B. Morrison's Blog

The title is slang for being crazy, and that’s how most people described Lisa Dill’s decision to go, as the subtitle says, Floating Down the Missouri River.

We don’t hear much about the Missouri, despite it being the longest river in the U.S. and one of the most dangerous. There’s the folksong Oh, Shenandoah (another river) with its refrain: “Away, we’re bound away, / Across the wide Missouri.” I’ve read stories set on the Platte, which is a tributary of the Missouri, and of course many s...

Teenaged Ada, whose name means “island” in Turkish, feels isolated living with her father Kostas in 2010s England. Her parents emigrated from Cyprus before she was born, first Kostas and later Defne, who has died before the story begins. In a powerful scene at the beginning of the book, Ada is called upon in the classroom but, frustrated at being misunderstood by her teacher and classmates, she begins to scream and cannot stop.

If she could only learn about her past, especially her parent...

The cover gives the twist away. At least that’s what I thought before deciding with a sigh that I would actually read this story one of my book clubs chose. However, Lillian’s voice pulled me right in, and I raced right through to the end.

At twenty-eight Lillian is living in her mother’s attic, smoking pot and working dead-end jobs. Long ago she’d hoped to escape from this life by earning a scholarship to an exclusive prep school where she became besties with her roommate Madison, a spoi...

The children in my life love this story, part of the Brambly Hedge series. They are fascinated by the idea of a hidden stair and rooms that have long been locked up. Who isn’t? Surely I wasn’t the only child who went around tapping on walls and measuring the inside and outside of houses, hoping to find a secret passage or cobweb-laden room that no one remembered was there.

In this story, young Wilfred arrives at the Old Oak Palace along with Mr. Apple and the other children to prepare for...

What do you want from poetry? A bit of a dream, a sweet memory, a surprising turn that takes you where you never expected to go? 

Maybe a glimpse into who you really are, or a step into another life, another world?

I found all this and more within the covers of Shades of Isolation. As I read, I kept thinking Oh, this is my favorite poem, only to change my mind as I absorbed the next one. Even the shortest poem contains a world of meaning. Short or long, each poem rewards a reader who l...

What do you want from poetry? A bit of a dream, a sweet memory, a surprising turn that takes you where you never expected to go? 

Maybe a glimpse into who you really are, or a step into another life, another world?

I found all this and more within the covers of Shades of Isolation. As I read, I kept thinking Oh, this is my favorite poem, only to change my mind as I absorbed the next one. Even the shortest poem contains a world of meaning. Short or long, each poem rewards a reader who l...

When I was in Madrid in the 1990s, walking the streets in the evening, I glanced down a short, dead-end alley and was astonished by what I saw. Earlier in the day I’d visited the book stalls lining the Cuesta de Moyano, a small pedestrian street by El Retiro Park, and thought myself in heaven. So many books! So many book lovers!

Now, though, in that dim alley, I saw a young man grasp the bottom of a wooden board hanging on the stone wall and lift it to reveal shelves of  books. He propped...

Williams returns to the fictional Irish village of Faha, where a lone doctor, Jack Troy, sees to the medical needs of those who live there. A widower, two of his daughters have married and gone, while 29-year-old Ronnie keeps house for him. Every day seems much like the last, although it being December (1962), some of the usual seasonal shenanigans are afoot. His patients even seem to have inherited the ills that plagued their parents, as attested to by the notes left by Jack’s father, the p...

Hana Babić is at work in the stacks of her library in Minnesota when she is approached by Detective David Claypool. He tells her that her best friend Amina is dead, possibly murdered, in a fall from her balcony.

I expected Hana to be shocked and saddened by the news, and she is. What I didn’t expect was for her to immediately become tense and guarded.

Claypool came to Hana because he is investigating Amina’s death, and her will names Hana as the guardian for her young grandson Dylan. H...

In Saint-Denis, a small French village in the Dordogne, Bruno Courrèges is indeed the chief of police. He’s also the only member of the Police Municipale. This fictional village is so quiet that Bruno keeps his gun locked in a safe in his office while he works with the mayor to keep the peace. When not handling the rare parade or dealing with minor matters—the 2,900 denizens love to report each other and mislead the EU’s bureaucrats—he plays rugby and teaches tennis to the town’s children.