Customer Comments

New Orleans. Live. Die. Boogie back. A man got to have a code. Wendell Pierce does. Read Wind in the Reeds. You may find one, too.

This is one of the most satisfying novels I have read in a long time. Mattison gives us real people who grow and change over their lifetimes. I recognized myself and then my friends and family in Mattison’s characters. Quirky, funny, sad, and affectionate in their idiosyncratic ways, I will never forget these people. I first read Alice Mattison in The New Yorker. She is a fine writer who knows how people love and live.

Every time I read a Terry Tempest Williams book I slow down, listen to her voice resonating from the page. It is a warm and resolute voice. Words matter, the world matters. And if words matter, how will she find meaning in the blank pages of her mother’s journals? (Read the book!) I was moved by her search. It is personal, but connected to so many women’s stories. WHEN WOMEN WERE BIRDS is a meaningful exploration, a celebration.

A novel from Richard Ford is always a welcome event. CANADA was especially welcomed by me because after WILDLIFE I waited 22 years for a Ford novel narrated in the voice of a teen age boy. ( My husband tried to 'sell' me his enthusiasm for Frank Bascombe in Ford’s THE SPORTSWRITER but he didn't win me over.) CANADA returned me to Ford's teen age narrator, my favorite. This is storytelling I love: intimate, full of detail, with characters both the author and I love. CANADA is more than a coming-of- age story. There is the wisdom of an adult looking back. Most of all, I admire the intimacy of the voice of this novel. I love to be close to the story, to learn life’s characters and consequences through the eyes of a watchful and aware narrator. CANADA did not disappoint me.

Read this beautifully written novel to enjoy storytelling at its finest. The characters are funny and kind and vulnerable. Dream into the future and marvel into the past with them. Most of all, settle into re-discovering the joys of the present. I loved this novel. There were times I lingered on a single paragraph to savor and admire the poetry of language. I know I will never visit a Northwest coastal town without thinking of words and voices from this novel. These voices resonate with love and understanding and they will stay with you.

Adiche has written a beautiful book of an innocent and careful girl awakening to the world and to the complexities of the family she thought she knew. The young narrator, Kambila, endeared me to the lush beauty of Nigera. More important, she helped me understand how families live under harsh, controlling fathers and how one person can make it possible to be set free. Kambila’s is a universal voice for girls trained to be careful and good. Her tenderness and her discovery of joy will stay with me.

What a treat! Learn about the copper mines of Butte, Montana. Enjoy Egyptian food and culture. Laugh with the narrator at himself and family foibles. Recognize emotional truths given in fine lyric passages. More than a coming-of-age story, the voice of this novel will propel you through the streets of Cairo, through a family’s story you will always remember.

Anne Tyler loves her characters and so do I. What a treat to settle into my old Baltimore neighborhood with Tyler’s Aaron narrating. Here’s a new friend who is distraught and funny, earnest, and comfortably quirky. But true to Tyler fiction, all the characters are delightfully quirky. Aaron's voice entered my history, sending me to understand, "Oh yes, I have done that." Or my brother has or my best-friend neighbor has... Tyler reminds me people care about each other in every-day peculiar ways. Aren’t we all beginner’s at something, stumbling toward love and home? These are my peeps.