RaveThe Chicago TribuneIn the first few pages of Rules of Civility, Amor Towles' wonderful debut novel, it's New Year's Eve in Manhattan, with 1938 a few hours away … With this bit of a wink, Towles conveys that he will be playing with some of the great themes of love and class, luck and fated encounters that animated Wharton novels such as The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. Towles' central figure, Katey Kontent (a great name) — born Katya to Russian immigrant parents in Brooklyn — travels in and out of America's world of privilege with wit and an eye for irony.
Ellen Ullman
PositiveThe Minneapolis Star Tribune'To program,' she writes at the beginning of her new memoir, Life in Code, 'is to translate between the chaos of human life and the line-by-line world of computer language.' In the book’s forceful conclusion, Ullman raises the role of technology in President Donald Trump’s unexpected election, and what she describes as the 'unspooling of a thread' that led to disintermediation, the removal of gatekeepers and middlemen in economic and social relationships ...[an] often brilliant book.
Belle Boggs
PositiveThe Chicago TribuneEastern Virginia tributaries converge in these inter-connected stories largely set on the Mattaponi Indian Reservation, and they reflect that mix of rushing waters, where heritages become indistinguishable ...created funny, but understated, characters and her sharp, clear voice seems suited to stories relatives swap on slightly rickety wooden lawn furniture. They are unvarnished, but full of contradictions and twists of life. ... Inhabitants of this world Boggs has created come together in a bewitching debut.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
