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]
On Christmas Eve by Ann M. Martin Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
November 17, 2017 By
On Christmas Eve by Ann M. Martin. Scholastic, 2006. 149 pages. Reading level: grades 2-5. It’s 1958 and Tess McAllister is in third-grade. This is the year, she decides, that she really will stay awake and meet Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. She has a special wish this year: Her best friend’s father is very… [Read More]
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
November 10, 2017 By
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.; HarperCollins, 2016. 322 pages; $27.99 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Nothing happens according to expectation here. In chapter one, we meet all the major characters at a 1964 christening during which an illicit kiss begins an affair. Then we fast-forward to 2014 to listen in on the husband/victim of the affair and… [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]
Edith Wharton: Traditional or Modern?
August 31, 2017 By
A recent Wall Street Journal article takes on a key question raised in Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence. She writes it with one foot planted in the sureties of the Edwardian garden party that preceded World War I and the other perched precariously on the shifting ground of the… [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]
At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
April 7, 2017 By
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]