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Browsing all posts tagged 'fiction'
Plenty to Enjoy with Nothing to See
Title: Nothing to See Here
By: Kevin Wilson
In "Nothing to See Here" by Kevin Wilson, two girls with completely different backgrounds become close friends while attending a private high school and while their time together is cut short, they continue to correspond by letter. About 10 years later, they are reunited when the wealthy friend, Madison invites ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 18, 2019
Tags: fiction
Title: Moonglow
By: Michael Chabon
I listened to this book on CD and was so impressed with Michael Chabon’s semi-fictional memoir about his grandfather that I also read the book. While presented as a novel, it is based to some degree on his conversations with his grandfather and other family members, and is a fascinating ... [Read more]
Posted on June 9, 2018
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Title: The Senility of Vladimir P.
By: Michael Honig
A fictional portrayal of Vladimir Putin in a future in which he develops dementia and is cared for at a private dacha by a principled yet naive nurse caregiver, Nicolai Sheremetev. We eavesdrop on Vladimir P.’s conversations with political cronies and enemies, which occur entirely in his mind. He is ... [Read more]
Posted on June 4, 2018
Tags: fiction
Title: Golden Hill: a novel of old New York
By: Frances Spufford
He was the one unshackled, as yet unconfined; the one from whom diversion, or news, or any other of the new worlds a stranger may contain, were to be expected. And perhaps desired. For if your fortune at present is not such as pleases you, there is a prospect of ... [Read more]
Posted on Oct. 30, 2017
Tags: fiction
Title: Dreamland Burning
By: Jennifer Latham
Rowan Chase lives with her parents in Tulsa, Oklahoma. When her parents decide to do some renovations on their house, they run into a problem—construction workers find a skeleton buried in the backyard. When it’s discovered that the body has probably been there since the early 1920s and it’s that ... [Read more]
Posted on April 6, 2017
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: The Voices Beyond
By: Johan Theorin
Öland is like paradise to the nearly 12-year-old Jonas Kloss. He is going to spend the last summer of the 20th century at the family resort, Villa Kloss, and earn some spending money by painting decks for his Uncle Kent and Aunt Veronica. Little does he know that an evening ... [Read more]
Posted on Aug. 17, 2016
Tags: fiction, mystery
Fast-paced, darkly humorous, and fun
Title: Rock Paper Tiger
By: Lisa Brackmann
In Rock Paper Tiger, we meet Ellie McEnroe Cooper, an American Iraq War veteran who has followed her husband and his job to Beijing. Ellie’s husband, also an Iraq War veteran, has fallen in love with a Chinese woman, and is asking for a divorce. Ellie cannot bring herself to ... [Read more]
Posted on June 16, 2016
Tags: fiction
Title: Love in a fallen city
By: Ailing Zhang
In 2007, New York Review Books published Love in a Fallen City, a collection of seven novellas by famed Chinese writer Zhang Ailing. Originally published in 1943, it tells the story of a rapidly declining aristocratic family in Shanghai at the end of the 1930s. Not unlike Mrs. Bennet, the ... [Read more]
Posted on May 15, 2016
Tags: fiction
Title: Hero
By: Perry Moore
Thom Creed is a pretty average kid except for a few minor details: his dad is an Ex-Superhero, and Thom is Gay. In this action-packed and heart-wrenching novel, Thom struggles to keep his father in the dark about his sexual orientation and the fact that he has joined the League ... [Read more]
Posted on April 30, 2016
Tags: fiction, audiobook, teen fiction
Title: Salt to the Sea
By: Ruta Sepetys
Near the end of World War II in Europe, many people have begun fleeing their homes to escape the Nazis. The Russians are destroying whole towns, and people are escaping with what they can carry. Joana, Emilia, Florian and Alfred have all left home for different reasons. Joana is a ... [Read more]
Posted on March 31, 2016
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Treacherous net, treacherous human hearts
Title: The Treacherous Net
By: Helene Tursten
Many of our readers are familiar with Swedish author Helene Tursten. Her character, Detective Inspector Irene Huss, appears in a number of books, audiobooks, & DVDs in our library catalog. The Treacherous Net, her latest translated mystery, is a complex work, with an ambitious theme dealing with loneliness, the most ... [Read more]
Posted on March 28, 2016
Tags: fiction, mystery
Take fiscal responsibility as well
Title: You Disappear
By: Christian Jungersen
I have finished reading You Disappear by Danish novelist Christian Jungersen, but its impact is such that my mind simply will not let it go. The story is straightforward: Mia Halling, a school teacher, is struck with a series of unpleasant surprises. One hot Mediterranean day during a family vacation ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 24, 2016
Tags: fiction
Everything a reader could wish for
Title: The Squire's Tale
By: Gerald Morris
The Squire's Tale series* has everything a reader could wish for: action, adventure, humor, romance, heroes in disguise, damsels in distress (who usually take care of themselves), overbearing villains, magic, and revenge. These are the tales of King Arthur and his knights as you've never seen them before. In this ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 27, 2016
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: Dumplin'
By: Julie Murphy
Clover City, Texas, is known for its annual Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant. Willowdean Dickson, known as Will or Dumplin’, is perfectly happy in her own skin, much to the chagrin of her former pageant queen mother. Will isn’t one of the skinny pageant girls, and wouldn’t have it any ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 3, 2016
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: Saint Anything
By: Sarah Dessen
Sydney Stanford has always lived in the shadow of her older brother, Peyton. Over the last few years, Peyton has been making poor choices, culminating in a prison sentence after hitting a boy with his car. Sydney decides to start over at a new school where nobody knows about her ... [Read more]
Posted on Aug. 3, 2015
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: Pagan's Crusade
By: Catherine Jinks
It is the Year of Our Lord 1187, and the Middle East is going to “Hell in a handcart.” Just ask Pagan Kidrouk, squire-in-training to the traditionally heroic Lord Roland de Bram aka Saint George. Pagan has 206 bones in his body, all of which contain sarcasm rather than marrow, ... [Read more]
Posted on June 14, 2015
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
The importance of knowing one's letters
Title: Fly by night
By: Frances Hardinge
Twelve-year-old Mosca Mye lives in a land superficially similar to, but also fantastically divergent from, England in the early 1700s. Parliament has reached an uneasy compromise with the many factions of resurgent Royalists (each supporting a different would-be-monarch) after deposing and beheading the previous King. Monotheist fanaticism has had its ... [Read more]
