Lori Duff Writes
A Wrinkle in Time: 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet) When I was a child, before “Young Adult” was a genre that was really a thing, I loved to read. Certain books stood out for me, and I reread them until the pages got soft and started to fall out. I’d carefully…
A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles is one of those beautiful books that, when you are finished, make you want to clutch it to your chest and close your eyes and sigh. The simple plot belies its profundity. Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov lives under house arrest in Moscow…
Before You Were Mine Disclaimer: I was given a copy of “Before You Were Mine” by Em Muslin by the good folks at Books and the Bear in exchange for an honest review. “Before You Were Mine” tells the story of Eli Bell. Eli gets pregnant at 14, and her baby daughter is taken away…
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel I was utterly charmed by Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. It appealed to everything nerdy in me, but at the same time was funny and warm. Clay Jannon* is an award winning designer who lost his job when the startup he worked for, NewBagel, went under. He…
Why We Broke Up I picked up Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler for kind of strange reasons, but then that’s why I pick up most books. I was in a used book store, and it just looked different than the other books. Thicker. Heavier. When I literally picked it up, it weighed…
Crash Bang Burn “Crash, Bang, Burn,” by K. Dawn Goodwin is the first fictional book by the author of the memoir “Until He Comes.” It follows Edie, a bible college dropout and family pariah, who finds herself in metro Atlanta trying to find herself. She meets Nathen Crosland, aka “Cross,” a fireman, and all…
Scythe (Arc of a Scythe) Neal Shusterman is known, at least by me, and by the myriad of prestigious agencies that have given him impressive awards, for his incredibly thoughtful and interesting premises. Written in the guise of young adult literature, there is nothing childish about his writing at all. In “Scythe,” Shusterman demonstrates his…
Midlife Happy Hour: Our Reward for Surviving Careers, Kids, and Chaos (Midlife Cabernet Book 2) Midlife Cabernet, by Elaine Ambrose, raises a glass to the advantages of late middle age. Young enough to still have fun, but old enough not to have too many responsibilities left, Elaine makes you wish you could move to…
The Gentleman: A Novel The Gentleman, by Forrest Leo, is a fun novel, creative and entertaining. In it, Lionel Strange, a fair-to-middling poet brimming with unearned self-confidence finds himself without enough money to keep the life to which he has become accustomed. To solve this problem he marries the beautiful and wealth Vivien Lancaster.…
The Good Luck of Right Now: A Novel The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick is a strange little book, with a narrator reminiscent of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.” Bartholomew Neil is a man in his late 30’s, clearly impaired in some way, though it is…