Hunger Gamesby Suzanne Collins This summer I read Scott Westerfeld’s Pretties/Uglies series and loved the fresh-take on storytelling in Young Adult novels. One member of our bookclub has been campaigning for Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games for a few months, and I wanted to quickly read it so I could get on to my Christmas break …
Columbineby David Cullen I actually finished this book at least six weeks ago; I read it in a 3-day rush over a weekend. Why the rush? Because it was so awful I couldn’t stop. Why the reluctance to blog? Because it was so awful I couldn’t think of what to say. David Cullen was on …
Last Guard Outby Jim Albright On our trip to San Francisco last summer, one of the most “touristy” thing we did was tour Alcatraz. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise; the self-guided tour was well-organized, paced just right, and heavy on history. The only problem I had was turning left when the recording …
Miss Hargreavesby Frank Baker A phantasmagorical magic lantern show, Miss Hargreaves is a treat–a luscious Anglophilic truffle of a novel. Brittish-isms? Check. Cathedrals and church music? Check. Eccentric old ladies? Check. A Jeeves and Wooster novel-cum-fantasy? Check. One of NPR’s book critics, librarian Nancy Pearl, offered Miss Hargreaves up as one of her “under the …
Home to Holly Springsby Jan Karon One of my secret guilty pleasures is the Mitford series by Jan Karon. Too quaint, bordering on maudlin, pat plot lines … but, oh, do I love Father Tim, Cynthia, Dooley, and all the animal and human characters that make up life in Mitford. Interestingly, I started the books …
Oracle Bonesby Peter Hessler This was our August book club read; the 458 pages was intimidating to some, parts I and II were pretty convenient at 218 pages–so we called it good at half a book (although some of us overachievers couldn’t resist reading the entire thing)! And author Peter Hessler provided plenty to talk …
Prettiesby Scott Westerfeld I had no intention of reading this entire YA series; to be honest, I only read Scott Westerfeld’s first book, Uglies, because I promised some students I would (see my post from June 15, 2010). But Westerfeld left the reader hanging at the end of Uglies, the publisher cunningly included a five …
Finnby Jon Clinch [spoiler warning] Eight months after putting Finn aside I took the novel up again and finally finished this dark and incredibly creative novel. Jon Clinch tells the back story of Pap Finn, following faithfully much of Mark Twain’s narrative in Huckleberry Finn: we see Judge Thatcher, Widow Douglas, the Preacher. Interestingly, Huck …
The Color of Lightening by Paulette Jiles I’ve heard that there really is no such thing as heat lightening–but when I was little, those flashes that lit up the night sky with no thunder, no discernible bolt of lightening, and usually when the weather was hot and humid, we called “heat lightening”. Paulette Jiles novel …
The NPR reviewer who critiqued Iain Pears’ Stone’s Fall last spring found it hard to put this nearly 600-pager down. And while I DID finally find it difficult to put down, it took a few days for the novel to work its magic. The historical novel is vast, starting in 1953 with the death of …
This is my symphony 