Books High and Low

Peter May's  The Lewis Trilogy  included three novels set on the Isle of Lewis, the northernmost island in the Outer Hebrides, islands o...

This is a Hercule Poirot mystery that is framed in three acts: Suspicion, Certainty, and Discovery. Poirot doesn't start out as the lead...

The stakes are high for Roman army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso as he heeds a request to go home to Gaul, taking his companion, Tilla, along w...

I really enjoyed this third entry in a trilogy following  The Blackhouse  and The Lewis Man . Fin Macleod has taken a job providing security...

I enjoyed this novel about a bank robber who was foiled during the attempt and takes refuge in a nearby apartment building where an apartmen...

  Recipient of the 2024 Booker Prize,  Orbital  is a short novel about life on the International Space Station in one 24 hour period. Six as...

This is the second mystery in the Lewis trilogy by author Peter May. Fin Macleod has divorced his wife, left the police in Edinburgh, and mo...

This is the first mystery in a trilogy set on the Isle of Lewis, the northernmost island in the Scottish Hebrides. Fin Macleod is a detectiv...

  This is the second book in a series about Roman army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso. In the first book Ruso solved a mystery about the murder ...

  This is the first in a series about Roman Britain, set in 186 CE. Libertus is a freed slave who works as a mosaic artist. He's asked b...

  This is the 15th Agatha Christie novel that I've read this year, and I still continue to enjoy them. This one has a new pair investiga...

I've been reading British history for a few years now, and in preparation for my upcoming trip to London, I thought it would be fun to r...

  I loved this charming memoir by Anne Fadiman that uses her father's love of wine and books to tell both of their stories. Clifton Fadi...

  What a blast it was re-reading  Sense and sensibility  after more than 30 years. Jane Austen was never an assigned author in my high schoo...

This is a typical thriller by Mary Higgins Clark, with a reporter investigating the stabbing death of a woman who looks exactly like her, su...

  This is a powerful memoir by Rice University Professor and 2022 MacArthur Fellowship recipient Kiese Laymon. Written as a letter to his mo...

I really enjoyed this memoir about growing up in a large, complicated family in Queens. Tara Clancy is a writer and storyteller who has publ...

  I read this book when I was a teenager, but my memories of the plot really come from the more recent film version. I enjoyed reading it ag...

  I really enjoyed this novel about Newland Archer, an attorney, and his struggle to decide whether to stay with his conventional  fiancé or...

  This is a sad and touching memoir about a woman who disappears and presumably dies of a heroin overdose after many years of a downward spi...

  This is a memoir like no other. Canadian author Elaine Lui wrote this memoir about her relationship with her mother, a Chinese immigrant t...

This is a touching and emotional memoir by former U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey. In this book she tells the story of her childhood, w...

  Aly Raisman is a retired Olympic gymnast who starred and medaled in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. She is also one of the young gymnasts who ...

I really enjoyed this memoir by Sara Saedi whose family traveled to the United States in the hope of applying for asylum. When their paperwo...

After reading  The babes in the wood , an Inspector Wexford novel, I decided to read all of them, starting with this first one. In  From Doo...

  This book documents the illustrations that were commissioned by the University of Tennessee Libraries to accompany its oral history projec...

In this mystery involving both Hercule Poirot and his sidekick Captain Hastings, Lord Edgware is murdered, but the prime suspect has an alib...

In  Peril at End House , Hercule Poirot and his friend Captain Hastings try to prevent the murder of a young woman, Nick Buckley, who has re...

  I really enjoyed this novel about a young woman, Adina, who believes that she is an alien sent to earth to gather information about humans...

  The Sittaford Mystery  is a standalone story that doesn't include any of Agatha Christie's usual detectives. After a  séance in wh...