In 1750, the small town of Bearsville, MA was founded. Settled deep in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, a small group of people who left the big city for a better life settled down and made it their home. They had a tenuous beginning, fraught with bitter winters and nearly starving to death, but one woman named Hallie Brady saved them all from an untimely death. So begins … [Read more...]
Herman Koch Tackles Taboo Topics in ‘Summer House’
I've read a lot of reviews of Summer House with Swimming Pool and the general consensus seems to be that those who read the author's previous book, The Dinner, enjoyed this one less. I am not one of those people. Maybe it's because I have a penchant for books that tackle difficult topics in a frank manner or because I'm just an oddity, but I enjoyed this book much more than … [Read more...]
‘The Dinner’ is Delicious
Thanks to April at The Steadfast Reader for this clever headline.What would you do if you knew that your son committed an unspeakable horror and would very likely get away with it? Would you discipline him? Turn him in? Pretend it never happened? These are the questions faced by two sets of parents in The Dinner by Herman Koch and the answers might surprise you. Punctuated … [Read more...]
Dataclysm by Christian Rudder (Book Review)
Did you know that women judge men more harshly on their looks than they do us? Or that universally attractive people are hit on less? I didn't, either, until I read Dataclysm by Christian Rudder, founder of the dating website OKCupid. Using cold, hard data to identify trends and differentiate between what people say they want versus what they actually want, Rudder has … [Read more...]
‘Underground Girls’ is Extraordinary (Book Review)
In a country where a family's worth is dependent on their having a son, some Afghans have found a creative way to circumvent the system. It's more common than you'd expect, rarely discussed in polite company, and has been going on for generations. What do they do, you ask? Why, they raise their daughters as sons. In a stunning story of a trend discovered completely by … [Read more...]