Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield. Washington Square Press/Simon & Schuster, 2018. 464 pages; $17.00 (paperback); reading level: Adult Centering her 1887 tale around the Swan, an inn on the River Thames, Setterfield goes to great lengths to insist that this is an old-fashioned story: The first chapter is entitled “The Story Begins…” and… [Read More]
The Ravenmaster; My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London by Christopher Skaife Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
September 23, 2021 By
The Ravenmaster; My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London by Christopher Skaife; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. 241 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. When he retired from the British army after twenty-four years of service, Christopher Skaife realized that “there are not a lot of options for history-loving storytelling infantry soldiers…who… [Read More]
On My Reading List – September 2021 Through June 2022…
September 9, 2021 By
Early each year I pick out the books I’ll be reading with my Book Discussion Group for the coming year. We read books from September through June. After reading reviews, getting opinions from readers I trust, and scanning classics I might have missed, here are the titles I’ve come up with and the reasons they… [Read More]
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
March 25, 2020 By
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday; Simon & Schuster, 2018. 271 pages; $16.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. Halliday’s first novel opens as twenty-five-year old Mary Alice, an aspiring writer, meets a successful, aging novelist on a park bench and begins a relationship with him. Halliday doesn’t try to conceal the fact that the situation is loosely based… [Read More]
Dancing Bears; True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowsk Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
February 17, 2020 By
Dancing Bears; True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowski. Penguin Books, 2014. 233 pages; $16.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. This intriguing book (translated from Polish) is divided neatly into two parts. The first centers on the 30-acre Dancing Bears Park in Belitsa, Bulgaria, where domesticated bears, trained to perform from… [Read More]
The Flapper, the Impostor, and the Stalker by Charlene Bell Dietz Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
January 31, 2020 By
The Flapper, the Impostor, and the Stalker by Charlene Bell Dietz; Quill Mark Press, 2017. 297 pages; $16.99 (paperback); reading level: adult. This prequel to The Flapper, the Scientist, and the Saboteur (2016) is set in 1923 and provides the backstory on Kathleen McPherson, the aging flapper/sleuth in the earlier-published book. Kathleen is seventeen in… [Read More]
Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy; The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
October 21, 2019 By
Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy; The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux; W.W. Norton, 2018. 273 pages; $16.95 (paperback); reading level: adult. Rioux spends two thirds of her book on background material (a biographical sketch of Alcott and her family, the reception and popularity of Little Women through the… [Read More]
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
October 21, 2019 By
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott; Signet Classic, 2012 (originally published in 1828 and 1829). 507 pages; $5.95 (paperback); reading level: high school/adult. I hadn’t read this book as a child and, with the 150th anniversary of its publication upon us and a new movie adaptation due out, I thought it might be time. It… [Read More]
The Year I Was Peter The Great by Marvin Kalb Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
September 10, 2019 By
The Year I was Peter the Great; 1956, Khrushchev, Stalin’s Ghost, and a Young American in Russia by Marvin Kalb; Brookings Institution Press, 2017. 290 pages; $24.99 (hardcover); reading level adult. This “professional memoir” by famed NBC/CBS news correspondent Marvin Kalb (who is now in his 80s) looks back on the year 1956 when Kalb (fluent… [Read More]
Improvement by Joan Silber Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
May 22, 2019 By
Improvement by Joan Silber; Counterpoint, 2017. 227 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Part I of this three-part novel dangles the prospect that this will be an intriguing but straightforward story. It’s 2012 and Reyna, living in Brooklyn and the single mother of a four-year-old, narrates. We meet Aunt Kiki, Reyna’s boyfriend Boyd and, after… [Read More]