Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever

A deeply entertaining, thoroughly researched biography of rival movie critics, Siskel and Ebert, and how they came to define modern film criticism.

Cinephiles will find much to savor in Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever, a comprehensive, immensely entertaining biography by film critic Matt Singer. In meticulous detail, he probes the lives of the legendary film critics and newspaper rivals, whose opinions became as popular as the movies they reviewed in print--and, later, fervently debated on TV--from the 1970s to the late 1990s. 

Throughout their partnership, Siskel and Ebert remained “mortal enemies. Each considered it an essential aspect of their job to beat the other: to write the best review, to land the biggest interview, to score the best scoops. And they took their jobs very seriously.” Despite their seriousness, David Letterman, who often hosted the duo on his late-night talk show, once remarked that their popular appeal was due to their honest, passionate debates, and how they broke “the stuffy traditions of old-fashioned print film criticism.” The trademark of Siskel and Ebert film reviewing was a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down rating system. 

Singer paints a fascinating portrait of the critics, sharing quotes and stories of how their upbringings developed their personalities; their respective roads to journalism and film criticism; and what they each brought to the reviewing table--how their contentious relationship actually increased their viewership. This thoroughly researched narrative makes a strong case that Siskel and Ebert were, as Ebert once put it, true "film lovers" and "fans." That innate passion is what led to their overwhelming, two-thumbs-up success and their enduring appeal.

Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer

Putnam (Penguin/Random House), $29 hardcover, 352p., 9780593540152

Publishing Date: October 24, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (October 27, 2023), link HERE 

To read the longer form of this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (September 1, 2023), link HERE

Peg and Rose Stir Up Trouble

The second in a delightfully fun cozy series where retired sisters-in-law investigate the sudden death of a man met on a dating website.

Laurien Berenson unleashes another warm and fuzzy cozy mystery in Peg and Rose Stir Up Trouble, the second book in her comical Senior Sleuths series set in the Connecticut suburbs.

 

Readers don’t need to be familiar with the first book, Peg and Rose Solve a Murder, where tough and feisty Peg Turnbull and sweet-natured, eternally optimistic Rose Donovan were first introduced. The once estranged sisters-in-law, now in their 60s, are unlikely friends after years of not speaking to each other. Peg is a widowed, Poodle breeder and a “popular and highly esteemed dog show judge,” while Rose, a former nun, now runs a woman’s shelter with her husband, an ex-priest.

 

When Rose gives Peg’s stagnant romantic life a push by signing her up for “Mature Mingle,” a dating service, her actions are met with disdainful skepticism. But when Peg meets and falls for “witty and urbane” Nolan Abercrombie, things take a surprisingly glad turn—until Nolan dies in a hit-and-run accident. When grieving Peg attends his funeral with Rose, the two notice that all the mourners are women around their same age. Why is that? Peg and Rose put their amateur sleuthing skills to work, piecing together clues into who Nolan really was. Might his death not have been accident? And if so, who might’ve wanted him dead—and why?

 

Cleverly sharp twists and turns--tracked by two, spunky retiree protagonists--will once again charm and delight cozy mystery lovers.

 

 

Peg and Rose Stir Up Trouble: A Senior Sleuths Mystery Book Two by Laurien Berenson

Kensington Cozies, $27.00 hardcover, 9781496735751, 288 pages, Publishing Date: July 25, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 28, 2023), link HERE

Mother-Daughter Murder Night

Multi-generational family dynamics imbue this exciting well-drawn and well-plotted supersleuth whodunnit about murders in a coastal California town.

In Mother-Daughter Murder Night, first time novelist Nina Simon appealingly integrates spirited family dynamics with the intricacies of a complex whodunnit.

 

Three generations of women shack up together in a little house in Elkhorn Slough, a coastal town in Monterey Bay, Calif. This all comes about when family matriarch, Lana Rubicon--a 57-year-old, take-charge real estate mogul--faces an advanced cancer diagnosis. While undergoing treatment, her daughter, Beth, a geriatric nurse, insists that Lana, from Santa Monica, come and live with her and her daughter, Lana’s granddaughter, 15-year-old “Jack.” Lana and Beth’s contentious relationship had been riddled with angst ever since Lana became a single mother when Beth was just a rebellious teenager. Navigating the emotional minefield of Lana’s present illness and trigger points from the past, the strong, fiercely independent, mother and daughter are forced to bury the hatchet when a young man who works for a local land trust is found murdered. When the police investigation draws Jack, a kayak tour guide, into the list of suspects, Beth and Lana, who long-ago shared a passion for watching Columbo TV crime stories, put their amateur detective skills to work. They become determined to exonerate Jack and root out the real killer—but not before another murder takes place that ups the ante.

 

Simon has skillfully crafted a multi-generational study of disparate characters where surprising, immensely well-plotted crimes and clues will keep mystery readers guessing.

 

 

Mother-Daughter Murder Night: A Novel by Nina Simon

William Morrow, $30.00 hardcover, 9780063315044, 368 pages  

Publishing Date: September 5, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (September 8, 2023), link HERE

 

The Purest Bond

An entertaining, thoroughly researched and profoundly informative book addressing the tremendous impact dogs have on human lives.

 

“Dogs…serve as a sort of balm to the mental health struggles and ongoing stress that are plaguing people worldwide. Our canine companions help us feel grounded and present-minded, leading by example,” writes authors Jenn Golbeck (The Golden Ratio Cookbook) and Stacey Colino (Unlock Your Menopause Type). In The Purest Bond: Understanding the Human-Canine Connection, they present an entertaining, insightful treatise on the impact dogs have on human life. This writing duo--with accomplished backgrounds in academic, scientific, and psychological issues--weaves together groundbreaking research and down-to-earth stories that explore the many benefits of the human-canine bond.

