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Honest, engaging and witty letters by essayist, children’s author and poet, E.B. White. Includes letters from White’s childhood until just before his death. This book of letters paints an incredibly intimate portrait of White’s relationships with his friends, family and co-workers. Farm animals, dogs, New York City and rural Maine are featured prominently as well.
Tagged: Letters, Non-fiction
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If you often find yourself at odds with conventional wisdom or society this book is a worthwhile read. Hitchens offers useful advice on how to think about this condition. There is no better purveyor of erudition.
Tagged: Non-fiction
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A fantastic collection of new and old Scottish fiddle tunes, with Alasdair Fraser on fiddle and Natalie Haas on cello. Alasdair Fraser is a master and Natalie Haas’s cello playing his perfect complement. Natalie plays beautiful counterpoint, but she has also mastered the fiddler’s “chop”, and uses it effectively in her driving rhythmic accompaniments. Having listened to this recording I find it difficult to understand why the cello is not used more often in this style of music!
Tagged: Folk music
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I fell in love with the songs of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann as a teenager when I discovered At the Drop of a Hat among my parents neglected collection of LPs. I couldn’t imagine any songs more wonderfully silly than “The gnu song” and “The reluctant cannibal”, and Flanders and Swann’s delivery was charismatic, charming, more than a little endearing. The same album also contained the wonderfully clever “Ill wind”, which consisted of an amusing text set to the music of a Mozart horn concerto—complete with a cadenza. I was hooked.
The Complete Flanders and Swann contains all those familiar songs from At the Drop of a Hat, as well as songs from At the drop of another hat, The bestiary of Flanders and Swann, and some previously unreleased material. I recommend it!
Tagged: Humor
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Chafing under the stifling and claustrophobic care of her liberal parents, Frederica Hatch finds her snug world transformed by Laura Lee French, a new college dorm mother and wannabe former Rockette who had once been married to Frederica’s earnest and unglamorous father.
Tagged: Fiction
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Follow Gogol and his traditional Indian family as they confront issues of belonging and non-belonging in the US. This is an engaging story that tackles questions of cultural identity.
Tagged: Fiction, Immigration
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Although death looms large in Erdrich’s emotionally powerful, richly detailed new novel, it does so in a “world where butchers sing like angels.Returning to his quiet German village home after World War I, trained killer Fidelis Waldvogel, accompanied by his new wife, starts a new life in America and finds his life irrevocably changed by a new relationship.
Tagged: Fiction
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Mosher has created a delightful character in Jane Hubbell Kinneson, a Vermont Abenaki Scot, who lives alone on her family mountain and does more things in an hour than most do in a day. Her life takes a zany turn when she saves the life of a colorful stranger who dreams of riches. While trying to dig up the past, they are also trying to save the future of an even greater treasure – the Kinneson legacy.
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This book has magic and Englishmen, but isn’t like Harry Potter. It is very Dickensian and creates a world where magic is part of everyday life. A fascinating, involving tale.
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A clinical psychologist obsessed with near death experiences, Joanna Lander joins forces with Dr. Richard Wright, a neurologist who has come up with a way to manufacture NDEs in the laboratory with the help of a mind-altering drug, but the experiments may yield far more than she ever anticipated when she volunteers to become a test subject in the experiment. This book a a mind-bender.
Tagged: Fantasy, Fiction, Science fiction
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Another one of Berry’s lovable Port William characters. Jayber, the town’s bachelor barber, lives his life seemingly quietly but he has his own secret desires, hopes and disappointments. This book is a lovely paean to life.
Tagged: Fiction
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If you want to fall all over your self with sheer glee then get this book post haste. A stirring Irish shaggy pig story and free-for-all from start to finish.
Tagged: Fiction