The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu; and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer; Simon & Schuster, 2016. 279 pages (hardcover); reading level: adult. Hammer has to lay a lot of groundwork before he gets to the “bad-ass” rescue promised in the title. He puts events a relatively well-informed reader might… [Read More]
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
June 1, 2018 By
They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
May 17, 2018 By
They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine. Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. 290 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Only a seasoned writer could have pulled this one off: As I read Schine’s clear-eyed novel, I laughed and cried at the same time. I cried with the protagonist, eighty-six-year-old… [Read More]
The Mothers by Brit Bennett Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
May 15, 2018 By
The Mothers by Brit Bennett; Riverhead Books, 2016. 275 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Oceanside, California is a comfortable, middle class black community, but Nadia Turner wants out anyway. She plans to graduate from high school, pursue a degree at the University of Michigan, and achieve all the things her mother (who has just… [Read More]
Bellevue by David Oshinsky Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
May 10, 2018 By
Bellevue; Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital by David Oshinsky; Doubleday, 2016. 387 pages; $30.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. As the subtitle promises, this history of New York City’s oldest public hospital is far from dry. Following Bellevue from its beginnings as an almshouse established in the early 1700s to… [Read More]
On My Reading List – September 2018 through June 2019…
February 12, 2018 By
Early each year I pick out the books I’ll be reading with my Book Discussion Group for the coming year. We read nine books from September through June, three nonfiction and six fiction. After reading reviews, getting opinions from readers I trust, and scanning classics I might have missed, here are the titles I’ve come… [Read More]
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
December 20, 2017 By
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich; Random House, 2017. 308 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. The central act of Ruskovich’s graceful first novel – the murder, on an Idaho mountain, of 6-year-old May by her mother, Jenny – has already taken place when we begin reading. We are haunted by two questions: Why did Jenny (who… [Read More]
Hillybilly Elegy by J.D. Vance Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
September 28, 2017 By
Hillybilly Elegy by J. D. Vance; HarperCollins, 2016. 264 pages; $27.99 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This is a “travelogue” in the spirit of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Our tour guide is James Donald/David Bowman/Hamel/Vance (the names reflecting the revolving door of fathers in the author’s life). Writing his memoir at the tender age… [Read More]
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
July 18, 2017 By
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf; Knopf, 2015. 179 pages; $24.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This tale begins the day Addie Moore (a 70-year-old widow) approaches Louis Waters (a 70-year-old widower) with a proposition: would he like to come to her house and sleep beside her each night, just to talk and ease the… [Read More]
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
June 7, 2017 By
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Europa Editions, 2012. 331 pages; $17.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. In granular detail, the narrator, Elena, chronicles her friendship with the magnetic Lila, from their meeting in first grade through their late teen years. The girls, born near the end of World War II, grow up in a dangerous,… [Read More]
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
May 9, 2017 By
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Spiegel & Grau/Penguin Random House, 2015. 152 pages; $24.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Within the first few pages of his book Coates uses a term borrowed from James Baldwin to define the enemy: those who “believe that they are white.” In his eyes, “the power of domination… [Read More]