 

Supported by scientific information, the narrative weaves in psychological studies examining how dogs impact, support, and improve the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the human condition. A thorough section on aging dogs and coping with loss and grief is most compassionately rendered.

 

“In exchange for us feeding, loving, and caring for them, (dogs) pay us back many times over.” The gratifying research culled and entertainingly presented by Golbeck and Colino, will change the lives of dog lovers and readers similarly.

 

The Purest Bone: Understanding the Human-Canine Connection by Jen Golbeck and Stacey Colino

Atria Books, $28.00 hardcover, 9781668007846, 256 pages

Publishing Date: November 14, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp

A clever, crowd-pleasing cozy mystery about a lovable band of geriatrics swept up into a dark, at times madcap, murder investigation.

A band of lovable geriatrics who share a house in the quiet English countryside find themselves swept up in a murder investigation that escalates in The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp, a smart, clever cozy mystery by Leonie Swann (translated from the German by Amy Bojang).

 

The story is set at Sunset Hall, a dilapidated house in Duck End that belongs to Agnes Sharp, retired from the police force. Agnes now shares her domicile with five other, eccentric pensioners—three women and two men. The housemates long to stay independent and live on their own while battling memory lapses, hearing and vision loss, bad backs, hips, and more. However, when the body of a resident turns up dead in their garden shed, and a gun goes missing, their world is turned upside-down. Before the seniors can retrieve what they believe is the murder weapon, another aged woman is slain nearby. Can the two deaths be connected? This launches the housemates--and their pet tortoise--on a conniving, often madcap quest to find the killer while pitted against a host of obstacles, including their own limitations.

 

Swann’s perceptive storytelling resides amidst the offbeat—as evidenced in her other cozy, Three Bags Full, where a flock of ingenious sheep solves the murder of their shepherd. Via The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp, Swann once again perfectly balances playfulness and poignancy. She exposes and celebrates the elderly and infirm--their predicaments and secrets--delivering a refreshingly fun crowd-pleaser sure to charm mystery readers of all ages.

 

 

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann (translated from the German by Amy Bojang)  

Soho Crime, $27.95 hardcover, 9780778387121, 360 pages

Publishing Date: August 29, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (September 1, 2023), link HERE

The Little Italian Hotel

 

A tender, hopeful story about a woman who, after her marriage comes undone, sets off on an inspiring Italian holiday with four strangers.

Five strangers are brought together on an Italian holiday in The Little Italian Hotel, a sweetly immersive novel brimming with the hope of new beginnings by Phaedra Patrick.

 

To celebrate 25-years of marriage, Ginny Splinter--a 49-year-old,  problem-solving, British radio talk show host--surprises her husband, Adrian, by planning an upscale trip to Italy for just the two of them. But when she presents the gift, Adrian announces that he doesn’t want to go on a vacation. He wants a divorce. Shaken and jarred, heartsick Ginny decides, on a lark, to invite four loyal listeners, at random, to accompany her on the trip instead. This is accomplished by her swapping out the pricy luxury accommodations she’d planned for her and Adrian in Vigornuovo, a small Italian village in Bologna, (10, 48) in exchange for more modest lodgings for she and her guests. The five strangers--ranging in age from 27 to 80--meet for the first time, where they all set off, touring Venice and Florence. The sights of Italy may be wonders to behold, but the life stories of the strangers--each on the cusp of change in his and her own life--prove equally enriching amidst the journey.

 

Patrick (The Messy Lives of Book People) is a beautiful writer of optimistic stories that probe the true meaning of life and the human quest to find happiness and fulfillment. In The Little Italian Hotel, she once again mines the bittersweet landscape of the human heart with great tenderness, insight, and wisdom.

 

 

The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick

Park Row (Harlequin/Harper Collins), $18.99 original paperback, 9780778387121, 320 pages, Publishing Date: June 6, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (June 6, 2023), link HERE

What the Dead Know

A dedicated medical examiner from the City of New York shares fascinating, soul-searching stories that came to define her career—and her life. 

Barbara Butcher is one tough lady. Only the second woman ever appointed to serve as a death investigator in Manhattan, she helped solve crimes that could’ve calloused and darkened her heart many times over. However, in her fascinating, down to earth memoir, What the Dead Know, she tells riveting personal stories about investigating homicides, suicides, and tragic accidents that moved and changed her life in extraordinary ways.

 

Butcher came to the profession through a series of unexpected, fortunate events. A teen who suffered from depression and suicidal impulses--and experimented with drugs--she struggled for direction after high school. A woman she worked for at a nursing home took note of Butcher’s potential and encouraged her to become a physician assistant. College coursework on anatomy, physiology, chemistry, pathology, and solving diagnosis puzzles lit a fire under Butcher’s ambitions. She did work stints in surgery and gynecology, and went on to earn a master’s degree in public health. Just as Butcher was en route to a cushy but boring career as a hospital administrator, her personal life unraveled. After she hit rock bottom, she found Alcoholics Anonymous and some career counseling. Butcher was deemed best suited for a career as a coroner.

 

Inquisitive readers--especially fans of mysteries and true crime--will be captivated by Butcher’s appealing, conversational writing style. She presents a trove of detailed, sobering case studies of how notorious investigations--including a chilling section about her work during 9-11--often wore her down while also expanding her skill set and intellect, enriching the depths of her character. 

 

What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator by Barbara Butcher

Simon and Schuster, $26.99 hardcover, 288 pages, 9781982179380

Publishing Date: June 20, 2023

 

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different from) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (May 11, 2023), link HERE

A shortened version of this same review was published on Shelf Awareness for Readers (June 23, 2023). Link HERE to read that review.