Shelf Life; Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021. 224 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. In 2002, at age 27, Nadia Wassef, her older sister, and a friend decide to open abookstore strikingly different from the ones available in Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak: “those mismanaged by the… [Read More]
Shelf Life; Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef; Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
March 15, 2023 By
Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
October 29, 2021 By
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]
Night Becomes Day; Changes in Nature by Cynthia Argentine Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
October 26, 2021 By
Night Becomes Day; Changes in Nature by Cynthia Argentine; illustrated with photographs; Millbrook Press/Lerner, 2022. 32 pages; $27.99 (hardcover, reinforced library binding); reading level: Ages 7-12. Academic credentials can distance a nonfiction writer from young readers. Here, the author’s degrees in English, environmental science, and environmental law have accomplished the opposite. Argentine’s meticulously-researched narrative is… [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]