Posted on April 30, 2015
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: Vivian Apple at the end of the world
By: Katie Coyle
The Church of America has been warning of the rapture for a long time, all the while taking over the country. Vivian Apple doesn’t believe in the church, even though her parents are believers. On the morning after the rapture was supposed to take place, Vivian comes home to find ... [Read more]
Posted on March 19, 2015
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Scintillating, ironic, multi-hued
Title: Euphoria : a novel
By: Lily King
Irascible Fen, hyper-intelligent Nell, and shy Bankson are fictionalized versions of anthropologists Reo Fortune, Margaret Mead, and Gregory Bateson. The story derives from a documented and dramatic period in their real life along the Sepik River in New Guinea in the early 1930s, with a fictional interpretation and ending. I ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 18, 2015
Tags: fiction
Title: Gretel and the Dark
By: Eliza Granville
The title promises darkness, and if there's one lesson Eliza Granville has learned from Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, it's to always keep a promise. "If you won't forsake me, I won't forsake you." Krysta's childhood nurse, Greet, had a story for every occasion. While gutting fish one day, she tells ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 2, 2015
Tags: fiction
Title: The Furies
By: Natalie Haynes
In this first novel, reminiscent of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, an inexperienced teacher named Alex moves to Edinburgh to teach drama therapy at a continuation school. One class of older teenagers demands to be taught real material; they're sick of being forced through session after session of "talking about ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 3, 2015
Tags: fiction
Title: The Goddess of Small Victories
By: Yannick Grannec
If you are interested in 20th century intellectual history, math and science, the ideas circulating during the period between the two World Wars, and the roles played by women in that era, this may be the book for you. It’s also the book for you if you ever wondered what ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 27, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: Legend
By: Marie Lu
June and Day live in Los Angeles, which is part of the Republic, in the western half of the former United States. The Republic is at war with the Colonies, formerly the eastern half of the United States. The Republic is run as a military state, and June is its ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 29, 2014
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: San Miguel
By: T. Coraghessan Boyle
San Miguel Island is the westernmost of eight Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. This book starts off with a deceptively calm historic setting. Then, true to form, T.C. Boyle’s characters begin to develop stronger personalities that hint at future conflicts. Perhaps because this book is based on ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 29, 2014
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Title: Kinder than Solitude
By: Yiyun Li
This is a complex, thought-provoking novel concerned with understanding four young people as they mature. At age 15, Ruyu, an orphan child from a provincial town, is handed off by her religious great aunts to distant relatives in Beijing, where she will attend high school. She is to share a ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 19, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: The Luminaries
By: Eleanor Catton
The gold rush in New Zealand! After a disturbing and eerie experience on the ship he arrived on, Walter Moody stumbles upon a disparate group of men in the back room of a hotel—men with competing and compelling stories to tell. If you love densely interwoven, multi-charactered historical fiction, please ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 15, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: Tam Lin
By: Pamela Dean
If you were the Queen of Faery and had to pay a septennial teinde or tribute to Hell, where would you hunt for your victims? A small liberal arts college in Minnesota seems as likely a place as any to capture promising human youths: take your pick of any of ... [Read more]
Posted on Oct. 8, 2014
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: The Orenda
By: Joseph Boyden
When Europeans first arrived in the Great Lakes area, they were not the dominant powers of the region. That honor belonged to tribal confederacies such as the Wendat (whom the French called Huron) and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). The French chose to forge alliances and trading partnerships with the Wendat, which ... [Read more]
Posted on Oct. 6, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: Torn Away
By: Jennifer Brown
Life can change in an instant. Growing up in Elizabeth, Missouri, Jersey Cameron is used to frequent tornado warnings. When a tornado rips through her hometown, destroying her house and killing her mother and sister, Jersey is left with nothing. Before long, her stepfather sends her to live with her ... [Read more]
Posted on Sept. 10, 2014
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Poor in Trinidad, Poor in America
Title: 'Til the Well Runs Dry
By: Lauren Francis-Sharma
Marcia Garcia is a talented but poor seamstress living in a small town in Trinidad. She falls for policeman Farouk Karam, and thus begins a fascinating yet troubling family saga told in the voices of Marcia, Farouk, and their second daughter, Jacqueline. I was reminded of T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla ... [Read more]
Posted on Aug. 6, 2014
Tags: fiction
Like stepping stones in a river
Title: On Canaan's Side
By: Sebastian Barry
This tender story is told through the reminiscences of Lilly, now in her eighties, who was forced to flee her native Ireland in her early twenties. Her family was caught up on the wrong side of the Irish independence struggle. The lasting and tragic impact on her did not destroy ... [Read more]
Posted on July 30, 2014
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Title: The Good Lord Bird
By: James McBride
It’s both a comedy of errors and a serious piece of American history, this description of the desperate, violent struggles of the men fighting to abolish slavery or defend it. The story is told through the eyes of a fictional character nicknamed Onion, a young runaway slave disguised as a ... [Read more]
Posted on July 27, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: Annals of the Western Shore
By: Ursula K. Le Guin
While there are three books in the Annals of the Western Shore, and certain characters make more than one appearance, this is not a conventional trilogy. Rather, each book focuses on a different society within the larger geographic region of the “Western Shore.” Ursula K. Le Guin's father was the ... [Read more]
Posted on July 26, 2014
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
By: Karen Joy Fowler
I love the explanation the narrator and main character Rosemary Cooke gives for starting her story in the middle. It’s one of the reasons I kept on reading; I knew from the outset that something interesting was being held back for later. What that was, I cannot reveal. You must ... [Read more]
