Tori Fullard is an avid reader, a prolific blogger, and a somewhat less-than-prolific novel-in-progress writer. At A Blog of One’s Own, she writes a daily mix of book, theater, and film reviews; political commentary; and personal musings. Tori loves theater and tries to see it all—Broadway and off Broadway, musicals and straight plays. She is a survivor of book publishing but now toils in a university’s marketing and communications department. As an internet dating survivor, she knows the perils of naming favorite books and authors. She confesses to making snap judgments about men who listed The DaVinci Code as a favorite book. Submitting to your judgment, she recommends authors Michael Chabon, Kent Haruf, and Sarah Waters. Tori also has a not-so-secret love for academic dysfunction novels likeStraight Man, Wonder Boys, The Secret History, and Special Topics in Calamity Physics. But the book she has re-read more times than any other is the lesser-known A Season of Migration to the North; she first encountered it in a class called, wonderfully, “Love, Hate, and Sexual Desire under Colonialism.” Things so good they must be books in disguise include The Wire, the final episode of Six Feet Under, Robin Sparkles, the genius combination of chocolate and peanut butter, and lip balm.
In When We Were Romans, Kneale commits wholly to a child’s perspective–bad spelling, misused words and all–with fresh and moving results. Nine-year-old Lawrence joins his mother and younger sister on a spontaneous road-trip to Rome, holding fast to the hope that they can escape his mother’s demons.