21 reviews 10 YES · 7 DEPENDS · 2 NO · 2 DNF Who this is

• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable Blindness José Saramago · 1995 I admired Blindness more consistently than I enjoyed it. The World Goes Blind, and Nobody Owns the Next Step YES
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver · 2022 That is praise, although not always comfortable praise. A Life Built Out of Other People’s Damage YES
• HISTORICAL FICTION Roundtable Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry · 1985 I admired Lonesome Dove more than I enjoyed every part of it. The Work Goes On, Even When It Shouldn’t YES
• CRIME & THRILLER Roundtable Only to Sleep: A Philip Marlowe Novel Lawrence Osborne · 2018 Readers who are willing to treat the mystery as the frame around a melancholy character study will get more from it. Marlowe’s Last Case Is Mostly About Running Out of Road DEPENDS
• CLASSICS Roundtable Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen · 1813 Pride and Prejudice is a romance, but it is also a book about checking the source before acting on the information. The Problem With People Who Never Say What They Mean YES
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable Set This House in Order Matt Ruff · 2003 The book works because Ruff does not treat the internal house as a decorative metaphor. Somebody Has to Own the Next Step YES
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Michael Chabon · 2000 The business side of the story is where Chabon is most effective, and I mean that as a compliment. A Very Long Way to Escape YES
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable The Covenant of Water Abraham Verghese · 2023 I liked it more than I expected to, though not always in the same way. A Family Story That Refuses to Stay Small YES
• HISTORICAL FICTION Roundtable The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco · 1980 Would I recommend it? Yes, but with a clear warning about what you are agreeing to. A Murder Mystery With More Than One Lock on the Door DEPENDS
• HISTORICAL FICTION Roundtable The Nightingale Kristin Hannah · 2015 So, yes, I found parts of it moving. A Powerful Story That Does Not Trust Its Own Power DEPENDS
• CLASSICS Roundtable The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham · 1944 The Razor's Edge is a generous, readable and often funny novel about the different ways people try to make a life acceptable to themselves. A Long Argument About What Counts as a Life YES
• NONFICTION Roundtable Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig · 1974 That is not the whole of Zen, and it is not a complete philosophy of life. The Useful Bits Are Buried Under the Philosophy DEPENDS
• ROMANCE Roundtable Beard on Tap Willow Sanders · 2021 If you like a grumpy man who softens because a competent woman rewrote his rooms and his menu, he will read as romantic. She asked for Botanist in a bar that was already out of runway DEPENDS
• ROMANCE Roundtable His Secret Child Leslie North · 2015 None of this is impossible if you run a private security firm for people who do not want to be famous, but the book never lets the cost land as a decision. Still waiting for an answer NO
• ROMANCE Roundtable Kingdom of Thorns Katherine Macdonald · 2020 Which makes the loose ends more irritating, because the book plainly can do better. A clever retelling that repeats itself DEPENDS
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable May We Feed the King Rebecca Perry · 2026 I mind a slow book that keeps withholding as if withholding were the work. I closed it once the mornings started repeating DNF
• CRIME & THRILLER Roundtable One Death at a Time Abbi Waxman · 2025 The book wants to have the gritty stakes of a murder mystery but refuses to let its characters react with anything approaching normal human empathy. A Script Without Commercial Breaks NO
• ROMANCE Roundtable Shadow Assassin Elle James · 2021 What the book became, for me, is a story about what happens after an institution dumps you and someone unofficial offers a second job that might actually finish. They have somewhere to be that is not a hotel corridor YES
• ROMANCE Roundtable Some Like It Psychic Ruby West and Ella Winters · 2021 The larger problem is that the book does not trust its own story. A Fresh Start, Announced on Repeat DNF
• CLASSICS Roundtable The Magician's Nephew C. S. Lewis · 1955 For an adult who can live with talking animals and a lion who is obviously more than a lion, it is worth reading once. The wrong book for that shelf DEPENDS
• ROMANCE Roundtable Wyoming Cowboy Marine Nicole Helm · 2019 It's a small bit of business, maybe half a page, but it's the first moment the book showed me it understood the difference between drama and competence. The Window Scene Is Where It Won Me Over YES

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