2. First Impressions: Free Books for Members

This month's First Impressions books are now available for our USA resident members to choose. We have a total of 265 early reader editions of these 7 books publishing in 2015 to share with our members, with the understanding that recipients will do their best to write a brief review within about six weeks of receiving the book (or, in the case of The Wonders, join an online discussion at their convenience.)

Requests close this Sunday, Nov 16.



About Membership
Some of BookBrowse is available for free but full access to all our reviews, "beyond the book" articles, themed reading suggestions, readalikes and free books is for members only. 

Membership is $10 for 3 months or $35 for a year. If you are not yet a member but join by Sunday, and request one or more of these books, you will receive a book this month as we give new members top priority.

First Impressions runs each month, so if you don't see a book you like this month, there's always next month (most members who request books regularly receive about 4-5 each year.)

First Impressions | Join BookBrowse

Full access to our reviews & beyond the book articles are for members only. But there are always four free Editor's Choice reviews and beyond the book articles on our homepage.

5. Editor's Choice

Alix Christie, herself a printer, discusses Gutenberg's Apprentice, which reveals the true collaboration behind Gutenberg's legendary Bibles.

Read the Interview | Gutenberg's Apprentice

More interviews, plus pronunciation guide, games & biographies

Enter the Giveaway




From the Jacket
An ordinary life - its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion - lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott's extraordinary return, seven years after the publication of After This. Scattered recollections - of childhood, adolescence, motherhood, old age - come together in this transformative narrative, stitched into a vibrant whole by McDermott's deft, lyrical voice.

Our first glimpse of Marie is as a child: a girl in glasses waiting on a Brooklyn stoop for her beloved father to come home from work. A seemingly innocuous encounter with a young woman named Pegeen sets the bittersweet tone of this remarkable novel. Pegeen describes herself as an "amadan," a fool; indeed, soon after her chat with Marie, Pegeen tumbles down her own basement stairs. The magic of McDermott's novel lies in how it reveals us all as fools for this or that, in one way or another.

Marie's first heartbreak and her eventual marriage; her brother's brief stint as a Catholic priest, subsequent loss of faith, and eventual breakdown; the Second World War; her parents' deaths; the births and lives of Marie's children; the changing world of her Irish-American enclave in Brooklyn - McDermott sketches all of it with sympathy and insight. This is a novel that speaks of life as it is daily lived; a crowning achievement by one of the finest American writers at work today.


5 people will each win a paperback copy of Someone. This giveaway closes on November 18 and is open to residents of the USA only, unless you are a BookBrowse member, in which case you are eligible to win wherever you live.

Enter the giveaway

Past Winners