At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón. Penguin/Riverhead Books, 2013. 372 pages; $27.95 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Alarcón’s novel digs deeply into gritty issues like post-colonialism and the pervasive shadow cast by a brutal civil war, deftly juggling a tangle of themes and plot threads that would derail a less intrepid writer. And… [Read More]
At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
April 7, 2017 By
A Preview of The Books On My Fall 2017 Reading List (Updated). See Why I Chose Them and Reviews Will Follow!
March 31, 2017 By
I’m still working through the reading list I put together last year but I can’t resist starting a new pile of must-reads to be tackled in the fall of 2017. Check out the first three titles on my list, see what you think, and watch for my reviews which will be posted on my website… [Read More]
Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
March 21, 2017 By
Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 408 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. As Miss Constance Kopp tells it: “Our troubles began in the summer of 1914, the year I turned thirty-five.” Constance and her two younger sisters Norma and Fluerette are riding into town from the New Jersey farm where… [Read More]
The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
March 15, 2017 By
The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. 293 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. O’Hagan writes in the third person, shifting perspective among multiple characters (sometimes within a single paragraph) and frustrating, until the very end, readerly attempts to uncover the “real story.” At the center of the tale is photographer Anne… [Read More]
Ben-Gurion; Father of Modern Israel by Anita Shapira Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
February 21, 2017 By
Ben-Gurion; Father of Modern Israel by Anita Shapira; translated from the Hebrew by Anthony Berris. Yale University Press, 2014. 276 pages; $25.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. In the first four chapters of this biography, David Ben-Gurion is born David Green in Plonsk, Poland, travels to Warsaw to attend high school (only to be rejected for… [Read More]
The Two Tims by David Elliott Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
January 18, 2017 By
The Two Tims by David Elliott; illustrated by Gabriel Alborozo. Candlewick, 2016. 32 pages; $15.99 (hardcover); reading level: 4-8. Tim and Tim (one with blond hair, one with brown) are best friends. Until Tom comes along. Blond Tim plays knights with Tom while brown-haired Tim sulks. Brown-haired Tim crazy-dances with Tom while blond Tim sulks…. [Read More]
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Woodridge
November 8, 2016 By
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 340 pages; $14.95 (paperback); reading level: adult. Two narratives from two time periods unfold concurrently in this impressive first novel: The first is the story of Francis and Viola Turner, who marry in 1944 and migrate north to Detroit; the second story reaches forward to… [Read More]
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
October 11, 2016 By
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough; Simon & Schuster, 2015. 320 pages; $30.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This is McCullough’s tenth work of nonfiction and he has acquired a well-deserved reputation for turning impeccably researched facts into enjoyable narratives. This latest book is not a birth-to-death biography of the Wright brothers (it ends in 1910,… [Read More]
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
July 18, 2016 By
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin; HarperCollins, 2012. 426 pages; $15.99 (paperback); reading level: adult. Pairs of relationships drive the plot of this beautifully-written, tightly structured novel (Coplin’s first). In 1865, when William Talmadge is an orphaned 17-year-old living in what will later be the state of Washington, his younger sister goes into the forest to… [Read More]
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
July 8, 2016 By
The Art of Hearing Hearbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker; translated from the German by Kevin Wiliarty; Other Books/Random House, 2006. 325 pages; $15.95 (paperback); reading level: adult. Responding to a just-discovered letter, Julia Win, a hard-nosed young New York City attorney, travels to Kalaw, Burma, her missing father’s birth place, to track him down. The story… [Read More]