Books

TC Boyle is a local favorite author who is regularly feted in the daily newspaper here in Santa Barbara. I had never read his work up to Wild Child, a collection of 14 short stories published in 2010. I didn’t know what to expect so when the first story was set in Santa Barbara, I […]

I mentioned to a friend (who also consumes books like I do) that I was reading Margaret Atwood’s Year of the Flood. Friend says, “it must be depressing. I can’t read her stuff.” I noted that although I did like Atwood’s writing, it had been 19 years since I read Handmaid’s Tale, and that 19

This Tom Robbins novel is a fun ride. Switters, the protagonist is a CIA agent who through several sub stories ends up in the Amazon where a shaman curses him never to rest his feet on the ground again, lest he dies. We’re introduced to many characters: Maestra, grandmother who owns a Matisse painting of

This New York Times Bestseller by Carlos Ruiz Zafón was my first reading in the genre of magical realism. One definition I found of magical realism The term magic realism describes contemporary fiction, usually associated with Latin America, whose narrative blends magical or fantastical elements with reality. – link This was a story about a

A Stephanie Plum Between the Numbers story by Janet Evanovich – an audio-book from the libary. I had a patch of weeding to do and this 3+ hour recording was the afternoon solution to an otherwise quiet and boring weeding session. The story is very compact, with some familiar characters and some new ones to set