The Memory Man - Lisa Appignanesi [June/06]

The other day I had the chance to get a free book if I bought three others, so I decided to try something new. This novel caught my eye because it won the Isaac Frischwasser Award for Holocaust Literature. I like novels that take place during World War II, so I thought I would give it a try.

From the back:

Bruno Lind is on a mission, though he may not know it. Irene Davies knows she is, but isn't sure it's the right one. Both of them are haunted by the legacy of a tangled history of love and war.

Propelled by dreams, a chance name overheard in a hotel lobby, and the urgings of his daughter, Lind becomes the detective of his own unexplored life. He retraces those experiences of the Second World War, of refugee camps and migration, that he has long been unable to communicate. They immerse him in a world where some can't remember and others can't forget, and all are tainted by the logic of race.

I have never read Appignanesi before, but this novel was a good introduction to her. Set in modern times, the book is broken into sections. In the first section, the characters are introduced. They have all been brough together because of one man, Bruno Lind. Lind is in Vienna to give a lecture on the work that he has been producing in the United States. While checking in, he hears a name from his youth during the Second World War and it leads him to take a walk down memory lane. He was born in Vienna and finds himself visiting the house of his childhood. When he stumbles across it, an accidently runin leaves him injured and in need of a hospital. Irene Davies calls an ambulance, and then suddenly she is connected to the story. She is also looking for the man that bears the name of the one that sparked Lind to go to his old house in the first place. Then, his trip to the hospital results in his daughter coming to check up on him. Suddenly, the four characters are bundled together.

Then, we move on to the second section where the novel starts to travel back and forth through past and present. For one part we are back in the war torn world and for the next we are in the present seeing the moments that are sparking Lind's memories. It is amazing how Appignanesi makes all the pieces fit together. Sometimes novels have things work out that make little sense or look totally impossible, but the connections that are made in this novel make sense. The people all come together in bizarre, yet possible, ways.

The scenes are very vivid, but for all the death and destruction the war brought with, I did not find this novel overly depressing. I was interested in the events, as Lind is a Jew, and how Jews managed to stay out of the concentration camps during the war. A wonderful new novel from a very depressing period.

4/5

Hey Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland [June/06]

There is a book publishing company named Random House, you might have noticed me mentioning them in other posts lately. That is because, they are giving me books, I read them, and then I write about them on here! Hey Nostradamus! is the first book that I have receieved and read from them. They have a Canadian office, and publish a lot of the fine authors that I have written about in the past. Douglas Coupland is one of those authors.

From the back of the book:

Four people's lives are set adrift in the wake of a high school shooting - three can't escape the loneliness that plagues them in the decade that follows, while a fourth faces oblivion, wondering what happened to God. Bristling with the hallmark vivacity, humour and cultural acuity of Douglas Coupland's previous bestsellers, Hey Nostradamus! achieves new heights of poignancy and literary accomplishment for one of Canada's most internationally respected novelists.

I have to say it, Coupland is just an amazing author. I don't know what it is about him, but while I have liked some of his novels better than others, there has never been one that I can say I didn't like at all. All Families are Psycotic was my first Coupland novel, and has always been my favourite, but Hey Nostradamus! is now tied for that place, and it might just be because it has been several years since I started reading Coupland and the other books are not as familiar.

Coupland's novels are never about happy things. This particular novel is no exception. It is about a school shooting, something that people are very aware of following the string of disasterous ones like the Columbine one in the US. If you don't like to read things like this, then I might suggest that Coupland is not for you. It is safe to say that Coupland is not for most people because his writing style is so risque.

The novel begins in 1988 with Cheryl. She thinks that life is good and that she finally has the happiness that she has been searching for, but then one lunch time spent in the cafeteria brings her whole world crashing down around her. The other three narrators face the reprecussions of what happened in that cafeteria that day and what would eventually happen to Cheryl. Jason, who she is secretly married to would feel it first because he was there that day, he became a hero because of the darkness of the day, but he never recovers from the horror that surrounds him when three misfit kids decide to bring justice to the students that pretended they didn't exist. Now they know their names.

Jason is the second narrator. It is 1999, and he still is not comfortable in his own skin. It has been 11 years and he still can not come to terms with what happened. His life was thrown upside down that day and it has never fully settled. This part of the novel is told as he is writing a short autobiography for his two nephews, something for them to appreciate when they get older and in the off chance he dies young. It recounts the shootings from his point of view, but it also speaks to what it was like afterwards. How family treated him and how he was viewed by the public. There are even letters from Cheryl's family included that give a picture of what life was like for them and how they feel about Jason.

The third person that narrates the novel is Jason's girlfriend, Heather, who shows up after Jason has finished his part. The year is 2002, for whatever reason Jason has gone to the store for some cigarettes and never came back, so she is trying to come to terms with his disappearance. She was not a witness to the shootings, she came along afterwards, but she is still feeling the shock wave of the events. She knows that she lives in the shadow of Cheryl and she knows the unhappiness that Jason feels. She comes to terms with a lot in her account, admitting day by day the struggle that life has become for her. But, she finds her happiness in a message from the dead.

The last narrator is Reg, Jason's father. We have learned about him slowly in all three sections, everyone has a different perspective on the man. By the time he is writing this, 2003, he has changed. Both of his sons are gone, Jason's brother died in a car crash, and his wife had left him years before, and so he is very alone in the world. Someone was brave enough to tell him that how he views himself, as a religious saint, is not how others percieve him and it has brought on changes. He writes his part as a letter to Jason, hoping that Jason is still out there somewhere and will see it and forgive him.

I think that Coupland has made his mark with this novel.

4.5/5

Once Upon a Winter's Night - Dennis L. McKiernan [June/06]

This novel comes before Once Upon a Summer's Day, a novel I read earlier in the month. It is rare that I read the same author in the same month, I like to get some variety, but sometimes there are those books that you just can't wait to get into. This is one of those authors. From the back of the book:

Once upon a winter's night, a poor crofter trades his daughter Camille to wed Prince Alain of the Summerwood in exchange for a lifetime of riches. Though true love blossoms between Camille and the prince, he is haunted by sadness and will not allow her to see his unmasked face. Believing she can lift whatever curse has been bestowed on him, Camille acts on her own - with devastating results, as all she loves is swept away.

Not, to regain what she has lost, she must embark on a desperate quest through the hinterlands of Faery, seeking a mysterious place lying somewhere east of the sun and west of the moon...

