Books High and Low

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Love's Labour's Lost, by William Shakespeare

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  I read this play in anticipation of a performance by Penn State's Centre Stage in April. It's one of Shakespeare's earlier co...

Selected poems of Charles Baudelaire, translated by Geoffrey Wagner

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  I bought this book in the 1990s at the University of Pittsburgh bookstore when I worked at Hillman Library. I thought it would be a good w...

The secret of Chimneys, by Agatha Christie

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  In Agatha Christie's fifth mystery, down on his luck Anthony Cade travels from South Africa to London to deliver a manuscript memoir b...

Service model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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  I really loved this science fiction novel by British author Adrian Tchaikovsky. Humanity is in decline, and when a virus disrupts the work...
Sunday, March 2, 2025

Flight, by Lynn Steger Strong

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  I have mixed feelings about this novel about three siblings, their spouses and children, and a young mother and her daughter. I had a hard...
Friday, February 28, 2025

The man in the brown suit, by Agatha Christie

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  Agatha Christie's fourth mystery doesn't include any of her more famous detectives. The main character, Anne, is a young woman who...
Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Eight hundred grapes, by Laura Dave

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I was disappointed in this novel by popular author Laura Dave. I had read another book by her and found it to be entertaining ( The night we...
Thursday, February 20, 2025

French lessons, by Ellen Sussman

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In honor of Valentine's Day, I decided to read this short novel about love in its many forms. French lessons is about three French tuto...
Saturday, February 15, 2025

The dig, by John Preston

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  I really enjoyed this novel based on the true story of the discovery of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial in Sutton Hoo, England. As war approach...
Tuesday, February 4, 2025

The murder on the links, by Agatha Christie

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  This is Agatha Christie's third mystery and her second one featuring Hercule Poirot. Although I read a lot of Christie as a teenager, ...

The writing of the gods: the race to decode the Rosetta stone, by Edward Dolnick

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  I really enjoyed this fascinating and well-researched history of the finding and decoding of the Rosetta stone. After several men failed t...
Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Cinema love, by Jiaming Tang

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  I liked this book about a group of Chinese immigrants who struggle with life and love in New York's Chinatown. The story actually span...
Thursday, January 23, 2025

The secret adversary, by Agatha Christie

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  I really enjoyed the second novel of Agatha Christie's. It's the first of five books starring the characters Tommy and Tuppence. I...
Saturday, January 18, 2025

The Friday afternoon club: a family memoir, by Griffin Dunne

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  I enjoyed this celebrity memoir written by actor, director, and producer Griffin Dunne. It brought to life the crazy life of his parents a...

Edmund: in search of England's lost king, by Francis Young

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This is a good introduction to Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia until his death in 869. Edmund was killed by the Danes, reportedly tie...
Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Deep & wild: on mountains, opossums & finding your way in West Virginia, by Laura Jackson

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  I enjoyed this collection of personal essays about West Virginia. Author Laura Jackson is a West Virginia native and writes lovingly about...
Thursday, January 9, 2025

The enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim

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I really enjoyed this 1922 novel about four women who travel to Italy, renting an old castle for a month. All of the women are unhappy for d...
Friday, January 3, 2025

Dear Evan Hansen, book by Steven Levenson; music and lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul

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  Dear Evan Hansen is a musical that will be coming to Eisenhower Auditorium in April, so I thought I'd read the play before going to s...

Devil is fine, by John Vercher

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  Devil is fine tells the story of a biracial man who has just lost his teenage son. He inherits a plot of land that was meant for his son ...

An unfinished love story: a personal history of the 1960s, by Doris Kearns Goodwin

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  This is a wonderful look at not only the relationship between Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin, but also an in...

The Brooklyn follies, by Paul Auster

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I really enjoyed this novel by Paul Auster, one of my favorite authors. The Brooklyn follies tells the story of a recently retired, divorce...

The Plantagenets: the kings that made Britain, by Derek Wilson

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  This is a good introduction to the Plantagenet dynasty in Britain. It devotes a chapter to almost all of the kings from Henry II through H...
Thursday, January 2, 2025

The mysterious affair at Styles, by Agatha Christie

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  I read what I thought was a lot of Agatha Christie mysteries when I was a teenager, probably a few dozen, but that's only a fraction o...
Saturday, November 30, 2024

How to connect, by Thich Nhat Hanh

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  This is the second book in a series of "how to" books by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh that I've read; other book...
Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Headshot, by Rita Bullwinkel

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I was prepared to dislike Headshot because I really don't like boxing as a sport, but I was surprised by how engaging this book was. It...
Sunday, November 24, 2024

Much ado about nothing, by William Shakespeare

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  I really enjoyed this play about Beatrice and Benedick, Hero and Claudio. I read it in anticipation of seeing the play performed at Penn S...
Sunday, November 17, 2024

Long after we are gone, by Terah Shelton Harris

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In this family drama, author Terah Shelton Harris reveals the problems inherent in "heir property," which is land that has been in...
Saturday, November 9, 2024

Trust her, by Flynn Berry

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  I didn't realize when I began Trust Her that it is a sequel to Northern Spy , which I haven't read yet. I would have preferred to...
Thursday, November 7, 2024

Traitor's gate, by Jeffrey Archer

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  This is a bit of escapist fiction featuring a group of Scotland Yard officers who are tasked with protecting the crown jewels when they...
Saturday, October 26, 2024

Two tales: Betrothed & Edo and Enam, by S.Y. Agnon; translated from the Hebrew by Walter Lever

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  These are two novellas written by celebrated Hebrew novelist S.Y. Agnon, who was the recipient of the Nobel prize in Literature in 1966. B...
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