Likely Stories

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

The Diary by Eileen Goudge is a touching tale of love, betrayal, and danger.

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World by Simon Garfield is an interesting story and full of information about chemistry and science in general. 

The story begins with Simon Garfield, “Sir William Perkins seldom traveled abroad.  He wrote in a modest and unflowery style.  Quote: ‘The first public laboratory I worked in was the Royal College of Chemistry in Oxford Street, London, in Eighteen-fifty-three to Eighteen-fifty-six.’  It wasn’t like the great electric laboratories of today, he noted, with your huge booming furnaces.  ‘There were no Bunsen burners—we had short lengths of iron tube covered with

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Ann Hood’s first novel, Three-Legged Horse is one I have treasured since I first read it in 1989 when I met her at an American Library Association meeting.  She graciously signed my copy.  Ann is an American novelist and short Story writer.  She is the author of fourteen novels, four memoirs, a short story collection, as well as other favorites of mine, The Italian Wife and The Obituary Writer.

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Patricia Highsmith died February 4, 1995.  She was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers.  The Cry of the Owl is one of my favorites. 

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

I have often tried numerous times to achieve even a minimal amount of skill on a piano.  Thad Carhart’s wonderful book, The Piano on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier, gives me many interesting insights into music.  Thad is a dual citizen of Ireland and the US, and he has spent much of his life in France.  He now lives in Paris with his wife and children.

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Nick McDonell is the author of Twelve, The Third Brother, and An Expensive Education, as well as a number of books on political theory and reportage.  His latest book is, The Council of Animals. 

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Few things excite me more than a new author with an inspiring novel.  Wayétu Moore is the founder of One Moore Book and is a graduate of Howard University, Columbia University, and the University of Southern California.  She teaches at the City University of New York’s John Jay College and lives in Brooklyn.  She Would Be King is her first novel.

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

I recently had a happy discovery.  A volume, which had fallen from a shelf, led me to a book I had forgotten.  Richard Ford was the author; the book was Women with Men.  These three stories are marvelous!

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

If you enjoy twisty plots, building and breaking, secrets, love and forgiveness, Bill Clegg’s emotional novel, The End of the Day is captivating. 

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

William Shakespeare is surely one of the greatest talents of all time.  His works are witty, explosive, endearing, and charming admired and loved across the globe.  Maggie O’Farrell has written a novel that captures the essence of Shakespeare himself.  Maggie wrote eight novels, including her latest, Hamnet.  She was born in Northern Ireland in 1972, and now lives in Edinburgh. 

I’m Jim McKeown, Welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

I rarely bother with nonfiction, but Here We Are by Aarti Namdev Shahani is a well-written story of her family's move from Casablanca to Pakistan to the USA.  The initial parts of the story detail the hardships the family had escaping from the terrors following the breakup between India and Pakistan. 

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

The Last Bookshop in London, by Madeline Martin, is a marvelous story of love, passion, loss, and terrible hardship.  Martin has penned five other novels, two of which will soon be on my TBR pile.

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five.  His eight previous works of fiction have earned him many honors around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize.  Two of my favorite of his novels—The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go--have had acclaimed films.  I feel certain his latest novel, Klara and the Sun, will add to his oeuvre. 

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Jhumpa Lahiri has released six novels, and her latest, Whereabouts, is an eclectic series of short ruminations anywhere from one to about five pages.  Her stories are lyrical, witty, interesting, with an ability to draw the reader from one story to the next. 

I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Katlyn Greenidge is a spectacular young woman just coming out of her first novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman.  She has won a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, among other awards.  Libertie is her second novel.