Training as a Metaphor for Life

When I bought The Martian a few years ago, I didn’t know it had been picked up to be made into a movie. I barely knew what the book was about. And then I couldn’t put the book down! Any avid reader will know what a treat this is. So, I was excited to pick up Weir’s...

Darktown by Thomas Mullen does not pull punches. It is a tour de force with no apologies. Thomas Mullen does not bend historical accuracy to create heroes or villains who fall outside the purview of historical accuracy. Do not look for idealism in Mullen’s writing—you...

I do not feel anxiety often when reading, but Brian Platzer’s debut novel set me on edge before the end of the first page. Bed-Stuy Is Burning presents a fictional account of police shooting an unarmed 12-year-old-black kid in Bed-Stuy. The shooting...

I’ve been a voracious reader as far back as I can remember. In second grade, I read the entire Black Stallion series by Walter Farley twice through and regretted the ending of every installment—all eighteen of them—two times over, wishing I could remain in...

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware is deliciously terrifying! When a “hen weekend”—a British term for “bachelorette party”—turns darkly sinister, Nora wishes she had followed her initial instincts and stayed far, far away. But the invitation from Clare, her best friend from childhood, held far more mystery than Nora could bear to leave unsolved. Why would Clare invite her after ten years of silence, not as much as a text shared between them in that time?

I’ve read a fair amount of literature about World War II, but I’ve never read any from the German point of view, so I was intrigued by the plot line for The Women in the Castle. I’ve always wondered how Germans viewed their involvement in the war, their complicity in the mass murder undertaken by the Nazi’s, in the evil that ruled the country for so many years. Did they claim ignorance of what Hitler’s army was doing before and during the war? Did they simply point their fingers at other citizens and lay responsibility elsewhere? Did they try to leave the past in the past and forget their involvement? Did they understand that their silence was complicity? Did they accept the shame and guilt and spend the remainder of their lives trying to find some semblance of absolution?