Once Upon a Winter's Night is a retelling of the classic folk tale, East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Unlike Once Upon a Summer's Day, the person on a quest this time is a girl, Camille. She is of in search of the Prince of the Summerwood instead of him searchng for her. This takes care of the two brother, as the other prince did the rescuing in Once Upon a Summer's Day. That means that the later two novels will concentrate on the princesses and their adventures.

I am shocked how many people are not familiar with this fairy tale/folk tale. My advice to you is that you should read where it all began before attempting this novel. A little background information will reveal to you the basics of the novel, but the children's tale came first, so it is only right.

In the novel, as in the classic fairy tale, the prince is cursed to take on the shape of a bear by the day and a prince by night. Only Camille is not allowed to know that, or the prince's curse will be farther reaching. Camille listens to her mother, though, who is a money-hungry oppurtunitist, and the girl attempts to learn the secret of her princes fate. Once she does, though, disaster strikes and she is forced into a quest with only a bird to accompany her and unlikely aid along her path.

It is hard to write this review, because by explaining the basics of the novel, I give away the fairy tale to those that have not read it. Many people would think that Camille is being shown as a nosey female, not knowing what is good for her, but her courage is tested and she is shown willing. She makes unlikely friends along the way, and there is laughter and danger to follow. In the end, her curiousity may have been better for the prince than remaining in the dark, because she shows readers that heroes do not always have to be men and shows Camille that she is capable of doing anything. Something that had been dashed while living in her small lifestyle with her parents and several siblings.

Sort of corny in a sense, a novel that shows that love can overcome all obstacles, but then it is a fairy tale novel, isn't it.

4.5/5

The Traveler - John Twelve Hawks [June/06]

I found this book looked interesting back when it came out in hardcover, so when I saw it out in mass-market, I had to see what it was all about. The first book in the 'Fourth Realm' trilogy, the back of the book states:

Maya is hiding in plain sight in London. She has abandoned the dangerous obligations pressed upon her by her father, and chosen instead to live a normal life. But Maya comes from a long line of people who call themselves Harlequins - a fierce group of warriors willing to sacrifice their lives to protect a select few known as Travelers.

Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are brothers living in Los Angeles. Since childhood, the young men have been shaped by stories that their late father was a Traveler, one of a small band of prophets who have vastly influenced the course of history. Gabriel and Michael, who may have inherited their father's gifts, have always protected themselves by living "off the Grid" - that is, invisible to the real-life sureveillance networks that monitor people in our modern society.

Summoned by her ailing father, Maya is told of the existence of the brothers. The Corrigans are in severe danger, stalked by powerful men known as the Tabula - ruthless mercenaries who have hunted Travlers for generations. As Maya races to California to protect the brothers, she is reluctantly pulled back into the cold and solitary Harlequin existence. A colossal battle looms - one that will reveal not only the identities of Gabriel and Michael Corrigan but also a secret history of our time.

The Traveler is not something radically new, but not really like anything I have ever read before. It has a futuristic feel to it, but it can just as easily be taking place in modern times because the general set-up for the novel is something you can recognize of the modern world. The only thing that was slightly less appealing about this book was that it questions religion, but not in a bad way, just in a way that fits with the feel of the novel. They believe that Jesus and many other important historical figures were travelers, available to move to other realms and bring back information. Thus making them prophets, but essentially not much different than regular people. It is not a bad thing for me, but other people may not be as receptive to this change on the modern story.

The most alluring part of this book is the idea of Big Brother always watching you. In the novel, the government and one of its major corporations are on a mission to make the world a non-private one. They want to be able to know what every person in the world is doing at every moment, and some people find themselves having to try to beat the system. Cash is the only non-traceable form of currency, cameras are watching you in the majority of public places, the world is on a path to being totally impossible to be invisible in. The Harlequins have been trained to beat the system, but they are slowly dying out, soon there will not be even enough of them to make any difference, to fight the system. The travelers have slowly died out as well, with only the two possible brothers: the Corrigans, left to bring hope to the fading group.

The reason I liked this book, though, is because while it has fantastical elements to it, the under-lying story is one that you can relate to and understand. The private sector is slowly being erradicated as new technologies evolve, and down the road, it might not be impossible to be totally known to the government.

4/5

His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik [June/06]

I bought this book at a sale at my local bookstore, buy three and get the fourth free. I had been looking at it for a while, but wasn't sure if it was any good. So, I took a chance. I get it home, and then I start noticing that a lot of bloggers have read it and enjoyed it! Even if fantasy is not their normal genre. So, that meant I had to read it and see if I liked it too.

From the back of the book:

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain's defense by taking to the skies...not aboard aircraft but atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons.

When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future - and an unexpected kinship with a most extrordinary creature. Thrust into the rarefied world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France's own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte's boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fate.

The thing about fantasy novels is that they come in two categories: totally made up worlds that only just barely can be related to life on present day Earth or fantasy novels set in a period of Earth's history but with things altered. Novik, who as it says in her bio is a history buff, chose to set her novel in the latter category. His Majesty's Dragon is set during the Napoleonic Wars, so the feelings, the battles, and the lifestyles are historically accurate, just Novik inserts dragons into the mix which gives a different feel to the battles fought.

Capt. Will Laurence has made his life a sea-faring one. He has the control of his men and does everything in his power to benefit the wars, but one ship that they capture changes his life forever. We see a transformation in Laurence when Temeraire, the dragon, takes a liking to him and choses him to be his friend. You would think I would write master, but they have a very close relationship and make decisions together. The dragon keepers really genuinely care for their dragons, they are as closely as you can possible get to one another, and they would both do anything for the safety of the other.

I am very excited to read the sequels to this book, so much so that I went to the store and bought them the other day. Then found out I could have got them from the publisher, but I didn't even think of it with her being a fantasy author. So, I will say that Novik is one of the few fantasy authors not published by TOR or Luna or other large fantasy publications. For some reason, this made her more appealing because you know a book is good when publishers will break out of their normal genres to get her.

For those of you that have read book one, might I point out that there is short story on her site that falls between His Majesty's Dragonand Throne of Jade.

A very wonderful new fantasy series.

