Stephanie Kuehnert: I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone

I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone interleaves two stories. Emily Black (in the first person), abandoned at a young age by her mother, grows into her own identity and musical career. Meanwhile Louisa (in the third person) , the abandoning mother, searches for some sort of punk rock apotheosis that will absolve the guilty secret

Justin Halpern: I Suck at Girls

Halpern, if you don’t recognize the name, is that guy who parlayed a twitter feed about the stuff his dad says into a career/TV deal/etc.. I’m not a fan of the twitter; I tried it and found it a bit too much of a not-so-good thing. But it was sometimes amusing, and I was curious

George Mann: The Immorality Engine

I read The Immorality Engine even though I didn’t think much of the first two novels in Mann’s “Newbury and Hobbes Investigations” series, of which this is the third. Somewhat to my surprise, I liked it better than the other two. I still found the prose a bit repetitive and the plot low on surprises,

Chris Moriarty: The Inquisitor’s Apprentice

The Inquisitor’s Apprentice is set in a vividly rendered alternate late-19th-century New York city. Magic exists in this world, but — officially, at least — it is controlled by wealthy industrialists like “J. P. Morgaunt,” a character inspired by J. P. Morgan (some more sympathetically rendered historical figures appear under their real names) . Thirteen

Steven Levy: In the Plex

Not long ago I was struck by just how unprecedentedly dependent I am on Google technologies: they power my phone and my e-book reader; they support the bulk of my browsing and email. My wife and I used Google docs and maps extensively in buying our home and planning our wedding. I use Google’s calendar

Jack Finney : I Love Galesburg in the Springtime

I found reading I Love Galesburg in the Springtime an odd, almost dislocating experience. The well-worn Newton library copy that I borrowed was a first printing — nearly fifty years old. But the thematic thread of nostalgia runs through many of these ten stories, perhaps most bluntly stated in “The Love Letter,” in which the

Emily Cheney Neville: It’s Like This, Cat

Given that at one point I was consciously trying to read all the Newbery award winning books and that I have always considered prominent feline presences in literature a draw, I’m really not sure how I missed reading It’s Like This, Cat until now, but’s an omission I’m happy to have rectified. Neville doesn’t compromise

Julie Klausner: I Don’t Care About Your Band

I had to read this book because of Klausner’s back-cover crack about “guys in their thirties who’ve never been married, ride their bikes to work, and really like Death Cab for Cutie,”* since that acurately described me when my fiancée and I started dating. (I’ve since given up on my thirties and on DCfC (I

Karen Novak: Innocence

Karen Novak’s creepy suspense novel Innocence impressed me on several levels. It has some vividly drawn characters, and a twisty plot that managed to surprise me more than once. It has an unusual structure, employing shifts of narrative perspective and chronology to build dramatic tension. And Novak’s prose evinces both an eye for interesting detail

Lindsey Davis: The Iron Hand of Mars

Don’t worry, I’m not going to write about every single volume of Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco series. But this one is interesting because it both is and isn’t a major departure from the preceding 3 novels. The basic ingredients are the same: historical fiction, hardboiled whodunnit, comedy of manners, political intrigue, and romance. But the