No Charge Bookbunch

reviews - books and articles

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The Midnight Train

Although many have written about life after death, Matt Haig offers a new twist in The Midnight Train. Wilbur is forced to relive moments in his life he would change if he could, as the midnight train chugs through his past. A slow comforting read, the story keeps moving through Wilbur’s eighty years, holding out hope Wilbur will be able to correct the mistakes of his younger self. It made me…

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Whistler

Ann Patchett is true to form and delivers in her latest book Whistler. I was recovering from travel – nowadays it’s the destination, not the journey – and needed a comforting but compelling read. In her usual lucid storytelling style, Patchett hooked me with her first paragraph and I kept reading. In a serendipitous moment, Daphne Fuller reunites with her stepfather, her mother’s second of three…

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The Knight and the Moth

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Not Quite Dead Yet

Although I bought the paperback version of Holly Jackson’s 2025 thriller to have something to read on an upcoming plane ride, once I opened the book I couldn’t put it down and read it in one sitting. What a ride. Margaret Mason, better known as Jet, has had problems figuring out her life since her older sister drowned in a pool accident, but when an attempt to kill her leaves her a week to live,…

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Discovering Amy Ephron

With that famous last name, my expectations were high for this author. Younger sister to Nora Ephron, Amy is a prolific writer too. I found Unseasonably Cold by accident. The story follows the mysterious disappearsnce of a socialite in 1930s New York City. At the one year anniversary of her death, her best friend Liza confronts Jane’s husband Billy, suspecting him of foul play when Liza’s…

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Yesteryear

Although I had initially decided to skip reading Yesteryear, the title kept popping up and I wondered if the real Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond of famed online counntry ranch life and recipes, was the inspiration behind this bizarre tale. This satire is about a woman obsessed with the idea of perfecting the online lifestyle of the ideal Christian wife who really would like an easy way to make…

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Five

By reworking the dilemma of five men in a boat – an ethical puzzle of who to save, Ilona Banister created a psychological thriller in Five. In this case it’s a suburban London train and one of the five strangers on the platform will die when the train arrives in five minutes. The reader is invited to speculate who it will be or who it should be after hearing a sampling of each life – what people…

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American Fantasty

Although I’m not a fan of cruises, I have been on a few memorable ones, gorging on the midnight buffet on a short trip to the Bahamas or mesmerized by the locks in the Panama Canal. Disney and classic movie trips hold no appeal, but Emma Straub’s weird adventure in American Fantasy with an aging fictional boy band, Boy Talk, on a rocky ship seems more scary than adventurous. Nonetheless, its…

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Just Wait

Long ago when I was an upcoming professor, fighting my way through the ranks with the requisite publications and committees, I was faced with a career stopping dilemma. A new vice president of something or other promised to block my ascent. Suddenly, my publications were not good enough and projects I embraced were juvenile. In my despair I sought solace from the Dean’s secretary, an old friend,…

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Be In The Moment - Not in the Picture

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Lady Tremaine - The Not So Evil Stepmother

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My House is Quiet Too

I was thinking about those unfinished projects and my pile of unread books and came across this in Tessa Hadley’s short story “The Quiet House” in The New Yorker: “…it didn’t matter about having time or finishing things. Completion or mastery was beside the point. All that counted were those occasions when you picked up a book and opened it and its words attached themselves to that moment and…

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How About Now

A book of poetry by Kate Baer gave a much needed boost on a Saturday morning. A short book full of brief musings rather rhyme. I read it in the library before even taking it home. My favorite was the title poem. but a line that resonated was: “There is a complaint among the writers on kith snd kin not reading any of their work.”

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The Passage of Time

It’s Christmas Day and I’ve read this phrase twice, once in a eulogy, and the other in a recommendation to read a play. “…only the passage of time will help…” But last night after a satisfying Christmas Eve dinner, I flipped up the lid of the trash can and threw in some gooey leftovers. Alas, the garbage bag had slipped and the mess landed on the bottom of the bin. A little clean up would solve…

The Passage of Time

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The Correspondant

Virginia Evans’ collection of letters in The Correspondant starts out slowly but quickly morphs into a relatable and sometimes sadly realistic saga of Sybil, a successful retired career woman, with grown children and a divorced husband, who is going blind in her seventies, and trying to resolve past issues. Having lived in the Annapolis area for many years, I happily connected to Sybil’s house…

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Buckeye

Patrick Ryan weaves a family saga in Buckeye from the war years to the present with four disparate main characters. The story rambles through with an Ann Patchett sensibility, providing details that don’t seem important until they rub against each other, sending sparks through the lives of the characters as they inevitably intersect. Margaret, orphaned at a young age, finally escapes the…

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Culpability

When A book makes the Oprah list, I usually pass – in solidarity with Jonathsn Franzen who declined the “honor.” But Culpability kept showing up and it promised a page turner. It didn’t disappoint: I picked up the book on a Saturday morning from the library and finished it Saturday night. Despite the assurances of thought provoking dilemmas involving the world’s latest nemesis AI, the plot…