All articles filed in Book Reviews

I’m a big fan of the current NY Times restaurant critic, Sam Sifton, but I also have mad respect for his predecessor, Frank Bruni, who wrote Born Round not long after finishing his stint as Times critic.  Ladies, let me tell you, weight issues are not just a girl thing.  Bruni chronicles about 40 years of…

The premise behind Room is creepy and unnerving.  Emma Donoghue has created a world inside a garden shed – the only world 5-year-old Jack knows.  Jack cannot comprehend that he was born in captivity after his mother was abducted and locked in a cramped space for seven years.  The story was disturbing and believable in…

It took me no time at all to read Tina Fey’s new book.  This makes me sad because I loved it dearly and wish there was more of it.  If you didn’t pick this up from her writing/acting on Mean Girls, Saturday Night Live, or 30 Rock, she is a very funny lady.  Though, if…

I’m sure you gathered from all the book reviews that I’m a pretty big reader.  Well, that love of the written word didn’t just pop outta nowhere, more like it’s stitched into my DNA.  I share this affection for books with my mother, who read to me each and every night growing up.  In fact,…

I didn’t want to like it, I really didn’t.  People evangelize Dave Eggers’ work like it was penned by the Good Lord, himself.  I didn’t want to drink the Kool-Aid.  I’m better than that, I thought.  My tastes are more discriminating and I will not succumb to a mere craze in the literary world.  He…

I had read bits and pieces of Anthony Bourdain’s memoir before, so I knew what I was getting into. There are so many “does this really happen?!” moments that I believe actually ring true. Does the rampant drug use behind the kitchen doors of the finest restaurants bother me? A bit, yes. Did I still…

My idea of a beach read is a collection of raunchy essays.  Unlike most girls, I’m not one for chick lit, but I had heard enough raves about these books that I figured I would pick them up before going to an advanced screening of the film adaptation I had RSVP’d to (which I thought…

Some say “you can never go home,” but what if you have to?  When Joe returns to the small Connecticut town he thought he left behind forever, he must face all the people and places he disparaged in his best-selling novel.  Once home, he learns you can run but you can’t hide from the problems…

Lily King‘s novel follows the turbulent father/daughter relationship of Gardiner and Daley Amory as it spans across 40 years.  Nobody seems to think that perfectly WASPy Gardiner’s raging alcoholism is a problem, but it certainly takes a toll on Daley and all in close proximity to her father.  The author tracks Daley as she tries…