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Showing posts from April, 2014

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

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Summary from Goodreads : The year is 1896, the place, New York City. On a cold March night New York Times reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned to the East River by his friend and former Harvard classmate Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist, or "alienist." On the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge, they view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy, a prostitute from one of Manhattan's infamous brothels. The newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in a highly unorthodox move, enlists the two men in the murder investigation, counting on the reserved Kreizler's intellect and Moore's knowledge of New York's vast criminal underworld. They are joined by Sara Howard, a brave and determined woman who works as a secretary in the police department. Laboring in secret (for alienists, and the emerging discipline of psychology, are viewed by the public with skepticism at best), the unlikely team embarks on what is a revolutionary effort in cr

We Live In Water by Jess Walter

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Summary from Goodreads: The first collection of short fiction from New York Times bestselling author Jess Walter-a suite of diverse and searching stories about personal struggle and diminished dreams, all of them marked by the wry wit, keen eye, and generosity of spirit that has made him one of America's most talked-about writers We Live in Water is a darkly comic, moving collection of stories, published over the last five years in Harper's, McSweeney's, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Non-Required Reading, Byliner, Playboy, and elsewhere. The stories veer from comic tales of love to social satire to suspenseful crime fiction, from hip Portland to once-hip Seattle to never-hip Spokane, from a condemned casino in Las Vegas to a bottomless lake in the dark woods of Idaho. This is a world of lost fathers and redemptive conmen, of meth tweakers on desperate odysseys and men committing suicide by fishing. In "Thief," an aluminum worker turns

Required Reading: April 2014

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Hello there! The month of March brought with it a couple of changes that left me with little time to read as well as write blog posts. I only managed to finish two from among the four books I set out to read. 1. A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin - (5/5 stars) GRRM wasted no time in amping things up in this fifth installment. It's exciting, bizarre, and unpredictable. 2. We Live In Water by Jess Walter - (5/5 stars) I once said that reading this felt like I had a rain cloud over me. The stories have a melancholic tone to them, but they are all very satisfying. I swear. My review will follow suit. 3. The Alienist by Caleb Carr - about 60 %  in  4. Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed  - about 25 % in  Okay, so for April I initially decided to have no required reads. I will merely continue and finish (I hope) The Alienist and Tiny Beautiful Things. But then there's....  1. If On a Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino - This is TFG's book