Vidalia's Books

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

2008-06-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Another delight from Allen - absolutely delicious fun with a dash of danger. Josey Cirrini was evidently a very disagreeable child, as her mother frequently reminds her. She, consequently, OWES the imperious Margaret Cirrini big time, as Josey is also frequently reminded, and must cater to the woman's every demand. Her only act of mini-rebellion is to keep a secret cache of comforting junk food stashed in her bedroom closet, while the only love in her life is a secret crush on the mailman. Josey's life is pretty dull and predictable until she discovers Della Lee, the sassy, bleached blond waitress from the Eat and Run, sitting on her closet floor, looking wet and smelling of cigarette smoke and river water. Della Lee makes it clear that she's not leaving and tells Josey that she should wear makeup. With Della Lee residing in the closet, Josey's life begins to change. It's almost as if Della Lee is a fairy godmother of sorts - well, this IS a Sara Addison Allen book.

Della Lee urges Josey to seek out Chloe Finley. Chloe, who possesses a unique relationship with books ( they appear from nowhere on just the topic she needs and follow her until she pays attention to them), has serious relationship problems. Her longtime boyfriend just confessed to a one night stand with a woman whose name he won't reveal. Another dangerous, but extremely attractive, man adds tension to the plot. Josey and Chloe become friends and, with a little supernatural help, Josey finally gets the nerve to wear red. Loved it!

Popcorn trio

2008-05-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

Natural Born Charmer - Susan Elizabeth Phillips - A Greek-god handsome NFL superstar, a feisty girl in a Beaver costume, an aging rock star and a former groupie - all find love and trust in a small Tennessee town. Throw in an eleven year-old who just lost her mother and you've got a warm and fuzzy story that will leave you warm and happy at its end. A real charmer. Whenever you're feeling down and out, Phillips picks you right up.

Heart Sick - Chelsea Cain - A killer is stalking teenage girls in Portland Oregon. To solve the case and stop the killing, detective Archie Sheridan consults Gretchen Lowell, one of the nastiest psychopaths ever to appear in print. For ten years Archie had tracked a mass murderer, only to become her victim, tortured for days and almost losing his life. He finds he is still her captive in a sick dance of psychological bondage. Heart Sick is not only about Archie's current case, but also about his own scars, both internal and external. Gripping, but not for the squeamish.

What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman- A woman involved in a hit-and-run accident claims to be one of the two Bethany sisters who disappeared from a shopping mall decades earlier . The more police probe her story, the more questions arise. The woman is not completely forthcoming, erratically doling out hints and small details. Is she who she claims to be and if she is, what happened to her sister? Taut with expectation and suspense, delivering a real ending twist.

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

2008-05-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

Powerful. Mudbound is a book with staying power, creating images and emotions that resonate long after the last page is read. Laura, a proper city girl, was resigned to spinsterhood until she meets and marries Henry McAllan. Henry had gone to college and was a successful engineer in Memphis, but his real dream was to farm his own land. He buys some property and takes Laura away from Memphis and her family to an isolated Mississippi Delta farmhouse without indoor plumbing, a place Laura names "Mudbound." "When it rained, as it often did, the yard turned into a thick gumbo, with the house floating in it like a soggy cracker." Not only is her life now a never ending cycle of "pumping, churning, scouring,scraping. And cooking," Laura must also share her small farm house with Henry's racist, redneck father. The old man embodies bigotry and ignorance.

World War II has just ended, and two young veterans return to the Delta: Jamie, Henry's charming younger brother, and Ronsel, the son of black tenant farmers. Even though black soldiers had fought in the war, serving with honor, they were isolated in segregated companies and encountered unchanged attitudes of racial prejudice and hatred when they came home. The tensions created by these hatreds curl sharp talons of danger and brutality around life in the small community.
The book begins with the two brothers burying their father's body in the mud. The story unfolds through six different voices, six different viewpoints. Jordan makes each voice distinct and identifiable. She masterfully uses language to define her characters. Mudbound is a story of love, betrayal, and evil. A rarity - a thought-provoking historical page-tuner with three-dimensional, unforgettable characters. One the best - right up there with To Kill a Mockingbird.

Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch

2008-05-20T21:16:00.001-07:00

The minute I read the first review, I knew I HAD to get my hands on this book. Reading the dust jacket - "Meet Sarah Walters, a Charleston debutante with questionable manners and an inherited weakness for bad ideas" - I felt a tremendous shock of recognition. Granted I was from Atlanta, but take it from me, this book rings so true I was transported back to another time and place. Charleston society was Atlanta times 3 - or 4. In the South, Charleston is the top of the heap, the grand dame of southern gentility and manners. Southerners care about and know who your great-great-great grandfather was and adhere to a convoluted set of social rules. The society Crouch depicts really existed and still lives. Her setting is drawn with detail that truly conveys the place - not only the town with its hot, sticky summers and old homes, but also the stifling "old family" milieu.
Sarah is a Camellia. She is the daughter of an old family, so she is a Camellia by birth, and as she says, "once a Camellia, always a Camellia," whether you really want it or not. So true, so true. With charm and wit, Crouch unfolds the story of a small group of girls as they grow up, leave, but never entirely get away from their Camellia roots. Crouch gives us romance with a dark edge and endings that, while not necessarily happy, are very satisfying. Sarah and her friends (by birth but not by choice) leave Charleston with relief, liberated, going "North" to college and escaping the strictures of a culture built on rules for proper behavior. (Southerners really do say "yes, ma'am.") They build new lives around the inheritance of their past, like setting furniture around a large elephant in the living room. Most of the book relates what happens to these Charleston flowers after they leave home. The plot is not sugar-coated and what happens to the Camellias easily flows from the background and story structure.
Highly recommended for the Southern Reading Challenge. A great summer book. I could almost taste the sweet tea.
Reviewed by Vidalia - Cotillon member and graduate of the Margaret Bryan school of ballroom dance, where you would have found me (step ball step), maybe, on row four, a little confused about why I was there. (one, two, cha, cha, cha)

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson

2008-05-04T14:04:00.001-07:00

I had read, and enjoyed, Jackson's Between, Georgia; so, upon hearing that she had written a new book, I immediately placed a hold request at the library. While I wasn't disappointed and found the plot compelling, the tone of The Girl Who Stopped Swimming is much darker than that of its predecessor.
Laurel Hawthorne thought she had eluded the ghosts that haunted her, but after 13 specter-free years, she abruptly awakens in the middle of the night to find the spirit of a drowned girl in her bedroom and the body of her daughter's best friend floating in the swimming pool. Laurel is convinced she sees a shadowy figure run from the yard. Concluding that a neighbor with suspicious habits was the shadow and that he was somehow involved in Molly's death, Laurel sets out to prove her hypothesis with the aid of her free-spirited, but acidly honest, sister, Thalia. She also suspects that her daughter Shelby knows more that she is telling. Intertwined with Molly's drowning are memories of Laurel's uncle Marty, shot by her father on a hunting trip.
As in Between, Georgia, Jackson highlights the chasm separating southern social classes. The impoverished "white trash" are both to be pitied and feared. Her portrayal of Laurel's mother's hometown, DeLop, shows rotten roots that the family has tried to ignore. Ignorance and want. Secret upon secret, fortified with steady denial, has created a fragile illusion of family stability.
The Girl Who Stopped Swimming is a mystery, a domestic drama, and a social portrayal.
Jackson considers the question of nature versus nurture in both books. With the character of Bet Clemmens, a young cousin visiting for the summer, we see the damage caused by environment.
Yes, this book is a page-turner, but after the mysteries were solved, the characters and the questions remained.

