Category: From My Bookshelf – Lynn Willoughby

From My Bookshelf: Featuring Tatiana de Rosnay and Kenneth Bonert

by Lynn Willoughby The Other Story ~ Tatiana de Rosnay What a disappointment! I often choose books by author and this was such drivel I felt it was a complete waste of time to even finish reading it. Nicholas Duhamel is vacationing in a luxurious Tuscan resort, which he can well afford because the…

July 12, 2015
From My Bookshelf: Featuring Anthony Doerr and Lisa Genova

By Lynn Willoughby All the Light We Cannot See ~ Anthony Doerr This novel won multiple awards, including the Reader’s Choice award, but as you know, this does not always make it a great read for me. In this book, the prose is wonderful, the descriptions stunning and the physical detail is meticulous, but…

June 28, 2015
From My Bookshelf: Featuring Armin Wiebe and Keith Ross Leckie

By Lynn Willoughby Tatsea ~ Armin Wiebe The world is a dangerous and terrifying place in the 1700s, and even more so when you live in Canada’s arctic. The Dogrib people are under constant attack – for food, for furs, for women. And they were no match for the raiders already trading with Europeans.…

June 14, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ For the Love of Books: Featuring Gabrielle Zevin and Will Schwalbe

By Lynn Willoughby The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry ~ Gabrielle Zevin I loved this little book about books. I think it is a very clever concept – especially if you are a family of readers. A.J. Fikry owns a small bookstore on an island off Cape Cod. His wife has died, his book…

May 24, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Sean Michaels and Lily King

By Lynn Willoughby Us Conductors ~ Sean Michaels This novel by Canadian Sean Michaels won the 2014 Giller Prize. However, this doesn’t always mean it is a great read for me. Often the prose is excellent but the story is very esoteric. This one is a living history of the jazz age in New…

May 10, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Richard North Patterson and Sarah McCoy

By Lynn Willoughby In the Name of Honor ~ Richard North Patterson This is a legal thriller where most of the action takes place in a courtroom. Lt Brian McCarran is on trial for murder and adultery. Both criminal acts in the military. I’m not usually a fan of courtroom drama, but the military component…

April 26, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Alice Hoffman and Ann-Marie MacDonald

By Lynn Willoughby The Museum of Ordinary Things ~ Alice Hoffman Coralie is the daughter of The Professor, a dark, sinister, tyrannical master of a freak show on Coney Island in the early 1900s. Coralie is the “Mermaid” who performs daily alongside the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, a one hundred year old turtle, plus other…

April 12, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Frances Itani and Gordon Henderson

By Lynn Willoughby Tell ~ Frances Itani I have read several of Itani’s novels and while they are slow paced, almost graceful, they were a good read. This latest book is slow to the point of boredom and left many unanswered questions at the end. As I turned the last page I couldn’t believe…

March 29, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Ian Morris

By Lynn Willoughby Why the West Rules – For Now ~ Ian Morris Non-fiction can sometimes be hard reading. I often feel like a student again unless the language is readable and the author has a sense of humour. I would describe this book as a quick lesson in world history, geography, sociology, anthropology,…

March 15, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Esi Edugyan and Celeste Ng

by Lynn Willoughby Half Blood Blues ~ Esi Edugyan This novel won many, many awards and nominations for one of the best books of the year (2011). I must have missed something. It jumped around a lot in time and location. However, the gist of the story is that in Paris in 1940, twenty…

March 1, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Richard Flanagan

By Lynn Willoughby The Long Road to the Deep North ~ Richard Flanagan I have been whining to family, friends and everyone else who doesn’t want to listen, that I haven’t read a REALLY good book in awhile. Well, this one shut me up!! This historical novel spans the life of Dorrigo Evans and…

February 15, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Thrity Umrigar and Brian Morton

By Lynn Willoughby The Story Hour ~ Thrity Umrigar I cannot imagine the loneliness experienced by Lakshmi – a new immigrant with limited English, trapped in a loveless marriage to a domineering man. Lakshmi’s small world is limited to their small restaurant and store. Her husband will not allow her to communicate with her family…

January 18, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Amanda Coplin and Chris Bohjalian

By Lynn Willoughby The Orchardist ~ Amanda Coplin This novel is set in a rural area of the Pacific Northwest in the foothills of the Cascade mountains. It is “…a highly original and haunting debut novel about a makeshift family whose dramatic lives are shaped by violence, love and an incredible connection to the land.”…

January 4, 2015
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Elizabeth Strout and Garth Stein

By Lynn Willoughby The Burgess Boys ~ Elizabeth Strout Memory is a fickle thing, and childhood memories are often based on stories we are told. What is the thing you first remember – a birthday, a picnic, a broken arm? This novel is about three siblings – twins Bob and Susan, and their older brother…

December 21, 2014
From My Bookshelf ~ Featuring Matthew Thomas and Emma Healey

By Lynn Willoughby We Are Not Ourselves ~ Matthew Thomas Eileen Tumulty has had a very harsh childhood with wild swings between her alcoholic mother and her gregarious, good time father, loved by everyone. When she meets Ed Leary she thinks he will be the perfect partner. He is a scientist, they will live the…

December 7, 2014