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Browsing all staff pick reviews written by 'ogradyj'

Shanghai and Back Again

Title: Dreams of Joy
By: Lisa See

This sequel to Shanghai Girls is every bit as gripping as the original. It picks up right where Shanghai Girls ended in Los Angeles and the reader is quickly transported back to Shanghai along with sisters Pearl and May's daughter Joy who is on a search for her birth father ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Nov. 1, 2011
Tags: fiction
0 Comments

Homecoming, Family, and Miracles

Title: The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
By: Jenny Wingfield

The Homecoming of Samuel Lake is a remarkable first novel. I was swept into the Moses family reunion and the fabric of their shared lives in 1950's Arkansas from the very first page. I wanted to know all the characters as they shared their everyday lives and their dreams, their ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Oct. 19, 2011
Tags: fiction
0 Comments

Old Friends and Terrorists

Title: The Weekend
By: Bernhard Schlink

On the face, The Weekend is a novel about a reunion at an isolated German estate of old friends who haven't seen each other for years. They are brought together to greet Jorg who has been in prison for 24 years for unspecified acts of terror. Each guest has a ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Oct. 12, 2011
Tags: fiction, audiobook
0 Comments

Music Lessons Remembered

Title: The Leila Fletcher piano course. Book one.
By: Leila Fletcher

I saw this book on a cart and the memories of my first piano lessons over 50 years ago came flooding back. Sitting up straight, feet dangling down, my mom or piano teacher sitting beside me. It is the same book with the same red cover that I used to ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Oct. 5, 2011
Tags: non-fiction
0 Comments

The Glass Castle

Title: The Glass Castle
By: Jeannette Walls

At once heartbreaking and heartening, Walls describes her peripatetic childhood taking on adult responsibilities at an extremely young age because her parents, though physically present, lived mostly in their own worlds. They obviously loved their children but felt no need to parent them in the conventional sense. At the age ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Sept. 21, 2011
Tags: biography, audiobook
3 Comments

Madensky Square - A year in the Life

Title: Madensky Square
By: Eva Ibbotson

Eva Ibbottson was known to me only as an author of children's books. After her recent death I decided to try some of her books for adults. Madensky Square has the same charm as her fanciful books for young people. Madensky Square takes place in pre World War I Vienna. ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on June 9, 2011
Tags: fiction
1 Comment

Going Home

Title: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
By: Rhoda Janzen

Janzen's memoir is a delightful combination of self-deprecating humor and thought provoking stories about communities. In her forty-third year, Janzen faces the traumatic break-up of her fifteen year marriage, the possible loss of her house, a debilitating car accident, and a long visit home to her parents. She weaves the ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Feb. 3, 2011
Tags: biography
0 Comments

Strength in What Remains

Title: Strength in What Remains
By: Tracy Kidder

At once heartwarming and tearjerking, Kidder tells the story of Deo who arrives in New York City with $200 in his pocket after a harrowing escape from civil war and genocide in Burundi. This is a story of hope and survival in the face of man’s inhumanity to man. Deo’s ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Nov. 11, 2010
Tags: non-fiction, biography
0 Comments

Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack

Title: Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack
By: Charles Osgood

The book is subtitled "A Boyhood Year During World War II." It is Osgood's memoir of 1942 when he was nine years old. The war was touching lives of those at home - victory gardens flourished, scrap metal was collected for the war effort, schoolchildren memorized the silhouettes of Japanese ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Sept. 9, 2010
Tags: biography
0 Comments

Jeepers Creepers It's Everywhere

Title: Creepers
By: Joanne Dahme

Ivy is everywhere. It seems to want to overtake the whole house. And no matter how much they try to pull it out and tear it off the walls it won't be eradicated. Courtney and her family move to their new home in remote Murmur, Massachusetts and the spookiness begins. ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on July 15, 2010
Tags: fiction, mystery, young adult
0 Comments

Take a Break with the Bachelor Brothers

Title: Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast
By: Bill Richardson

Ever wanted to just get away to a place where everyone can relax and read? The Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is the place for you. Set on an unnamed island somewhere off Vancouver Island, check out this B & B for your next retreat. Middle aged twin brothers, Virgil ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on July 1, 2010
Tags: fiction
0 Comments

Justice and Atonement and Capital Punishment

Title: Change of Heart
By: Jodi Picoult

Change of Heart is a thought provoking and compelling novel about religion, murder, incest, organ donation, and the death penalty. As the characters in the book reevaluate their beliefs and feelings about these issues, the reader is compelled to do the same. Picoult skillfully weaves together a story of all ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Jan. 11, 2010
Tags: fiction, audiobook
1 Comment

Friends Forever

Title: The Girls from Ames
By: Jeffrey Zaslow

Imagine a group of friends that you have known literally all your life. You grew up in the same small town, knew each others' families, attended the same schools, went to the same parties, went off to different colleges and jobs, moved to different parts of the country, married, had ... [Read more]

Posted by ogradyj on Dec. 17, 2009
Tags: non-fiction, audiobook
0 Comments