Posted on June 23, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: Adverbs
By: Daniel Handler
Handler is the alter ego of children’s author Lemony Snicket. He calls Adverbs a novel, but it reads like a collection of short stories. The book is full of wit and wordplay about how love is experienced. This is reflected in the chapter titles: Soundly; Briefly; Naturally, etc. There are ... [Read more]
Posted on June 16, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: The Weight of Water
By: Sarah Crossan
It's not easy moving to a new country, learning a new language, changing schools, making new friends, getting a new name because the teacher can't pronounce your given name. It's especially not easy when you are 12 going on 13 and your father has disappeared, maybe to the country you ... [Read more]
Posted on June 14, 2014
Tags: fiction, teen fiction, kids fiction
Title: Babayaga
By: Toby Barlow
Nice but clueless young American ad-man Will meets extremely exotic Eastern European emigre Zoya in Paris, 1959, and the fun begins. You can’t pin this novel down to a single genre; it’s part detective novel, part witch fantasy, part historical fiction, and entirely entertaining. These witches are criminally clever with ... [Read more]
Posted on May 25, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: The Ghost Bride
By: Yangsze Choo
Intelligent, adventurous Li Lan, the only daughter of a scholarly but poor father, receives an unusual proposal of marriage from a wealthy Chinese Malaysian family in Malacca. Her father at first resists the notion of a “ghost marriage” between his daughter and the deceased son of the Lim family, but ... [Read more]
Posted on May 18, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: The Hired Man
By: Aminatta Forna
"Everything you need to know about Gost is here in the cemetery." Unexplained tensions build very slowly and skillfully in this book set in the fictional town of Gost, Croatia, nearly two decades after the Yugoslav civil war of the early 1990s. Laura, an English woman oblivious to the undercurrents ... [Read more]
Posted on April 24, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: The Memory of Love
By: Aminatta Forna
This is a gripping novel concerned with the residual damage to society and individuals following the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone. Three love stories are interwoven throughout the book, and these narratives become the device through which we learn much else about what has happened. Aminatta Forna’s characters are ... [Read more]
Posted on April 24, 2014
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Title: Letters from camp
By: Kate Klise
When three sets of brothers and sisters set foot at Camp Happy Harmony in Missouri, little do they realize that there’s more going on there than meets the eye. The camp is run by six siblings who, at one point, were a famous singing group— The Harmony Family Singers. At ... [Read more]
Posted on April 3, 2014
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Magic and loss, loneliness and escape
Title: The ocean at the end of the lane
By: Neil Gaiman
On impulse, I downloaded the new Neil Gaiman book from OneClick Digital onto my iPhone (ah, technology, you great multifaceted beast!). I was delighted to learn that the author was also the narrator, and this audiobook would not proffer any misrepresentations of tone or misinterpretations of characters. If anyone could ... [Read more]
Posted on March 22, 2014
Tags: fiction, science fiction, audiobook
Title: Claire of the sea light
By: Edwidge Danticat
I love the way Danticat starts this book by moving backwards in time, recounting each of Claire Limyè Lanmè’s* birthdays from age 7 to age 3 while simultaneously introducing the reader to some principal characters and ways of life in the town of Ville Rose. The book opens with Claire’s ... [Read more]
Posted on March 20, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: Hild
By: Nicola Griffith
Hild is the story of the 7th century Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who became St. Hilda of Whitby. Very little is known about her early life, so Griffith had plenty of room to improvise. The result is a rich, compelling novel about a young, privileged woman coming of age in a time ... [Read more]
Posted on March 19, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: The Alchemist's Daughter
By: Katharine McMahon
In this novel set in 18th century England, Emilie Selden, the protagonist and narrator, is the daughter of a student of Sir Isaac Newton. Her father has decided to raise her in his own image, as he has no other children. He is descended from a long line of seekers, ... [Read more]
Posted on March 17, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief
By: Wendelin Van Draanen
What would you do if you were stuck in your grandmother’s apartment for the day? People watch, of course. This is exactly what Sammy Keyes is doing when she spots a man taking money out of someone’s room at the Heavenly Hotel. Sammy knows she should call the police, but ... [Read more]
Posted on March 12, 2014
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: On Sal Mal Lane
By: Ru Freeman
From 1983 to 2009, the people of Sri Lanka suffered a lengthy and vicious struggle between the Tamil Hindu minority and the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. On Sal Mal Lane is a heartbreaking yet hopeful chronicle of the families living on a quiet, multiethnic cul-de-sac in Colombo, the largest city on ... [Read more]
Posted on March 4, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: The history of love
By: Nicole Krauss
This is a beautiful story about love, loss, and memory. The first narrator (and central character), Leo Gursky, is an old Jewish man in New York who is recalling his youth in Poland and his life as a writer. Leo is wonderful: funny, cantankerous and imaginative. He is one of ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 24, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: In Times of Fading Light: the story of a family
By: Eugen Ruge
An East-German family saga told in different characters’ voices and from different points in time. The telling revolves around the 90th birthday party of Wilhelm, the oldest family member. A committed Communist Party member since 1919, Wilhelm worked in Mexico City for a period before he and his wife Charlotte ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 10, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: Equilateral: a novel
By: Ken Kalfus
This quiet, geometrical tale is so realistic, one starts to wonder if it really happened, but everyone is so embarrassed it is never mentioned. Victorian explorers, intense scientists, exploited native workers, men of business, and dedicated but undervalued women all contribute to a gargantuan undertaking led by one scientist with ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 6, 2014
Tags: fiction
Title: The Financial Lives of the Poets
By: Jess Walter
