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The Secret Life of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd
Penguin (Non-Classics), 2003
Gorgeous Prose and Characters
The Secret Life of Bees is one of those books that is always talked about yet might not be as good as people say it is. You don't really know until you read it yourself. It has reached such a high pedestal in today's literature that it might just be hype. But it is ...
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The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
Amity Shlaes
Harper Perennial, 2008
Every American Should Read This Book
Amity Shlaes has written a timely and provocative book. As our presidential election nears, one can hear Republicans and Democrats alike arguing for more government action, more government-sponsored bailouts, more government intrusion into the market. As one ...
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The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
Jennet Conant
Simon & Schuster, 2008
No Dagger, But Lots of Cloak
Fans of _James and the Giant Peach_ and _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ may be surprised to learn that their author was a British spy.
Roald Dahl's espionage career was brief, running from 1942 to 1945. Also, he spied on an ally (the USA) rather than an enemy. ...
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The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British
Sarah Lyall
W. W. Norton, 2008
A Fond But Caustic (And Hilarious) Look At The British
Sarah Lyall is an American journalist married to a British journalist. The Anglo Files is part memoir, part traveler's advisory, part hate mail, and part love affair. If that seems like a lot to pack into a 263 page book not including index, it would be in the hands ...
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Odd Hours
Dean Koontz
Bantam, 2008
Another Dean Koontz Oddity
As usual Dean does it again with Odd. As with all Dean Koontz stories you're captured right from the first page. Because it's an Odd series you already know you are hooked even before you opened the book. So for all of us Dean and Odd fans just sit back and read ...
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The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Scribner, 1999
Classic romance and tale of a man who isn't exactly what he seems
Set in the Roarin' Twenties, this unforgetable classic is a romance as well as the story of Jay Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald told the story in a unique way, through the voice of Nick Carraway, an impartial aquaintace of both Gatsby and Daisy.
Details of the golden ...
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The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Timothy Egan
Mariner Books, 2006
The American dust bowl and the grit and gumption of those who will never forget
Subtitled "The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl", this 2006 non-fiction account of this American tragedy is historical writing at its best. The author is a Pulitizer Prize winning reporter for the New York Times. I loved his simple but ...
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The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
Erik Larson
Vintage, 2004
Creepy-cool slasher history
Creepy-cool history of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, intertwined with the history of the serial killer H. H. Holmes who was operating at and around the Fair and may have accounted for anywhere from 9 (confirmed) to 50 (suspected) to even 200 (conjectured) murders.
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The Great Crash 1929
John Kenneth Galbraith
Mariner Books, 1997
Spooky
I started reading this book the day before the most recent crash started. Every night I picked it up, and it mirrored the current events so closely, that it was more than a little scary. Why won't we learn from the mistakes of the past?
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Nineteen Minutes
Jodi Picoult
Washington Square Press, 2008
Brilliant Book
This was the first book i've read by jodi Picoult and i loved it! The setting is in New Hampshire, where i have traveled to. I was familiar with the atmosphere so i could easily place the imagery in my head.
At first i was a little worried that i wouldn't be able to ...
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The Great Gatsby (Penguin Popular Classics)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Penguin Books, 2007
Shines Brilliantly Like a Just-Discovered Piece of Cameo Jewelry from a Bygone Era
It's difficult to give any even-handed critique F. Scott Fitzgerald's standard-setting Jazz Age novel since it was required reading for most of us in high school. However, if you come back to it as a full-fledged adult, you'll find that the story still resonates but ...
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The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (P.S.)
Barbara Kingsolver
Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005
A Gem of Postcolonial Literature
"Jesus is Bangala!" declares Reverend Nathan Price to his ragtag congregation deep in the Congolese jungle. The exclamation is full of irony; in the villagers' native Kikongo, "bangala" means either "precious and dear" or "poisonwood tree," depending on the ...
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The Last Colony
John Scalzi
Tor Science Fiction, 2008
The Last Colony
The Last Colony
This book is the latest in John Scalzi's series of super humans, and while many have considered him the next Heinlein, that bit gets bandied around way too much. He is not the next Heinlein but he is an phenomenal writer. The Old Man's war series ...
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Good in Bed
Jennifer Weiner
Washington Square Press, 2002
Great Start, Slow Finish
I read this book on Kindle, so I got to read a sample chapter before I bought it. The first two thirds of the book are really funny, and surprisingly well written, with enough twists and turns and great laughs to keep me avidly turning each page. Then the author gets ...
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The Last Oracle: A Novel (Sigma Force)
James Rollins
William Morrow, 2008
'The Last Oracle' is my first stop on the Rollins rollercoaster!
This is my very first James Rollins book and I must say that I really, REALLY enjoyed it! Even though there was a lot of scientific "stuff" in it, I didn't get lost and didn't feel stupid! Rollins definitely has a way with words and driving things along at a MACH-3 ...
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