A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

A farm owned by Larry Cook, the patriarch of a family that for generations has cultivated the land and can proudly claim that its one thousand acres make it one of the biggest in Zebulon County, a farmer’s community in Iowa, where “acreage and financing were facts as basic as name and gender”, is at…

The Only Story by Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes’ thirteenth novel is a reflection on love as seen by its narrator, who at the end of his life is absolutely sure that we all have only one story to tell. There are parallels between The Only Story and his earlier novel The Sense of an Ending: both are love stories, and both…

Of memory as salvation: Anthony Marra

Every serious reader keeps track of how books pile up before and after being read. To the left, a never-ending mountain of those waiting to be discovered, to the right those already finished. Some even have lists of suggestions, books reviewed in journals, newspapers, blogs; and it is quite common to feel frustration as the…