Category Archives: Book Reviews
REVIEW | Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Flow” is a very influential book in the world of psychology. The author, Mihaly Csikszentmihlyi, poses the question, ‘What makes life worth living?’ With this inquiry as the starting point, the author reveals years of pioneering research that adds to our understanding of happiness, creativity, and human fulfillment by describing the common elements of ultimate experience or “flow,” a state of heightened focus and immersion in art, athletics, work and life. Continue reading
My Review | To the Lighthouse
I readily admit that I don’t catch most literary references or metaphors, if that’s what modernist fiction means. This novel was hailed for its experimental nature. Nothing happens. Everything is a stream-of-consciousness, jumping from character-to-character. No action, little dialogue. Continue reading
My Review | The Art of Fielding
I liked this book right off the bat. I immediately thought of John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” one of my favorite books. Owen, in this book, is a baseball player named Henry, who is a can’t miss pro prospect, who loses the ability to throw accurately to first base, or anywhere for that matter. But while the book is set in the world of baseball, the story is about several characters, a couple friends, a father and daughter. Continue reading
My Review | The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
Considered the best spy novel of all-time, featuring Cold War espionage, “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” shows what similarly amoral lengths both sides will go in the name of national security. Continue reading
Review | This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
Stories from a concentration camp survivor of Auschwitz and Dachau. This riveting, brutal inside account, beautifully written by Polish poet and journalist Tadeusz Borowski, has become a masterwork of world literature. Continue reading
My Review | The Art Forger
In this mystery, a talented, young artist is asked to forge an actual Degas masterpiece that was stolen as part of the largest unsolved art theft in history. Lots of behind-the-scenes from the art world, art forging and technique with many layers, twists and turns, which Publishers Weekly called “delightful.” Continue reading
My Review | The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
A recently retired man he receives a distressing letter from an old co-worker. She has cancer and she’s written to say goodbye. He writes a reply, but in the spur of the moment, decides to deliver the note in person … by walking to the hospice 500 miles away. Continue reading