As this novel set in the financial morass of 2009 opens, Matt Prior's journalism career is in a shambles. His online venture of giving financial advice in poetry form has failed, he's discovered that his wife has been engaging in a Facebook flirtation with her high school ex, and his ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 24, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: The Golem and the Jinni: a novel
By: Helene Wecker
Bored with vampires and werewolves? Dive into this entertaining book about two mythical creatures who may never have been paired in a work of fiction before. A golem created in Poland and a jinni from Syria intersect in New York City (where else). The golem, whose master died on the ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 16, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: Shadowfell
By: Juliet Marillier
Juliet Marillier’s fantasy fiction employs what is for me an irresistible blend of adventure, romance, and fairy magic. Her Shadowfell series is set in the invented medieval kingdom of Alban, which physically and culturally strongly resembles Scotland. Alban is ruled by a tyrant whose forces are systematically rounding up or ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 15, 2013
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: Scarlet
By: A. C. Gaughen
It’s the story of Robin Hood, but it’s not his story. Instead the protagonist is Will Scarlet, but in a way we’ve never seen him before. This time around, he’s a she, and she’s every bit the thief of legend that we’ve heard about. Gaughen does a wonderful job writing ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 15, 2013
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: The Dark Road
By: Ma Jian
The Dark Road lives up to its name -- it explores the dark side of the one-child policy in China. Ma Jian, who now lives in London, returned to his native China to research this subject. He describes the efforts of ordinary families to avoid detection and bear extra children ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 7, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: Rose
By: Martin Cruz Smith
Enjoy a romantic, suspenseful tale of the underground. Visit a coal mine one mile deep under Victorian England from your own comfortable armchair. Read about free-living pit girls and hardy miners in the company town of Wigan. Be amazed by the clever methods of the American mining engineer assigned to ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 3, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: Oh Play That Thing
By: Roddy Doyle
A beautiful performance by actor Christian Conn, who creates the gorgeous Irish voices, varied New York accents, and a believable rendition of Louis Armstrong. Conn gives every word its worth, adding meaningful richness to the often spare dialogue. Oh Play That Thing is the second title in The Last Roundup ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 26, 2013
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Title: The Snow Child
By: Eowyn Ivey
The Snow Child is the first novel by Alaskan Eowyn Ivey. Set in Alaska in the 1920s, it is a retelling of a Russian folktale. In the traditional tale, a childless couple makes a little girl out of snow, and she comes to life. In Ivey’s novel, hardworking homesteaders Mabel ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 25, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
By: David Mitchell
This is a beautifully interpreted performance of a romantic, imaginative historical fiction by David Mitchell, an author with a deep interest in Japan. During the Edo period, when the entire country is closed to foreigners, only the small island outpost Dejima permits a few Dutch traders to live and trade ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 25, 2013
Tags: fiction, audiobook
A real person in a magical world
Title: Graceling
By: Kristin Cashore
Throughout the seven kingdoms, there are some people who are born with a special skill, called a Grace, who are known by their different colored eyes. Anyone with a Grace is both sought-after and feared. Katsa is notorious throughout the Middluns for her Grace, which is killing. Since Katsa was ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 24, 2013
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: Redliners
By: David Drake
Reading the first few pages of Redliners, I thought, "Blech. War times in space." Not my favorite; but, stubborn as I am, I persevered. After the initial bout of guns, battlements, encroaching baddie aliens and godlike war heroes, we enter a completely different story, one about redemption and humanity. To ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 24, 2013
Tags: fiction, science fiction
Title: Voice of the Fire
By: Alan Moore
Alan Moore is best known for his graphic novels that have been butchered by Hollywood (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, etc.). He is less known for being a practicing occultist and for his single “conventional” novel, Voice of the Fire. To be clear, I'm using “conventional” with regard to the medium ... [Read more]
Posted on Oct. 19, 2013
Tags: fiction, science fiction
Title: All the Land to Hold Us
By: Rick Bass
It's all about the land. This odd, compelling, but challenging book is worth the effort. Using his own background in geology, Bass makes vibrant the desert lands of West Texas--a region of intense heat and endless sand. I found myself keeping a bottle of water within hand's reach while reading ... [Read more]
Posted on Sept. 29, 2013
Tags: fiction
A story about how stories become stories
Title: The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
By: Philip Pullman
Phillip Pullman’s retelling of the life of Jesus attracted hate mail along with both positive and negative reviews. I found the premise of the book surprising, but came to realize how neatly it provided an analogy of possible differences between the historical man Jesus and the Christ memorialized and mythologized ... [Read more]
Posted on Sept. 26, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: A Star Called Henry
By: Roddy Doyle
Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry is the story of the Irish War for Independence and Civil War, told through the cocky first-person narrative of a rebellious former Dublin street urchin. Henry's father was a one-legged brothel bouncer and underworld enforcer who specialized in caving in skulls with his wooden ... [Read more]
Posted on Aug. 8, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: A Million Nightingales
By: Susan Straight
From within the unusually perceptive and original mind of Moinette, we live through her experience as a slave in Louisiana, which had only recently been purchased by the United States. Beautiful, evocative language; thoroughly researched way of life and social customs; a gripping story that poses strong questions. This is ... [Read more]
Posted on Aug. 7, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: The Lost Crown
By: Sarah Miller
The Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia Romanov are the daughters of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. The girl’s lives are immersed in privilege until the onset of World War I, when the war effort quickly turns to revolution across Russia. The Bolshevik party has risen quickly, ... [Read more]
Posted on Aug. 6, 2013
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
I want to meet these characters!
