Your First Stop for Book Reviews
Like anyone with a true love for literature, Margaret Leslie Davis knows and understands the unique value and history rare books can bring to the table.
In her non-fiction book titled The Lost Gutenberg, she makes the most of an opportunity very few authors will ever see: the ability to trace five centuries worth saga travelled by one of the surviving forty-nine copies of the Gutenberg Bible.
Marius Gabriel has the undeniable knack of being able to profoundly penetrate into the soul of his characters while bringing history to life around them.
In The Parisians he takes us on another such excursion, presenting us with three women living in occupied Paris: the American Olivia Olsen, the designer Coco Chanel, and the French actress Arletty.
In their own ways, they all find themselves getting closer and closer to the enemy, a path which has its own price when the war finally comes to an end.
Jonathan L. Howard will likely be remembered in the world of literature for the Johannes Cabal series above anything else, adding something completely unique and surreal to the realm of books.
The first novel in the series, titled Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, follows the titular character as he takes on a wager from the devil himself: sign up a hundred souls for hell within a year to save himself from damnation.
With the gift of a travelling circus, some friends he raised from the dead, and his vampire brother, Johannes begins his race against the clock.
Anders Rydell has done quite a bit of research into the literary ravages caused by the Nazis during the Second World War, and in The Book Thieves he goes above and beyond the call of duty when he finds himself entrusted with a book once pillaged from its rightful owners.
Tasked with returning it where he belongs, Rydell takes one of many steps in restitution activism while taking the time to examine this strange microcosm of history.
Jim Thompson had the uncanny ability like few others to pump out dark, mystifying and surreal crime thrillers capable of defying anyone’s expectations. His stories could never be categorized as ordinary, and this goes double for one of his slightly lesser-known works, Savage Night.
In it, we follow a five-foot-tall womanizing hitman tasked with killing a man scheduled to testify in court by posing as a tenant at his residence. However, the target’s beautiful wife and attractive young housemaid complicate the matters to no end, turning a routine job into something akin to a nightmare.
