Guy Gavriel Kay is becoming one of my favorite authors and joining a list that includes Jorge Amado, Jonathan Carroll, and Charles de Lint Sailing to Sarantium will be the second Kay novel I have read this year and the third one in the past couple of years. Sailing to...
Book Review 131: Camber of Culdi by Katherine Kurtz
by MHill | May 6, 2018 | 2018 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorites
Sometimes an article can make you read a novelist you have seen in used bookstores for years. This article from the Strange Horizons website gave spotlight to Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels. I had seen the...
Book Review 129: Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay
by MHill | Mar 18, 2018 | 2018 Book Reviews, Guy Gavriel Kay, Magical Realism, Marion's All-Time Favorite Novels, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Have you ever as a reader given a novel you did not finish another chance? Well, there is a first time for everything. I gave Children of Earth and Sky a second chance. I read it a couple years ago when it was first released. Kay writes beautifully, and the...
Book Review 128: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
by MHill | Feb 28, 2018 | 2018 Book Reviews, Black History Month, Book Reviews, Marion's All-Time Favorite Novels, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Rereading Series, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Can a novel you read in your early 20s effect you in the same manner when you re-read it in your mid-40s? Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison gives this reviewer a split verdict to the aforementioned question. It is the story of an unnamed protagonist who leaves the...
Book Review 103: The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll
by MHill | Mar 27, 2017 | 2017 Book Reviews, Jonathan Carroll, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"Reading a book, for me at least, is like traveling in someone else's world. If it's a good book, then you feel comfortable and yet anxious to see what's going to happen to you there, what'll be around the next corner. But if it's a lousy book, then it's like going...
Book Review 99: Trader by Charles de Lint
by MHill | Jan 13, 2017 | 2016 Book Reviews, Charles De Lint, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Newford, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Sometimes the best books are not the ones you get the most amazing reading experience from. But, the ones that touch you at the right time or season in your life. Trader by Charles de Lint fits that description. "I'll tell you about art. Do the best job you possibly...
Book Review 97: Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay
by MHill | Dec 1, 2016 | 2016 Book Reviews, Guy Gavriel Kay, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Ned Marriner, the fifteen-year old protagonist in Guy Gavriel Kay's tenth novel, Ysabel uncovers a startling discovery in an Aix-en-Provence cathedral. He is in the Southern France city with his father, a famed photographer who is shooting photos around the city for...
Book Review 96: A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
by MHill | Oct 30, 2016 | 2016 Book Reviews, Haruki Murakami, Marion's All-Time Favorite Novels, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
I read my first Murakami novel, Dance Dance Dance, earlier this year. I learned from that book why Murakami has become an international favorite for many literary fiction readers. I decided I wanted to read another Murakami novel before the year ended. I chose A...
Book Review 88: Independence Day by Richard Ford
by MHill | Jul 23, 2016 | 2016 Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Does living through your "existence period" mean you are truly an independent human being? Richard Ford attempted to answer that question in Independence Day, the second novel in the critically acclaimed Frank Bascombe series. Last year, I reviewed The Sportswriter,...
Book Review 75: The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll
by MHill | Jan 2, 2016 | 2015 Book Reviews, Jonathan Carroll, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
I've spent the last month of 2015 reading three novels by Jonathan Carroll. The Wooden Sea is the third of the Carroll novels I've read. You can look at the reviews of the other two Carroll novels: White Apples and Glass Soup here. I will admit after reading these...