Title: Life After Life
By: Jill McCorkle
Where in the world is Pine Haven Estates? I want to meet these characters. There’s Stanley, the retired attorney feigning dementia to avoid an overly attentive son making up for lost time. Toby Tyler, the retired English teacher who rejected four other homes before finding Pine Haven by throwing darts ... [Read more]
Posted on July 25, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: Breathless
By: Jessica Warman
Katie Kitrell is a swimming prodigy with a secret. Katie’s parents send her to Woodsdale Academy so that she can escape the trouble her brother Will’s growing mental illness has caused her family. But instead of being honest with her new friends, she tells them her brother is dead. For ... [Read more]
Posted on July 25, 2013
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: Ship Breaker
By: Paolo Bacigalupi
When whole cities lie beneath the waves and there isn’t a drop of petroleum left on the planet, will the pace of life finally slow and congeal into a more natural order, where family and loyalty are key and sailboats drift lazily across the sea? No way. Bacigalupi’s raw, violent, ... [Read more]
Posted on July 25, 2013
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: The Apothecary
By: Maile Meloy
Move over Harry, Ron, and Hermione; meet Benjamin, Janie, and Pip. But there are no wands here and no parallel otherworlds; just cold, battle-scarred, postwar London... as well as an ancient tome, shadow government, and a secret alchemical tradition in which the exquisite transformation of matter is not only possible ... [Read more]
Posted on July 25, 2013
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: Second Chance Summer
By: Morgan Matson
This is a story about how one event can change your life, and how everyone deserves to have a second chance. Returning to Lake Phoenix is not how Taylor Edwards wanted to spend her summer. She’s wanted to forget how she hurt her best friend and first crush there five ... [Read more]
Posted on July 18, 2013
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: The Woman Who Walked on Water
By: Lily Tuck
At the center of Lily Tuck 's captivating novel is Adele, an affluent housewife from suburban Connecticut. Following a “chance” meeting in Chartres Cathedral while on a family vacation, Adele forms a deep attachment to an Indian man who becomes her guru. From that initial encounter, Adele’s life is changed. ... [Read more]
Posted on July 18, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: Lavinia
By: Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia is a retelling of Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid. The story is told from the point of view of Lavinia, the native Latin princess whom the Trojan Aeneas marries, but who does not speak a word in the Aeneid. What's interesting about the book is ... [Read more]
Posted on July 16, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: The White Giraffe
By: Lauren St. John
The White Giraffe is Lauren St. John’s first children’s book, and the first of a series of four novels now known as “The Legend of the Animal Healer.” The idea for this book came to St. John, who now lives in London, as she recalled growing up on a game ... [Read more]
Posted on July 15, 2013
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: The Storyteller
By: Jodi Picoult
I just finished listening to The Storyteller, and there were times when I had to pull my car over to the side of the road because I was so emotionally involved with the story. Picoult tells a tale of three generations of a Jewish family, intertwining the horror of the ... [Read more]
Posted on June 26, 2013
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Title: Prodigal Summer: a novel
By: Barbara Kingsolver
If you enjoy Barbara Kingsolver’s writing, you are in for an audible treat. I read Prodigal Summer a few years ago, but it didn’t make a big impression on me until I happened to listen to the audiobook, read by the author herself. Barbara Kingsolver deftly contributes all the appropriate ... [Read more]
Posted on June 17, 2013
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Title: Wilderness: a novel
By: Lance Weller
Some might say this book was about the Civil War, but I think that would give the wrong impression. The Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia is only part of this account that spans 1864 to 1965 through several characters’ stories. The author skillfully traces a few human connections between ... [Read more]
Posted on June 17, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: The Fall of Alice K.
By: Jim Heynen
This is an American novel, but one with such a different point of view from most I am exposed to that it kept startling me. At first I wasn’t sure that I could get into the story, but something about Alice suddenly grabbed me, and I had to finish the ... [Read more]
Posted on May 20, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: The Miseducation of Cameron Post
By: Emily M. Danforth
When Cameron Post’s parents die in a car accident, she’s relieved that they’ll never find out that she had been kissing her best friend Irene. Now her grandmother and Aunt Ruth have come to live with Cameron in her small ranching town of Miles City, Montana. Aunt Ruth is a ... [Read more]
Posted on May 18, 2013
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
It left me thinking long afterwards…
Title: Liar & Spy
By: Rebecca Stead
Rebecca Stead understands that the best spy stories leave you guessing right up to the end. This middle-grade story introduces the 12-year-old protagonist, Georges, a wonderfully quirky, underdog loner who is going through a big upheaval in his life. His father's lost his job, forcing the family to relocate to ... [Read more]
Posted on May 6, 2013
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: Wildwood
By: Colin Meloy
What would you do if your baby brother was abducted by a murder of crows and carried into the Impassable Wilderness, a swath of forest so thick that any who venture into it are neither seen nor heard from again? Why, you’d go after him, of course! But not before ... [Read more]
Posted on May 5, 2013
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: Tangerine
By: Edward Bloor
This is one of my all-time favorite young adult novels. It has many levels that will interest the more mature reader, and has a wonderful storyline with characters that will totally draw you in. Twelve-year-old Paul is legally blind, but is a mean soccer goalie in Tangerine, Florida. His family ... [Read more]
Posted on May 1, 2013
Tags: fiction, teen fiction
Title: Lionel Asbo: state of England
By: Martin Amis
Step inside the wacky, Rabelaisian world of Lionel “Li” Asbo (Anti Social Behavior Order) and his 5 brothers-- John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Stuart--sperm donors scattered far and wide. Li, a frequent guest of Her Majesty's home for society's scoundrels, skates through life pilfering, scamming, and murdering the English language. ... [Read more]
Posted on April 30, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: American Psycho
By: Brett Easton Ellis
When a book incites controversy, as was the case with American Psycho when it was originally published in the early 90’s, my instinct is to read it. I am not a squeamish reader, and I decided that I could handle a novel that has been denounced as not only completely ... [Read more]
Posted on April 29, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: Ice
By: Arthur Geisert
A children's book of immense beauty. The illustrations were so detailed and of such high caliber, I found myself reading it more than once. Enjoyable for both children and adults. A visual pleasure. [Read more]
Posted on March 25, 2013
