Bill reviews “Skipping Christmas” (2001) by John Grisham and found in its story of commercialism & societal pressure a Ur-text for Randians. John Grisham, the creator of straight-shooting legal thrillers, is carrying on the thrilling work of Ayn Rand, and he has outdone the master of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” by taking the standard […]
At PlanetPeschel is my review of “Pride’s Children: Purgatory,” an unconventional romance novel by my fellow commenter at “The Passive Voice,” Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt. I had been promising to review it, and had a draft on my desk for several weeks, but now she’s dropped the price of the Kindle book to $2.99 for a […]
For a book in which everyone stays firmly on land and the only boat in sight is a skeletal wreck, the sea still plays a major role in “The Essex Serpent,” a historical novel by Sarah Perry that was a surprise best-seller in Britain last year. At the book’s center is the serpent, seen 300 […]