Author: stevenowad

This play, by the man who gave us The Banshees of Inisherin, has all the subtlety of a steel-toed kick to the groin. “Mad” Padraic is an Irish National Liberation Army psychopath who will kill any man who so much as looks sideways at his …

My first visit to the James Patterson thriller mill is likely to be my last. This novel about a gruff female cop in Australia who has to catch a serial killer and save her unjustly imprisoned brother contains no positive surprises for anyone who has …

On first glance, this is a play about rich kids who refuse to grow up. On closer inspection, it’s a moving and shrewdly humorous tale about two friends in 1980s New York who are terrified of life and loss in the big, cold world. Dennis …

In BAMBI VS. GODZILLA, David Mamet notes that the secret to writing compelling female characters is to approach them unsentimentally. The same rule seems to apply to just about everything Tokarczuk writes in this book. The Nobel laureate gives us a loosely connected deluge of …

Here is everything you ever wanted to know about the human race but were afraid to ask. Oxford-educated historian Harari takes us on a journey from the birth of the species through the beginning of language, the agricultural revolution, the advent of cities and industry …

This “memory play” follows the last years in the life of Gladys, a Greenwich Village art gallery owner who is dying slowly of Alzheimer’s disease. While Gladys falters, her children are left to deal with a growing sense of helplessness. Grandson Daniel guides us through …

This memoir by Frank McCourt’s younger brother is the literary equivalent of sharing a Guinness or ten with a loquacious, life-loving Irishman. Actor, bar owner, smuggler, raconteur—McCourt wears many hats. After escaping the grinding poverty of Limerick as a child, he comes of age in …

Before he wrote Angela’s Ashes, McCourt spent 30 years teaching in public high schools in New York. A typical educator he was not. There were odd-ball singalongs in class, field trips to the movies, and, inevitably, firings because he refused to suffer the foolishness of …

An American missionary crosses into North Korea with “treacherous” religious materials on his hard drive. What follows is a 15-year sentence of hard labor and a life of deprivation and indoctrination. Throughout his ordeal, Bae maintains his faith and does what Jesus would do, trying …

This play about addiction, friendship and love is a hard-edged hoot and an affecting character study. Jackie is a recovering addict who’s going straight after his latest prison stretch. Ralph D. is his sponsor, a sage of Big Book wisdoms who can maybe help keep …