4.5/5

Falling Angels - Tracy Chevalier [June/06]

I just recently read Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, and then this novel, the second one she wrote, won book of the month for the Historical Fiction forums that I belong to. It is only for next month, July, but since I am a little slow in reading this months, I decided to be early with next. While Girl with a Pearl Earring was about a painters life, this novel looks at a family.

From the back of the book:

Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, again dazzles us with an elegant and daring novel. Told through a variety of shifting perspectives - wives and husbands, friends and lovers, masters and servants, and a gravedigger's son -Falling Angels follows the fortunes of two families in the emerging years of the twentieth century, Chevalier's second novel is a superb follow-up to the bookThe New York Times called "marvelously evocative" and The Wall Street Journal deemed "triumphant."

This novel opens on the new year, 1901 to be exact. Kitty Coleman has woken up in bed by another man, her husband was trying to get her to let him back in her bed, and this is how he chose to attempt it, by swinging every New Year's until she comes back. This is the year that Queen Victoria has died, and the scene where the Coleman family goes to the graveyard is when the novel truly begins. Their 5-year-old daughter, Maude, meets Lavinia Waterhouse, the family that has the grave next to their's, and decides that she is going to be her best friend. It is two years, though, before their paths cross again, when the Waterhouse's move in next door to the Coleman's.

The families don't get along like normal neighbours tend to. Kitty does not like Gertrude Waterhouse, and Gertrude is jealous of the fact that the Coleman's have a bigger house. The husbands try and get along, it was actually the Coleman husband that told the Waterhouse husband about the new house in the first place. It is really the daughters that are the connecting forces to that house, spending their childhood together and growing into their teen years with one another.

Another character in the novel is Simon Field, a grave-diggers son. He meets Maude and Lavinia on the day that they come to the graveyard on the day that the queen has died. He makes appearances from then on, telling the story from his own eyes of these two family that by the end of the novel will face great tragedies, the both of them. The Coleman's servants also take up the story from time to time, so you can see the story from their eyes. Even Grandmother Coleman has her two cents in the novel from time to time.

It is really a novel about coming of age in a new century. Kitty becomes involved in the suffrage movement, Lavinia and Maude trying and make their differing personalities into an appropriate lifestyle, and the other characters get carried along with the action. There is also Ivy May Waterhouse, Lavinia's younger sister. She does not say much, but she is to become an important character to these two families and we help decide how they live out their future. Her quiet presence ends up making a big noise near the end of the book.

This novel does a wonderful job of showing the interaction of family members, friends, and servants, but at the same time captures what life is like in early 20th-century England. A great family novel and historical novel.

4.5/5

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini [June/06]

This is a book that I have been wanting to read for a while, but just never got around to it. The other day I was talking about the fact that I still hadn't read it, so I decided that it was about time I sat down with it. I was not disappointed, I can see why when it came out it was a wildly recognized novel.

From the back:

Amir is the son of a wealthy Kabul merchant, a member of the ryling caste of Pashtuns. Hassan, his servant and constant companion, is a Hazara, a despised and impoverished caste. Their uncommon bond is torn by Amir's choice to abandon his friend amidst the increasing ethnic, religious, and political tensions of the dying year of the Afghan monarchy, and apparently dissolved when Amir and his father flee to California to escape the Soviet invasion, leaving Hassan and his own gentle father to a terrible fate. But years later, an old family friend calls Amir from Pakistan and reminds him: "There is a way to be good again." And Amir journeys back to a distant world, to try to right past wrongs against the only true friend he ever had.

When Kite Runner was released, it was one of those books that everyone was talking about. I was just slow in getting around to reading it. I am currently on a mission to read the books that I paid full-price for, leaving my second hand store purchases and yard sales to later. Of course, even when I buy a book new I rarely ever pay full price, but close enough. I bought Kite Runner last fall when my local bookstore had a sale on certain trade paperbacks. This was one of them.

Class and social struggle are something that has marked most generations and cultures. The situation in Afghanistan, of one culture being above another is not something all that new. When you take a man, though, that grew up in Afghanistan, so they have had a first-hand view of the situation there, it makes reading about it all that more interesting. Following September 11th, men and women from first-world countries found themselves at war in third-world Afghanistan, and by reading this book we can see what life was like leading up to the war that we were apart of. You would think Afghanistan so primitive, but it appears that before the Taliban entered the country, women at least had the right to work and the country had other oppurntunities that they lost with this switch of power.

Hassan may seem like a regular kid to readers, and you can not help feeling bad everytime something bad happens to him for defending Amir. It might be different if there was equality here, but it is very easy to see that Amir uses Hassan, in the end he doesn't really want to admit that he is friends with a Hazara because they are below him. Hassan on the other hand would do anything for Amir, even after Amir turns against him Hassan still genuinely wants to be his friend. Amir might overlook it at the time, but for the most part he has a close bond with Hassan, even if it is something he does not care to admit, Hassan never fully goes away. Amir thinks of him always.

The novel covers several periods in time. Amir is in the beginning of the 21st-century looking back on his early childhood in Afghanistan, then he is looking at his late teens, early twenties as a new member of American society, and then he moves to his present and talks about what life is like as he is nearing middle-age. This means that we learn a lot about Afghanistan, even when Amir is not there, through the friends that he meets and the people from the old country that he talks to. Then, he goes back there later in life to help out Hassan one more time.

This novel is really a novel about acceptance. Amir is virtually ignored by his father until they move to America. Hassan is always looking for acceptance from Amir and Amir is always trying to find acceptance with himself because one night he fails in saving someone important to him. A move that will haunt him for the larger part of his life. He feels like a coward, and for that reason never fully lives comfortably with himself until after he returns to his mother country.

The Kite Runner is a wonderful novel to learn about Afghanistan and also about acceptance.

4.5/5

Rhapsody - Elizabeth Haydon [June/06]

This is book one in the "Symphony of Ages" series by Elizabeth Haydon. I read this book rather slowly, but it worked out in the end because now I have finally tracked down book two and can see how the story progresses! Yay! I have always wanted to read a fantasy series, but have never managed to get interested in one. This one scared me at first because there is a review by the Romantic Times on the back, but when you read the book you find that there is not that much romance in the novel at all. I think it is just because it is a female fantasy author. Her books are popular, though, she started out writing a trilogy and now there are 5 books with a sixth book due out soon.

From the back:

The Brilliant new saga is born...

