This follow-up to the critically acclaimed ‘The Pleasing Hour’ is a keen and forthright study of the inner workings of a family circle, which means it’s excruciating to read – a strange compliment to bestow, but an apt one
Studiously neither pro-war nor anti-war, this ‘anti-sending-me-to-war-book’ rather too appropriately evidences reluctance to see actual combat, expending nearly two-thirds of its length establishing Ayers’ coward credentials before setting off on the road to Baghdad.
Jill Soloway takes no pains to appear politically correct or ponderously deep in talking about her life, which can be very refreshing. She makes it clear that she doesn’t take herself terribly seriously, but at times she laughs at herself a bit too hard.
In Jeffrey Ford’s ‘The Girl in the Glass’, reality is a con, at least according to illegal Mexican immigrant Diego, his foster father Thomas Schell, and ex-circus strongman Antony Cleopatra
Realizing that you have to break an egg to make a novelette (or something like that), Jasper Fforde cracks the biggest egg of all and cooks up a delectable new mystery