Blasphemy by Douglas Preston

2008-04-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

I've been doing books and taxes for the family, in addition to my job, so I've fallen way behind in my blogging. All work and no fun; so, now I'm playing catch-up. Whine, whine. Some books I call "popcorn reading" because they are fun and quick to consume, while providing a minimum of nutritional value - which isn't to say that popcorn reading lacks worth, just that it's really not brain food, and there's nothing really wrong with that. Reading should be enjoyable. One of my favourite types of "popcorn" is chick lit. And some popcorn actually provides food for thought, like Mitch Albom's books, but absorption doesn't require much effort and the thoughts come easily. The thriller category also has a preponderance of popcorn. And with Blasphemy, you get the jumbo sized popcorn with a candy bar. Think movie. This was an ultimate popcorn experience. At Red Mesa, Arizona, tunnelled deep inside the mountains, mad(?) genius Gregory North Hazelius heads up the government-funded Isabella Project. Isabella, the most super supercomputer ever built, is at the heart of a mammoth, enormously powerful particle accelerator built to smash together subatomic particles, unleashing energies last created during the Big Bang. We dive immediately into intimations of danger - what if Isabella creates a black hole? The first run - Isabella is not responding as anticipated - Hazelius insists on continuing - and then, as Isabella and the particles scream in the tunnels - contact with another being. What is this being - the work of a hacker or maybe God? Add to the plot: Wyman Ford, ex-CIA, sent by the US government to find out what is really going on; Navajos protesting the mega project in their backyard; Reverend Don T. Spates, a slimy fundamentalist preacher experiencing sagging revenues; and Pastor Russ Eddy, one of the scariest religious fanatics I've ever met in print. There's blasphemy of all kinds in this book as well as fanatics of all persuasions who converge at Red Mesa. Can science be perverting our humanity or are the scientists showing the way to God? It all comes to a, well, roaring conclusion. Most enjoyable, easily consumed, and yes, thought-provoking.

Crazy School by Cornelia Read

2008-03-25T18:18:00.000-07:00

Santangelo Academy is unique - a crazy school for crazy teens and their equally crazy teachers. The students all have "behavioral problems" (like beating people) and are on medication. The teachers too have past "issues." Madeline Dare, the newest teacher, has a secret or two herself. The headmaster, guru, chief therapist, David Santangelo incorporates some rather unconventional techniques into his educational philosophy. His methods are dubious, to say the least. Two students die in an apparent joint suicide after a party (I use the term, "party," loosely, because Santangelo Academy is not a partying place) - or, as Madeline suspects, was it murder? She, too, drank the punch and became extremely ill - was it poisoned and by whom? I really like Madeline Dare. She's strong, resilient and quick with an acerbic comeback. I thoroughly enjoyed Read's snappy dialogue and her feel for the setting and context of her characters. And, for once, I didn't guess everything before the end. A fresh, new find for me. I had fun - and that's a good thing! Think I'll try her other Dare book - Field of Darkness.

Gentlemen & Players by Joanne Harris

2008-03-24T10:26:00.001-07:00

It's a new school year at St Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, bringing with it the annual batch of new teachers, one of whom is a relentless psychopath intent on destroying this bastion of upperclass education. Roy Straitley - eccentric, intelligent, beloved Classics instructor - has been a fixture at St Oswald's for almost thirty years. Devoted to the school and to his boys, Straitley eventually is the only obstacle preventing the ultimate ruin of the school, staff and students. The story unfolds through three voices:

Straitley
the malicious, vengeful and cunning new arrival
Snyde, the child that the once was our villain

Gentlemen & Players underscores the class differences inherent in the British social system - differences that the young Snyde felt acutely and that produced the monster plotting the utter annihilation of St Oswald's and those who love it. Snyde's story is particularly riveting, and the mystery as to the identity of the grown-up evil-doer is maintained until the very end. Straitley's voice is truly a treat to read - he's a witty, stubborn old luddite with a soft heart. Harris' writing really brings him to life. I could hear his accent and inflections as I read the words on the page. Gentlemen is beautifully composed. Characterization is excellent, the plot is compelling and if you're not really, really attentive to detail, the end is quite surprising.

The Devil's Labyrinth by John Saul

2008-03-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

Let's see - a creepy Catholic school; a dark, winding labyrinth under said school; a secret, seriously creepy, chapel; rites of exorcism; possessed, de-possessed and re-possessed teens, both male and female; a troubled 15-year old boy; some yicky scenes with garbage, rats, and a decomposing body; a fanatical priest; an heirloom artifact; the Pope; a terrorist plot. Really over-the-top. A messy stew. My first book by John Saul - will not repeat the experience. I found it really easy to figure out who the bad guy or guys were while wading through blood and gore which made it all not just yucky, but boring - yuckily boring. Oh for Pete's sake, blow up them all up and get it over with! Horrific, but, for me, not horror at its best.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

2008-02-24T14:12:00.000-08:00

When Europeans discovered the New World, they triggered "fuku americanus" (or just "fuku"), a demon curse and doom brought down upon North America and particularly potent in the Dominican Republic. Diaz' book is a truly North American tale, weaving together both Spanish and English, in the story of one Dominican family pursued by implacable fuku.
Obese, nerdy, and ultimately winsome, Oscar wants passionate, true love, but he can't even get a girl to kiss him. In a culture priding itself on the romantic prowess of its menfolk, Oscar is a failure. He's a computer-game geek with no sex appeal. But, this is not just Oscar's life story, it is also that of his sister, his mother and his grandfather, and of the Dominican Republic under the bloody shadow of Trujillo. Oscar, a first-generation citizen of the USA, lives in New Jersey, but his fuku, his roots, are deeply in the DR.
Until I went to Puerto Plata as a tourist, I couldn't even find the DR on a map, had no idea that Santo Domingo is the oldest city of the New World, and outside of a couple of baseball players, did not even know that the USA was home to a large Dominican community. In language liberally flavored with urban swagger and Spanish slang, on pages peppered with explanatory footnotes, Diaz gives us the fusion and separation of two Americas.
Reading this book was an experience - it was totally different from anything I had ever read before. I'm going to be a really poor reviewer here because I think Walter Mosley expressed it so eloquently in his statement on the book's back jacket cover - I'm just going to quote him: ". . . a masterpiece about our New World, its myths, curses and bewitching women . . . it is a rousing hymn about the struggle to defy bone-cracking history with ordinary, and extraordinary, love." So well-put and I couldn't agree more.

