Five years ago, Amy Dickinson was tapped to replace the late Ann Landers as advice columnist for the Chicago Tribune. (Ann Landers had taken over the job from Chicago nurse Ruth Crowley.) Her syndicated column appears daily in more than 150 newspaper and is read by more than 22 million people. You would expect a woman who gives advice to… Read more
I loved this book so much that I posted a pre-review review, urging you all to go out and buy the book. It has been a long time since a book made me want to shout out loud and dance around my hotel room, but this book did. It is the story of the survivors of the Go-Away War, a… Read more
This is one of those reviews that needs to percolate for a little while, but I wanted to give you just a taste of how I felt about this book: I was in bed, in my hotel, enjoying a quiet evening of reading. In the big climactic scene of this book, when a certain character (who must remain nameless in… Read more
The Spanish Bow is an amazing look at a tumultuous period in Spanish history. Feliu Delargo is a young man who always seems to profit from his tragedies. His father’s death brings him his first real treasure: a cello bow. Because of a hip injury during his birth, he cannot play his violin standing up, so he plays it sitting… Read more
I’m not sure what I did to get on Mesorah Publications’ mailing list, but boy, am I glad I did it! Back in December, I reviewed Kosher By Design Lightens Up! and shortly after that I received a new book from them, Crafting Jewish. It’s a lovely book and I have had a great time looking through it. I’m not… Read more
According to his bio, “Mathias B. Freese brings the weight of his twenty-five years of experience as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist into play as he demonstrates a vivid understand of – and compassion toward – the deviant and the damaged.” I’ve read since that he wrote about half of these stories before he began his career, but the… Read more
What I learned from this book: if you are about to drive your car over a cliff so that it crashes and catches fire, this is not the time to spill a bottle of bourbon in your lap. That is catastrophically bad timing. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson is a love story, but an unusual one. The Narrator (who is… Read more
“So, long ago, he’d taken to calling himself Jay Walker, and somewhere along the line someone had blurred that into Jaywalker. Which had been alright with him: the truth was, he’d never had the patience to stand on a curb waiting for alight…” The Tenth Case is a fun little legal thriller with plenty of twists and turns, lots of… Read more
Okay, the rush of Christmas excitement has passed. Are you tired of Christmas carols? Have the kids already broken at least one of their gifts and started complaining about the others? Is all the forced “family time” that comes with Christmas vacation starting to wear on everyone’s nerves? Then this is the perfect book for you! Santa Responds is a… Read more
I got this cookbook back in late October, but I wanted to wait until I had a chance to try out a few of the recipes before reviewing it. I have no need to keep Kosher but that certainly won’t stop me from trying out a great cookbook. The cookbook has a terrific layout. My favorite thing: there is a… Read more