Book Reviews


This page contains  book reviews online as well as Reading Recommendations from staff and volunteers at the Brewster Ladies' Library.

Online Book Reviews

New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/books has an extensive archive of reviews, bestsellers, discussions, first chapters and more.

The New York Review of Books - http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/index.html offers selections from its literary review.

Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/style/books/ includes reviews, first chapters, bestseller lists, and other resources.

Booklist - http://www.ala.org/booklist/index.html is the digital counterpart to Booklist magazine. Includes brief reviews on a wide range of new books.

Reviews from library staff and volunteersbooklovers

Please note that opinions expressed here are those of the individual reviewers, and are not necessarily shared by the Library as a whole, its employees or directors. 

February 2010

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

The Damned Die Hard  by Hugh McLeave (Don Boink)
Have A Little Faith by Mitch Albom (James N. McCutcheon)
Fly by Wire: The Geese, The Glide, The Miracle on the Hudson by William Langewiesche (Jim Mills)
Eyeless in Gaza  by Aldous Huxley (Don Boink)
In Afghanistan, Two hundred years of British Russian and American Occupation by David Loyn (James N. McCutcheon)
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann (Jim Mills)
Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (Jim Mills)
Island at the Center of the Earth - The epic story of Dutch Manhattan and the forgotten colony that shaped America. by Russel Shorto (Don Boink)
A Country Of Vast Designs by Robert W. Merry (James N. McCutcheon)
Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton (Don Boink)

December 2009

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (Suzanne McInerney)
Professional Athletes and Black History Month (James N. McCutcheon)
Satchel, The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye (James N. McCutcheon)
Red And Me by Bill Russell with Alan Steinberg (James N. McCutcheon)
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins (Jim Mills)
Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer by Shannon Brownlee
(John Figuras) 
The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates by Peter T. Leeson (Jim Mills)
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (Don Boink)
Loon Lake by E.L Doctorow (Don Boink)
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom by Graham Farmelo (Jim Mills)
Summer's Lease by John Mortimer (Don Boink)
A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story Of Torpedo Squadron Eight by Robert J. Mrazek (James N. McCutcheon)
A Lucky Child, A Memoir Of Surviving Auschwitz As A Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal
(James N. McCutcheon)
A Lucky Child, A Memoir Of Surviving Auschwitz As A Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal
(Suzanne McInerney)
Love and Summer by William Trevor (Suzanne McInerney)

October 2009

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (James N. McCutcheon)
Tis by Frank McCourt (Jim Mills) 
Oliver Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Suzanne McInerney)
A Summer With Socrates - A suspense novel by Parker Lloyd (Don Boink)
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
by Richard Holmes (Jim Mills)
Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness by Tracy Kidder (Jim Mills)
The Shack by William Paul Young (Don Boink)
In The Footsteps Of Marco Polo by Denis Belliveau Francis O’Donnell (James N. McCutcheon) 
The Doomsday Key by James Rollins (Don Boink)
Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath by Michael & Elizabeth M. Norman (Jim Mills)
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo (Suzanne McInerney)

August 2009

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

Mannahatta by Eric W. Sanderson (Jim Mills)
Hubris: The inside story of spin, scandal and the selling of the Iraq war by Michael Isikoff & David Corn (Don Boink)
Nathan Hale, The Life and Death of America’s First Spy by M. William Phelps (James N. McCutcheon)
The Age of Abundance- How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture by Brink Lindsey (Don Boink)
Cape Cod Railroads--Including Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket by Robert H. Farson (Don Boink)
The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans (Jim Mills)
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (Suzanne McInerney)
Liberty And Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by Mark R. Levin (James N. McCutcheon)
A Murder Of Quality by John LeCarre (Don Boink)
Kluge by Gary Marcus (Jim Mills)

June 2009

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

Where Did I Leave My Glasses? by Martha Weinman Lear (Suzanne McInerney)
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (John Figueras)
Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientists Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, by Seth Shostak
(Jim Mills)
Supercapitalism--The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday life, by Robert Reich
(Don Boink)
Bound, by Sally Gunning (Suzanne McInerney)
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, by Eduardo Galeano (Jim Mills)
Champlain’s Dream, by David Hackett Fischer (James N. McCutcheon)
Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo, by Murat Kurnaz (Jim Mills)
Bold Endeavors ; How our government built America and why it must rebuild it now, by Felix Royhatyn (Don Boink)
Executive Orders, by Tom Clancy (Don Boink)

