BEA13 | Raging Biblio-holism

You Should Have Known

May 5, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: Grace Reinhart Sachs lives a pretty good life. She’s got a gorgeous pediatric oncologist husband, a smart and already successful young son, and she’s about to publish a book based on her therapy practice called You Should Have Known, telling women that they ought to know better when they fall for bad men. Well, not surprisingly, Grace gets some comeuppance when it turns out that she should have known – but missed entirely – that her husband was never […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: BEA13, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Literature, review, Reviews

In the Blood

January 10, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: Lana Granger, a young college student, has told so many lies to escape her dark past that she barely remembers who she actually is anymore. But with graduation approaching, she takes her first real job in an attempt to grow – babysitting a young boy named Luke, who turns out to be quite the young psychopath. When Lana’s best friend disappears and the police are called in, Lana is drawn into a battle of wits with lives on […]

Categories: Fiction, Mystery • Tags: BEA13, Book Review, Book Reviews, Fiction, In the Blood, Lisa Unger, Mystery, review, Reviews

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Foreign Gods, Inc.

January 2, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: Ike, a Nigerian taxi driver in New York, has had a pretty poor string of luck. Despite his good education and his immigration to the US, his life hasn’t really been as successful as he’d hoped. So he returns home intending to steal the war deity of his old tribe and sell it to a gallery in New York – but maybe the god himself has other plans. The Review: The single thing that I think will […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Advance Review, BEA13, Book Review, Books, Fiction, Foreign Gods, Foreign Gods Inc., Literature, Nigeria, Okey Ndibe, Reviews

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White Fire (Pendergast #13)

November 27, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: Corrie Swanson, protégée of the dapper and strange Agent Aloysius Pendergast, has come up with an idea for a potentially award-winning paper and so she jets off to Colorado – and winds up in big trouble. Pendergast comes to bail her out and arrives just in time for an arsonist to horrifyingly assault the town. What does this all have to do with a missing Sherlock Holmes story? More than it might seem, on the surface of things… […]

Categories: Fiction, Mystery • Tags: Agent Pendergast, BEA13, Douglas Preston, Fiction, Lincoln Child, Mystery, Preston & Child, Sherlock Holmes

The Shining Girls

October 7, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: In 1931, Harper Curtis discovers a mysterious house that allows him to travel through time – in order to kill these very specific girls, whose spirits “shine” with potential. In 1989, Kirby Mazrachi is nearly murdered by an unknown assailant – key word nearly. As she tries to track down her killer a few years later, she stumbles onto an impossible mystery: a serial killer who seems to travel through time… The Review: Stephen King should be proud. It’s […]

Categories: Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi • Tags: BEA13, Fiction, Horror, Lauren Beukes, Mystery, Science Fiction, The Shining Girls

The Facades

September 21, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: After his moderately famous mezzo-soprano wife disappears, Sven Norberg wanders the streets of Trude in search of her. But the strange Midwestern town, full of radical librarians and odd cops as well as ordinarily odd people, seems to foil him at every turn – and over it all looms the strange and jarring architecture of Trude’s most celebrated resident, a man named Bernhard. The Review: Trude is apparently a city from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (Calvino seems to be the […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: BEA13, Eric Lundgren, Fiction, Literature, Mystery, Opera, Overlook Press, TNBBC

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City of Bohane

September 10, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: Logan Hartnett, leader of the Hartnett Fancy, is struggling a bit. The Norries are getting rowdy and spoiling for a fight, his lieutenants are starting to cast eyes towards ascension, his missus wants him out of the game, and his ma’ can’t be trusted. When rumor hits him that the man he once deposed is back in town, it sets off an interesting year in the city of Bohane – yes it does. The Review: What an exceptional […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 6, BEA13, City of Bohane, Fiction, Graywolf Press, Ireland, Kevin Barry, Literature

Bobcat and Other Stories

August 28, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: Short stories of almost too-short construction, featuring simple stories from people’s lives and the moments at which things seem about to bend or break – but always stopping short of that actual pivot. A dinner party that could potentially dissolve several marriages, a woman brought to Hong Kong to choose her friend’s wife, a mother/college administrator trying to juggle the two – that sort of thing. The Review: I’m sort of at a loss here. I don’t […]

Categories: Fiction, Short Stories • Tags: BEA13, Bobcat, Bobcat and Other Stories, Fiction, Literature, Rebecca Lee, Short Stories

Counting by 7s

August 14, 2013 by Drew

The Short Version: Willow Chance is a genius. Off-the-charts smart. Her adopted parents indulge her quirks and love her for them, although her schoolmates are less inclined to be so welcoming. After she’s accused of cheating on a test, she’s sent to a counselor (Dale) who quickly learns just how special she is – but all of this is thrown into overdrive when her parents die in a car accident and she’s left an orphan. This is the story of […]

Categories: Fiction • Tags: Advance Review, BEA13, Counting by 7s, Fiction, Holly Goldberg Sloan, Literature, Young Adult

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Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: BEA13

You Should Have Known

In the Blood

Foreign Gods, Inc.

White Fire (Pendergast #13)

The Shining Girls

The Facades

City of Bohane

Bobcat and Other Stories

Counting by 7s