Tags: fiction, picture books
Title: Heat of the Sun
By: David Rain
Grand Opera searching for a Puccini to give it voice is the fast and absorbing read, Heat of the Sun, by David Rain. Madame Butterfly has long ago died for honor in the house on Higashi Hill, Nagasaki, having been discarded by her Lieutenant Pinkerton. Her son has been taken ... [Read more]
Posted on March 11, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: The Last Runaway
By: Tracy Chevalier
Beginning in England, this is the story of Honor Bright, a young Quaker woman who travels to Ohio with her sister after a broken engagement. The sea voyage is terrible and Honor knows she can never face the sea again. However, upon landing in America, she is faced with many ... [Read more]
Posted on March 4, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: Habibi
By: Craig Thompson
Habibi is an Arabic word which means Beloved. This graphic novel is, quite simply, a masterpiece. Each page is gorgeously illustrated. It spans from ancient to modern times, weaving stories from the Qur'an and the Bible. It is at once heartbreaking and uplifting, beautiful and wretched. I highly recommend this. ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 25, 2013
Tags: fiction, graphic novel
Title: The One and Only Ivan
By: Katherine Applegate
I read this book because it is the Newbery Medal winner this year and I was not disappointed! Ivan is a gorilla who lives in a mall/video arcade. This is Ivan’s story of his life and relationships with the other animals and humans at the mall. Sounds hokey, but it ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 18, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: Billy Lynn's long halftime walk
By: Ben Fountain
This excellent new debut novel by Ben Fountain, set in an unspecified year, but somewhere around 2005, is truly a thought provoking experience, touching on so many subjects having to do with modern life in America in general, and the War in Iraq in particular, but essentially it is the ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 4, 2013
Tags: fiction
Title: We Sinners
By: Hanna Pylväinen
This is a first novel with a precise and biting viewpoint. Or, rather, viewpoints; the perspective shifts repeatedly from one member to another of a large Finnish-American family riven by the religion meant to bind them. Pylvainen’s prose is spare, but there’s lava beneath the surface, always threatening. Will her ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 29, 2013
Tags: fiction
Reading Grapes of Wrath in the 21st Century
Title: The Grapes of Wrath
By: John Steinbeck
According to Steinbeck scholars, the Grapes of Wrath is the most thoroughly discussed novel in 20th century American literature. But a reading in the 21st century can enable us to have deeper discussions, such as the practice of bank foreclosures and their aftermath. Lured by the promises on handbills, the ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 22, 2013
Tags: fiction, classics
The new kid is just like you, but it takes awhile to realize that.
Title: Wonder
By: R.J. Palacio
Wonder is a remarkable first novel by R. J. Palacio. We have it in J Fiction, but I highly recommend it for readers of any age. Auggie - a child with severe facial deformities - is about to enter fifth grade at Beecher Prep after being homeschooled and protected all ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 7, 2013
Tags: fiction, kids fiction
Title: The Tiger's Wife
By: Téa Obreht
It's an odd moment, when you realize that you might be in the presence of greatness. The shiver that goes down your spine is unmistakable. You don't know whether the writer or composer or choreographer has hit a once-in-a-lifetime bulls-eye, or whether this is just the first of many astonishments. ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 19, 2012
Tags: fiction
All about Justice, All about Politics
Title: Another Time, Another Life: the Story of a Crime
By: Leif G.W. Persson
I read and recently listened to "Another Time, Another Life" by Leif G. W. Persson, and I was struck by its refreshing political humor and reality. Through solving a cold murder case, the book reveals a strong sense of justice on the part of the Swedish secret police, especially its ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 6, 2012
Tags: fiction, mystery
Title: Calico Joe
By: John Grisham
Although John Grisham is best known for his legal thrillers, this small novel about a fictional baseball player brings out the best of his writing. Calico Joe has a breakout rookie season setting batting records right and left and gaining fans with each at bat. This is his story and ... [Read more]
Posted on Oct. 9, 2012
Tags: fiction
A Discovery of Great Supernatural Fiction
Title: A Discovery of Witches
By: Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches presents a world where witches, daemons, and vampires live among humans virtually unnoticed. Diana Bishop is a historian and descendant of Bridget Bishop, the first witch executed in the Salem Witch Trials. Diana discovers an enchanted manuscript which intersects the histories of the supernatural creatures, drawing ... [Read more]
Posted on April 4, 2012
Tags: fiction, fantasy
Title: Surf.com
By: Fred Reiss
Funniest book I've read in a long time, and it takes place in Santa Cruz! You'll recognize many of the character types within our beach town: surfing locals, college students, Silicon Valley transplants, and the people who hang out around the Pacific Garden Mall. Enough zingers to make you laugh ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 5, 2011
Tags: fiction
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 on Nov. 1, 2011
Tags: fiction
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 on Oct. 19, 2011
Tags: fiction
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 on Oct. 12, 2011
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Title: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1.
By: Harriet Elinor Smith, Editor.
Dear Mr. Clemens, So nice to hear from you! As always, I enjoyed reading your recollections of work as a cub pilot on the Mississippi, and the amusing stories of life on the never ending lecture circuit. I’m so sorry about your daughter Suzy passing away; she sounds like such ... [Read more]
Posted on Sept. 14, 2011
Tags: fiction, non-fiction, history, biography, travel
Title: The Ignorance of Blood
By: Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson’s The Ignorance of Blood not only ends Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón Seville quartet, but more importantly, completes the full recovery cycle of the protagonist’s troubled life. Javier Falcón’s troubled life is revealed in the first part of the quartet, The Blind Man of Seville (2003). While investigating the ... [Read more]
Posted on June 23, 2011
Tags: fiction, mystery
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. The ... [Read more]
Posted on June 9, 2011
Tags: fiction
Title: Roseanna
By: Maj Sjöwall
After purchasing the complete set of Martin Beck mysteries on audio for the library, I found my curiosity piqued by the lasting charm of the series by Maj Sjöwall and her husband Per Wahlöö. During the period of 1965 to 1975, the couple wrote one 30-chapter mystery every year. The ... [Read more]
Posted on May 12, 2011
Tags: fiction, mystery
Title: City of Fear
By: David Hewson
Rome was under siege in the heat of tourist season and on the eve of the G8 summit. In the name of the Blue Demon to revive Etruscan civilization, a group of terrorists started a series of deadly attacks on the city’s officials and people, the presidential palace, the conference, ... [Read more]
Posted on May 5, 2011
Tags: fiction, mystery
Title: Mistress of the Art of Death..
