You have to admire Dostoevsky’s skill with characters. Reading Crime and Punishment, I found myself more interested in Raskolnikov’s friends and adversaries than in his senseless murder of an old pawnbroker and her sister. Their personalities dominate the story so strongly that at times you almost forget that a crime…

In Barbara Cormyn’s novel, Sophia Fairclough tells her brief life story in a straightforward confessional style that will touch anyone who knows what it’s like to be on the threshold of adulthood. With little family experience of her own, Sophia is eager to leap into marriage with a young artist,…

This novel is so significant that I wish I could talk about it in specific terms. But that would spoil it for uninitiated readers, so I will do the best I can with generalities. On the surface, Never Let Me Go is about children growing up at an English boarding…

Roy Peachey’s novel is a poignant tale of idealism and disillusionment in the landscape of World War I. His central character, Wang Weijun, grows up in a Chinese family of privilege. Despite a childhood accident that destroyed his eye, Wang dreams of traveling to Europe to experience the world of…

I couldn’t help thinking of that old movie Dog Day Afternoon while reading this story. Both deal with hostage situations that take unexpected turns, some of them comical. It is quirks of humanity that make both works memorable. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett’s fourth novel, deals with a formal gathering of…

Erik Larson has become my favorite historian. No matter what subject he chooses – Winston Churchill, the Lusitania, or the Chicago Exposition – he weaves his detailed scholarship into a fascinating narrative. In Isaac’s Storm, Larson takes on not only an historic hurricane, but the science of meteorology and the…

Henry James wrote so skillfully about America’s moneyed class that it’s easy to get sucked into their indolent, self-centered lives. But take a step back, and you wonder how they can stand themselves. All they do is travel around Europe in railway cars and carriages, visiting museums, attending concerts and…

It’s rare to encounter a story as tangled as The Shadow of the Wind, yet still manage to follow the main thread. Every time you think it can’t become any more complex, it does. But if you stick with it, you discover that the mystery is not as deep as…

Dear Chevron Ross Readers, The novel Weapons of Remorse first appeared three years ago as an exploration of America's gun violence problem. Since that time, countless other innocent people have fallen victim to this persistent tide of murder. The recent shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York have made…

It’s a sad irony that some of the characters in Storming Heaven witnessed the Civil War, only to see Americans go to war against each other again fifty-six years later. Again, the issue was slavery, although of a different kind. It was the tyranny of coal mining companies over their employees. The…