Reviews for Books
Lace
Review: Lace is a powerful novel by Shirley Conran. It is about the strength of character and the importance of friendship. It has a racy plot, nevertheless, evolves with fascinating development in Conran's characters. Four girls - Kate, Maxine, Judy and Pagan - in an exclusive Swiss finishing school forge friendship that bind them together for the all their lives. The reader watches... (Continue)
White Fang
Review: White Fang, a novel by Jack London set in the cold North, narrates the story of a fighting dog captured in the wild. It begins with two sled travellers carrying a dead man for burial who are followed by a wolf pack led by a runaway husky. The pack kill off and devour the team of sled dogs one by one, and gets one of the teamsters, his companion is rescued. Left in the wild, the... (Continue)
The Importance of Being Earnest
Review: 'The Importance of Being Earnest' or 'A Trivial Comedy for Serious People' is a comedy of manners by playwright, novelist and poet Oscar Wilde. It was the last play written by the celebrated Oscar Wilde, and proved to be his most popular and enduring. This hilarious satire is all about the double lives of two would-be bridegrooms. The plot involves two fashionable young gentlemen,... (Continue)
In Our Time
Review: 'In our Time' is a collection of short stories by Ernest 'Papa' Hemingway. Nick Adams is the hero of several of the stories. In ''Indian Camp'' he is a young boy who goes with his father, a doctor, to help a pregnant Indian woman through a difficult delivery. ''Big Two-Hearted River'', the two-part story with which the collection ends, is set several years later. Nick becomes... (Continue)
The First Filipino
Review: The First Filipino won the Centennial Award in 1961 for best biography of the Philippines' national hero, Jose Rizal. Rizal is seen as the first native ever to seriously articulate the vision for a united Philippines, then a colony of Spain for more than three hundred years. Rizal's contemporaries were constrained by regionalism, the same weakness among the natives that were exploited... (Continue)
The rainmaker
Review: Rudy Baylor is a law graduate from Memphis State Law School. He secures a position with a Memphis law firm, which he loses when the firm is bought out by another larger firm. As one of the few members of his class without a job lined up, Rudy is forced to apply for part-time and poorly-paid law positions. Then he gets an offer from a large Memphis law firm, but it falls through before he... (Continue)
The Bridges of Madison County
Review: The Bridges of Madison County is a romantic novel written by Robert James Waller. It is moving and haunting, a beautiful love story. It is so compelling that one can't help reading it over to relish a powerful and deep emotion within the story and the telling. The novel is about a brief love affair between a man and a woman, two unlikely characters - Francesca Johnson, a... (Continue)
Eat what you kill
Review: He had it all, and then he lost it. But why did he do it, risking everything wealth, success, livelihood, freedom, and the security of family? Eat What You Kill is the story of John Gellene, a rising star and bankruptcy partner at one of Wall Street''s most venerable law firms. But when Gellene became entangled in a web of conflicting corporate and legal interests involving one of his... (Continue)
Mansfield Park
Review: Mansfield Park is a novel by Jane Austen. Fanny Price, niece of Lady Bertram, is brought to live at Mansfield Park, owned by her aunt, Lady Bertram and Sir Thomas Bertram. The Bertrams have two daughters, Maria and Julia, and two sons, Tom and Edmund. Of her cousins, it is only Edmund who Fanny finds friendly. Sir Thomas has always impressed on his children the need for manners and... (Continue)
The Lieutenants Lover
Review: This is the story of Misha, a young officer in the army during the Russian revolution, and Tonya a nurse from a very poor family. They fall passionately in love but eventually in order to save his life Misha must flee his homeland. Thirty years later Misha tries to rebuild his life around the ruins of Berlin but one day he catches a glimpse of a woman who resembles Tonya. There... (Continue)