The problem with most romance novels is that they follow the publisher’s outlined formula; planned conflict and resolution do not cause the plastic characters to grow and experience true romance. Many readers are disappointed with the... Read More

History can fill the memory. If asked, “Where you were on September 11, 2001?” readers will no doubt remember exactly where they were and what they were doing. “Where were you on November 22, 1963?” This reviewer was teaching a... Read More

Like Isabel Allende, who has written about Chileans trying to survive the Pinochet dictatorship, Lucia Orth writes about ordinary Filipinos trying to survive under Ferdinand Marcos’s martial law. Orth, who lived in Philippines for five... Read More

On the edge of the desolate Staked Plain of west Texas around 1880 a preternaturally precocious toddler named Maggie Teague “could do what a lot of them still hadn’t mastered.” Two-year-old Maggie can read an amazing fact that... Read More

Anyone suffering from even mild depression would be wise to set this book aside and not pick it up again until the sun shines brightly or the liquor kicks in. The setting, the characters, the plot are all awash in gloom. Still, the story... Read More

During the summer of 2002, Colin Angus, a Canadian in his thirties, decided to make a statement about the overuse of fossil fuels and the urgency of climate change, and began planning the first ever human-powered circumnavigation of the... Read More

The practice of mindfulness (full awareness of the present moment), is used to treat a multitude of health and psychological difficulties. Here, the author, a private psychologist who regularly evaluates people who are considering... Read More

“From afar, from America, most people dismiss my legal problem in Hausaland as quaint or comical merely because it’s over a horse,” Miles writes. “But what if the illicitly transferred item were not a horse but a stock... Read More