Assassination Vacation
“Going to Ford’s Theater to watch the play is like going to Hooters for the food,” writes Sarah Vowell in Assassination Vacation. But that’s where Vowell was, ironically watching Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins! And that’s where she begins her irreverent road trip, visiting the places where three American presidents have been assasinated over the years. …
You Suck! A Love Story
You Suck: A Love Story , by Christopher Moore, opens in a daringly inauspicious way. “You bitch! You killed me! You suck!” The opening line alone probably disqualifies Moore’s most recent title from being hailed as a great work of literature, but it’s appropriate enough for a story of two lovestruck vampires, their minions, a …
The Wonder Spot
Melissa Bank’s The Wonder Spot presents a series of vignettes about the life of Sophie Applebaum, a witty and somewhat insecure Jewish girl from Surry, Pennsylvania. Beginning with a young Sophie skipping Hebrew classes to smoke cigarettes in the bathroom, the novel follows her path to adulthood as she searches for the basics: love and …
A Long Way Down
Nick Hornby’s newest novel A Long Way Down, opens on New Year’s Eve at Topper’s House, a 15-story London apartment complex. With the sounds of partiers clinking champagne glasses below, four strangers sneak onto the rooftop to end their lives. With the premise set – four strangers just so happening to want to try jumping …