Rhapsody is a woman, a Singer of some talent, who is swept up into events of world-shattering import. On the run from an old romantic interest who won't take no for an answer, Rhapsody literally bumps into a couple of shady characters: half-breeds who come to her rescue in the nick of time. Only the rescue turns into an abduction, and Rhapsody soon finds herself dragged along on an epic voyage, one that spans centuries and ranges across a wonder-filled fantasy world - a world so real you can hear the sweet music of Rhapsody's aubade and smell the smoldering forges deep with the Cauldron.

This book starts with the character Rhapsody. She meets a boy who has found a way to travel back in time, but at the end of their night together, he vanishes. This leaves Rhapsody on an adventure to find the young man that she fell in love with after only a few hours. It is not meant to be, though, there are other forces at play in this story, and so Rhapsody gives up her life for what turns out to be no reason. She turns to a shady lifestyle to keep herself fed, and with that closes the door on her family for what will likely be forever. When we meet her again she is trying to get her life back on track, but one of her old lovers is not ready to let that happen. While running away from these shady men, she runs into Achmed and Grunthor, what are to become the other members of her party. A party that will be together for the rest of the novel.

They have their own shady paths, their own special abilities, and after they save Rhapsody from the fate that meets her, they take her with them on their own adventures. A great part of the beginning of the adventure takes place in a mother tree, a tree that is thousands of years old and whose roots stretch into another world. To them only a few years are going by, but when they get out at the end they find themselves on the other side of the world with generations of time having passed. The world they know is no more, the boy warned her that her world would be destroyed and thanks to her abduction, Rhapsody was saved.

In the new world, they find that there were three fleets of ships from their old world that settled here. They learn that their descendants are here, even if their natural born family has long since passed on. Achmed is happy with the state of things, he goes to the new home-world for his species, after they toll over the new land and manage to have several adventures, and takes it over. He has more intelligence than it seems his species commonly has, and as such finds himself easily taking the reins and making a more civilized country. Rhapsody has come along with them, as well as another humanoid named Jo, but she feels like she should be doing something else. She is still partly trapped in the old world where she had family and a purpose, now she finds herself virtually alone.

Rhapsody has all the elements of a good novel, a good adventure fantasy story that you will not want to put down. When you come to the end, you will want to read the next book so as to find out what happens next. Haydon writes so that you can really relate to these characters and get inside their story in a way that you are rooting for their success and downtrodded with their failures. I can't wait to read book two.

4/5

The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks [June/06]

Nicholas Sparks has always been an author that I am surprised to like. I have owned The Rescue for a while, but just never got around to reading it. Now that I have it done, I just have his two newer novels to read: True Believer and At First Sight. Then, I believe he has a new book coming out in the fall. There is just something about his books that I don't mind, and I can tell people I have a broad taste in books because if I read no other romance novelist, at least I read him.

From the back:

Volunteer fireman Taylor McAden is driven to take terrifying, heroic risks to save lives. But there's one leap into the unknown he can't bring himself to make: He can't fall in love. A man who likes to rescue troubled women, he inevitably leaves them as soon as they want more from him. Then, one day, a record-breaking storm hits his small Southern town, and Taylor comes across a young single mother named Denise Holton in a crashed car. When she revives, Taylor finds himself looking for her missing son - and involved in a rescue different from all the others. This one will require him to open doors to his past slammed shut by pain. And with Denise's help, dare him to make the greatest commitment of all: love someone forever.

I am glad that it took me a while to read this book because by the time I had read it, I had already finished Three Weeks with my Brother. By reading that book, I got an idea why the characters act the way they act. You see, Nicholas Sparks has a son who has speaking trouble and him and his wife spend years dealing with incorrect problems before finally taking matters into their own hands. In The Rescue, Denise is going through the same thing with her son. He is in all matters are normal child, but he just has trouble speaking. Sparks has captured his families own struggle in the pages of this novel, something I would not have picked up on if I hadn't read Three Weeks with my Brother first.

In this novel, Taylor is dealing with demons. His mother thought that she did a good job raising him after his father died, thought that she had made his childhood as normal as possible, but Taylor can not get passed the things that happened to him in his past. He thinks he does not deserve to be happy, and so the moment that he feels that way, he tries to destroy it. At the same time he tries to make everyone else around him happy, even if he himself can't be. He is determined to make it so that no one grows up with the pain he experienced his whole life, and especially do everything he can to make sure that no one grows up without a father.

Then Taylor meets Denise. She is new to the town and raising her son Kyle all by herself, as he was an accident and she hardly knew his father on the night that they conceived him. She has given up her whole life for this sweet little boy, and Taylor finds that he feels the need to help her. Things go great for a while, but once again Taylor starts to find himself happy and he can't allow that to happen. Even if that means destroying a little boys happiness. Kyle is so dear, though, even if he can't say the words that he needs to say he seems to be aware of what is going on around him. When Taylor starts to drift away, he knows it is happening and accepts it. It is as simple as that.

In the meantime, Taylor's friends and family join together to try and get Taylor to accept that everything that happens is not always his fault. The demons he is running from were not something he intentionally did, they happened when he was just a child after all. The Rescue is really a novel about a man trying to find his way out of the storm and to a woman that cares and a young boy that needs a father figure.

4/5

Life After God - Douglas Coupland [June/06]

Sometimes on nice weekends I will go yard saling. Last weekend was one of those nice weekends, and I decided to head out. At a small sale where the majority of the books they had were romance, I found this wonderful Douglas Coupland. I have liked Douglas Coupland since high school when I read Generation X and All Families are Psychotic. Since then I have read all of his books except Hey Nostradomas!, Eleanor Rigby, Mircoserfs, and his new one, Jpod. His books are all very different, so some I have liked better than others. Life After God is only a short book, smaller than a mass market book, and it has little pictures inside to help stress important comments from Coupland's novel.

YOU ARE THE FIRST GENERATION RAISED WITHOUT RELIGION

From the flap:

What happens if we are raised without religion or beliefs? As we grow older, the beauty and disenchantments of the world temper our souls. We are all living creatures with strong religious impulses, yet where do these impulses flow in a world of malls and TV, Kraft dinner and jets? LIFE AFTER GOD is a compellingly innovative collection of stories responding to these themes. International bestselling author Douglas Coupland takes us into worlds we know exist but rarely see, finding rare grace amid our late 20th-Century lives.

How do we cope with loneliness? How do we deal with anxiety? The collapse of relationships? How do we reach the quiet, safe layer of our lives?

