Book Blog — Robin Gaines

“Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of self-transcendence.”

—Susan Sontag

KEEP MOVING: NOTES ON LOSS, CREATIVITY, AND CHANGE by Maggie Smith A small gem of a book that cheerleads the energy within all of us to create change. If you know someone depleted, discouraged, and depressed in your life, this book mig

Book ReviewsRobin GainesNovember 9, 2021Lost Children Archive, Bluets, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change, Wayward, Dana Spiotta, Valeria Luiselli, Maggie Smith, Maggie Nelson

There’s something visceral about reading about a place, atmosphere, history, the people living in another country while you’re in said country traveling, traveling, traveling. The writer, Shirley Hazzard, spent years in Italy. Sh

Book ReviewsRobin GainesOctober 7, 2021

We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors.—Jorge Luis Borges THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO by Taylor Jenkins   Reid This was a book club selection, and the discussion

Book ReviewsRobin GainesAugust 7, 2021Animal, Lisa Taddeo, Joan Silber, Secrets of Happiness, The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Maggie Shipstead’s prose is so graceful and muscular, so dazzling, so sure-handed and fearless, that at times I had to remind myself to breathe.—Maria Semple

SEATING ARRANGEMENTS by Maggie Shipstead

Robin GainesJune 23, 2021book reviews, Shipstead; Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney; Megha Majumdar; Alka Joshi

HAMNET: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O’Farrell Oh, how I loved this book. In the late 1590s in Stratford, England, the Black Death killed the only son of William Shakespeare. Hamnet is eleven years old when his twin sister, Judith,

Robin GainesMarch 30, 2021

THE CARRYING by Ada Limon I have been reading a ton of poetry in the year of COVID. Discovering a new poem or poet is the one thing I look forward to every morning when my eyelids open. Who will deliver me out of this fre

Book ReviewsRobin GainesFebruary 25, 2021

"There’s just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes you believe you’re special."  –  Carol Rifka Brunt, "Tell the Wolves I'm Home" ABANDON ME: Memoirs by Melissa Febos The wri

Book ReviewsRobin GainesDecember 17, 2020

MONOGAMY by Sue Miller It’s not a stretch to guess what this novel is about. A long, happily married couple, the envy of friends and family because of their abundant love for one another, comes under a microscope of anger and disbelief

Book ReviewsRobin GainesNovember 2, 2020

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell; it is simply purgatory.—Abraham Lincoln SEA WIFE by Amity Gaige I found a new favorite writer. Sea Wife had been sitting on the TBR pile all summer. I don’t know what I expected, but it blew

Book ReviewsRobin GainesSeptember 23, 2020

Summer Book Reviews: 2 of 3

Summer Book Reviews: 2 of 3

Book ReviewsRobin GainesAugust 25, 2020

Summer Book Reviews: 1 of 3

Summer Book Reviews: 1 of 3

Book ReviewsRobin GainesAugust 6, 2020Julia Alvarez; Afterlife; Ernest J. Gaines; A Lesson Before Dying; Laura Zigman; Separation Anxiety

Spring Book Reviews: 3 of 3

Spring Book Reviews: 3 of 3

Robin GainesJune 20, 2020Emily St. John Mandel; The Glass Hotel; Stephanie Danler; Stray; Janelle Brown; Pretty Things

Spring Book Reviews: 2 of 3

Spring Book Reviews: 2 of 3

Book ReviewsRobin GainesMay 23, 2020Spring Book Reviews, The Jetsetters; Amanda Eyre Ward; Cleanness; Garth Greenwell; My Sister the Serial Killer; Oyinkan Braithwaite; Father of the Rain; Lily King

Spring Book Reviews 1 of 3

Spring Book Reviews 1 of 3

Book ReviewsRobin GainesApril 26, 2020

Winter Book Reviews: 3 of 3

Winter Book Reviews: 3 of 3

Robin GainesMarch 21, 2020

Winter Book Reviews: 2 of 3

Winter Book Reviews: 2 of 3

Book ReviewsRobin GainesMarch 3, 2020Elizabeth Strout, Ann Napolitano, Dear Edward, Olive, Olive Again, Whence and Whither, Thomas Lynch

Winter Book Reviews: 1 of 3

Winter Book Reviews: 1 of 3

Robin GainesJanuary 28, 2020

Fall Book Review: 3 of 3

Fall Book Review: 3 of 3

Book ReviewsRobin GainesDecember 17, 2019

Fall Book Reviews: 2 of 3

Fall Book Reviews: 2 of 3

Fall Book ReviewRobin GainesNovember 25, 2019Book Reviews, fall books, The Dutch House, Ann Patchett, Viv Albertine, Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys, To Throw Away Unopened, Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

Fall Book Reviews: 1 of 3

Fall Book Reviews: 1 of 3

Robin GainesSeptember 24, 2019Mardi Jo Link, Jill Ciment, The Body in Question, Wicked Takes the Witness Stand