Editors' Picks
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Review of the Month
Recent Reviews
Fiction
Optics: A Novel about Women and Work and Midlife Muddles
“The severance package will be emailed to your personal address.” One sentence transforms Kris Wright’s career and life. Kris is a middle-aged professional woman employed in the eyewear industry. She is at the top of her game, but then her worst fear is confirmed with a phone call. […]
Reviewed by: Janilyn Kocher
Saving Irene: A Culinary Mystery
Saving Irene is set in Chicago, present day but pre-Covid-19. It’s a delectable, fun read. Protagonist Henny James tells the story. Her voice is light, witty and brutally honest. Henny’s in her late 20s, ambitious, and recovering from a broken relationship back home in Texas. She is resourceful, […]
Memoir and Autobiography
Mennonite Daughter
Each chapter in Marian L. Beaman’s memoir provides a moving snapshot of her coming of age and moving into a wider community beginning in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Taken as a whole, her book evolves from a life of extreme simplicity in a Mennonite community to finding release as […]
Once a Girl, Always a Boy
Siblings Elizabeth and Emily prepare for Elizabeth’s wedding. Emily, aged 23, is asked to be maid of honor and accepts, but immediately feels uncomfortable. Hoping that ignoring the feeling will make it go away, hoping it’ll get better and be okay, Emily agonizes over what to do. Then […]
Reviewed by: Doris Clark
Nonfiction
Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings
When you hear the word dendrochronology, what comes to mind? Perhaps a varnished cross-section of some long-dead giant tree, with colored arrows pointing to the rings that mark events in human history. Probably not an adventure story that ranges from a Stradivari violin worth $20 million to sunspots […]