Month: November 2016

  • Better than chicken soup

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING. By Fannie Flagg. Read by Kimberly Farr. 16 CDs; 12 hours. $54. Also available in print from Random House. Just as there is comfort food, there are comfort books. Once again, Fannie Flagg has dished up the latter in fine style. Some people know Fannie Flagg…

  • Playing a risky game

    Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor SWEET TOOTH. By Ian McEwan. Anchor Books. 400 pages, Softcover. $15.95 Serena Frome has been playing out of her league all her life. The mostly overlooked daughter of an Anglican bishop, she attends Cambridge University, where she’s a middling student in “the maths” and the target of derision by more…

  • Let justice prevail

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE WHISTLER. By John Grisham. Read by Cassandra Campbell. Random House Audio. 11 CDs. $45. John Grisham has written so many books that it’s hard to keep count: In addition to the legal thrillers (29?), there are children’s books and books about the rural South, among others. His fans are…

  • Beneath the surface

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE TRESPASSER. By Tana French. Penguin Audio. Read by Hilda Fay. 21 hours; 18 CDs. $55. Also available in hardcover from Viking. What a delight it is to discover Tana French, a wonderful Irish writer who pours her prodigious literary skills into richly layered detective fiction. I’m a latecomer to…

  • Why we do what we do

    Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor INVISIBLE INFLUENCE: THE HIDDEN FORCES THAT SHAPE BEHAVIOR. By Jonah Berger. Simon & Schuster. 232 pages. $26.99. As much as we’d all like to think that we run our own lives, there’s no denying that social influences help us choose a new car, a preferred brand of jeans or a…

  • Dark corners in the heart of North Carolina

    Bob Moyer reviews the latest thriller by John Hart, a fine North Carolina author. I scooped Bob by a few months: You can see my review of the same book that ran May 8 in the Greensboro News & Record here: http://www.greensboro.com/go_triad/arts/books/hart-s-thriller-redemption-road-is-well-worth-the-wait/article_ae13edaa-bd4d-5e40-a496-51957f15bfd1.html Fortunately, Bob and I agree in our praise of the novel. Reviewed by…

  • “Jack is back,” and fortunately, so is Maggie Hope

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE QUEEN’S ACCOMPLICE. By Susan Elia MacNeal. Read by Susan Duerden. Books on Tape. 10 ½ hours; 9 CDs. Also available in paperback from Bantam Books, $16. Maggie Hope, intrepid spy, code-breaker and all-around spunky young woman, is at it again, in the thick of World War II action and…