Book Reviews: Fiction

Margaret Halsey, With Malice Towards Some (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1938)

September 22, 2009
By Kevin R. Kosar
Margaret Halsey, With Malice Towards Some (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1938)

A Best Seller in 1938 That Remains a Fun Read, by Kevin R. Kosar, September 22, 2009 Margaret Halsey was all of 27 years of age when she published With Malice Toward Some.  It sold 800,000 copies.  Not a bad way to start a writing career, for sure. The book’s birth was the product...
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Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (New York: Vintage 2004)

September 17, 2009
By Kevin R. Kosar
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (New York: Vintage 2004)

“A Peculiar, Amusing, and Impressive Story,” by Kevin R. Kosar, September 17, 2009 Christopher John Francis Boone has Asperger Syndrome, a disease a bit like autism that leaves its victims with very limited abilities to empathize or interact with other human beings.  This is his story.  As told by him. Before you say, “Oh,...
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Mark Spragg, The Fruit of Stone (New York: Riverhead, 2002)

September 16, 2009
By Kevin R. Kosar
Mark Spragg, The Fruit of Stone (New York: Riverhead, 2002)

There is Fiction, and There Is Literature, by Kevin R. Kosar, September 16, 2009 Fiction fiends are well aware of the squabble that broke out some years back that featured John Irving, John Updike, and Norman Mailer pounding on Tom Wolfe, and Wolfe lashing back.  Updike wrote of Wolfe’s then latest novel, A Man...
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John Gardner, The Liquidator (NY: The Viking Press, 1964)

July 27, 2009
By Kevin R. Kosar
John Gardner, The Liquidator (NY: The Viking Press, 1964)

Once More to the Recycling Bin by Kevin R. Kosar I came across the book in a recycling bin; it was piled in there with other titles from three or more decades back.  Their authors were the pop stars of their time, DeVries, Simenon, Michener, and Ludlum. The books had been discarded because the...
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Ken Wohlrob, The Metronome Winds Down

July 27, 2009
By Kevin R. Kosar
Ken Wohlrob, The Metronome Winds Down

What ITunes Is To Music… by Kevin R. Kosar I’ve known Ken since—gasp—1989. He is a man of eclectic interests, including world travel, art, film, music, and campy Mexican wrestling movies.  It seems that each month he is expanding his palate and discovering new things that delight his senses. Since the late 1990s, he...
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My New Book

My Education Politics Book

Recent Reads

Fiction: John Grisham, The Associate (2009).

Non-Fiction: Todd Kliman, The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of American Wine (2010).

Non-Fiction: Kathryn A. Jacob, King of the Lobby: The Life and Times of Sam Ward, Man-About-Washington in the Gilded Age (2010).

Non-Fiction: Philip Terzian, Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century (2010).

Fiction: David Lodge, Thinks (2001)

Non-Fiction: Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service, 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition (2010)

Non-Fiction: Christopher Buckley, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir (2009)

Non-Fiction: Alice Cooper, Alice Cooper, Golf Monster (2007)

Fiction: John Le Carre A Most Wanted Man (2008)

Fiction: John Le Carre Our Game (1995)

Fiction: John Le Carre The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)

Fiction: Peter DeVries Into Your Tent I'll Creep (1971)

Fiction: Peter DeVries Peckham's Marbles (1986)

Fiction: Georges Simenon Three Beds in Manhattan (1964)

Fiction: Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day (1988)