As a reviewer, the Washington Post‘s Ron Charles has a unique ability to make you want to read a book, as he does in this week’s review of  Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber (Norton, 9/6; author’s backlist on OverDrive).

Diana Abu-Jaber’s delicious new novel weighs less than two pounds, but you may gain more than that by reading it. If you know her cream-filled work — especially Crescent and The Language of Baklava — you’re already salivating. This Jorda­­nian American author writes about food so enticingly that her books should be published on sheets of phyllo dough. Birds of Paradise contains her most mouthwatering writing ever, but it’s no light after-dinner treat. This is a full-course meal, a rich, complex and memorable story that will leave you lingering gratefully at her table.

Need more? People magazine gives it 4 of 4 stars in the 9/19 issue.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2011 at 4:08 pm and is filed under 2011 -- Fall, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.