book reviews

The Tenth Cozy Adventure of Agatha and Company By: M.C. Beaton Once again, our love-lorn Aggie is off for adventure, hoping to forget her once fiancé and currently stoic neighbor, James Lacy. At the prompting of a fortune teller, Agatha thwarts her own better judgement and decides to spend some time away in Norfolk. Her finger landing on the map, she picks the village of Fryfam at random to be her home away from Lacey. Greeted by an old-school, unfriendly lot of villagers, mysterious lights in the depths of the night, thieves, and snobby aristocrats (one certain Tolly), Agatha discovers [...]

The Underground City: A Little Known Jules Verne Story Author: Jules Verne Thirteen years after the publication of Journey to the Center of the Earth, another little known subterranean epic is penned by Verne entitled The Children of the Cavern, or as it is sometimes known, The Underground City. When a vast mine owned by a rich and experimental engineer, one James Starr, runs out of coal, it’s on to the next adventure for everyone except the Fords. Old Ford, the foreman and strange denizen of the deep, moves his family 1500 feet underground to dwell in the old mine, [...]

Catcher in the Rye: A "Classic" Case of the Emperor-Has-No-Clothes Author: J.D. Salinger Subject to banning since 1961 all the way up until 2009, Catcher in the Rye is one of those eponymous coming-of-age banned book extravaganzas. It’s rare to find a list of most recommended books without the traditional modern interpretive cover depicting the flame colored carousal horse and a sloppy Cather in the Rye splashed over the cover.  Films have been made. Fan-fiction has been circulated and even stopped by Salinger; movies have been drafted and future artists enthralled. Presidents have cited the novel as a major instigator [...]