The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller, is set in a post-apocalyptic near future where a virulent and aggressive strain of the flu has taken the lives of most of the population of the world, leaving the rest in fear of one another and desperate for survival. The survivors are few and usually those with some …
In The Keep, author Jennifer Egan spins her narrative yarn in in the form of two nested stories. Ray is prison inmate enrolled in a writing workshop. In his writing, we find our second story, one about two estranged cousins who are undergoing a project to renovate a centuries-old castle into a hotel. The two …
It’s 1984 and three twelve-year-olds, best friends who live in Knocknaree, Ireland, are playing in the woods. By nightfall, two of them are missing and the last boy, Adam Ryan, is found, traumatized, in a tree with a sneaker filled with blood, gashes in his clothes and gaping holes where memories of that day’s events …
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikrey by Gabrielle Zevin is a cute but somewhat sappy little book, with a little melodrama thrown in. A.J. Fikrey is a touchy and argumentative bookstore owner on a small, touristy island town and recent widower. He walks in his store one day to find that a baby has been …
The Dinner by Herman Koch takes place over the course of one dinner between two couples. The males at the table are brothers, one of whom is a prominent and recognizable politician, and, along with their wives, they have agreed to meet at an upscale restaurant to discuss an incident involving their teenage sons. A …