Coupland unplugs from his previous style, cutting through the hype of modern living and traveling inward to the elusive terrain of our dreams and nightmares. He uncovers a new kind of truth for a culture stuck on fast forward. A culture seemingly beyond God.

This novel is really a collection of short stories, with each of the stories answering a question presented on the flap. With a comedic flair, Coupland looks at how people react in a world seemingly without religion. For those of you that have never read Coupland, he is the type of author that looks at serious situations, but with a sense of humour. He doesn't have a preachy writing style, and I think that is why he is so easy to read. He also tends to change his thoughts, making you wonder what he himself really thinks, about the world around him.

Coupland is one of the more interesting Canadian authors. He is easy to read, but at the same time I am often left thinking about things. From this book, it was how people act with or without religion. In Coupland style, things are often left to your own interpretation of how he really thinks or what he is really thinking. He might not be the best author Canada has to offer, but he does offer readers a chance to think about the world around them. Even if his novels do take place in Canada for the most part, the issues he looks at are witnessed on a global spectrum.

3.5/5

Strange Heaven - Lynn Coady [June/06]

I have had this book to read for a while because I really enjoyed my last read by Lynn Coady, Saints of Big Harbour. It is the first novel that she wrote, and well worth the read. I mainly read it in anticipation of the new Lynn Coady novel, Mean Boy, that I should be receiving from Random House soon! Then I will back track and read her other novels. I have the rest reading set up, it wasn't that I didn't want to read her, it just kept getting pushed to the side with other reads. No worries, though, I am so excited to get her new novel that I will probably have it done the day I get it. It is one of those books you see at the bookstore and you really want, but it's in hardcover and you don't pay full price for hardcovers... Remind me later that's a bad rule!

Anyways, from the flap:

Strange Heaven is tearfully hilarious, as funny and appalling as real life. Bridget Murphy, almost 18, has gone to Halifax from industrial Cape Breton, had her baby, and given it up for adoption. She's apathetic, the doctors decide, so they transfer her to the psych ward of the children's hospital. There, she's cooped up with five seriously disturbed children and a flock of wan children.

Sent home from Christmas, Bridget faces domestic uproar. Her grandmother, Margaret P., raves and prays from her bed, banging the wall with her bedpan. Bridget's kind-hearted parents, Robert and Joan, also take care of Robert's mentally handicapped brother, Rollie. Joan's efforts to kepp the lid on are no match for Robert's wild profanity, Margaret's dementia, and Rollie's efforts to join the fray.

Bridget's boozy friends, her whining ex-boyfriend, and the chaos make up a "strange heaven" in which her apathy starts to lift. Her vague plan to hibernate at home forever is off. Whatever she does, her drifting days are over.

Okay, for starters, I always take it for granted that people are aware of the places in the Canadian books that I post on here, but someone pointed out that geography is not everyone's strong suit. So, to help, this novel takes place in Nova Scotia, Canda. That is one of the Maritime provinces, or on a map, one of the dots on the East coast. Halifax, where she goes to the hospital, is the capital of Nova Scotia, or for those that are still confused, one of the dots. Provided you know where Nova Scotia is on the map, Cape Breton is the part at the top, a little island-like structure that is attached but just barely. And that has been your geography lesson.

Moving on, one of the things that I enjoyed about this novel is the fact that the family last name was Murphy. Murphy is my relatives last name a couple generations back, so I found myself trying to place my family into the dysfunction. It worked well... The family in this book is a typical family in many ways, and that is why you can laugh at them, you can see yourself in them.

It is a very sad book in a way, watching Bridget come to terms with her decisions, but Coady does a very good job intersecting the humour as well. It makes the book better for that because it is not too serious, but then it is not too comical either. You can understand the dilemnas, but at the same time find something to laugh at. I don't think there are any characters in the novel that don't have mildly comical scenes. It makes you surprised it was her first novel!

Just writing this is getting me all excited to see how her work has improved from her first to her latest. While Saints of Big Harbour is one of her middle works, I haven't read it recently enough to give a fair comparison.

4/5

One for the Money - Janet Evanovich [June/06]

I have heard of a lot of people who have read the Stephanie Plum novels, so when the second hand store had a whole bunch of them one day, I decided to get book 1. They are not challenging reads, but they are highly entertaining. If the second hand store gets book two I can see myself reading it.

First things though, the back of the book:

One Fine Mess
Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, home to wiseguys, average Joes, and Stephanie Plum, who sports a big attitude and eve bigger money problems (since losing her job as a lingerie buyer for a depatment store). Stephanie needs cash-fast-but times are tough, and soon she's forced to turn to the last resort of the truly desperate: family...

One False Move
Stephanie lands a gig at her sleazy cousin Vinnie's bail bonding company. She's got no experience. But that doesn't matter. Neither does the fact that the bail jumper in question is local vice cop Joe Morelli. From the time her first looked up her dress to the time he first got into her pants, to the time Steph hit him with her father's Buick, M-o-r-e-l-l-i has spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e. And now the hot guy is in hot water - wanted for muder...

One for the Money
Abject poverty is a great motivator for learning new skills, but being trained in the school of hard knocks by people like psycho prizefighter Benito Ramirez isn't. Still, if Stephanie can nab Morelli in a week, she'll make a cool ten grand. All she has to do is become an expert bounty hunter overnight- and keep herself from getting killed before she gets her man...

That is a very detailed back to a novel, so I don't think I have to say much more about it. It is interesting to watch Stephanie try and fight crime as a bounty hunter when she really has no background in it. While she is entertaining, I found her potentially annoying. Have to see what happens as the books go along. For right now I found Morelli to be the more interesting character, but we will see what book two brings. An entertaining first novel, though. I have high hopes for the later ones.

3.5/5

The Fairy Godmother - Mercedes Lackey [June/06]

My friend lent me this book ages ago, and I finally read it! It is the first book that I have ever read by Mercedes Lackey, but I can see myself reading more because I enjoyed this book. Another fairy tale retelling, of course, it turned out to be an entertaining and magical novel.

From the back:

In the land of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, it you can't carry out your legendary role, life is no fairy tale...

Elena Klovis was supposed to be her kingdom's Cinderella - until fate left her with a completely inappropriate prince! So she set out to make a new life for herself. But breaking with "The Tradition" was no easy matter - until she got a little help from her own fairy godmother. Who promptly offered Elena a most unexpected job...

