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Portrait of the artist as a young resistance fighter
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson A COUNTRY ROAD, A TREE. By Jo Baker. Read by David Rintoul. Random House Audio. 10 ½ hours; 9 CDS. $40. Also available in print from Knopf. Ah, what a heady thing to be an aspiring young writer in Paris – until the Nazis come goose-stepping in. In her new novel,…
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Parting words from a fine writer
Bob Moyer has taken a respite from his travels long enough to pay tribute to the last book from a favorite author. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer THE ANCIENT MINSTREL. By Jim Harrison. Grove Press. 255 pages. $25. “No one has ever read novellas”: In an interview shortly after his last book came out, Jim…
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Learning to fly
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE ATOMIC WEIGHT OF LOVE. By Elizabeth J. Church. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 333 pages. $25.95. Meridian Wallace’s father, a high-school teacher, died when she was 11, but not before he had instilled in her a love for learning and a determination to succeed. Her widowed mother worked hard…
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Putting down roots
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson AT THE EDGE OF THE ORCHARD. By Tracy Chevalier. Penguin Audio. Read by Mark Bramhall, Hillary Huber, Kirby Heyborne and Cassandra Morris. 9 hours; 7 CDs. $40. Also available in print from Viking. I regret to say that I have not read any of Tracy Chevalier’s previous novels, a situation…
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Mystery, poetry and mountains
Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer The North Carolina mountains have produced and inspired several fine writers over the years. Bob Moyer takes a look at the last book by one of them, published last September and not to be missed. ABOVE THE WATERFALL. By Ron Rash. Ecco. 252 pages. In his latest novel, Ron Rash…
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Of apes, men and a lot more
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF PORTUGAL. By Yann Martel. Read by Mark Bramhall. Random House Audio. 11 hours; 9CDs. $40. I have not read the other books that Yann Martel has written since his much loved and honored Life of Pi, first published in 2001 and made into a movie in…
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One terrible mistake
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE GUEST ROOM. By Chris Bohjalian. Doubleday. 318 pages. $25.95. When I tried to tell a friend about the novel I was reading – a story about a man who offers his home for his younger brother’s bachelor party, only to find himself embroiled in a horror involving two murders,…
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A worthy conclusion
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson GOLDEN AGE. By Jane Smiley. Read by Lorelei King. Random House Audio. Nine CDs, 17 ½ hours. $50. Also available in print from Knopf. If you’ve read the first two volumes of Jane Smiley’s Last Hundred Years trilogy, which, by all accounts I’ve found, are masterpieces, all you need to…
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A fresh perspective: The exotic and the universal
Reviewed by Nikita Mathur DON’T LET HIM KNOW. By Sandip Roy. Bloomsbury. 244 pages. $25. While the shell of Sandip Roy’s novel Don’t Let Him Know may tackle issues such as the silent taboo of homosexuality in Indian society or the conflicts faced by Indian expatriates in the U.S, the book explores far more deeply…