Falling Man by Don DeLillo

2008-02-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

Literary equivalent of watching a movie filmed with a hand-held camera. Choppy scenes - immediate feel of being there as the trauma of the past bleeds into the present. Keith Neudecker stumbles out of the dust and carnage of the World Trade Center and back into his estranged wife's life. Sooty, bloody, clutching a stranger's briefcase, he arrives on Lianne's doorstep. DeLillo shows the impact of 9-11 on North American society through Keith, his family and acquaintances. In the last chapter, after exploring how the trauma has affected the national psyche (Lianne develops a hatred-tinged paranoia focusing on her Muslim neighbor, her mother ends a long-standing relationship because of her lover's political views, Keith has an affair and becomes a professional gambler), DeLillo shows us what happened to Keith when the plane hit his tower. Along the way, he has also intertwined the story of Hamad, one of the hijackers, relating 9-11 from his viewpoint. DeLillo manages to make it all work to create a picture of things changed forever in a moment. It's a strangely detached tale, told through isolated conversations and snippets of events. I felt as though the book was remote and somewhat cold and the characters like paper dolls. A shadow play. Not really my favorite style, but I can appreciate DeLillo's mastery and do see why he had garnered accolades. But, I just couldn't get involved with the characters and was glad when I reached the last chapter.

The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis

2008-01-29T14:53:00.000-08:00

It is almost impossible to give a plot synopsis of The Thin Place. A lot happens, but it's mysterious and mystical, and not easily grasped or categorized. This is a really original book - the tone is lyrical and mesmerizing. People and animals have voices and exert equal impact in Davis' universe - three young girls, beloved dogs, an old woman, a couple, a tenacious beaver - all have stories here. There are deaths and near deaths as she paints the mundane with a magic brush. The Thin Place, found at no identifiable location, existing at the periphery of our limited vision, is where past and present mingle, while life and death are an infinite mesh of time and place. Davis gives us metaphysical snapshots of humans and animals sliding in and around time and space.

The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder

2008-01-18T11:10:00.000-08:00

I have used the word "charming" in my last two reviews. Perhaps it was weak writing on my part to rely on the same word in back to back reviews, but I felt totally justified given the fact that my last two selections are, well, completely charming. I can assure you that I won't be using that word to describe The Devil of Nanking. Gripping, riveting, fascinating - yes - a compelling, grab-you-by-the-throat-page-turner - oh, yes. Charming, delightful, soothing, lovely? Not even remotely. Devil is a magnificent thriller, but it's not for those who favor light reading.
The plot involves interlaced mysteries all with roots in one of the most horrific events of the 20th century - the 1937 "Rape of Nanking" by the invading Japanese army. Grey, a really, really disturbed young woman (believe me, she's really unbalanced), is obsessed with finding proof of something she read in an orange book that disappeared. She tracks down Shi Chongming, a university professor and survivor of the Nanking atrocities, because she thinks he possesses an old film that will prove the truth of what she read in her childhood and show that she was not insane, that whatever it was really happened. Shi Chongming, while not admitting that he has the film, sends Grey on a mission to discover what substance a vicious gangster, Fuyuki, consumes to stay alive. Hayder juggles mysteries, linking them as the plot unfolds one creepy, ghastly, step at a time.

What did Grey read?
Why was she committed to an asylum?
What happened to Shi Chongming and his wife during the 1937 horror?
What does the film show?
What is the medicine given to Fuyuki by his Nurse? (And who is the Nurse?)
Who is the Devil of Nanking?

The story alternates between Grey's trance-like account of her search and Shi Chongming's 1937 diary. Hayder takes you to the edge in each chapter, switching back and forth between voices, making it impossible to put down the book. Submerging the reader in a surreal atmosphere of evil, malevolence permeates the setting. While the ending came as no surprise, the powerful ride to the ultimate revelation of truth was great storytelling.

Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

2008-01-16T17:59:00.000-08:00

Charming. The perfect book to put your harried life into perspective. A bit of shelter from the frenzy of the modern treadmill. If you're feeling frazzled, a cup of tea and some time spent with Mma Precious Ramotswe will sooth your senses.

Mma Ramotswe, founder of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, solves mysteries - not murders, kidnappings or armed robberies, but little mysteries of everyday life. Her cases here focus on food stolen from a school, a doctor who apparently doesn't know how to take blood pressure, and the sudden uneasy atmosphere at a game preserve.
The joy in reading this series lies not just in finding out "whodunit," but in savouring the setting and visiting with Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi (star graduate of the Botswana Secretarial School), and Mr J L B Matekoni (Precious' husband and master mechanic). As usual, there are many personal problems to contemplate at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Mma Makutsi is engaged to Mr Radiphuti, but could her feminist views jeopardize their relationship? Can Mr Polopetsi and his rich uncle be reconciled? And, then there's Aunty Emang, the Dear Abby of The Daily News , whose answers seem overly curt. It's a trip to a simpler, quieter place where there's time to watch the small things, cogitate a bit and converse leisurely with others. A sweet balm for tense souls. It's also very nice to know that such places exist, as McCall Smith creates this world in loving, believable detail. Pick any book from the series - highly recommended.

Swim to Me by Betsy Carter

2008-01-07T10:08:00.000-08:00

When I opened the NY Times yesterday morning and saw the big article about Weeki Wachee, I knew it was time to shake off my post-holiday lethargy and finally write a review for this charming book. Did you know some Weeki Wachee mermaids can hold their breath for 4 minutes, dive to over 100 feet below the surface and sometimes share their watery stage with alligators (real ones with teeth)? My family always spent some time each year in Florida. Usually, it was in the summer (Yankees went to Florida in the winter). In Atlanta folks either vacationed in the mountains or at the beach in the summer. We were beach people. In the early days we stayed at Robertson's Cottages in Panama City, FL, before there were any hotels, motels or tourist traps. Just a beach and ocean. Later our destination was Ponte Vedra, then Destin and eventually Sea Island, GA. I went to Weeki Wachee sometime in the 50's. It was pure magic for a little girl - and my dad seemed to enjoy the show very much, too. If you don't know about Weeki Wachee, go to http://www.mermaid.weekiwachee.com/ - it's been an attraction since 1947.
PLOT: Delores Walker, just 17, boards a Greyhound bus in New York and heads for Weeki Wachee Springs with the dream of becoming a mermaid. Her parents have separated (a marriage "written in food stains" on the walls of their dingy Bronx apartment). Her father gone, her mother struggling with bills and a new baby, Delores' world is gray and hopeless. But Delores dares to chase her dream and, well, take the plunge into a new world alone. Soon, she's Delores Taurus, mermaid extraordinaire. While parts of the plot are the stuff of fantasy (I don't know if elephants ever participated in the underwater show at Weeki Wachee), the story is realistic enough to give hope that with a little luck and fair amount of courage, anyone can follow their bliss. Delores is a spunky heroine to cheer for - totally innocent, but focused on her goal and driven by her aspirations. Nothing can sink the girl! Swim to Me delivers dreams come true and the bright possibilities of life. Recommended for bringing sunshine to dark, dreary winter days.

