The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, Grove Press, 2023 - This ‘Oprah’s book club choice’ novel is mostly focussed on three generations of a family starting in the early 1900’s. The setting is generally in the rural town of Parambil, located in the state of Kerala in the south western portion of India. For …
THE GERMAN MIDWIFE BY MANDY ROBOTHAM
The German Midwife by Mandy Robotham, HarperCollins, 2018 - Imagine a midwife, sometime in 1943, who has been sent to Ravensbruck (one of the notorious Nazi labor camps) not because she’s Jewish, but because she’s a politically unreliable German who provided services to the Jews in the ghetto. By 1944 she is forced to provide …
MAJOR PETTIGREW’S LAST STAND BY HELEN SIMONSON
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson - Random House 2010 - Major Pettigrew retired to Rose Lodge, his home in the small English village of Edgcombe St. Mary. Edgcombe St. Mary is a typical English country village of its time, populated with people who consider themselves fortunate to be English, the superior beneficiaries …
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LET’S MAKE A DEAL
Wow! The world’s two greatest comedians are set to battle it out in Alaska tomorrow for the TITLE OF ‘KING OF COMEDY’. Yes, Vlad (the Impaler) Poutine of Rooskie is going head to head against the DEFENDING CHAMP, Ronald Rump, Grand High Imperial Twitterbug (GHIT) and PREZ for life. They will take centre stage in …
MAKE IT GRATE AGAIN!
Trouble at home? Is your neighborhood in decline? Do not despair! You need only start applying the lessons given from on high by the CHOSEN ONE of ‘Murica, the Grand High Imperial Twitterbug (GHIT), PREZ for life and World’s Greatest Comedian - the one, the ONLY, *Ronald Rump*. Let’s start by affirming that a home …
REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES BY SHELBY VAN PELT
REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES BY SHELBY VAN PELT, Ecco and HarperCollins, 2022 - Set in the Puget Sound area of Northern Washington state in the small fictional town of Sowell Bay, Remarkably Bright Creatures is a story about two lost souls being connected by Marcellus, a sixty pound giant Pacific octopus who has been trapped in …
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AN EYE FOR FIFTY EYES
After WWII, Jewish people held the moral high ground - six million victims fed to the Nazi furnaces while the world did nothing. The state of Israel may only exist because of the collective guilt of the western powers, shamed at choosing to look the other way before and during the war. When the lessons …
AUSTEN AT SEA BY NATALIE JENNER
Austen at Sea by Natalie Jenner - St. Martin’s Press, 2025 - Set in the American post-civil war era, the story revolves around two sets of American siblings, Henrietta and Charlotte Stevenson, the daughters of a Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice, and Nicholas and Hazlett Nelson, veterans of the civil war, who operate a rare bookshop …
FISK
Fisk - Australian series from 2021 with three seasons on Netflix - I’m rather partial to off-beat humor and Fisk is one of the funniest things to escape Australia since Barry Humphries found drag, a dazzling pair of gigantic sunglasses and became Dame Edna. Helen-Tudor Fisk (played by Kittie Flanagan) is a lawyer looking for …
BANG, BANG, RATTLE DING-BANG, GONNA GET THAT PEACE WITH BOMBS
More trouble fermenting in the Middle Yeast. Are you one of those who finds it hard to know what’s up without a PROGRAMME to the conflict? As a public service, this selfless scribe will provide a ring side blow-by-blow for those who can’t enjoy the fickle festivities of slaughter first-hand. On one side, we have …
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Richard's Left Bank 