Now, instead of sleeping in the chimney, she has to deal with arrogant, stuffed-shirt princes who keep trying to rise above their place in the tale. And there's one in particular who needs to be dealt with...

Sometimes a fairy godmother's work is never done...

The fairy tales that you read as a child normally follow a distinct pattern called "The Damsel in Distress" scenerio. Where the handsome, normally prince, comes riding to the rescue of the beautiful young woman who has found herself in dire situations. Elena was supposed to follow that pattern, she had the evil stepmother and step-sisters, but her story turned out entirely different because they go away to try and find a better lifestyle, leaving Elena back home. So, she takes matters into her own hands and attempts to better her life. In the process she meets her fairy godmother, and receives a lifestyle that was beyond her wildest dreams.

She is transformed from an unpaid servant to a woman of her own household. She could have ended up with nothing, not having a prince to come to her rescue, but in like most fairy tales there is something special about her that makes her special enough to move out of her drab existence into her own happily ever after. This novel has everything: trolls, dragons, witches, wizards, sorceresses, and on and on.

The novel deals with the idea of free will and magic. Elena was set in her life and what she should do with it. Everyone is, as the novel says, dealing with what is set out for them to do. They get set in a certain storyline, as Elena was supposed to be her kingdoms Cinderella, there are other stories that are happening in her kingdom and the rest of the kingdoms. What we know as fairy tales. It demonstrates that things do not always happen as the person wants them to, but as magic decides for them. There are many times in the book where we see Elena play with "The Traditions" and make new life stories. When the same stories are told over and over again it is easy to learn how to switch them.

All in all, this was a very entertaining novel. I of course seem to have a thing lately with fairy tale retellings, and this is one of my favourites so far. Lackey has a new novel that is a retelling called Phoenix and Ashes, I can't wait to get to read that one if it is anything like this one.

4.5/5

The Birth House - Ami McKay [June/06]

This book is getting lots of attention in the town that I live in because it is written by a local author and takes place not far from where I live. I wanted to read it so bad that I bought it in hardcover, but it was 40 per cent off, so a good deal. From the front flap:

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of Rares. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing and a kitchen filled with herbs and folk remedies. During the turbulent first years of World War I, Dora becomes the midwife's apprentice. Together they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labours, breech births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling sex lives.

When Gilbert Thomas, a brash medical doctor, comes to Scots Bay with promises of fast, painless childbirth, many in the community begin to question Miss Babineau's methods. After the death of Miss Babineau, Dora is left to carry on alone. In the face of fierce opposition, she must summon all her strength and fight to protect the birthing traditions and women's wisdom that have been passed down to her.

Filled with details that are as compelling as they are surprising - childbirth in the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion, the prescribing of vibratory treatments to cure hysteria and a mysterious elixir called Beaver Brew - The Birth House is an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to have control of their own bodies and to keep the best parts of traditions alive in the world of modern medicine.

I have a signed copy of this novel, which is an added plus to the fact that I found it so interesting. When you are reading this novel you can feel that you are living during World War I and the surrounding years. The world has gone through many changes and the Halifax Explosion aids in changing things further. I read somewhere that the reason that McKay wrote this book was because she bought a house in Scots Bay and learned that it used to be used as a birthing house. With that in mind, she researched the history of both the area that she was living in and the house that she owned, and she came up with the story of Dora Rare.

For many years, women were the doctors of the small communities. They were the ones that brought the babies into the world and looked after those same babies when they were sick. But, in a man's world, it was not long before they believed that women should not even have that priviledge. You see the scenes in the maternity hospital where the woman doesn't even have the baby. She is drugged up and cut open and that is her birth. They are left with no memory of having the baby. Quite different from when the midwives do it, there are clear scenes of a child being born in this book under natural circumstances. Women grow to fear the doctor and his 'ways'.

Dora Rare is scared of being different, so at first she attempts to avoid the midwiving practice, but it was meant for her and soon she can not avoid it. Bad things happen, though, when the doctor attempts to close her out by joining up with some of the men of the village and trying to get their women folk to go with the modern methods. But the women rise up. Despite the fact there are scenes where the women are the submissive types of the time, they have their perks and are capable of getting what needs to be done, done. This is not a edge of your seat novel, but it is very enjoyable even if you do not live where it takes place.

4.5/5

Immortal in Death - J.D. Robb [June/06]

Following quickly on my review of Glory in Death, me and Marg (from Reading Adventures) decided that we were going to do a review together as we are both reading the In Death series. It is sort of fun to have similar tastes with someone, even when I prefer fantasy to her romance novels, we still have read many of the same books.

My thoughts are going to be written in blue, whilst Marg's thoughts will be in black! First, about the book:

It is 2058, New York City. Lieutenant Eve Dallas uncovers a world where technology can create beauty and youth, but passion and greed can destroy them.

She was one of the most sought-after women in the world. A top model who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted -even another woman's man. And now she's dead, the victim of a brutal murder.

Police lieutenant Eve Dallas puts her life on the line to take the case when suspicion falls on her best friend, the other woman in the fatal love triangle. Beneath the façade of glamour, Eve finds that the world of high fashion thrives on an all-consuming obsession with youth and fame-one that leads her from the lights of the runway to the dark underworld of New York City, where drugs can fulfill any desire, for a price.

I am happily working my way through this series slowly, and in this the third book in the series, I was pleased to see that this time Roarke was not a suspect!! Mainly because we could not have the perspective groom in jail on the wedding day! Or because people like him too much to keep having to bite their nails, and hope that Eve leaves the poor man alone.

This time Eve is called in to investigate the death of one of her weasels, someone who is willing to give her information about what is happening on the streets.

Not long after there is a seemingly unconnected death of a beautiful, high profile model, Pandora. She has a power that has gotten her to the top, a love of the high life and a poster girl for the one-night stand. She comes across as glamourous, but Eve quickly learns that there is more to her than meets the eye, especially when it seems as though her best friend Mavis is the prime suspect and Eve is called in as a friend and the primary investigator. When Mavis finds the dead body of Pandora, a beautiful woman who no one really likes, it seems inevitable that the clues will all point towards her - a classic set up. One of those predictable scenarios found in the most gripping cop novels.

When Eve has no choice but to arrest Mavis, she has to deal with her feelings in relation to betraying one of her few true friends, or as Roarke points out, her family. But Eve is a determined cop and with her battling it out for her friend, we know that justice will be served.

