Robot

Daryl M.

Librarian


Posts by Daryl M.

  • Author Joshilyn Jackson and her latest novel, Mother May I

    Interview With an Author: Joshilyn Jackson

    Joshilyn Jackson is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Gods in Alabama and The Almost Sisters. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages. A former actor…

  • Author W. S. Winslow and her first novel, The Northern Reach

    Interview With an Author: W.S. Winslow

    W. S. Winslow was born and raised in Maine but spent her working life in Boston, New York, and San Francisco. A ninth-generation Mainer, she now lives in a small town Downeast most of the year. She…

  • Author Willy Vlautin and his newest novel, The Night Always Comes

    Interview With an Author: Willy Vlautin

    Willy Vlautin is the author of five novels: The Motel Life, which was made into a film starring Dakota Fanning, Emile Hersh, and Stephen Dorff; Northline, Lean on Pete, which won two Oregon Book…

  • Author Grant Farley and his first novel, Bones of a Saint

    Interview With an Author: Grant Farley

    Grant Farley worked as an English teacher for over twenty-five years and has taught at a Santa Monica alternative school, a barrio junior high, and a Marine Science magnet in San Pedro. All the while…

  • Author Sylvain Neuvel and his latest novel, A History of What Comes Next

    Interview With an Author: Sylvain Neuvel

    Sylvain Neuvel is the author of The Themis Files trilogy and the novella The Test. Soon to be a feature film starring John Boyega and directed by Gavin Hood. He has taught linguistics in India and…

  • Author Olivia Campbell and her first book, Women in White Coats

    Interview With an Author: Olivia Campbell

    Olivia Campbell is a journalist and author specializing in medicine and women; her work has appeared in The Guardian and The Washington Post, New York Magazine, and The Cut, among others. Her first…

  • Author Sarah Lagan and her latest novel, Good Neighbor

    Interview With an Author: Sarah Langan

    Sarah Langan, a Columbia MFA graduate with an MS in environmental toxicology, is a three-time recipient of the Bram Stoker Award. One of her previous novels, The Keeper, was a New York Times Editors’…

  • Author Victoria Gosling and her debut novel, Before the Ruins

    Interview With an Author: Victoria Gosling

    Victoria Gosling grew up in Wiltshire, England, and studied English Literature at Manchester University. She is the founder of The Reader Berlin, hosting salon nights in Berlin and writers’ retreats…

  • Author Anne Youngson and her latest novel, The Narrowboat Summer

    Interview With an Author: Anne Youngson

    Anne Youngson is retired and lives in Oxfordshire. She has two children and three grandchildren to date. Her debut novel, Meet Me at the Museum, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. Her…


Reviews by Daryl M.

  • Cover image for The Picture Bride

    The Picture Bride

    The year is 1917 and a seventeen-year-old girl named Willow, who lives with her widowed mother and two younger brothers in a small, rural village in southeastern Korea, is asked by a traveling matchmaker if she wants to get married. The older woman shows Willow a photo of a young...
  • Cover image for Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan

    Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan

    • By: Michalski, Liz
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    We all know the story of Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up. J.M. Barrie wrote and published a play and two books about Peter and his adventures in the early 20th century, recounting how Peter visited the Darling children: Wendy, John, and Michael, and spirited them away...
  • Cover image for Acts of Violet

    Acts of Violet

    • By: Montimore, Margarita
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In early 2020, Margarita Montimore published her debut novel, Oona Out of Order. It followed a woman who awakes every January 1st at a different point in her life. She lives in that year, and in that body, until December 31st, only to awaken the following morning beginning a different...
  • Cover image for Hawk Mountain

    Hawk Mountain

    • By: Habib, Conner
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In the late afternoon, Todd sits on the beach watching 6-year-old Anthony, his son, play in the surf. A man approaches Todd, and, after a minute, he recognizes him. It is Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly during their senior year in high school. In spite of their shared history, Jack...
  • Cover image for The Kaiju Preservation Society

    The Kaiju Preservation Society

    • By: Scalzi, John
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In early March of 2020, Jamie Gray is unceremoniously demoted from marketing executive to “deliverator” at füdmüd, an internet startup company in New York City. As the COVID pandemic worsens, Jamie struggles to get by until a chance delivery happens to be to Tom Stevens. Tom tells Jamie that he...
  • Cover image for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

    A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

    • By: Chambers, Becky
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 2021, Becky Chambers introduced readers to the moon of Panga, where, centuries ago, the civilization’s robots gained consciousness and, en masse, walked off into the surrounding wilderness and were never heard from again. Until the day a robot named Splendid Speckled Mosscap walked up to Sibling Dex, a tea...
  • Cover image for Remarkably Bright Creatures

    Remarkably Bright Creatures

    • By: Van Pelt, Shelby
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    After her husband’s death, Tova Sullivan took a job cleaning the Sowell Bay Aquarium. She works evenings after the aquarium has closed to the public, mopping the floors, clearing the trash cans, and cleaning the glass walls of the exhibition tanks until they shine. As she works her way around...
  • Cover image for The Children on the Hill

    The Children on the Hill

    • By: McMahon, Jennifer
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Monster. The word brings to mind ugly, misshapen creatures wreaking havoc wherever they go. Perhaps the most famous monster is Frankenstein’s monster from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s been over 200 years since the teenaged Shelley created one of the most enduring tales of all time. And over the last two...
  • Cover image for Siren Queen

    Siren Queen

    On a whim, a young Chinese-American girl pays with an inch of her hair so that she and he sister can see Romeo and Juliet at the new nickelodeon in their neighborhood. From that moment on, she has a single desire: to be a motion picture star. Not simply an...
  • Cover image for Never Been Kissed

    Never Been Kissed

    • By: Janovsky, Timothy
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    As Wren Roland celebrates his 22nd birthday with his best friends and roommates, Mateo and Avery, he begins to lament the fact that he has never been kissed. He’s been close, but has yet to experience what his degree in film studies has convinced him will be a life-altering and...