Month: October 2011

  • Dangerous mountain

    Remember Charles Frazier, the North Carolina writer who made a huge splash with his first novel, Cold Mountain, in 1997? Then word got out that he received a staggeringly large advance for his second novel, Thirteen Moons, nine years later. As a result, there was more media attention to the business of publishing his books…

  • A chorus of voices from our past

    The saga of the Japanese “picture brides” who came from Japan to California after World War I is a sad chapter of American history that is unfamiliar to many of us. More of us know a little about the later internment of these women and their families, along with other Japanese Americans, during World War…

  • Madam India Black, at it again

    If you enjoy reading fiction set in Victorian England, then give this India Black series a try. Dickens, of course, showed the chasm between rich and poor, and focused his literary light on the dark side of London inhabited by thieves and worse. Today, Anne Perry, in her two mystery series, does an eye-opening job…

  • A tale of truffles and troubles

    While Bob Moyer was in Germany recently, he reviewed another in Martin Walker’s series of “mysteries of the French Countryside.” Go figure. By Robert Moyer BLACK DIAMOND. A Mystery of the French Countryside. By Martin Walker. Alfred A. Knopf. 298 pages. $24.95. Peril has appeared on the horizon of St. Denis, where Bruno is chief…

  • The great disconnect: Our children, our world

    Here we have a new reviewer discussing a book that has been the subject of considerable attention since it was published in 2008. I wrote about the book a couple of times in op-ed columns for the Winston-Salem Journal back then, when I was the editorial-page editor. Its subject is near and dear to my…

  • Lay it on, MacBob

    Oh Bob, Bob!  Wherefore are thou Bob? I’d be tempted to say there’s something rotten in the state of Bob Moyer’s book reviews, but he obviously had a lot of fun writing this one. And after all, the play’s the thing right? Plus, there may be method in the madness. By Robert Moyer STAGESTRUCK. By…