By: Ariana Franklin
In twelfth century Cambridge, tensions are high between the local townsfolk and the Jewish population, suspected of murdering and disfiguring four children. King Henry II has requested aid of an expert in reading the dead from the Salerno School of Medicine in Italy. He is attempting to shelter the Jews, ... [Read more]
Posted on March 31, 2011
Tags: fiction, mystery
Title: Soul Mountain
By: Xingjian Gao
Whether or not the Nobel Committee was looking for an excuse to honor a Chinese writer, they did this one right. Soul Mountain has the intense clarity of mountain light, so sharp it hurts -- and exhilarates. It is also, unexpectedly perhaps, extremely funny, and at times raunchy. It exercises ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 6, 2011
Tags: fiction
When Two Brothers Love the Same Woman
Title: Nemesis
By: Jo Nesbo
Harry Hole is not an unfamiliar detective inspector to many Scandinavian mystery readers in Santa Cruz. The redbreast (2006) begins with Harry and his partner Ellen on surveillance detail. Oslo happens to be the scene of an international summit meeting. The devil's star (2005) finds Harry taking on a murder ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 30, 2010
Tags: fiction, mystery
Title: Firmin
By: Sam Savage
Firmin is the story of a rat--a literate, philosophical, and, yes, very melancholy rat. He is born, the runt of the litter, in the basement of a Boston bookstore, and from a very early age begins feeding his physical and intellectual hunger with the books that surround him. He lives ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 23, 2010
Tags: fiction
Title: Interpreter of Maladies
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
A well-written short story is a precious pearl and in this collection, you have a delicate string of pearls. Jhumpa Lahiri's collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 and the PEN/Hemingway Award. Lahiri writes about people who are balancing the cultures and values of India and the ... [Read more]
Posted on Oct. 7, 2010
Tags: short stories, fiction
Title: Good Omens
By: Terry Pratchett
Discworld’s Terry Pratchett and Sandman’s Neil Gaiman teamed up to develop one of Gaiman’s short story ideas into an engaging funny novel about Armageddon. If you are familiar with either of these authors, you are not surprised. Yes, strictly speaking, the Divine Plan does seem to be developing as written ... [Read more]
Posted on Sept. 23, 2010
Tags: fiction, fantasy
Title: The Wife's Tale
By: Lori Lansens
On the eve of her Silver Anniversary, Mary Gooch is 43-years old and weighs in at 302 pounds. Except for a brief period in high school when she is slender, carefree, and infected with an intestinal parasite, Mary has been uncontrollably hungry, victim of a monster, The Obeast, a term ... [Read more]
Posted on Sept. 16, 2010
Tags: fiction
Melting Pot of Gods and Goddesses
Title: American Gods
By: Neil Gaiman
American Gods offers an answer to the question: What happens to the gods of different cultures when their followers emigrate to the United States? Do the gods follow them? Do they have influence here? How do Norse gods get along with Aztec gods? Gaiman describes the journey of Shadow, traveling ... [Read more]
Posted on Sept. 2, 2010
Tags: fiction, fantasy
Title: Brooklyn Follies
By: Paul Auster
"I was looking for a quiet place to die." Why would anyone want to read a book that begins with that sentence I asked myself. Fortunately, I read the next few pages and was hooked. This is not a book about death and dying; this is a book about the ... [Read more]
Posted on Aug. 30, 2010
Tags: fiction
Title: The Honourable Schoolboy
By: John LeCarre
Recently, I have re-read John Le Carré’s The Honourable Schoolboy, and gained some deeper understanding of George Smiley, a unique British character who plays an essential and indispensible role whenever a crisis occurs, but is forever forgotten by bureaucratic machines for any career promotions or advancement, despite every single victory ... [Read more]
Posted on Aug. 19, 2010
Tags: fiction
Title: The Price of Love and Other Stories
By: Peter Robinson
Inspector Alan Banks is a familiar character to many of Peter Robinson’s readers. He is mostly known as an experienced, persistent but sometimes lone detective. We can see his career growing from Gallows View (1987) to All the Colors of Darkness (2009). However, what was he like before joining the ... [Read more]
Posted on July 29, 2010
Tags: short stories, fiction, mystery
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 on July 15, 2010
Tags: fiction, mystery, teen fiction
Munchkins, Winkies, and Winged Monkeys
Title: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
By: L. Frank Baum
Be sure you get the edition with W.W. Denslow's illustrations throughout. This is not an e-book: you can point and click all you want, but nothing will happen, except in your imagination. It does not include a sound card; you will have to provide your own musical accompaniment. The intention ... [Read more]
Posted on May 20, 2010
Tags: fiction
Title: Sworn to Silence
By: Linda Castillo
As a 14-year old Amish girl, Kate Burkholder survived a brutal rape by a serial murderer dubbed The Slaughterhouse Killer. Some years later, Kate left Painters Mill, Ohio, parting with her family and the Amish way of life. Returning at thirty-years of age as the new Chief of Police, Kate ... [Read more]
Posted on May 13, 2010
Tags: fiction, mystery
Big Bend mystery national park
Title: Borderline
By: Nevada Barr
Borderline is Nevada Barr’s fifteenth novel about a talented woman Park Ranger named Anna Pigeon. This mystery is fast-paced, engrossing and exciting to read. The author, through her character, Anna, interweaves many insights regarding the meaning of life, aging, death and the hereafter. Ms. Pigeon is trying to cope with ... [Read more]
Posted on May 6, 2010
Tags: fiction, mystery, travel
Title: Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name
By: Vendela Vida
Clarissa Iverton is twenty-eight when her devoted father dies unexpectedly. Uncovering her birth certificate from her father's belongings, Clarissa learns that her biological father is registered as a Sami priest that her mother married in Lapland in a previous life. As Clarissa’s mother disappeared 14-years before, abandoning her and a ... [Read more]
Posted on April 8, 2010