All of this is going on whilst Eve is trying to get ready for her wedding to Roarke. Roarke is taking care of most of the details, but there are a couple of things that Eve is determined to choose herself, and pay for herself, including the wedding dress… and all the things that her designer, Leonardo, seems to think that she needs. Since Leonardo is the one that connects Pandora and Mavis, being lovers to both of them, he turns out to be important to the novel in more ways than one.

As more bodies turn up that are brutalized in the same horrific manner, it becomes clear that there is a connection. It appears to be a new illegal drug, that is actually poisoning the addict slowly. A drug that is that is very pricey to produce because one of the ingredients is only available off-planet. Before destroying the user, though, it makes them appear and feel younger and sexier - definitely attractive to the masses, especially if they don't know about the side effects! Good for the significant other too because it offers a heightened sex drive! Watch out for the mood swings that follow, though.

In this novel, Lieutenant Dallas gets Officer Peabody added to her office, and we get to know the wise cracking officer who seems to be quite a good foil to Eve's apparent seriousness and troubled self, once you get under her stiff, cop-like exterior. We also begin to understand the relationship between Roarke and his butler, Summerset, when in a rare moment Roarke reveals an aspect of his ‘shady’ past to a very troubled Eve. If that is not enough deep psychological dealing for you, it is also the novel that Eve finally figures out the past that she has tried to forget for over twenty years, and then deal with the emotion that stirs up.

As far as the villain goes, as soon as he came onto the scene I didn't like him, but it didn't really seem as though we were really provided with all that many clues to point at him until all was revealed right at the end! But everyone knows that it is better to be in the dark than have the mystery solved in the first two pages. The whole fun of a Robb novel is the fact that there are usually twists and turns at every flip of the page.

My rating: 3.5/5
Marg's rating: 4/5

Once Upon a Summer's Day - Dennis L. McKiernan [June/06]

I bought this book because of the cover and because on the cover it says: "A fanciful fairy tale". That brief sentence meant a book purchase.

From the back of the book, though:

Once upon a summer day, Prince Borel of the Winterwood falls asleep, and a beautiful golden-haired maided with a shadowy band across her eyes comes to his dreams and pleads for aid. She returns time after time, and the prince is certain she is real and in deadly peril. Yet he knows not who she is... nor where she is imprisioned.

Opposed by witches and Trolls and Goblins and beings even more dreadful, and aided by a Field Sprite. Borel begins a desperate quest through the wonders and hazards of Faery, seeking a mysterious masked demoiselle guarded by perilous blades. And though time touches not this land of legend, time is running out...

Fantasy is my favourite genre, and I have hardly been reading any lately! I am going through a fairy tale retelling phase as I am reading The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey right now, which retells Cinderella and other fairy tale aspects. Once Upon a Summer's Day retells Sleeping Beauty. I found myself really enjoying this book, so I can not wait to read the other two books in the series! With a fourth one due out at an undisclosed time.

It is your typical adventure story with the handsome prince going off to save the damsel in distress. Not something I like to read all the time, but exceptions can be made if the book is well-written and interesting. This one was. There are a lot of strong female characters in it to make up for the stereo-typing, and in two of the other novels in the series it is a female going to save the male, so a happy medium. Prince Borel is quite the character anyways, with his back up at the start of the novel being a pack of wolves. Then when peril strikes and he is separated from them, we meet a Field Sprite and his friend, a bumble bee. That is an interesting cast of characters. They offer the humour to the tale.

It has all the great characters from fairy tales and fantasy novels. It is a book that once you start you will not want to stop. I think even people that don't normally fantasy novels. I am a kid at heart, reading all these fairy tale retellings.

4.5/5

Mercy - Jodi Picoult [June/06]

My second Picoult novel, yay! She reminds me of Lurlene McDaniel's in many ways, but she takes the tragic circumstances that take the children in McDaniel's novels and transfers them to an older audience. From the back of the book:

Police chief of a small Massachusetts town, Cameron McDonald makes the toughest arrest of his life when his own cousin Jamie comes to him and confesses outright that he has killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy.

Now, a heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval, and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, is suddenly at odds with his devoted wife. Allie - seduced by the idea of a man so in love with his wife that he'd grant all her wishes, even her wish to end her life. And when an inexplicable attraction leads to a socking betrayal, Allie faces the hardest question of the heart: when does love cross the line of moral obligation? And what does it mean to truly love another?

This book read meets a goal. I have a pile by my bed, it is the unfinished grave yard. I have been digging up some of the treasures and trying to find my table! It isn't that I didn't like the books, it is that I had other things going on and forgot about them! So, Mercy was one of those buried treasures!

First things first, what a sad book! There is not much else to say than that. Despite the fact it took me longer than it should have to read it, you really do get sucked into Jamie's situation. When he drives up to the police station with his wives body in the car, it really is a moment where you are stunned. It comes down to, why on earth did he kill his wife and then get so upset about it? Normally murder is not devastating for those that murder, so you soon know there is more to the story. Especially when they try to take the body away, his pain is raw let me tell you.

There are a couple things going on in this book. After Jamie tells the police chief, Cameron, about his wives illness and how she asks him to end her suffering before she gets any worse, there is the trial. We witness the scenes in the courtroom, but we also get to see the planning that went into the trial. Some people hated Jamie for what he had done, but others seemed to think that he had made the right choice and were doing everything they could to help him out. Allie, Cameron's wife, was his biggest supporter. She is the one that loved the most, as Jamie put it, and she found herself wondering what would happen to her and Cameron if that were to come about. In the meantime, she learns a lot about both loving and the man that she married. She is a sweet woman who is dedicated to her husband.

Then there is Cameron. He was forced back home to be the unoffical clan leader to these Scottish descendents. That meant being the police chief in many respects. He had no choice in the matter, his father died and it was expected of him. He is going through a period where he is starting to feel trapped and restless, something that leads him to make a choice that will affect many people. He is growing up in the novel, and moving towards a point where he is at terms with his life and the job that he holds.

Then, there is the love story. The novel goes back in the past and tells the story of Jamie and Maggie. If nothing else, we learn about how they came to have met and by the end of the novel, no matter how the court case comes out, we know that Jamie loved Maggie. It is too bad that their time together was cut short by such a devastating illness. There are scenes in this novel, all the things lost and never reclaimed that make your heart break and tears come to your eyes.

