other time when you can savor a book. I found the audio version an excellent traveling companion.…

  • Those who serve, and those who wait

    A number of recent articles have looked at the growing military/civilian divide, the reality that even though the United States has been at war since just after Sept. 11, 2001, the vast majority of Americans don’t know anyone in the military and have very little understanding of the lives of those who serve and those…

  • Who’s smart now?

    I grew up in a family in which good grades and high test scores were highly prized, and where sibling rivalries could be heated. So the title of Jennifer Close’s second novel caught my eye. The book proved to be what I expected in some ways, and quite different in others. By Linda C. Brinson…

  • Aesthetics vs. pragmatism – what really matters?

    Bob Moyer is back, taking a thoughtful look at a novel that depicts the travails of Germans and others caught up in the horrors of the cataclysm that was World War II. By Robert Moyer THE LIFE OF OBJECTS. By Susanna Moore. Alfred A. Knopf. 240 pages. $25. Beatrice, a bright young Irish girl, yearns…

  • When reality and conscience collide

    I somehow missed reading Tracy Chevalier’s international best-selling novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring, which became an Oscar-nominated movie. Missing such books that everyone else is reading is one of the perils of being a book-review editor; if someone else is reviewing a book for me, I often feel that my reading the book would…

  • Out of the South, into life’s travails

    For a debut novelist, it doesn’t get much better than what is unfolding for Ayana Mathis and The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. It’s Oprah’s pick for her book club, and it was featured on the cover of The New York Times Book Review on Jan. 6. The book deserves the attention. It is a haunting,…

  • A few good midshipmen

    With all the emotion and aura of Saturday’s annual Army-Navy game fresh in my mind, I’m reviewing a recent novel set at the Naval Academy in the  (Go Navy, Beat Army!) late 1980s-early 1990s. By Linda C. Brinson THE RECIPIENT’S SON: A NOVEL OF HONOR. By Stephen Phillips. The Naval Institute Press. 270 pages. $28.95.…

  • What it all means, in one short novel

    My husband, who was a newspaper reporter before he saw the light and became a physics teacher, is much impressed by the latest book by the author of Einstein’s Dreams. By Lloyd Brinson MR G: A NOVEL ABOUT THE CREATION. By Alan Lightman. Pantheon Books. 214 pages. $24.95. The Father of Physics is … not…