Aug 14
2004
Jennifer Crusie ties with Lisa Kleypas for the number one spot on my “Best Romance Novelists Currently Writing” list. While the two authors may seem to have little in common (Crusie writes sharp,...
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Aug 14
2004
The books of Suzanne Enoch, who is an otherwise only slightly above-average historical romance novelist, have been elevated to Wordcandy status for two reasons. First, she can write a non-annoyin...
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Aug 14
2004
When I was poking around Ms. Evanovich's website I came across the following quote, and since I can't imagine a better description of her heroine than the following line, I'm just going to steal i...
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Aug 14
2004
Bridget Jones's Diary is one of those mega-successful books, like the Harry Potter series or Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum mysteries, that it's just plain stupid not to at least try. Besides b...
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Aug 14
2004
Louise Fitzhugh’s 1964 novel Harriet the Spy introduced readers to a new type of children’s book: a post-Dick and Jane story where everybody, including the heroine, was pretty screwed up. Everyth...
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Aug 14
2004
E. M. Forster, author, critic, and member of the Bloomsbury Group, wrote two great books, Howard’s End and A Room with a View, and several reasonably good ones, many of which seem to have been mad...
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Aug 14
2004
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, Chris Fuhrman’s first and only novel, opens with the following paragraph:“By eighth grade, Jesus Christ had been bone meal and rumors for most of 1,974 years, bu...
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Aug 14
2004
Despite the fact that he's always photographed dressed up in black t-shirts and leather jackets, looking like he'd be happier with a skull in one hand, Neil Gaiman is actually capable of being a t...
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Aug 14
2004
Julie Garwood is a perfectly respectable romance novelist. She has a very limited output and is similar in sensibility to Judith McNaught, although without, happily, the weird sex stuff. While a...
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Aug 14
2004
The only one of Mrs. Gaskell's books that I have read is Wives and Daughters. I thoroughly enjoyed it--it has the sprawling plot and occasional heavy-handed moralizing of a Dickens novel, enliven...
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Aug 14
2004
If Chris Crutcher wrote for adults rather than kids and was about fifty times less entertaining, I bet the people from Oprah's Book Club would be knocking his door down. Crutcher's books feature ...
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Aug 11
2004
Although Jane Eyre is commonly described as a Gothic love story, only about half of the book is devoted to Jane's romance with Mr. Rochester. The first quarter of the novel focuses on Jane's mise...
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Aug 11
2004
Fanny Burney's first and best-known novel, 1778's Evelina, is usually described as the first novel of manners. Burney had originally intended the book to serve as an instruction manual for young ...
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Aug 11
2004
A. S. Byatt is smarter than you are. She knows it, and when you read one of her novels, you'll know it, too. When she's in a rub-this-in-your-face mood, this can make wading through one of her n...
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Aug 11
2004
Like Edgar Allen Poe, Lewis Carroll's books are too-often critiqued in the context of his private life. Highly intelligent, talented, and socially ambitious, Carroll's romantic inclinations were ...
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Aug 11
2004
While I have enjoyed every Julia Quinn book currently in print, I do have some ongoing problems with her writing: she's nowhere near as well researched as, say, Lisa Kleypas, and I find many of he...
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Aug 11
2004
While there is little to distinguish Megan McCafferty’s Jessica Darling novels from the slew of other young adult diary-style novels, they are perfectly respectable entries in an enjoyable and rap...
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Aug 11
2004
Ordinarily I would put information like this in the Bitter Aftertaste section, but my feelings about Judith McNaught are so mixed that I have to begin with it: her romances feature some of the cre...
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Aug 11
2004
Arturo Perez-Reverte’s books always fall apart in the last few chapters, but the rest of the story is so much fun that you have to forgive him. If you’re looking for enjoyably atmospheric mysteri...
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Aug 11
2004
Like the books of Judith McNaught, the plots of Susan Elizabeth Phillips's books all-too-frequently hinge on some (at best) very questionable sex. Unlike Judith McNaught (who honestly doesn't see...
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Aug 11
2004
Daniel and Jill Pinkwater are my idols. Their collaborations (he writes, she illustrates) have produced some of the weirdest, funniest little kids’ books on the planet (including The Hoboken Chic...
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Aug 11
2004
I have only read the first of John Lanchester's books, 1996's The Debt to Pleasure. This wickedly amusing book begins as an epicurean memoir and ends up as the only horror/cookbook hybrid I've ev...
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Aug 11
2004
Despite being the author of over forty books, including the Newbery-Award winning children's classic A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle spent years working as a librarian at the Cathedral of St....
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Aug 11
2004
Elaine Lobl Konigsburg is the only author to have both won the Newbery Award (for 1968’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler) and been the runner-up (for Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth...
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Aug 11
2004
If you read nothing else by Garrison Keillor, at least read the "99 Theses" footnote in his book Lake Wobegon Days. If you discover that you too appreciate the glory of meandering, Midwestern Lut...
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Aug 11
2004
Best known for her Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell mysteries, Laurie R. King is a highly literary mystery/suspense novelist with a tendency to develop stories around her other interests, particularly...
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Aug 11
2004
Annette Curtis Klause has only written a handful of books, and I disliked one of them (Silver Kiss) and was too turned off by the hokey cover and title to read another (Alien Secrets). The third,...
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Aug 11
2004
I read The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life as a child, loved them, and then lost track of the author. Re-discovering Diana Wynne Jones as an adult has been a delight. While I find th...
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Aug 11
2004
Louise Rennison’s Georgia Nicolson books (the series that begins with Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging) combine the agonizing adolescent dorkiness of Sue Townsend’s early Adrian Mole diari...
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Aug 11
2004
Caroline Stevermer is a woman who clearly isn't afraid of a little experimentation. Her alternative history/fantasy stories feature truly unusual settings, characters, and resolutions, and even i...
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