Quick and Quirky Novella Has Cinematic Appeal

James Hilton’s We Are Not Alone is so British and so visual that reading it is like watching Masterpiece Theatre in your mind.

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Novel Puts Human Face on Flood Footage

I was reading The Rains Came as TV news showed floods in the US, Brazil, and China that left thousands homeless. None of those pictures moved me as deeply as Louis Bromfield’s 70-year-old novel about a flood in India.

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Mouse-Size Novel Probes Man-Sized Theme

OF MICE AND MEN is a perennial on high school reading lists; it is short, easy reading, well-plotted, and gruesome. It’s theme, however, is anything but adolescent.

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Theatre Is a Class Act

Theatre starts out as superficial as Entertainment Today but segues at the last minute to an analysis of the role of the arts in life. Incredibly, W. Somerset Maugham makes the thing work.

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The Years Not Kind to Woolf’s Readers

The Years requires all your concentration, and maybe even a notepad to keep the characters straight. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t warrant the effort. Woolf’s genius is evident, but the novel fails to make her characters or their world come alive for readers.

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History Steps Lively to Drums Along the Mohawk

Drums Along the Mohawk is an easy way to get a grasp of the Revolution as seen from the man-in-the-field perspective. Walter D. Edmonds drew heavily on contemporary documents, inventing only the major characters to tie the facts together.

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Nothing So-So about And So—Victoria

In AND SO—VICTORIA, Vaughan Wilkins packs more “I’ll go to bed after the next chapter” between two covers than a half dozen Gone with the Winds. Wilkins weaves together history, mystery, romance, murder, thrills, and suspense—and he handles each thread deftly.

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Citadel Built of Saccharine and Clichés

The Citadel is a moderately entertaining tale about an idealistic young doctor who almost wrecks his life pursuing material wealth.

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Northwest Passage Is Half Good Reading

Northwest Passage is a super novel about the French and Indian Wars and a not-very good novel about political espionage, both between one set of covers.

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Gone But Unforgettable

Who doesn’t know the plot of Gone with the Wind?

At 16, Scarlett O’Hara, a spoiled, selfish, headstrong daughter of a wealthy plantation owner is passionately in love with Ashley Wilkes, a refined, scholarly man with no passion at all. It takes the Civil War, Reconstruction and her third husband, Rhett Butler, to make her realize Ashley was never the man for her.

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