Elizabeth George, a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of 20 British crime novels, will be the headline speaker for the 2024 Southern Voices festival at the Hoover Public Library. The festival is scheduled for Feb. 18-24, and George’s talk will take place in the Hoover Library Theatre on Friday, Feb. 23, at 7…

The opening pages of “Same Bed Different Dreams,” the second book by Ed Park, contain a disclaimer: Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. It’s just boilerplate, printed in countless books before this one. But it almost comes across as an inside joke: I can’t remember the last…

Barbara Kingsolver and her daughter Lily remember the day “Coyote’s Wild Home” was born at Barbara’s farm in the Appalachian region of southwestern Virginia. (The Gryphon Press) This beautiful new picture book will be published Tuesday by Emilie and Dana Buchwald’s Edina-based Gryphon Press, and it’s a coup for a small publisher to attract an…

iRead has announced the launch of the first Egyptian e-reading app, called iRead ebooks. The app is available for download on both Android and iOS smartphones, offering users a new, easy, enjoyable, and flexible reading experience at a minimal cost. iRead ebooks is the first Egyptian electronic library that allows readers to browse and explore…

Open letter to Ron DeSantis, the Florida Legislature and all those who supported HB 1069:  I hope you’re happy.  Down here in Collier County, the public school district completed its review of the school libraries in time to keep teachers from being arrested.  Nice. Our media specialists took the state-created training and boy, they went…

Tamil writer Perumal Murugan and his novel ‘Fire Bird’, whose English translation by Janani Kannan won the 2023 JCB Prize for Literature award. I picked up Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s Fire Bird (translated into English by Janani Kannan) when it was nominated for the JCB Prize for Literature 2023, an award the book has gone on…

No room to share some thoughts with you; the holidays are fast approaching, and you’ll find an extra book review to help you find great kids’ books for holiday gift-giving and sharing. Books to borrow The following books are available at many public libraries. “Twerp” by Mark Goldblatt, Random House, 275 pages Read aloud: age…

In “Endgame,” Harry and Meghan’s sympathetic biographer, Omid Scobie, takes on the in-laws — and takes no prisoners. ENDGAME: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival, by Omid Scobie Early on in “Endgame,” the journalist and royal commentator Omid Scobie makes an enticing promise. “In the past I, like others, have held…

Posted: November 26, 2023 I will look for more Robert Wilson novels Book Review By Derryll White Wilson, Robert (2009).  The Ignorance of Blood. This is the last volume of Robert Wilson’s Javier Falcon quartet.  I walked into this novel cold, not having read any of the previous novels.  Wilson does a good job of…

More than 140 years after it was first published, Max Havelaar was voted the top book of Dutch literature by the Society of Dutch Literature. New editions are published nearly every year. The work has been made into a comic book, a movie and a play.  It’s now translated into 40 languages and has become…