Help Me, Jacques Cousteau, by Gil Adamson

In the third story from the end of Gil Adamson’s short story collection Help Me, Jacques Cousteau, Hazel, our valiant explorer and protagonist, admits that she has a terrible memory:  “I can’t remember anything in its right order, and I rarely know if it’s a memory or just something I heard somewhere.” It’s a common [...]

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Word Nerd, by Susin Nielsen

I’ll admit it, despite a couple of English degrees, I’m a pretty lousy Scrabble player. Like anyone who’s ever been disembowelled by the use of a word like “QAT”  or a well-placed prefix, I realized long ago that lacking Scrabble strategy is the quickest route to failure and constant gloating from your roommate’s dad.
But I [...]

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Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger

I was given The Time Traveler’s Wife sometime in 2005, about the time it came out in paperback I think. And, like millions of other people, I loved it. I’m a sucker for forbidden love, but it was more than that — its intelligence, its admirable control of language for a first time novelist, and [...]

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