April 2009

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes (James N. McCutcheon)
The Invention of Air, by Steven Johnson (Jim Mills)
Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Jim Mills)
Krakatoa,by Simon Winchester (Don Boink)
American Rust, by Philipp Meyer (Bob Hirschman)
Southern Storm, by Noah Andre Trudeau (James N. McCutcheon)
The Bin Ladens, by Steve Coll (Don Boink )
The Poorhouse Fair, by John Updike (Don Boink)
Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates (Suzanne McInerney)

February 2009

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

The War Within by Bob Woodward (Don Boink)
Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War (1874 – 1945) by Carlo D’Este (Jim Mills)
Tried by War by James M. McPherson (Jim Mills)
The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike (Suzanne McInerney)
The Devil We Know by Robert Baer (Don Boink)
Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened 
America’s Enemies by Peter W. Galbraith (Jim Mills) 
The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The paradox of modern Iran by Hooman Majd (Don Boink)
The Predatory State by James K. Galbraith (Don Boink) 
Roger Tory Peterson: The Art And Photography of the World’s Foremost Birder
text by William Zinsser (Sue Carr)
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (Suzanne McInerney) Dewey: The Small-town Library 
Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter (Suzanne McInerney)

[Mini-Reviews] Studs Terkel: Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (Jack Clarke) 

[Brief reviews of books by Thomas Cahill] How the Irish Saved Civilization; The Gift of the Jews; Desire of the Everlasting Hills; Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea; Legacy of Ashes: The History
of the CIA (Tim Weiner)

November 2008

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

The Dark Side by Jane Mayer (Jim Mills)
The Most Important Fish in the Sea by H. Bruce Franklin (Sue Carr)
The Fourth Perimeter by Tim Green (Don Boink)
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux (Jim Mills)
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang & Jon Hallidy (Jim Mills)
The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw by Bruce Barcott (Susan Carr)
A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carré (Suzanne McInerney)
Bad Money by Kevin Phillips (Don Boink)
Water For Elephants by Sarah Gruen (Don Boink)
Indignation by Philip Roth (Suzanne McInerney)

September 2008

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

Moyers on Democracy by Bill Moyers [Don Boink]
Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult [Suzanne McInerney]
The Forger’s Spell by Edward Dolnick [Jim Mills]
The Old Contemptibles by Martha Grimes [Suzanne McInerney]
Digital Fortress by Dan Brown [Don Boink]
The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester [Jim Mills]
One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs [Jim Mills]
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch [Suzanne McInerney]

June 2008

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

Iron Coffins by Herbert A. Werner [Jim Mills]
River of Doubt by Candace Millard [Don Boink]
The Amber Room by Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy [Jim Mills]
Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Michael B. Oren [Don Boink]
The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer [Suzanne McInerney]
Dangerous Nation by Robert Kagan [Don Boink]
Breaking News by Martin Fletcher [Jim Mill]
Down The Nile: Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney [Hannah Larson]
The Book of Dahlia by Elisa Albert [Suzanne McInerney]

April 2008

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

The Appeal, by John Grisham {Suzanne McInerney}
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust {Jim Mills}
Returning to Earth, by Jim Harrison {Suzanne McInerney}
Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, by Mark Lynas {Jim Mills}
Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang, by Paul J. Steinhardt and Niel Turock { Don Boink}
In an Uncertain World, by Robert Rubin and Jacob Weisberg {Don Boink}
Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction To The Next Big Idea, by Mark Ratner and Daniel Ratner {Don Boink}
Truelove Knot: A Novel of World War II, by Arturo Vivante {Suzanne McInerney}
The Bush Tragedy, by Jacob Weisberg {Jim Mills}
Confessions of a Lapsed Standard-Bearer and The Woman Who Waited, by Alexei Makine {Susan Carr}

February 2008

Click here to read reviews on the following titles:

Night Fall, by Nelson DeMille [Suzanne McInerney]
Sea of Thunder, by Evan Thomas [Don Boink]
The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson [Jim Mills]
Feathers, by Jacqueline Woodson [Claire Gradone]
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, by Jeffrey Toobin [Suzanne McInerney]
First into Nagasaki, by George Weller [Jim Mills]
Harvard Yard, by William Martin [Don Boink]
Marshes: The Disappearing Edens, by William Burt [Susan Carr]
Cheating at Canasta, by William Trevor [Suzanne McInerney]
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Lawrence Sterne [Don Boink]
The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia, by Orlando Figes [Jim Mills]