Review: Nibble & Kuhn by David Schmahmann

I'm surprised sometimes by what books show up on my doorstep. When a bubble pack envelope shows up, I usually know how I got on this publisher's list, or I had requested a title from that publicist.

Nibble and Kuhn by David Schmahmann, though, was a mystery. The Academy Chicago Publishers? Never heard of them. Never heard of Schmahmann or his book, either.

But as I cleaned out my "to be considered" stacks to donate to the Haddonfield Public Library Book Sale, the cover caught my eye -- the blurry background with the hazed out light pricks at the bottom. What the hell. I'll give it a go. If I didn't like it, I could always throw it in the donate pile.

But I liked it! It's a tidy, not terribly taxing novel without a lot of twists and turns. It's a story about Derek Dover, a disillusioned Boston lawyer and two things: the girl he can't have, and the impossible case that is dropped into his lap.

The book is also about a law firm that is trying to be bigger than its britches at exactly the wrong time. It's very now -- recession and real estate collapse included. Like Kermit Roosevelt's In the Shadow of the Law, which is more legal thriller than Nibble & Kuhn, it reaffirmed that I made the right call in not going to law school. I think the tedium would have gotten to me, and it's not longer one of those careers where it seems that you're guaranteed a high paying job at the end of the line.

Nibble & Kuhn is not a legal thriller, and it's not a romance. It's a short, fast novel good for hot summer nights when I was cooped up in front of the window AC unit.

Now, about the blog: It's back, sorta. I'm not doing another book a week series -- it was too taxing when my work life busied up. But when I read a book I enjoy, like Nibble & Kuhn, I'll post a review. Why not? Maybe you'll like it, too.

P.S. It's been years since I read Roosevelt's debut novel, but I still remember the detail about a lawyer analyzing cashmere socks. It's funny what images still stick.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Yup. I gave this one 3 stars too, which is not bad. It arrived on my doorstep[ but I knew where it came from as I'd agreed to review it!
Great book for those already in corporate law, I felt.

October 22, 2009 at 3:05 PM

Welcome Back to Book a Week with Jen!

Hello hello! Yes, the rumors (that I started) are true. On New Year's Day, I fired up the old Book a Week with Jen blog, gave it a new domain, and I'm going to be writing about my reading habits once again. If you don't know me, my name is Jen A. Miller , and I'm a freelance writer and author. I've been freelancing now for 17 years, and in that time, have written hundreds of articles, three books ( two about the Jersey Shore and one about running ), and two ebooks ( both about freelance writing ). If you're not new around here, wow a lot has changed. I wrote a memoir , picked up a regular running column for the New York Times , and put that back down again. I ran a lot of marathons, and got into ultra marathoning, which lead me to run my first 24 hour race on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day 2020/2021 . My first dog, Emily, died in 2017 . I sold my first home, lived out of my car for a year traveling the country , scooped up a scruffy cattle dog mix in Ida

Book 5 of 52: Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen

I don't always try to match my reading to what I'm doing, but when I go to Florida, I try to pack at least one Florida weird book. There was no better novel to bring with me to read on a ferry from Key West to Dry Tortugas National Park , than Carl Hiaasen's Stormy Weather . Hiaasen was writing about #floridaman before #floridaman was a thing (and when this - # - was the pound sign). Stormy Weather is set in 1992 in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, which is still the most destructive hurricane to have ever hit Florida, and only one of four hurricanes to make landfall in the U.S. still at Category 5 strength. According to the Miami Herald , Hurricane Andrew destroyed 63,000 homes and damaged another 101,241. Such disasters bring out the best in humanity but also the worst. F raud flowed into South Florida in Andrew's wake . That's where Stormy Weather comes in. From an advertising executive who yanks his new wife away from their Walt Disney World honeymoon to r

Book 11 of 52: The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

In my travels, I've accumulated photos in what I call the "Plants Where They Shouldn't Be" series. They're of weeds, flowers and trees growing in places that look uncomfortable: poking out of lava that's OK to walk on but warm enough to generate steam, growing around a mile marker on the road, sprouting on the back of a parking sign - that kind of thing. On the cheesy side, they're reminders that we can flourish in the most unlikely circumstances. On a more realistic end, they show that humans are constantly battling back nature, and that someday we'll probably lose the fight. I thought about those photos when I read book 8 of 52 Station Eleven (and watched the HBO Max adaptation ), which show a world without 99.99 percent of our current human population. The story focuses on people, of course, but set them in a world where the things humans have created - electricity, internet, buildings, bridges, roads - are being taken back by nature. A Jersey Sh

Book a Week with Jen

Search This Blog