Maureen Corrigan

Maureen Corrigan appears in the following:

Infidelity Is Steeped In Suspense In 'Among The Ten Thousand Things'

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Julia Pierpont's debut novel opens with a young girl's discovery of her father's infidelity. Maureen Corrigan says that what follows is so unexpected and tense that it's a "fresh pleasure to read."

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Harper Lee's 'Watchman' Is A Mess That Makes Us Reconsider A Masterpiece

Monday, July 13, 2015

Depending on whom you ask, Go Set a Watchman is either a recently discovered first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird — or a failed sequel. Either way, critic Maureen Corrigan calls it "kind of a mess."

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Dead-Cinch Thrillers: 4 Books To Get Your Heart Pounding

Monday, July 06, 2015

Summer and suspense fiction go together like the Fourth of July and firecrackers. Book critic Maureen Corrigan recommends four books that are deadly accurate in their aim to entertain.

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'Patience And Fortitude' And The Fight To Save NYC's Storied Public Library

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

In his new book, Scott Sherman describes how bottom-line business logic nearly gutted New York's preeminent public library. Maureen Corrigan calls it a "slim, smart book" full of colorful characters.

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Morally Messy Stories, Exquisitely Told, In Mia Alvar's 'In The Country'

Monday, June 15, 2015

The author was born in Manila and grew up in Bahrain and New York City. Her back story is shared by many of her Filipino characters in her debut short story collection.

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Bombs Blast And Time Marches On In 'A God In Ruins'

Monday, June 08, 2015

Kate Atkinson's novel both mourns the passing of the World War II generation and allows readers to vicariously enter into the experience of the war. It's a companion to her 2013 book, Life After Life.

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Four Books That Deliver Unexpected And Delightful Surprises This Summer

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Travel (near and far), literary souvenirs and the crucial companionship of humankind's best friend are the subjects of the books on Maureen Corrigan's early summer reading list.

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Misadventures And Absurdist Charm Take Root In 'George Orwell's House'

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

In Andrew Ervin's comic novel, a disillusioned advertising executive rents the cottage once inhabited by dystopian author George Orwell. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the funny book has a serious core.

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Remembering Ruth Rendell, Master Of Smart And Socially Aware Suspense

Friday, May 08, 2015

The British novelist set shocking crimes in mundane settings — always adding a dash of social criticism. Critic Maureen Corrigan says she is forever giving Rendell's books to friends.

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'One Of Us' Examines The Damaged Inner Terrain Of Norwegian Mass Shooter

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Journalist Asne Seierstad chronicles the 2011 shooting massacre in her country in her latest book. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls the work "engrossing, important and undeniably difficult to read."

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Revisiting A Suburbia-Gone-Sour In Ross Macdonald's Crime Fiction

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

A reissue of four of the detective writer's 1950s novels excavates the dark depths of California's suburban decay. Maureen Corrigan praises Macdonald's "psychological depth" and "penetrating vision."

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'The Children's Crusade': A Heavily Plotted Family Saga To Dive Into And Savor

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Ann Packer's latest is about a young Navy doctor who, after the Korean War, builds a house south of San Francisco. Fifty years later, his four adult children argue over the property.

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Open A Critic's 'Poetry Notebook' And Find The Works That Shaped Him

Monday, March 30, 2015

Clive James was diagnosed with leukemia a few years ago. "There is a grief in all poetry," he writes in his latest book of essays. "Poetry holds itself together, and eventually we ourselves do not."

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Do You Believe In Ghosts? You Might After Reading This Book

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Sante Fe's most famous ghost is Hannah Nordhaus' great-great-grandmother. Her new book, American Ghost, is mix of memoir, cultural history, genealogical detective story and paranormal investigation.

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How We Deal With Loss In Different Ways In Two Beautifully Written Memoirs

Thursday, March 12, 2015

In Abigail Thomas' What Comes Next and How to Like It, the aging process robs the 70-something of beauty and energy. In H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald trains a goshawk after her father dies.

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In 'The Buried Giant,' Exhausted Medieval Travelers 'Can't Go On,' But So 'Go On'

Thursday, March 05, 2015

Kazuo Ishiguro's latest recalls the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett. It's a masterful blend of fantasy, Arthurian romance, myth, legend and postmodern absurdity — and it's unforgettable.

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'Welcome To Braggsville' Isn't Quite 'Invisible Man,' But It's Close

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

T. Geronimo Johnson's latest follows four Berkeley students who take an American history class that leads to disaster. It's an ambitious book about race that wants to say something big about America.

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Victorian Romance Meets 'House Of Cards' In 'Mr. And Mrs. Disraeli'

Monday, February 23, 2015

Daisy Hay's new book is a joint biography of 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and his wife, Mary Anne, whose fortune and status as a gentile helped boost her husband's career.

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In 'Outline,' A Series Of Conversations Are Autobiographies In Miniature

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Rachel Cusk's novel centers on a writer and mother recovering from divorce who teaches a summer course in Athens, Greece. The narrator has 10 conversations filled with holes, lies and self-deceptions.

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These 13 'Almost Famous Women' Stirred Up Trouble, Or Trouble Found Them

Monday, January 26, 2015

Megan Mayhew Bergman's stories about historical women is littered with bad-girl paraphernalia, like smashed-up motorcycles and morphine needles. In this collection, their lives are richly imagined.

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