This debut novel starts out calmly enough, as if the author is driving a taxi slowly down a New York street, pointing out quirky neighborhood characters. Then, when the introductions are over, she puts the pedal to the metal, there’s a... Read More

Based upon the anecdotes that he tells from his own practice, Smith seems like the type of physician that is too often missing in these accelerated times: one who talks and, more importantly, listens to his patients, often uncovering the... Read More

Joe Kurmaskie is the kind of guy someone would want as an airplane seatmate or at his or her table at a wedding reception. Since that’s unlikely, it is fortunate that he has written an incredibly entertaining, vivid account of the... Read More

“I am a popular man,” Jacky Gore greets one in this deliciously humorous short novel, published in Britain in 1902 but only now in the United States, “and withal I am not vain.” Why, certainly not. It is hardly the fault of... Read More

Winner of the 1998 New York University Press Prize for Fiction, this is the story of an escaped slave’s life and his people’s ways in the sugar isles during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Born in Guinée, but captured as... Read More

Former Catholic priest Ron Roth introduces his book with the following words by Padre Pio: “One seeks God in books; one finds him in prayer.” Ironically, Roth has written a book about prayer and healing. Well versed in traditions... Read More

Africa, to borrow from Churchill, is a tradition wrapped in tragedy inside a mystery. Her continuing social and political upheaval leads us to believe that her problems are chronic, perhaps fatal. Soyinka, the 1986 winner of the Nobel... Read More

Scott Russell Sanders’ Hunting for Hope: A Father’s Journey is simply that, a journey towards a clarification of the concept of “hope.” This clarification parallels the hiking trips that the author and his son have taken over a... Read More