North River by Pete Hamill

2007-12-31T14:21:00.001-08:00

PLOT: Dr James Delaney treats everyone in his old neighborhood, even when they can't pay him or if they are dangerous. It's 1934, and most of his patients cannot afford his compassionate care, but Delaney's commitment to his community is firm. These are his people - the gangsters, the wife beaters, the prostitutes, and the alcoholics. He cares for all of them. The place - New York City - is part of his being, the deep roots of his identity. He loves his wife Molly, but she disappeared months before and Delaney doesn't know if she's even alive. His daughter, Grace, left home to follow revolutionary dreams, and in the bleak New York winter, Delaney is alone. He is a grey man in a grey world, burdened by regret, loneliness and sorrow. Two events are poised to change his life. First, Delaney is yanked out of a dream of ice and loss by the sound of his gate bell; his old friend Eddie Corso, now a gangster, needs his attention. Then, upon his return, Delaney finds that his daughter Grace has literally dumped her three-year-old son on his doorstep on her way to Europe to search for her husband. Delaney hires the Sicilian Rose (who has a past touched by violence) to take care of the child and cook, and in spite of being on Frankie Botts' hitlist for treating Corso and being watched by the FBI who want to find his daughter, colour and light slowly seep into his world.

QUOTE: "He would try as hard as he could to ease their pain. To bring them sleep. To give them another day, another week, another year. The reason was simple. Here all sins were forgiven. Even the sins of James Finbar Delaney."

COMMENT: The unequivocal star of North River is the city. Hamill puts the reader right into old NewYork - so much that you smell Italian sausages cooking and feel the dirty snow under your feet. He creates a neighborhood and its people with vibrant detail. Unlike Chevalier's Burning Bright, whose setting completely overshadows the plot and characters are just shadow puppets on a backdrop of old London, here the characters and the plot are well developed and three dimensional.

Even though there is danger in North River, the danger does not eclipse Delaney's love story or Hamill's song of New York. Recommended. A lovely read.

Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

2007-12-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

COMMENT: I enjoyed The Yiddish Policemen's Union so much that I had to read this one. I wasn't disappointed. Chabon knows how to write with POW! His dialogue is never boring; his characters are well drawn and his plots have great twists and surprises.

PLOT: Gentlemen is set in 10th century Khazaria, a Jewish state bordered by the Kievan Rus, the Byzantine Empire, and Azerbaijan. It is a great adventure - a totally entertaining yarn of two mismatched "gentlemen" con artists and wanderers who are as good in battle as they are with a scam. Amram, a giant Abyssinian ex-soldier, and the pale Jewish doctor Zelikman, a wraith who can fight like a warrior, travel together without plans or maps through the Caucasus Mountains. After a particularly successful evening of separating gullible inn patrons from their money, Amram and Zelikman find themselves the unwillingly protectors and guardians of a deposed and hunted young prince of the legendary Khazar Empire who stubbornly insists on returning to his homeland to avenge the murders of his family members. With this change of plan, our gentlemen and the reader are off and running (riding) headlong into excitement and a story that never slows down. Their way is littered with bodies, marauding Vikings, bloody battles, elephants, and intrigue. In the entertaining Afterword, Chabon explains that his original title was Jews with Swords. Highly recommended - great fun (with some historical interest too)!

The Family That Couldn't Sleep - D T Max

2007-12-04T22:25:00.000-08:00

Until recently, a "prion" was a bird, a small petrel to be exact. But, in 1982, "prion" gained a new meaning - "proteinaceous infectious particle," rogue proteins that can cause devastating diseases in humans and animals. Prions are proteins that fold, setting off a cascade of folding proteins that destroy surrounding cells. They are not living and cannot be killed by antibiotics or high heat or by any other way we use to treat and contain viruses or bacteria. A book about prion diseases is not going to be a light read, but D.T. Max makes the science comprehensible and the researchers three dimensional, fleshing out their personalities, rivalries and genius.

Max brings the science down to the personal with his study of an Italian family that for generations has been afflicted with "FFI" or fatal familial insomnia. Seemingly at random, family members in each generation have stopped sleeping, begun sweating, become disoriented, agitated, profoundly demented and died. Prions ravage their brains leaving behind plaques and holes. This family's story runs throughout the entire book, giving a glimpse at prion-caused devastation.

Prions first grabbed public attention with mad cow disease, but they've been around for a while. Animal prion diseases include scrapie in sheep and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in wildlife like elk and deer. Humans suffer from BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy - aka mad cow), GSS (Gerstmann-Sträussler syndrome), kuru, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, but as Max implies, these conditions could just be the tip of the iceberg. As he points out, one of the characteristics of prion diseases is the presence of amyloid plaques in the brains of infected individuals - plaques very much like those found in Alzheimer's victims.

Comment: Max shows how modern agricultural practices (breeding and feed) have contributed to the spread of prion diseases in both animals and humans. (Cow "cake" - you don't want to know what's in it!) I give The Family That Couldn't Sleep 4 stars for content and clear, uncomplicated delivery.

Playing for Pizza - John Grisham

2007-12-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

A completely charming love song to Italy and to football. Now, I must admit that knowing something about football really enhanced my enjoyment of this book. Instead of a football-playing boy, my father got me - a bookish girl, but, off we would go every Friday night (high school) and Saturday (college) to see games and provide me with a proper education in case I should ever meet a football-playing boy I might want to snag and bring home. (It was the South in the 50s.) By the age of ten, I could discuss strategy and plays.

PLOT: Rick Dockery wakes up in the hospital with a nasty concussion (his third) and the news that he has single-handedly defeated the Cleveland Browns in the AFC championship game. Unfortunately, he was playing for the Browns. With quarterbacks 1 and 2 injured, third stringer Rick got his chance to play in the final minutes as the Browns held a secure lead. Not secure enough. With an angry mob storming the hospital and no visitors except his agent, Dockery flees the ignominy to Italy, heaped with scorn and shame from everyone, including his parents. The Parma Panthers are thrilled to have a real, professional quarterback help them fulfill the dream of finally defeating the Bergamo Lions and winning the Italian Football League Super Bowl. The Panthers actually love the game and play for love of the game. By the last page, Rick re-evaluates both his life and the real importance of football.

COMMENT: OK, so some passages read like a travelogue - it's Italy! And, in this ode to la bella vita, what's not to love! The food is described in yummy detail; the people are exuberant, warm and passionate about their football and life; the country is beautiful. Playing for Pizza has an endearing underdog protagonist (we all innately pull for the underdog, don't we), a great setting, and a light, fluffy plot line - molto bene!

