Rated of 5
by Annie The Good Thief--a good lark
A bittersweet romp through 19th-century New England, "The Good Thief" is an adventure story, albeit a self-conscious one, that should appeal to a broad swath of readers. What is good here is very good: secondary characters so real that this reader wept over their misfortunes; occasional lines that take your breath away; fresh descriptions; and vivid scene setting. Less successful is the way the plot hangs together toward the end, and the extended denouement becomes a bit muddled, losing its dramatic impact as, yet again, the characters fight the bad guys. But this is better than 90% of the fiction out there, if not quite as earth-shattering as its blurbs claim.
Rated of 5
by Lori An exceptional tale
Eleven-year-old Ren doesn’t really know why he steals from his fellow orphans at St Anthony’s. But when nothing is yours but a ragged collar with three stitched initials, perhaps you stop believing in stories anymore and instead just reach for what is missing.
Hannah Tinti’s story is of lost boys – of any age -- for whom the dead mean as much as the living. The character of Benjamin Nab, who retrieves young Ren from St Anthony’s, weaves lies and truths together into a fabric that holds him at the same time it threatens to rip apart at any moment.
Ren’s story is well told, with characters that remind a reader of lost opportunity and the ephemeral nature of love and affection.
Characters are sketched with charcoal: gestures, movements, are sometimes finely rendered and other times only broadly suggested, to tell us of their essence. Tinti captures the wonder of small acts to a child and the sharp dangers in Ren’s life in a way that renders a haunting and compelling tale.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
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Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
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Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
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British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
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of 5
by Annie 
of 5
by Lori 
