Cynthia Harrison

Novelist

Category: Books Reviewed

  • Food & Worry

    This charming narrative about the road to self-realization (and maybe even true love) stars smart, funny, and unemployed Moira Shapiro. Moira grew up as the daughter of restaurant owners in the privileged world of Washington D.C. Her intelligence got her into a top college but her increasingly disabling OCD has left her unemployed. When Moira…

  • Freedom

    Thank you Jonathan Franzen for the Aretha Franklin tape running through my head these past few days. “Freedom, freedom, ohhh freedom, give me some freedom, yeah, right now.” Also for your excellent new book and its characters, mom Patty, dad Walter, son Joey and daughter Jessica. If you are a mother, read Freedom to learn why your grown children…

  • Happier

    While reading the newspaper on my Kindle (and apparently checking out my archives), Al recently remarked that I’d read 100 books since Christmas. Probably way more than that, because for some books, only the real thing, with actual pages to turn, will do, and Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, is one of them.  Some books I know I’m…

  • Secrets to Happiness

    “The problem was this: writing made Leonard feel anxious and ashamed. He felt, while sitting in front of his computer screen,, watching the words stack up in ways that were somehow less than he’d hoped, pressed up against his inadequaies,forced to face his creative limitations, tormented by the awareness that this was the best he…

  • Mentor

    “The act of writing about writing should carry with it a bright flashing neon warning sign that reads Danger: Potential Self-Absorption Ahead.” The quote is the first line of a review in EW by Keith Staskiewicz. (The pink neon is mine; I couldn’t figure out how to get it to flash.) It reminded me of yesterday’s post, but…