An Ice Cold Grave - Charlaine Harris

2007-11-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

Oh, I do enjoy the fun of reading Harris. I was in dire need of some plain, uncomplicated, unadulterated enjoyment with no strings attached. I wasn't disappointed by An Ice Cold Grave. I didn't guess the ending (which I usually do with mysteries). Harris had provided so many good suspects and well, I was coasting along, so completely willing to be carried away by the plot that I couldn't be bothered to guess who-done-it. The plot does involve the grisly murders of teenage boys plus a good serving of violence, hospitals and death, but Harper's voice keeps events from becoming oppressively grim. And there's romance too - pretty hot stuff in a cold cabin. Ice Cold is a quick read and thoroughly entertaining. Go for it when you need some diversion from heavier fare.

Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen

2007-11-18T17:01:00.000-08:00

Delightful, magical, a joy to read.

From the first page, I believed - just like I did when, on Georgia summer nights, the attic fan pulled in a wisteria-scented breeze from the vine winding around a giant pine outside my window. All things were possible, and the mystical and real blended into one.

The Waverly women have their own special talents. Claire's lavender tea cookies give Ladies Aid members the ability to keep secrets (I imagine they must be pretty strong magic). And those who drink her honeysuckle wine on July 4th can see in the dark. She knows just what to add to her catered dishes to make children thoughtful or adults full of hope. And everyone in Bascom, North Carolina, knows that if seventy-nine year-old Evanelle gives you a gift, you had better keep it because her gifts are always needed later. In addition to possessing a healthy appreciation for fine male posteriors, this track suited old lady has an uncanny knack for picking exactly the right present.

Claire's sister Syndey had run away from both Bascom, NC and the Waverly talents, but now she's returned with her young daughter. While Sydney hides an unhappy past marked by violence, Claire resents the disruption to her ordered life created by Sydney's arrival and the very disorderly emotions stirred up by Tyler, her new neighbor. But, love is in the air. Fate and the old apple tree with a penchant for throwing prophetic apples conspire to make sure that life will not remain the same for Claire.

Garden Spells is romance sprinkled with fairy dust. It definitely put a spell on me (sorry, the pun is too apt). I really hope Allen writes another book - soon!

Watchers (and peripherally The Good Guy)- Dean Koontz

2007-10-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

Koontz wrote Watchers in 1987, and it's so similar to The Good Guy (2007) that you really need to read only one of these books. If you're a real "dog person" (like me), go for Watchers. I chose it for the RIP2 challenge and added Good Guy to my TBR just because I like Koontz. I had enjoyed The Taking, relishing the theme of good versus evil and Koontz' metaphysical bent. Watchers qualified for RIP because of its supernatural element, taking "supernatural" in its purest sense - being "above and beyond what is natural." It's this element that distinguishes Watchers from Good Guy. Travis Cornell finds a very special dog and at the same time becomes the prey of a genetically altered, highly intelligent killing machine. He meets and falls in love with a young woman - a loner burdened with a tragic past, and they spend most of the novel attempting to elude not only the beast that psychically pursues them, but also a human psychopath - a contract killer who savours his work and whose latest job is to find them and the dog.

Summing up plot similarities between the two books:

Both male protagonists are former military with superior combat skills.
Both men have avoided close relationships.
Both female protagonists have also experienced trauma and have avoided society.
They fall in love and are relentlessly pursued by a sadistic hit man.
The hit men both think they are somehow superhuman. Invincible.
Both books deal with the battle between good and evil.
The fleeing pair is also pursued by law enforcement/government agency.

Now, about the dog. All of Koontz' dogs (that I've encountered) are wonderful. You'll find some in The Taking. They are the embodiment of good, loyal and often brighter than the humans. With Watchers, Koontz has created the most lovable and intelligent of puppies. Everyone should have an Einstein, the result of genetic experiments (I'm not giving anything away - you'll figure this out from the jacket cover). I must admit I kept reading mid-book (which dragged a bit), simply because of the dog. I did become frustrated with Travis and Nora who appeared really slow to realize the full extent of Einstein's brilliance. Their experiments became tedious and I found myself shouting, "For Pete's sake, he's trying to tell you he can spell!!!" - or some such.

The beast is truly terrifying - not just in its bloody focus and canny intelligence, but also because you know a similar being could possible be created in some secret lab. He's a monster that really could exist. And, in the end, you wonder who the real monsters are - the beast or his creators.

Good book - thought-provoking, slows down in middle, but has enough bangs to keep you going

Recommended - 3.5 stars

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

2007-10-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

PLOT After reading two books set in possessed places and experiencing both the gravity of Ghostwalk (a bit of a pun here) and the suffocating terror of Lost Boy Lost Girl, I was ready for some humor with my horror. Hooray for Charlaine Harris who makes scary delightfully fun! Dead as a Doornail is the fifth book in Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series. Sookie, a waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, is pretty, self-reliant, telepathic, and lusted after by a pack, ummmmm, pride, or is is colony, of supernatural, handsome male beings. There's Bill, her vampire ex-boyfriend; Eric, the blond Viking vampire; Alcide Herveaux, the sleek werewolf; Sam, who can shift from friendly dog to stalking panther, and a zoo of other suitors. Danger and mystery enter the scene when a sniper begins shooting shapeshifters, seriously wounding Sookie's boss Sam. When her own brother, Jason, a newly made shapeshifter, falls under suspicion, Sookie knows she must find the real culprit. Enter Charles, the new vampire bartender with a murky past, and abusive, violent Mickey, vampire boyfriend of Sookie's childhood friend, Tara. Now, throw in a real fairy godmother and a struggle for werewolf leadership, and you have fun and chills right until the last page.
COMMENT I had read Grave Surprise from Harris' Harper Connelly series and thoroughly enjoyed it. Harper can find where people are buried; she can tell who is interred and how they died, leading her into the age-old mystery of "who done it." Harris is a master of snappy dialogue and her plots never bog down. With Sookie and Harper both, each book is a great ride until the end. Recommended for those of us who like a little levity peppered with jolts of supernatural (and human) danger.

Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub

2007-10-16T20:24:00.000-07:00

WINNER Bram Stoker Award
PLOT Late one night Mark Underhill discovers his mother sitting on the edge of the bathtub, staring forward with empty eyes, "an expression of dazed incomprehension" on her face. A week later she commits suicide. The week after that Mark disappears - just like three other boys from Millhaven.
Mark had never noticed the empty house across the alley, never really looked at it, but once he does, his obsession steadily grows as his mother becomes increasingly exhausted and distracted. It's Mark who discovers her body and becomes convinced that the house had something to do with her death. The house is one the book's main characters as it entangles Mark in its dark history. Writer Tim Underhill, the boy's uncle, returns to Millhaven to help in the search for his nephew. Uncovering a serial killer in the present, he also finds a bloody past and the story of a girl who drew Mark into her world.
COMMENT Lost Boy Lost Girl shifts between past and present and among points of view. Although initially confusing, this constant shifting blended horrors present and past while blurring the fine line between reality and apparition. I had a difficult time getting into the book, but eventually settled into its hypnotic cadence. I must say this is like no other book I've ever read, and by the end - the hopeful, surreal end - the house had grabbed me too.

