Betsey Van Horn
Betsey Van Horn is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. She is an RN specializing in psychiatric disorders, including autism, schizophrenia, developmental, behavioral, and rare genetic diagnoses. She also has a strong background in hospice nursing. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and teenage daughter.
Betsey adores literature and ideas and has an aversion to organized religion, proselytizing, programmed thinking, and flag-waving patriotism. Spiritually, she’s a secular naturalist and feels in tune with Buddhist tenets. She has been described as individualistic, eclectic, mildly eccentric (especially her humor), witty, satirical, verbally combative–and a bohemian in spirit. She has been an Ashtanga Mysore style yoga practitioner for several years.
Betsey is one of the top 250 reviewers at Amazon.com and reviews under the name of Switterbug. She has diverse interests in literature, although she doesn’t enjoy science fiction, fantasy, and most mainstream fiction.
Betsey has reviewed the following for MostlyFiction:
2014:
- Off Course by Michelle Huneven (4-21-14)
- Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (4-10-14)
- The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt (3-30-14)
- The Cutting Season by Attica Locke (3-22-14)
- Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (3-16-14)
- All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu (3-13-14)
- The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud (2-20-14)
- Brewster by Mark Slouka (2-5-14)
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (1-27-14)
- The Kept by James Scott (1-18-14)
- Night Film by Marisha Pessl (1-11-14)
- The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner (1-1-14)
2013:
- The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin (12-22-13)
- The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (12-17-13)
- The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (12-5-13)
2011 (Top Picks)
- Queen of America by Luis Alberto Urrea (11-30-11)
- 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King (11-8-11)
- The Redemption of George Baxter Henry by Conor Bowman (10-16-11)
- When She Woke by Hilary Jordan (10-10-11)
- Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks (9-27-11)
- The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern (9-13-11)
- Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta (9-6-11)
- Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (8-30-11)
- The Echo Chamber by Luke Williams (8-16-11)
- House of Holes: A Book of Raunch by Nicholson Baker (8-9-11)
- Lola, California by Edie Meidav (8-4-11)
- Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (7-27-11)
- The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly (7-22-11)
- Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell (7-18-11)
- The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollack (7-12-11)
- The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai (7-9-11)
- Exiles by Cary Groner (6-19-11)
- Sojourn by Andrew Krivak (5-25-11)
- Faith by Jennifer Haigh (5-10-11)
- We Had It So Good by Linda Grant (4-30-11)
- The Great Night by Chris Adrian (4-26-11)
- Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay (4-25-11)
- So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman (4-11-11)
- The Uncouplingby Meg Wolitzer 4-5-11)
- What You See in the Dark by Manual Munoz (3-28-11)
- Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos (3-27-11)
- Enough About Love by Herve Le Tellier (3-4-11)
- When the Killing’s Done by T.C. Boyle (2-24-11)
- The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (2-14-11)
- The Terror of Living by Urban Waite (2-7-11)
- You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon (1-28-11)
- Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld (1-21-11)
- Caribou Island by David Vann (1-18-11)
2010 (Top Picks)
- Old Border Road by Susan Froderberg (12-9-10)
- The Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart (11-17-10)
- Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (11-07-10)
- The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter (10-29-10)
- Crossers by Philip Caputo (10-21-10)
- Compass Rose by John Casey (10-19-10)
- Great House by Nicole Krauss (10-06-10)
- Between Summers Longing and Winter’s End by Leif GW Persson (09-15-10)
- A Curable Romantic by Joseph Skibell (09-09-10)
- The Matter of Sylvie by Lee Kvern (09-05-10)
- Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas (08-30-10)
- The Last Estate by Conor Bowman (08-27-10)
- You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin (08-12-10)
- Mentor by Tom Grimes (08-01-10)
- Stash by David Klein (07-28-10)
- Strangers by Anita Brookner (07-26-10)
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (06-30-10)
- Private Life by Jane Smiley (06-25-10)
- The Passage by Justin Cronin (06-07-10)
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