Tags: fiction
Title: ...In the highlands since time immemorial
By: Joanna Ostrow
The drawback to reading and loving Joanna Ostrow’s lovely, quirky first novel is the letdown when you discover that this is all you’ll get. No, Ostrow didn’t die young or suffer a public meltdown; following the considerable success of ...In the highlands she talked about working on a second book, ... [Read more]
Posted on March 18, 2010
Tags: fiction
Title: Atmospheric Disturbances
By: Rivka Galchen
When psychiatrist Leo Liebenstein’s beloved wife, Rema, is replaced by a double, Leo sets off on a journey to find the real Rema. His search takes him to Buenos Aires, then Patagonia, as Leo considers all physical and metaphysical possibilities for her disappearance. In desperation, Leo seeks the help of ... [Read more]
Posted on March 9, 2010
Tags: fiction
Title: Arctic Chill
By: Arnaldur Indridason
Arctic Chill opens with the stabbing death of Elias, a half-Thai and half-Icelandic boy of ten. Paralleled with Elias’ death is the murder case of a new wife by her unfaithful husband. Unlike his previous four mysteries, Arnaldur’s fifth book is haunted by a series of polemic clashes. Apart from ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 5, 2010
Tags: fiction, mystery
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 on Jan. 11, 2010
Tags: fiction, audiobook
Sleuthing Fun in San Francisco
Title: Revenge of the Spellmans
By: Lisa Lutz
Everybody's favorite thirty-something, Guinness-drinking private investigator with a checkered past is back in this third installment of the Spellman mysteries. Isabel Spellman continues to entertain as only she can in this heavily footnoted, case file format mystery set in San Francisco. Isabel's court-ordered therapy, insomnia, and secret new digs, along ... [Read more]
Posted on Jan. 2, 2010
Tags: fiction, mystery
Title: The Eye of the Leopard
By: Henning Mankell
Henning Mankell, the creator of Kurt Wallander mysteries, does not restrict himself just to the boundaries of Sweden, his native country. By working as director at Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique since 1985, he has truly made Africa his second home. The Eye of the Leopard has shown us a ... [Read more]
Posted on Dec. 9, 2009
Tags: fiction
Title: Out Stealing Horses
By: Per Petterson
The beautiful, spare prose of this short novel helps create an atmosphere and characters that will be remembered long after the last page has been turned. Set in Norway, the story moves back and forth in time--from the summer of 1948 to the present. The narrator, aging widower Trond Sander, ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 20, 2009
Tags: fiction
Title: Shanghai Girls
By: Lisa See
Sometimes I think I am the only person who didn't enjoy Lisa See's earlier novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. For this reason I was reluctant to try Shanghai Girls, but I found myself with a copy in my hands and decided to give it a chance. I'm glad ... [Read more]
Posted on Nov. 1, 2009
Tags: fiction
A Wild Romp Through the French Quarter!
Title: A Confederacy of Dunces
By: John Kennedy Toole
This book made laugh so hard that I literally cried. Ignatius J. Reilly is one of the most colorfully hilarious characters I have ever come across. This is the best tour through the French Quarter that I could ever possibly take, without actually going there, especially with a paradoxically intelligent ... [Read more]
Posted on June 3, 2009
Tags: fiction
Like Reading an Episode of "The Wire"
Title: Lush Life
By: Richard Price
Reading Lush Life is like reading an extended episode of HBO's series "The Wire." Not coincidentally, Price writes for the series and was recently nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for his writing on the show. The novel starts with the murder of a young screenwriter and bartender ... [Read more]
Posted on June 1, 2009
Tags: fiction
Cathedrals, Fog and Gothic Suspense
Title: The Unburied
By: Charles Palliser
If your brain is ready for a workout, you might want to try this intricately plotted atmospheric thriller set in Victorian England. It is a framed story--a mystery within a mystery wrapped in yet another mystery. And it has all of the elements you might expect in this genre: missing ... [Read more]
Posted on April 29, 2009
Tags: fiction, mystery
Six Degrees of Separation in London
Title: London Bridges
By: Jane Stevenson
An affectionate homage to the classic English detective story, London Bridges is set in 1990s London. Its plot centers on a treasure lost in the Blitz and newly discovered by an unscrupulous lawyer, who is tempted by greed into a series of crimes leading to murder. A diverse cast of ... [Read more]
Posted on April 27, 2009
Tags: fiction
Perfect Book for a Long Flight
Title: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
By: Dai Sijie
This is a lovely funny book which can easily transport you from a cramped seat in economy to an elegantly constructed world in China. Set in the Chinese countryside during the Cultural Revolution, Sijie tells us the story of two city boys sent to be re-educated by poor peasants in ... [Read more]
Posted on April 6, 2009
Tags: fiction
Correspondence from the German Occupation
Title: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
By: Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Upon a strong recommendation and kind provision of the book, I started to embark on the reading of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. However I had a slow start. For some reason, I was deterred by its format consisting of letters or correspondence between the protagonist Juliet ... [Read more]
Posted on Feb. 17, 2009
Tags: fiction, history
Short Stories in a Northern Setting
Title: Island: The Complete Stories
By: Alistair MacLeod
Modern Library named Canadian author Alistair MacLeod one of the greatest writers in the English language since 1950. After spending some time with this collection of stories, it is clear why. These short stories, set for the most part in the stark but evocative landscape of Cape Breton Island, are ... [Read more]
Posted on Oct. 31, 2008
Tags: short stories, fiction
Book Kits
To help your book discussion group, we've gathered a collection of popular paperback titles and sorted them into kits which can be sent to you upon request.
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