The God of Animals - Aryn Kyle

2007-09-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

Alice Winston is twelve. She has a reclusive mother who rarely emerges from her bedroom, a beautiful, high-spirited sister, Nona, who ran away with a rodeo rider, and a father overwhelmed by money problems and preoccupied with his horses. Absorbed by their own dreams and disappointments, they don't really see Alice standing on the periphery in isolation. Alice has no friends. When her shop partner, Polly Cain, drowns, Alice posthumously invents a friendship with the dead girl and forms an unsettling relationship with her English teacher.
To save their ranch, Joe Winston, begins to board horses and sells Nona's prize winning Cap to a girl he hopes can be taught to win. As the summer heat seres Desert Valley, the family's lives become enmeshed with the wealthy women who come to groom their animals and drink cocktails from their thermoses. Alice begins to understand and resent the security that money can provide. It's a summer of lies and promises, cruelty and generosity.
COMMENT: Aryn Kyle adeptly captures the voice of a twelve-year old girl. Sometimes Alice speaks with a wry humour ("I was the only person present who couldn't sue my father if the mare crushed me into pieces") and sometimes with heartbreaking sadness ( "I kept my eyes closed, letting myself pretend that she was someone, anyone, who loved me.") The plot development is strong and through Alice's eyes, the characters are well drawn.
Recommended

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott

2007-09-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

PLOT Cameron Brown, prominent neuroscientist, finds his historian-mother, Elizabeth Vogelsang, dead in the river, a prism clutched in her fist. He asks Lydia Brooke, his former lover who was also Elizabeth's friend, to return to Cambridge and complete the missing last chapter of the book his mother was writing about Sir Isaac Newton, Trinity College and alchemy. Lydia moves into Vogelsang's studio and of course, in addition to rekindling her affair with Cameron, strange things begin to happen. Papers disappear or blow away when there is no breeze. And then there are the odd lights and shadows, the strange man in red, murders and mysteries, both past and present, a violent animal rights group, and a blurring of the 17th century with the 21st. Lydia, pursuing the truth behind the 17th century deaths, soon finds herself haunted and pursued herself.
COMMENT Ghostwalk could be called creepingly eerie, or eerily creeping (toward its end). It's full of historical detail about 17th century Cambridge, alchemists and Isaac Newton. Stott's style borders on essay-writing in some chapters dealing with Vogelsang's research while she's almost poetic in others. Written from the first person (Lydia) to a second person (Cameron), Ghostwalk's use of "you" was disconcerting and a bit confusing at first. Imagery, delivered in snapshot sentences, is definitely effective in creating the ominous mood.
I sensed a supernatural threat from the beginning and was surprised by the plot addition of the real-time threat posed by NABED, the animal rights group. But this really is a ghost story with one century bleeding into the other.
Sometimes Stott's erudition might be a barrier to digesting Ghostwalk . If you aren't familiar with Mondrian, her reference to the painter will not create the image she intended. To explain the entanglement of past and present, she delves into quantum mechanics - which is fascinating, but not light reading.
Overall, I enjoyed Ghostwalk, but I am really looking forward to my next book by Dean Koontz.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards

2007-09-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

I should have known - on the cover is glowing praise from Sue Monk Kidd, author of Mermaid Chair. I didn't like Mermaid Chair (But enjoyed Secret Life of Bees) I am beginning to think that there is something seriously wrong with my literary tastes. Memory Keeper's Daughter is the flavor of the season - a bookclub darling. There are still 32 requests for it at my library - in other words, 32 people are in line, breathlessly waiting to read it. (The library has 14 copies plus a bookclub kit and CD.) It was published in 2005, so it's not just a flash in the pan! Now for the truth - I found the book slow, annoying and well, numbing.
David Henry, orthopedist, on a snowy day in 1964 delivers his own twins. Without telling his wife, Norah, he "hands over his daughter," who has Down Syndrome, to his nurse, Caroline Gill, telling her to take the baby, Phoebe, to an institution. Caroline just can't do it and decides to keep Phoebe, raising her as her daughter. What ensues is 25 years of interminable introspection, alienation, and regret. Oh goodie.
There is a lot of repetition of imagery and thought in this book. For instance, Caroline, when pondering whether to leave Phoebe at the institution, keeps returning and returning to the image of the dark haired young woman in a slip being shorn of her hair in the institutional cold. David Henry refers again and again to the day he "handed over" (using that phrase) his daughter to Caroline Gill. I get it, I get it!!
The Memory Keeper's Daughter functions on the premise that the family is torn apart by David Henry's secret, but I think Norah is a basically weak character, and she would never have been able to cope with Phoebe. She's too concerned with moving in the proper social circles as shown by her reaction to Kay Marshall. She would have been a promiscuous lush anyway. I just couldn't cope with this book's bleak view of relationships (maybe that's my problem - but I loved the Moviegoer. Go figure.) Paul, the son, rails constantly about his father's lack of love for him in spite of the fact that David tries to connect. But, alas, somewhere along the line, David has expressed his reservations about Paul's being a musician and well, that's it! David can never convince the kid of his pride and love. It's really quite a sad story of a basically good man, who makes a bad decision. David Henry is burdened by secrets and surrounded by very needy people.
On a more positive note - I rejoiced in Phoebe's life and Caroline's love for her daughter.
To sum up: I found the constant, interior ruminations tedious - like listening to the slow ticking of a clock, and I could not muster much sympathy for Norah. Without that sympathy, the book for me was an exercise in endurance. And maybe I do need some sort of biblio-therapeutic intervention.

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

2007-08-26T14:57:00.000-07:00

PLOT Hosseini portrays the tumult of Afghanistan's last thirty years as reflected in the lives of two woman married to the same man. Miriam was a harami, a bastard,loved by her father,Jalil, but not quite enough. She's quickly married off to the brutal Rasheed to safely rid Jalil's legitimate family of her embarrassing existence. Laila is young, beautiful and well-educated by her doting father, but as the violence of Afghanistan's repeated upheavals decimates her family, she, too, marries Raheed to survive. In the midst of killing and oppression, bombs and hardship, beatings and tears, the two form a bond that enables them to continue living.
Why I Pulled This Book from My TBR Shelf I had read and loved the Kite Runner, one the the most powerful and beautiful books I've ever experienced.
Comment A Thousand Splendid Suns presents much more history than does The Kite Runner. In Suns, Hosseini intertwines periodic history lessons with the story (and it's obvious these lessons are a digression), even giving all the names of the warlords, where they were from, and their political goals. While in Runner, the history is there, it functions as a backdrop against which the plot unfolds. Suns, occasionally bordering on didactic, and perhaps incorporating too much information for some readers, did give me a much better sense of why Afghanistan is so torn and what the Afghan people have endured. The character development is excellent - I understood and identified with these two women even though my world is so different. Hosseini's writing "engages" the reader with both the characters and the setting. He has the ability to draw you into his world - I felt as if I experienced both books with all my senses. Highly Recommended.

Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind - Ann B. Ross

2007-08-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

Absolutely Delightful! A Real Treat!
PLOT "Miss Julia" Springer is surprised when the sudden death of her pillar-of-the-community husband, banker Wesley Lloyd, leaves her a very rich widow. Just when she's considering central air-conditioning for her home (Wesley Lloyd deemed it to be a waste of money), she discovers, right on her own doorstep, something else he's left - Wesley Lloyd Junior - a pale nine-year old. Pretty soon, Pastor Ledbetter, her clergyman, is trying to claim her inheritance for the church; a Bible-thumping televangelist, "Brother Vern," arrives looking for Little Lloyd; the police suspect Miss Julia might be involved foul-play, and she's driving a get-away car.
COMMENT Ross writes with wry humour, delivering a warm and witty (cliche wording, but very true here) portrait of small town life. The images of the formerly prim and proper Miss Julia adopting a new style of merging into traffic (step on the gas and go) or speeding down the highway protected by a phalanx of big rigs were laugh-out-loud material. I chuckled all the way through this book, not only because I could recognize so much that was familiar, but also because reading it is just plain fun. As she gains her own voice, Miss Julia's observations and comments are filled with both wisdom and dry humour. She muses, "Now I understood. Anytime a preacher starts talking about stewardship, he's talking about your money and his plans. Especially his building plans." A big thank you to fellow book blogger Tiny for recommending and lending Miss Julia to me for the Southern Reading Challenge!

Our Former Lives in Art - Jennifer S Davis

2007-08-08T16:43:00.001-07:00

PLOT LINES Alabama native Jennifer S Davis draws us into the lives and emotional conflicts of her characters. Set in the Deep South, her nine short stories capture with insight, power and compassion, the turmoil and drama of human relationships. In the title story, a father whose lifetime joys are football, hunting and fishing tries to connect with his young son whose first word was "art" and who has created, since the age of two, amazingly realistic, detailed, and gory drawings of Civil War battles. In "Lovely Lily," as part of a program ("Love Knows No Age") to pair the old with the young, the rebellious, troubled title character finds a surprising kinship with a man who is "sucked dry as a husk from emphysema." In "Rapture," Opal knows she shouldn't get in her car and go out with a tornado roaring toward her town. In her head, she hears, with apprehension, the whisper, "Now, the time is now," but she does get in her car and her world is redrawn.
COMMENT Davis follows in the tradition of southern authors like Welty and O'Connor. Her stories are haunting. She writes with a wry, bemused voice and a strong talent for description. Please note: this is NOT "chick lit." Highly recommended.

Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger

2007-08-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

PLOT Nice girl from a hippie-organic background joins an upscale PR agency and becomes a shallow, weight-and-fashion-obsessed borderline bimbo with the "in crowd" at the "in crowd" clubs of Manhattan. Lots of lovingly described apparel - a setting filled with gorgeous people relentlessly pursuing the life of the rich, famous and useless. Happily, girl is saved at the very end by down-to-earth prince charming.
Why in the world did I pick this book The Devil Wears Prada - I saw the movie (which I enjoyed), so I should have known better (plots like this play better on the big screen). I thought Weisberger was true chicklit and I should experience one of her books.
COMMENT If I hadn't listened to this book, I probably would have given up in the first 50 pages, but, as I've said, I have a long commute, so, with a book on CD, I'm not really wasting too much time. To enjoy Everyone Worth Knowing, you have to really care about,well, everyone worth knowing, be able to understand all the inside jokes, recognize the celebrity names, and know your Prada from a whatever (see, I don't and I don't care - can't even think of a designer). Bette Robinson is appealing enough to engage your interest, but, in 20 years, books like this one will be soooo passe, dahling. You can only go so far with pop culture. Weisberger, is a skilled writer, however - she skillfully skewers the players in this milieu just by describing them, BUT, it just wasn't my kind of book. Sigh - maybe I'm just too old to get it.
Reader Stina Nielsen was OK, just OK. Her reading lacked expression and was not convincing in many places. Too often, she sounded like a grade 11 drama student trying out for the lead part in a high school play.

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

2007-07-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

PLOT Llewelyn Moss, young Vietnam vet out hunting antelope, stumbles into a drug deal gone really, really bad -several dead men, a stash of heroin, and 2.4 million dollars. Even though he knows he's making a potentially fatal mistake, Lewelyn grabs the money and runs, and the chase begins immediately. He is now a the prey, hunted by miscellaneous Mexicans, the psycopath Chigurh and an ex-Special Forces agent. Set along the Texas-Mexico border in 1980, No Country for Old Men is an action-thriller laced with the thoughts of "the good guy," WWII vet, Sheriff Bell, who is himself hunting Moss to save him and his 19-year-old wife.
Why I Picked this Book My daughter, Savannah, recommended it.
COMMENTS No Country has enough action,with elements of old shoot-em-up westerns, to rivet the most rabid of action fans. By the time you arrive at the last page, the body count is quite large. Again, as in The Road, McCarthy's style is lean and quick. The dialogue is rapid fire, often propelling the story, acurately reflecting dialect. But, this novel works on another, deeper level in Bell's observations about the moral decline of our time - our slide into the world of The Road, perhaps. These digressions do not slow the action, but rather provide a moral underpining for the plot. And, there are echoes from The Road, particularly striking as Bell talks about his dead father: "And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somethere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there." Gave me chills.
FORMAT NOTE I both listened to and read No Country. (Listened in the car during my commute and read at night.) The narrator, Tom Stechschulte, was excellent. His vocal characterizations were superb. I could immediately recognize which character was talking.

The Moviegoer - Walker Percy

2007-07-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

Plot Synopsis: Binx Bolling is young, affluent, charming and attractive enough to consistently bed his secretaries. But, beneath his "southern gentleman" facade, Binx floats in a void of despair. He lives in fear of becoming an "Anyone living Anywhere," a ghost, and so he anchors himself in the world though movies. Movie going gives Binx the scripts to function in life. Without really comprehending why, responding only to his ennui and emptiness, Binx is on a "search" for meaning and involves his emotionally unstable cousin Kate(now she could be diagnosed "bipolar" or "clinically depressed")in his journey.
Why I Picked This Book for the Southern Reading Challenge When I read the Moviegoer 40 years ago, it was as if Percy were speaking right to me. At the time, I considered it one of the best novels I had ever encountered. The Moviegoer has been compared to Camus' L'Etranger, and 40 years ago, Camus was one of my favorite authors also. (He's from the SOUTH of France. :-) However, I could remember very little about the plot and wondered if it would have the same impact today.
Comments It did. Today we would call Binx a depressed yuppie and quickly recommend that he be put on antidepressants, but Percy has painted a powerful portrait of a young man caught in the malaise of our age - a deadening of the soul and senses. Binx is cut off from truly experiencing the world around him. He is elated when his car crashes because for a short while he really feels alive. Conversing with others draws this reflection, "For some time now this impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead." In portraying Binx and his world, Percy strikes the right balance between light and dark, humor and philosophy.
The Moviegoer is not a light read, but for me, it was a delight to reacquaint myself with an old friend. The images of the South and of the relationships between black and white were true images of a time long ago. This book will be on college literature lists for a long time to come.

