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 of […]

“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, dear—too […]

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 owner […]

Madcap, 21st Century Brit Fiction, by Kevin R. Kosar, August 20, 2008 Awfully funny, shockingly bawdy, and frequently quite touching. Haddon has a very good eye for people. If you like looney English fiction, you’ll probably enjoy this.

Swung for the Fence but Hit a Flare into Short Right Field, by Kevin R. Kosar, May 15, 2007 During the first third or so of the book, one gets the impression that Shtenyngart is trying to pull off something big, something like Saul Bellow did in The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics) or […]