Jen B.

  • Seattle Rep’s ‘A Great Wilderness’

    We’re excited about the opening of the Seattle Repertory Theatre‘s production of Samuel D. Hunter’s A Great Wilderness, this Friday! Expect to be touched by this story that explores issues of faith, aging, family dynamics and homosexuality. At the edge of forced retirement, and on the cusp of dementia, a man who has devoted his life to… Continue reading

  • Top Ten Audiobooks of 2013

    This has been a great year for audio fiction, with new readers and a wide variety of titles to sample. These are my favorites from 2013. Longbourn by Jo Baker Find out more about the Bennet household, from Pride and Prejudice, in this Downton Abbey-esque story of the servants downstairs.   Continue reading

  • Thankful for Books

    Thinking back on what I’ve read this year, and as Thanksgiving approaches, several books come to mind as works that inspire my gratitude. The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo Li Lan travels to the underworld to break her betrothal to a dead man so she can marry his heir. Dark and mysterious, this powerful first novel weaves… Continue reading

  • Seattle Rep’s The Hound of the Baskervilles

    We’re excited about the opening of the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s production of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ later this week! Expect suspense and laughs alike in this popular Sherlock Holmes tale adapted by veteran Seattle theatre artists David Pichette and R. Hamilton Wright. Pichette and Wright bring their witty sensibility to this classic Victorian whodunit about an attempted murder tied… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: Remembering World War I

    Next July is the centennial anniversary of the Great War’s beginning and an increasing number of new historical novels are set in this time period. These are a few of our favorites from 2013.                          Continue reading

  • Hauntings and Visitations

    Here are a few eerie diversions to creep you out this week!             In Toby Barlow’s Babayaga, an ageless Russian witch, or babyaga, in post-world War II Paris, charms a detective who is mixed up in a CIA plot involving Nazis and, strangely, the babayagas. Barlow weaves folklore, humor and history in an… Continue reading

  • Seattle Rep’s ‘Bo-Nita’ — Books, music and DVDs to go beyond the theatre

    We’re excited about the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s production of local playwright Elizabeth Heffron’s “Bo-Nita,” opening later this week. Life’s not easy for Bo-Nita. It never is for a 13-year-old, but especially one who winds up with a dead, semi-ex-stepfather on her bedroom floor. With humor, pathos, and a dash of Midwest magic realism, “Bo-Nita” follows the… Continue reading

  • Fall Book Group Reads: Jen’s Nonfiction picks

    Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death and hope in a Mumbai undercity by Katherine Boo Based on relentless fact-finding and reporting, this harrowing story of hope and devastation in a poverty-strewn makeshift Indian town is told from the perspectives of those who live and die in Annawadi. Groups will discuss worldwide economic inequality and solutions… Continue reading

  • Fall Book Group Reads: Jen’s Fiction picks

    What is your book group reading this year?  Here are some recent literary novels that are eminently discuss-able. Maya’s Notebook  by Isabel Allende Sent by her grandmother to a remote island off the Chilean coast for her own safety, American-born Maya Vidal logs in her diary the year of recovery from her drug-related criminal and personally destructive… Continue reading

  • Seattle Rep’s ‘The Servant of Two Masters’

    Carlo Goldoni’s comic play, “The Servant of Two Masters,” opens at the Seattle Repertory Theatre this Friday, Sept. 27. A veritable plethora of mistaken identities, double crossings and lovers lost or found, this timeless drama sings with side-splitting slapstick and comedic magic of the highest order.  Librarians at The Seattle Public Library created a list… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: Richard III

    The menacing Richard III portrayed by artists and in literature may reflect more of Tudor political machinations than of the man who was Richard of Gloucester. Labeled villain by Shakespeare in “The Tragedy of Richard III, “an “elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,” (Act 1.iii), many authors and historians since have built stories based on Richard’s guilt,… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: World War II at Sea

    Seattle’s Seafair Fleet Week (July 31–August 4) is a 64 year annual tradition that brings military ships to the Port of Seattle for public viewing, to honor the men and women who serve their country at sea. Historical novels about World War II at sea add a vivid and exciting dimension to our celebration. Older books, like Nevil Shute’s… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: Tall Ships and the Napoleonic Wars

    During the Age of Sail, which lasted roughly from the 16th to mid-19th century, elaborately-rigged tall ships served to transport goods and passengers and to wage wars, like the Napoleonic Wars, which is famously portrayed in the fiction of Patrick O’Brian. O’Brian’s 21 novel series featuring Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin were first published between… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: The American Revolution

    Some of us remember the Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes, an eight volume historical fiction series first published in the 1970s and popular for years among historical fiction readers. What better time than July to read (or re-read) Jakes’ vision of what life was like in the 18th century for fledgling Americans who believed… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: The wives of Henry VIII

    Divorced, beheaded, died Divorced, beheaded, survived So much historical fiction relates to King Henry VIII in some way: his mother, his sister, his niece, his Church, his advisors, his children and his wives. Most of us have a blurred idea of who these wives were and which ones were executed, though many readers know Anne… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: Where do you want to go?

    What are your travel plans this summer? Chances are you can easily find a historical fiction book to enhance your visit if you are traveling to Great Britain, Mexico, Australia or Western Europe. Finding good historical novels set in other places is more difficult. Below is a short list of recently-published historical novels that might… Continue reading

  • Historical Fiction: While you wait for Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

    Hilary Mantel clearly hit a homer with Wolf Hall and her latest, Bring up the Bodies, both biographical novels of Thomas Cromwell, King Henry VIII’s chief minister for eight years until the king executed him for treason and heresy. The Library’s waiting list for “Bodies” is at 200. “What can we read while we wait”… Continue reading

  • Who is Caring for Whom?

     I just finished reading Me Before You by JoJo Moyes and will probably never forget the story and the poignant relationship between Louisa and Will. Will is a suicidal paraplegic and Louisa is his reluctant caregiver, later his friend and perhaps more. It’s absolutely NOT depressing, though you might get out your hanky just in… Continue reading