* This is pending final format layout; content is final
Marriage is Prison
A Review of Margaret Drabble’s A Summer Bird-Cage by Stephan R. Toms Margaret Drabble, like her sister A. S. Byatt (author of Possession), deals frequently with the theme of women who are trapped in marriages that prevent them from pursuing their own dreams and [...]
Archive for June, 2007
Book Review – A Summer Bird-Cage*
Posted in Book Reviews on June 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Book Review – The Shadow of the Wind*
Posted in Book Reviews on June 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
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Burn All the Books!
A Review of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind by S. Randall TomsOne of the most popular genres of novels at the present is mysteries about books. Bibliophiles love books that revolve around scenes in bookstores and libraries. Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s prose [...]
Book Review – The Seville Communion*
Posted in Book Reviews on June 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
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A Terrible Secret
A Review of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Seville Communion by S. Randall Toms
Seville Communion by S. Randall TomsHaving read Perez-Reverte’s The Queen of the South (2002), I went back to one of his earlier novels, The Seville Communion (1995), to see if this one [...]
Book Review – Possession*
Posted in Book Reviews on June 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Can Postmodernists Romance?
A Review of A. S. Byatt’s Possession by S. Randall TomsI am sorry that I have waited over a decade to discover A. S. Byatt’s Possession. I was captivated by the story just as a child is entranced by a fairy tale, which is not surprising, since the author interweaves myths and fairy [...]
Book Review – Mornings on Horseback*
Posted in Book Reviews on June 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Being Truly Alive
A Review of David McCullough’s Mornings on Horseback by S. Randall Toms
On the cover of the paperback edition of Mornings on Horseback are the words, “The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt.” This biography of Theodore Roosevelt covers the first twenty-eight [...]
Book Review – The Heart of the Matter*
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This Body of Death
A Review of Graham Greene’s The Heart of the MatterGraham Greene (1904-1991) converted to Roman Catholicism in 1926. Books such as Brighton Rock (1938), The Power and the Glory (1940), and The Heart of the Matter (1948) are often referred to as his Roman Catholic novels because they deal with people who [...]
Book Review – The Da Vinci Code*
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The Dan Brown Code
A Review of The Da Vinci Code S. Randall Toms, Ph.D. One of the most popular books of 2003 and 2004 has been Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. It has been on the New York Times Bestseller List for about a year. [...]
Book Review – Cold Mountain*
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The Transforming Power of War
A Review of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain by S. Randall Toms
Many of us have known people who went away to war and returned with different attitudes, behaviors, and outlooks on life than when they had left. When I was a boy, I noticed [...]
Book Review – An Almost Perfect Moment*
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A Virgin Birth in Brooklyn
A Review of Binnie Kirshenbaum’s An Almost Perfect Moment by S. Randall Toms
Kirshenbaum’s newest novel takes place in Brooklyn, in the 1970s, just as disco is about to sweep the country and avocado green is the color for household appliances. Her portrayal [...]
Book Review – Alexander Hamilton*
Posted in Book Reviews on June 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
No, Not One
A Review of Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton by S. Randall Toms
Before I read Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, I knew little about Hamilton other than that he was our first Treasury Secretary, that he died in a duel with Aaron Burr, and that his portrait is on the ten dollar bill. I didn’t know [...]
