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2009 Pulitzer: Olive Kitteridge a study in loneliness and humanity

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Strout, Elizabeth (2008).  Olive Kitteridge: Fiction.  New York: Random House.  ISBN: 9781400062089  2009 Pulitzer Prize, Fiction The most striking this about this novel is its structure: it is a landscape novel with the title character as a running theme or motif as a constant among thirteen stories. This landscape is lonely; each character essentially lives […]

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Rifling Paradise, Jem Poster

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Poster, Jem (2009). Rifling Paradise. New York: Overlook Press This novel takes Victorian themes of repression and stifling structure and applies contemporary psychological interpretations to them. It also offers a post-colonial interpretation of exploration and British cultural influence. Still, the Victorian setting heightens the exotic feel and the social constraints of the era add drama to

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Unpretentious Cookbook that is Healthy and Elegant

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Valenti, Tom (with Friedman, Andrew). (2009). You Don’t Have to Be Diabetic to Love This Cookbook: 250 Amazing Dishes for People With Diabetes and Their Families. New York: Workman Publishing. ISBN: 9780761155508 New York chef Tom Valenti gives us food that is appealing, healthful, unpretentious and easy to prepare. The book opens with 16 pages

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Going Green is More Complex Than We’d Like to Think

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Goleman, Daniel (2009). Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What we Buy Can Change Everything. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN: 978-0-385-52782-8 “Going Green” is everywhere right now, and nowhere more than in retail stores. Most of the things that we think of as good for the environment, such as recycling and bringing our

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Ted Turner: An Influence I Never Realized

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Turner, Ted (with Bill Burke). (2008). Call Me Ted. New York: Grand Central Publishing. This is exactly what you want from a good memoir: the book gives you insights into Turner’s life, his perceptions of what happened at various points in his career, and the writing is as unique, direct and as colorful as Turner’s

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Writer’s Crush: Charlotte Perkins Gillman

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“It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide–plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions. The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely

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