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Recent Reviews
Amy Butcher
Positive The Columbus Dispatch Butcher manages to combine an incredibly personal story of her troubled romantic relationship with the portrait of a remarkable, one-of-a-kind Alaskan woman ... boldly personal and soul-searching ... Her discussion of her abusive relationship is perhaps longer than it needs to be, and often repetitive, but no one can argue that she is not an honest and brave writer. She also is adept at blending and finding correlations in her story and that of Joy ... Butcher’s prose is clear, well-composed and often appealingly humorous, especially when describing her adventures on the road with Joy.
Susan Orlean
Positive The Columbus Dispatch Orlean is a fun writer to read ... Her style is conversational, she includes intriguing facts, and she has an engaging, self-deprecating sense of humor. That said, there are plusses and minuses about her newest book ... The essays themselves are informative and unusual and reflect Orlean’s curiosity and her quest for answers to questions that take her all over the world ... most could do with an updated postscript ... In appealing prose, Orlean displays her fascination and love for animals as well as a farmer’s practicality when things go wrong ... Her appreciation of the friendship, strangeness, colors, textures and just plain mystery of animals is infectious and nicely documented.
Anthony Doerr
Rave The Columbus-Dispatch ... a rich roster of characters ... Miraculously, there is a connection between all of these characters and even more miraculously, their stories blend and merge into an exciting, textured page-turner.
Amor Towles
Rave The Columbus Dispatch For fans of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility, the great news this fall is that Amor Towles has a new book. This one is completely different and yet just as compelling as the previous two ... Towles is a consummate storyteller, departing often but briefly from the road trip to deliver tales of his numerous other characters. Because Emmett, Duchess and Woolly had been together in the juvenile camp before the novel begins, there are plenty of stories from their time there as well as each of their family histories ... Towles’ new novel is a rollicking, propulsive and alternately humorous and heartbreaking adventure filled with indelible, haunting characters.
James Patterson
Mixed The Columbus Dispatch ... isn’t as accomplished as the 2018 bestseller from Bill Clinton and James Patterson, The President is Missing, but faithful Patterson fans should enjoy it ... The plot is all action, with a lot of coincidences and less-than-satisfying character development. Matt Keating is a cliche good guy, more believable as a Navy SEAL than a political animal who made it to the White House. Not much time is spent fleshing out Samantha Keating but Mel Keating is nicely developed, evolving from a prickly teen into a resourceful young woman who remembers and employs some of the things she learned from her father ... a tightly paced, sometimes brutal and rather routine thriller. The book is out on whether or not Patterson and Clinton will team up for a third novel and, if so, whether they will revisit either of their first two American presidents or create a new one.
Walter Isaacson
Rave The Columbus Dispatch [Isaacson] profiles the brainy, good-natured, competitive and thoughtful Doudna, who became fascinated with biological science as a girl. At the same time, he defines and explains the complicated science behind the gene-editing tool CRISPR ... As riveting as the science is behind gene editing, so too, in Isaacson’s narrative, is the competition in advancing it ... Isaacson spends many pages posing important and often unanswerable questions, especially as they pertain to modifying and enhancing the genetic makeup of humans ... In these days when paying attention to science is vital, Isaacson gives us an important and stimulating new book.
Lara Prescott
Positive The Columbus DIspatch In her debut novel, Prescott...has achieved a page-turner that is at once a spy thriller, historical fiction and heartfelt romance ... Most readers, if they haven’t read Doctor Zhivago, likely have seen the movie but might be unaware of the machinations that brought the story to worldwide attention. The Secrets We Kept is a way to learn that history and enjoy a thumping good story.
Jacqueline Woodson
Rave The Columbus Dispatch ... a lovely, heart-wrenching coming-of-age story that spans generations ... [a] remarkably economic narrative ... As the years pass, the desires, ambitions and foibles of all the characters emerge gently but persistently. Woodson’s writing is so lyrical and touching that it can make a reader ache ... a beautiful analysis of adolescence, sexual desire, parenthood and self-discovery through the lens of one American family.
Julia Keller
Positive The Columbus Dispatch The novel moves quickly, but with the graceful character development and lyrical descriptions of rural and small-town West Virginia that readers have come to expect and appreciate from Keller ... Whether Elkins is tramping in the woods near what is left of the old Wellwood Hospital or hunkering down for coffee and pie at the diner with Fogelsong, the sense of time and place is beautifully and evocatively expressed.
Jeff Guinn
Mixed The Columbus Dispatch The glimpses of early automobile travel are fascinating ... Guinn’s book is more of a chronological report than a stirring narrative. Descriptions of the excursions become too detailed and repetitive, prompting one to wish that instead of a 320-page book, the author might have considered a hefty New Yorker magazine article. Nevertheless, The Vagabonds is an interesting glimpse into a slice of these inventors’ lives not often seen.
David Maraniss
Positive The Columbus Dispatch Although in hindsight it is easy to condemn those who perpetrated the Red Scare and vehemently chased after suspected Communists, David Maraniss brings a clear eye and balanced reporting to his book. His parents were not perfect, nor were their accusers perfect villains. Most were Americans pursuing what they believed was truthful and moral ... heds light and empathy on a troublesome period of national history that shows how flawed, dysfunctional and problematic this country can be. In doing so, it spotlights the affliction and misfortune that can happen to a single family.
Colson Whitehead
Positive The Columbus Dispatch \"Lke The Underground Railroad,, The Nickel Boys is a thoroughly unsettling read, a sharp stick that reminds all Americans of the prolonged injustices inflicted upon its African American citizens. Whitehead based the Nickel Academy on the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida ... Whitehead employs fiction in important ways. Though The Underground Railroad offers sci-fi inventions (beginning with an actual railroad that ran below the ground’s surface), The Nickel Boys paints a realistic portrait of the Jim Crow-era reform school and the tolerance that allowed it to exist for so long.\
Samantha Downing
Positive The Columbus Dispatch One of the darkest novels you will ever read ... readers seeking heroic characters will find none in My Lovely Wife. Nor will they find a completely plausible plot, especially in the startling ending ... But they will find a disturbing portrait of the dark depths that humans can reach. The novel is difficult to put down because of the action, which is surprising and relentless. Yet the pace seems moderate. There are many details of the crimes to include and the novel may seem even slower because its events are so excruciating. And not just the murders. As it follows the couple, the crimes and the community, My Lovely Wife has much to say about marriage, infidelity, family life and the media—and just about all of it is dark.
Sonia Purnell
Positive The Columbus Dispatch ... reads like a detailed novel, introducing dozens of spies and double agents with whom Hall came into contact as well as a colorful roster of resistance fighters, including resourceful prostitutes of Lyon ... The irony of the book’s title is that without Hall, many of the Allied victories of World War II might have been greatly delayed or never have been achieved. Purnell’s fascinating book supports her description of Hall’s life as a \'Homeric tale of adventure, action, and seemingly unfathomable courage.\'