Customer Comments

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has a captivating way of bringing the reader in to an unfamiliar world and giving life to the characters by presenting mundane details in a poetic language. As someone who will never know what it is like to be Black in any country, I was hooked from the very first page and pulled further in as she teased out bits of the experience- in Nigeria, I fell in love with the way she loves Nigeria. In America, I began to question the very tone that groups use to address (or avoid addressing) race issues. This is a novel whose time has come. It is eye opening and engrossing all at the same time. I fell in love with the characters and found myself longing for a world in which they were real and the story could continue. Her writing is intelligent and balanced, accessible and elevated all at the same time. Her dialogue flows naturally. This book is a pleasure to read.

This is a great compilation of younger short story writing. The format is wonderful for bedtime or any time reading. A great companion to the New Yorker Fiction podcast- many of the writers in this book are featured on the show as readers of older fiction from the New Yorker's lengthy history. Stories are more current and have a variety of subjects and lengths. A particular favorite is Jonathan Safran Foer's "Here We Aren't So Quickly."

My first introduction to fiction in the New Yorker was through the amazing monthly podcast in which one current writer selects a work from the history of the magazine to read aloud. This is a great printed collection of stories- it serves as a reminder that people of my generation are still writing strong, impactful, complex, and intimate fiction. The variety in subject matter, voice, pacing, and time frame maintained my interest throughout the length of the book. Easy to pick up, hard to put down, but certainly fine to take a break from and come back to several months later. Highly recommend it.

I followed Deb's blog pretty closely for most of its journey up to this cookbook, so I wasn't too surprised at the overall rich nature of the recipes. At a time when everything in my kitchen was trying so hard to be healthy and light, it was a welcome reminder that down-home, comfort style food still had a place in our repertoire. Her writing style is casual and intimate, making recipes easy to follow. The photography is lovely and enticing. The ingredients are common and easy to obtain. Buy this book if you want stories behind recipes, backgrounds on some tools/ingredients, and the best baked french toast recipe I've ever had. Don't buy this book if you want to loose weight (!).

I discovered this book when the author appeared on NPR/OPB one morning during my commute. The passage read aloud had me instantly hooked and I rushed to Powell's after work to pick up a copy. It was a relatively quick read- hard to put down, always leaving you wanting to know more. The jumps in time, the fragmented interpretation of the self, and the honest account of life in war-torn Serbia allowed me to transcend my own location and time to discover a new experience that many seem to overlook. Highly recommend this book!

I first heard about this novel, written by local author Ismet Prcic, on NPR/OPB. The passage he read aloud had me immediately fascinated. The writing style is fractured and jumps in time, lending the tension and conflict to the perspective of the reader. You are compelled to feel the pain, but the entire book is not necessarily about sadness and war torn Serbia. It's also about discovering and forming identity, questioning authority, and learning to be OK in a world that is anything but.