As a generation we have become fixated on true crime. And we all, to one degree or another, are consumers of it. It’s not a mere obsession with the depravity inflicted upon victims or the desire to be an interloper on another’s suffering. It’s the who, what, where, when and why that we are trying desperately to understand.
Read MoreAt times the unspooling of a story in your head can be much more frightening than what’s actually on the page. A stellar showcase of what is known in the book world as an unreliable narrator.
Read MoreMind. Blown. This tightrope of a novel accomplishes one of the things that I love the most. It plucks you up from the humdrum banality of your day to day life and drops you smack into a big ol world of what the f*ck is happening and where the f&ck am I?
Read MoreIt should go without saying that Canada has an amazing array of writers within our beautiful borders. We can also state with pride that its diversity is unparalleled in any other nation!
Read MoreHallelujah! Finally, a thriller that’s not about murderous spouses. I was beginning to worry about all my married friends. Law of averages and all that!
Read MoreSpoiler Alert! Nobody dies in this book. But if words were weapons…This book is a gem, charming in its tangents as much as its ruminations.
Read MoreThis book is the story of a slave who stands accused of murdering her employers. Exquisitely written at every turn, this is no mere lament to the horrors of slavery.
Read MoreA struggling writer finally gets his big break when a famous editor takes on his book. That individual being none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Read MoreIn the simplest terms, pop culture can be defined as a blend of ideas, images, attitudes and perspectives that characterize a given culture or generation. Or if you prefer the snarkier translations as much as I do, the destruction of the human race.
Read MoreIf you’ve listened to their wildly popular podcast, My Favorite Murder, it won’t come as a surprise that these ladies are swift with the snappy turn of phrase. You will try to resist laughing out loud at what seems like a hugely inappropriate topic, but resistance is futile!
Read MoreThis book chronicles the turbulent life of Yasuko Thanh, from her early childhood living in a poor neighborhood, thru her teen years which included drug abuse and dealing, as well as sex work, to her emergence as an author. One of the poignant disclosures is that craving love can make you a target. You will definitlely see evidence of that in this work.
Read MoreBaked has more than one principal meaning in my life, when paired the result can be quite delightful! I LOVE sweet baked treats, but fully admit I prefer to be baked for rather than make any attempt whatsoever to do the baking. I am effusive in my gratitude for anyone that serves me up a yummy sweet.
Read More*if you don’t know what TBR means you’ve possibly taken a wrong turn…
1. The Stand – Stephen King
2. Harry Potter Series – J. K. Rowling
3. Good Omens – Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
4. Dracula – Bram Stoker
5. Lord of The Rings Trilogy – J. R. R. Tolkien
6. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
7. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
8. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
9. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
10. Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
11. Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
12. Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathan Lethem
13. Red Rising Series – Pierce Brown
14. Battle Royale – Koushun Takami
15. The Martian – Andy Weir
16. Bad Monkey/Sick Puppy – Carl Hiaasen
17. Heart Shaped Box – Joe Hill
18. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
19. This Story Is A Lie – Tom Pollock
20. I Am Pilgrim – Terry Hayes
21. The Shining/Doctor Sleep – Stephen King
22. Harriet The Spy – Louise Fitzhugh
23. The Eight – Katherine Neville
24. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
25. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
26. American Gods – Neil Gaiman
27. Silence of The Lambs – Thomas Harris
28. Where the Sidewalk Ends – Shel Silverstein
29. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Trilogy) – Stieg Larsson
30. A Simple Plan – Scott Smith
31. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
32. Winter’s Bone – Daniel Woodrell
33. Mystic River – Dennis Lehane
34. Little Brother – Cory Doctorow
35. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
36. The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt
37. The 25thHour – David Benioff
38. Go Ask Alice – Anonymous
39. Bird Box –Josh Malerman
40. The Road –Cormac McCarthy
41. Murder of Roger Ackroyd/Crooked House – Agatha Christie
42. Princess Bride – William Goldman
43. Grimm’s Fairy Tales – Brothers Grimm
44. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
45. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
46. Daisy Jones & The Six – Taylor Jenkins Reid
47. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
48. A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
49. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
50. In the Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
51. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
52. High Fidelity – Nick Hornby
53. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
54. Postcards from the Edge – Carrie Fisher
55. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
56. Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
57. The Borrowers – Mary Norton
58. Kane and Abel – Jeffrey Archer
59. Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri
60. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – John Berendt
61. The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next Series) – Jasper Fforde
62. The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah
63. Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman
64. The Stinky Cheese Man – Jon Scieszka
65. The Killing Circle – Andrew Pyper
66. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews
67. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
68. The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
69. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
70. Lamb: Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal – Christopher Moore
71. Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
72. English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
73. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
74. The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova
75. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – Edward Albee
76. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
77. Ordinary People – Judith Guest
78. Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin
79. The Andromeda Strain – Michael Crichton
80. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! – Dr. Seuss
81. Heartburn – Nora Ephron
82. Clockers –Richard Price
83. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke
84. Swamplandia! – Karen Russell
85. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
86. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
87. Larry’s Party – Carol Shields
88. The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
89. Everything I Never Told You – Celeste Ng
90. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
91. Franny & Zooey – J. D. Salinger
92. Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut
93. This Is Where I Leave You – Jonathan Tropper
94. My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult
95. For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
96. The Giant’s House – Elizabeth McCracken
97. Smila’s Sense of Snow – Peter Hoeg
98. The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Leguin
99. Carry On, Jeeves – P. G. Wodehouse
It’s been 10+ years since this author’s last book was published and if you think the level of depravity in his characters has mellowed in his advancing age, think again.
Read MoreOur author found his passion in true crime while surrounded by his Scooby-Doo and Six Million Dollar Man action figures, his father reciting to him the daily news headlines. Always with an emphasis on the solving of the unsolved mysteries of the day.
Read MoreMy dislike for this novel had me second guessing my enjoyment of this authors debut last year. I wasn’t effusive in my praise or recommending to everyone in my crosshairs or anything like that, but I went back for more.
Read MoreTo date on this blog I have avoided publishing an immersive “to be read list”. You know the ones, 100 or 50 or 150, books you must read before you die. After perusing many of these lists, I can say with confidence that they are heavily redundant, somewhat elitist, and a sure cure for that pesky insomnia. Certainly there must be a better list of books I can recommend you keep company with in your dying days.
Read MoreWhere will you be when the world ends? If you have learned anything from books like The Shining, Pyscho, Evil Under The Sun, it won’t be at an isolated hotel.
Read MoreOne night, five remembrances, each one accompanied by a glass raised in a toast. If you had to name five people to epitomize the pivotal moments of your life, who would they be?
Read MoreThis novel is searing in its portrayal of sociopathy and a few other nasty qualities. As the title should indicate, this is no gentle unburdening of harmless wrong doings.
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