What kind of Intelligence?

2007-07-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Bet Me - Jennifer Crusie

2007-07-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Crusie is a master of wit and dialogue. I would enjoy her books for the repartee even without the romantic, fun plots (I'm a sucker for romance and fun). She lets us in on what her characters are REALLY thinking with italicized subtext, while the bon mots zing by on every page. Why, it's like eating a choclate-covered Krispy Kreme donut - so yummy it's just about decadent.
We meet Min Dobbs as her boyfriend of two months dumps her in a crowded bar. We quckly learn that she's obsessed with being thin, never eats carbs or butter, and lets her mother dominate her clothing choices and her self-esteem. Enter the perfectly handsome and eminently eligible Cal Morrisey, a scurrilous bet, and the requisite misunderstanding - the stage is set for pages of delightful fluff.
We know from the beginning that there's more to Min than a pinstripe suit - her shoes give her away - and we have all the fun of watching as her relationship with Cal releases a sensuous and confident woman who can enjoy chicken cacciatore and Krispy Kremes without guilt. Cynical Liza and idealistic Bonnie, Min's two best friends, are her yin and yang, alternately swaying her in opposite directions along the way, adding delicious complications to the mix.
Highly recommended for summer.

Confessions of a book junkie

2007-07-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

I have a secret compulsion - buying books. I love going online and throwing books into my cart (I read a lot of review journals which fuels the fires of my addiction), and it's so easy to push "proceed to checkout," adding a little more to get the free shipping. AND THEN, the total thrill of the plain, black lettered cardboard box with its nifty zipper strip awaiting me in the mailbox with the brand new books inside. All mine to hoard and fondle. Think Gollum and his precious. Add to this that I'm a librarian with unlimited access to shiny new books I can bring home FREE , and it's pretty obvious that I really need therapy. (the problem with library books is that you have to take them back) Now, here's the true confession: this buying frenzy wouldn't be classified as a compulsion if I actually found the time to read them all.
But I do have an excuse - my book clubs. It's both a curse and a blessing that I'm a member of two book clubs - they keep picking things not already in my bookcase. But that's one of the reasons you join a book club - to widen your literary horizons. (sometimes I wonder about the wisdom of this) So, every 6 to 8 weeks I must digest two books not on my shelves. (In all fairness, I've discovered some all-time favorites this way) In any event, last weekend, I put all my unread Amazon purchases into a bookcase and counted them. Oh, the shame and horror - 93 books I've purchased and haven't read! If I were to drop out of both book clubs and read one book per week, I could finish them all in one year . . . and 41 weeks. Maybe when I retire . . .

Review - The Road - Cormac McCarthy

2007-07-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

Our Earth is gone, and all that remains is an alien world of darkness, deprivation and despair. Gaia is dead - hopelessly dead. While the people of Crace's Pesthouse have regressed to a primitive, medieval state, the world of the Road is completely unrecognizable. Sooty rain falls to the scorched earth, and rivers run black with ash. The sun's passage is only evident as the void of night turns to the unrelenting grey of day. Life as we know it is extinct. We are thrust into this nightmare to travel with the man and the boy. They have no names; they do not need names. There is no one else travelling with them but you, the reader. It would be wrong to say that they are wandering. The journey has a purpose, a destination - the ocean. The man has a purpose - to keep his son alive. And the boy has a purpose - to give his father a reason to survive and travel the road. Their love is what sustains them.
McCarthy briefly alludes to the cataclysm that caused a great holocaust and the nuclear winter that followed. A flash of bright light - a world destroyed. His writing is spare. Short sentences and phrases reflecting the death of words. The names of colours and animals that no longer exist and of emotions and ideals that are no longer felt.
Surrounded by madness and mayhem, starved and freezing, the boy and the man keep going. They continue. The "good guys," the carriers of "the fire" in a wet, black Hell. The Road is strong stuff, but at its centre there is a sliver of hope in the father's desperate fight for his son's survival. Humans can transcend fear and hardship if they are surviving not just for themselves, but for another. It's a thought we'd all like to believe. At the end of The Road, I found myself wondering if I would have it in me to be one of the "good guys."

Review - The Pesthouse by Jim Crace

2007-06-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

I suggested this book to one of the two book clubs I attend and, after describing the plot, was met with protestations of "too depressing," "just can't handle something so bleak," and the plaintive wail: "how can you suggest something so dark!" (and this group LOVED Fall on Your Knees.)
Well, contrary to the the opinions of my fellow book groupies, The Pesthouse, is not depressing, as a matter of fact, it's what I like to call a "triumph-of-the-human spirit" story and a very well crafted one at that. I was engaged from the first page in Crace's future, medieval America where anything metal is scavenged, people live in isolated communities, violence controls the roads, and the America we know today is the stuff of oral legend. Groups of travellers stream toward the sea and a promise of a better life in Europe (nice touch - the flow of immigrants reversed) Disease, marauding thieves and slavers pick off the hopeful pilgrims in a landscape littered with twisted remnants of the USA. Crace never tells us what happened to make the country an inhospitable cesspool of chemical horrors, but we don't really need to know.
Margaret and Franklin, two strangers thrown together by pestilence and disaster, begin the trek together and, along their journey through the unknown and the horribly unexpected, find their own dreams. Even in this setting, and the setting is the antagonist, people still have the will to laugh, to love and to hope. It is all very believable.
Recommended - food for thought

On Chick Lit

2007-06-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, my tastes tended toward the more "intellectual" literature. The harder to digest and the more abstruse, the more I hurled my brain into taking it on and then discussing it with similarly pompous friends over spaghetti dinners lit by Chianti-bottle-enshrined candles, and scored by jazz soundtracks.

Now, at a rather ripe age, I have discovered there is no shame in the joys of chick lit. (Better late than never) While the plots all seem to blend together after mass consumption, a healthy dose of chick lit is good for the soul. Nothing wrong with a fairy tale - and it's nice to realize I have not become so cynical at the age of 61 that I can't let myself believe (break out the ruby slippers . . . just wish and tap your heels toether.)

I have a long commute to work and have become addicted to chick lit on CDs. Good companionship for long drives. Jennifer Crusie has become a favorite - her dialogue is witty and fun. BTW, my definition of reading does include listening to unabridged CDs or MP3s - and no, it's not cheating, you're just using a different sense to absorb. So, my blog will be a mix of written and audio, nonfiction, chick lit, mysteries, a dash of horror, and even some"serious" literature (some of which is forced on me by the other members of my two bookclubs. I like to pick and chose my own serious stuff. ) Don't get me started on Ann-Marie MacDonald.