Briar Patch Books

Category: Contemporary literary fiction

  • The language of family

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson WE NEVER ASKED FOR WINGS. By Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Read by Emma Bering and Robbie Daymond. Random House Audio. 11 ½ hours; 10 CDs. $40. Also available in print from Ballantine Books. Letty Espinoza had a lot more advantages than many children of Mexican immigrants. She had two supportive, loving parents.…

  • Afloat with love and literature

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE LITTLE PARIS BOOK SHOP. By Nina George. Read by Steve West and Emma Bering, with Cassandra Campbell. Random House Audio. 11 hours; 9 CDs. $46. Also available in print from Crown. Monsieur Perdu runs a floating bookshop, on a barge moored in the Seine in Paris. But he’s more…

  • History is what we make it

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson I approached this book with hope but also some trepidation, having loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society so much that I read it in print AND listened to it as an audio book. Annie Barrows co-wrote that wonderful book with her aunt, Mary Ann Shaffer. As its…

  • Sunshine and shadows

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson Memory is such a complicated thing. It’s always fascinating to compare memories with a sibling or other person with whom you shared a long-ago experience. Sometimes details will be radically different; sometimes one person may have no recollection at all of something that made a vivid, lasting impression on another.…

  • Danger is in the eye of the beholder

    Paula Hawkins’ debut thriller is getting a lot of attention, and for good reason. Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN. By Paula Hawkins. Read by Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey and India Fisher. Penguin Audio. 9 CDs. $40. Also available in hardcover from Riverhead Books. When the blurb on the box calls…

  • Appearances and disappearances

    Take an ambitious, needy girl, throw in a few naive young men, add a plot for an improbable heist plus adventures on two continents, and you’ve got an impressive first novel. Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson UNBECOMING. By Rebecca Scherm. Read by Catherine Taber. Penguin Audio. 13 ½ hours; 11 CDs. $45. Also available in…

  • Love, marriage and so much more

    Bob Moyer takes a look at a novel that’s small in size but big in scope. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer DEPT. OF SPECULATION. By Jenny Offill. Alfred A. Knopf. 177 pages. $22.95. This concise, evocative novel (readable in one sitting) takes the reader on a roller coaster ride through that treacherous theme park known…

  • When they were young

    Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury bohemians are a well-known part of our literary heritage. Even those of us who haven’t really studied them have heard a lot about them. But Virginia, her sister Vanessa and their friends and family come alive in a new way in this highly entertaining and intelligent novel. The audio version…

  • Flavia crosses the pond

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson AS CHIMNEY SWEEPERS COME TO DUST. By Alan Bradley. Read by Jayne Entwistle. Random House Audio. 11 hours; 9 CDs. $41. Also available in print from Delacorte Press. 392 pages. $25. What a relief! Or, as Flavia would shout, “Yaroo!” When I reached the end last year of The Dead…

  • Small packages – when less is more

    So many of the audio books I “read” go on and on. That can be good if you want to get hooked into a book that will be with you for a while, say on a long road trip. But it’s refreshing to encounter a couple of novels that are more understated. Each of these…