4.5/5

Gilead - Marilynne Robinson [June/06]

For a book club that I read with online, each member was allowed to choose one book, and those are the books we are going to read over the next year. The book for June is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It won the Pulitizer Prize, so you would think that it is an exceptional novel. From the front flap:

An intimate tale of three generations, from the Civil War to the twentieth century: a story about fathers and sons, and the spiritual battles that rage within all of us.

It's 1956 in Gilead, Iowa, towards the end of the Reverand John Ames's life. The son and grandson of preachers, he is absorbed in recording his family's story, a legacy for the young child he will never see grow up. Haunted by his grandfather's presence, John tells of the rift between his grandfather and his father: the elder, an angry visionary who fought for the abolitionist cause, and his son, an ardent pacifist. He is troubled, too, by his prodigal namesake, Jack (John Ames} Boughton, his best friend's lost son who returns to Gilead searching for a salvation the town might hold.

Told in John Ames's joyous, rambling voice that finds beauty, humor and truth in the smallest of life's details, Gilead is a wonderful, heartfelt song of celebration and acceptance of the best and the worst the world has to offer. At its heart is a tale of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, pitch-perfect in style and story.

This is a very slow read. It just took forever to get through and it is not even that many pages long! I can understand why it would appeal to the judges for the pulitizer, but it just did not work well for me. The book jumps around a lot, that can be annoying at many times, but more importantly, it is just plain hard to get into. It is one of those books that you either like or hate, I am not sure there is much road in between. For many people it seems to be the fact that you are left thinking about legacies that appeals to the readers. I just could not get into it enough to appreciate it.

2.5/5

Glory in Death - J.D. Robb [June/06]

Welcome back to the life of Lt. Eve Dallas in the second book in the long-running series. As the blurb about the book states:

The first victim was found lying on a sidewalk in the rain. The second was murdered in her own apartment building. Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas had no problem finding connections between the two crimes. Both victims were beautiful and highly successful women. Their glamorous lives and loves were the talk of the city. And their intimate relations with men of great power and wealth provided Eve with a long list of suspects including her own lover, Roarke. A a woman, Eve was compelled to trust the man who shared her bed. But as a cop, it was her job to follow every lead... to investigate every scandalous rumor... to explore every secret passion, no matter how dark. Or how dangerous...

It is not all the time that I find an author I can read so close together, I normally like to have some variety, but I find myself enjoying this novels enough to read them frequently. I am already started on book 3 of the series. It is interesting to watch Dallas deal with cases that many times hit close to her own dark and damning past. Her father treated her cruelly and now she is watching women die for much the same reason. Men and their need for power over women. In a crime novel Robb is pointing out that even in the future, if things don't change, men will be killing women because they believe that women have too much power. That is what this novel boils down to, power.

Eve also has to keep trying to work out her personal and professional life. Roarke is involved in most things that happen in the world and off it, so she finds herself constantly up against the man that she loves without even meaning to. It tests her again and again to understand that not everyone out there is going to hurt her, there are people she can trust. When she slowly starts opening herself to the world around her, the reader gets a chance to not only see her bring the bad guys down, but also come to terms with herself as a person.

3.5/5

Daughter of the Blood - Anne Bishop [June/06]

This month I decided to participate in a TBR challenge. The criteria is that it had to be a book recommended to you by someone, that is most of my pile, so I just randomly chose Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop. The first novel in The Black Jewels trilogy.

Title: Daughter of the Blood

Author: Anne Bishop

Year published: 1998

Why did you get this book? On the forums that I moderate, a Historical fiction forums, there was a thread about your favourite non-historical fiction novels. Someone posted a whole bunch of fantasy novels that she really enjoyed, after talking to her about it, I came away with a very long list. This is one of the books on that list.

Do you like the cover? Yep, especially since I have the whole trilogy and they all match!

Did you enjoy the book? Yep, I give it a 4/5. It is a very dark novel with witches, vampires, and hell being some of the major themes. I can't wait to read book 2, but there are few other books I want to attend to first. It is written by a female, and sometimes female authors and fantasy don't work well together because I am not a major fan of romance novels. This particular trilogy seems to work. I have been going through a vampire phase, reading authors like Laurell K. Hamilton and her Anita Blake series, so Bishop was a different author to cover in the vampire world.

Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? Yup, new author, but I will read her again. This book belongs to a trilogy, but then she has another trilogy that I have started collecting the books for.

Are you keeping it or passing it on? It's a keeper!

I am currently reading the third book in J.D. Robb's In Death series, Immortal in Death. I have already read three books by her.

Book Sale!

There was a sale on books yesterday, so I had fun. :)
I bought:

Phoenix and Ashes - Mercedes Lackey
Mammoth - John Varley
Dreams Made Flesh - Anne Bishop
Home from the Vinyl Cafe - Stuart McLean
The Fairy Godmother - Mercedes Lackey
His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
The Hallowed Hunt - Lois McMaster Bujold
Nadia's Song - Soheir Khashoggi

Yeah, these will keep me busy...

Too many choices!

This month, I would like to read:

Mary Queen of Scots - Margaret George (some of it anyways)
The Summer Tree - Guy Gavriel Kay
The Witches of Eileanan - Kate Forsyth
One for the Money - Janet Evanvich
Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold - Terry Brooks
Gravelight - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Bubbles Ablaze - Sarah Strohmeyer
Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon
A Rose for the Crown - Anne Easter Smith
And the next J.D. Robb book I haven't read...

Uh huh. That's quite a list!

I am currently reading book one in the Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop. And I am like 200 pages into Gabaldon. That's sort of a start, huh? lol

I will update more when I have a day off. I know, my blog is behind. I have good intentions, just not a computer of my own :(

Book Through Thursday.

These are the bestsellers for 1956...
Don't Go Near the Water, William Brinkley
The Last Hurrah, Edwin O'Connor
Peyton Place, Grace Metalious
Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis
Eloise, Kay Thompson
Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor
A Certain Smile, Françoise Sagan
The Tribe That Lost Its Head, Nicholas Monsarrat
The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir
Boon Island, Kenneth Roberts

On Blogging through Thursday, she asks how many have you read or heard of. My answer, haven't read any of them because I don't know what any of them are! And if I have heard of them, it was so random that I can't really remember. Sad or what!