Book Reviews

By Jack Kerouac. Audible version narrated by Will Patton (2007). 11 hours, 8 minutes. Originally published in New York by Viking Press, 1957. A Review by D. Margaret Hoffman If I had read this book when I was nineteen, I’d have loved it—the quest for freedom, the shirking off of rules, the youthful exuberance. But

by Anthony Doerr. New York: Scribner, 2021. 626pp. A Review by D. Margaret Hoffman Because this book is so long, I wrote about it in sections. Worried that I’d forget current impressions by the time I reached the end, I recorded some of them as I went along. This review, then, reflects my reading and

by Anthony Doerr. New York: Scribner, 2021. 692 pp. A Review by D. Margaret Hoffman I’m nearly three hundred pages in—almost half way. The stories seem to have multiplied but really it’s just some time-hopping and the addition of a peripheral character or two. Connections are emerging as Konstance, the girl of the future hurtling

by Anthony Doerr. New York: Scribners, 2021. 626pp, A Review by D. Margaret Hoffman So. I got busy. Life intervened and I left off reading for over a month. I thought sure this book was done-for. I didn’t think that I’d be able to remember nearly enough to pick up where I left off. Not

by Anne Tyler. New York: Knopf, 2022. 244 pp. A Review by D. Margaret Hoffman We are conditioned, as readers of fiction and watchers of movies, to crave the BIG moments—the life-altering apexes, the in-your-face conflicts, the neat resolutions that come after the shocking climaxes. That’s not what we get from Anne Tyler. French Braid

By Jennifer Finney Boylan New York: Celadon Books, 2020. 249pp. A Review by D. Margaret Hoffman I attended a virtual talk given by Dr. Boylan at a Mark Twain House Writers’ Weekend. I ordered her book as a result, expecting to like it. I never expected to love it—which, as it turns out, I do.

By Stanley Tucci New York: Simon and Schuster (Gallery Books), 2021. 291 pp. Reviewed by D. Margaret Hoffman I am a big fan of Stanley Tucci, so when I had the chance to buy a signed first edition of his memoir, I jumped at it. I am naturally suspect of celebrity memoirs, though, because a