Author Archives: bseat

The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag

In 1793, in Stockholm, one early autumn morning, two children find Mickel Cardell, a man of the Watch, in a drunken stupor, and shake him awake.  At first he can’t figure out what they are saying, but slowly their words … Continue reading

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A Thousand Mornings: Poems by Mary Oliver

I am not really a poetry person, or at least I say that to myself, but if a Mary Oliver book of poems shows up in my life, I devour them.  That is what happened this last weekend when I … Continue reading

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SEVENEVES by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson intrigues me. When I read Cryptonomicon I was totally hooked by both the subject of cryptography and the thriller/suspense plot. But then the Baroque Cycle came out- a three part series about the history of science and philosophy. … Continue reading

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Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Anna Kerrigan is twelve years old when she first meets Dexter Styles. At the time she was awed by his home by the sea, and felt the undercurrents of something unnamed but menacing between Dexter and her father. Years later … Continue reading

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Go: A Coming of Age Novel by Kazuki Kaneshiro, Translated by Takami Nieda

This novel about a young man of Korean ethnicity growing up in Japan was written in 2000 but its message could not be more prescient or apt to our own current political and social situation. It is a novel about … Continue reading

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Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

This book is the harrowing true story of one woman’s quest for truth, knowledge and self determination. It is one of the most powerful endorsements for the proposition that “The Truth shall set you free” and a chilling and heartbreaking … Continue reading

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Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

In Shaker Heights, everything is planned. From the layout of its roads, the colors of the homes themselves, to the placement of the grocery stores, this progressive suburb which attracts up and coming residents who lead successful lives.  The Richardsons … Continue reading

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The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan

This is a story of love and sex, betrayal and friendship, misogyny and the power of women to overcome their lot in life. The story spans almost forty years of turmoil and unrest in China from the collapse of the … Continue reading

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Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston

When Zora Neale Hurston came to Plateau, Alabama in 1927, Cudjo Lewis was eighty six years old.  He was one of the last living slaves who remembered crossing the Middle Passage from Africa to the United States on the last … Continue reading

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The Girl Who Lived by Christopher Greyson

Faith Winters experienced a trauma no child should ever have to experience. On the weekend of her thirteenth birthday, at her family’s cabin by the lake, someone killed her father, her sister, her best friend and her best friend’s mother. … Continue reading

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