Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Cherry Cola Book Club by Ashton Lee

The best way to describe The Cherry Cola Book Club: a cozy with no mystery.

Maura Beth Mayhew is a young librarian working in the small town of Cherico, Mississippi. She truly loves her job and more importantly, the tiny, quaint library that she is in charge of. However, not everyone in Cherico feels the same way. The city council wants to use the funds that would normally go to the Library to bring in an industrial park. Maura Beth is shocked when she is given just five months to bring up her circulation figures and prove the Library is relevant.

Maura Beth is really in trouble. As it stands, the city council has never given her enough funds to stay relevant. They would not even fund computers so patrons could use the Internet!

At a loss as to what to do, Maura Beth seeks solace from her best friend and owner of the most popular cafe in the area. There, she meets Connie, a woman that has recently moved from Nashville. Connie loves reading, and gives Maura Beth an idea. Why not start a book club featuring important Southern women writers? Surely that might increase Library usage.

Now Maura Beth and her friends are off and running, trying to save the Library. But can they do it in time?

While this is a nice story about friends in a small town setting, it does address an issue that really is affecting libraries all across the country.

Karen

Read-alike: Book, Line and Sinker by Jenn McKinlay

Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young


If a reader is not already interested in the subject of a biography, will that person enjoy the book? For Neil Young’s autobiography Waging Heavy Peace the answer is a definite no. Even casual Neil Young fans familiar with radio hits such as “Southern Man” and “Heart of Gold” will likely lose patience with Young’s rambling storytelling style. But long time fans such as this reviewer are likely to feel that Young’s long awaited autobiography couldn't have turned out any better.

A lot of celebrity autobiographies are partially or completely written by ghost writers and based off of interviews with said celebrity. From page one it’s clear that Young wrote most if not all of Waging Heavy Peace himself. The book jumps around quite a bit rather than telling Young’s life story chronologically. This is unconventional for an autobiography, but I thought it just added to its charm. The book’s greatest quality is its intimate feeling, as if you’re sitting in a room with the author listening to him tell stories about his almost fifty year long music career.

John

Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Secret Keeper: a Novel by Kate Morton

True to form, Kate Morton has once again written a sweeping saga, this time set in 1941 London during the war. The novel begins in 1961, when main character Laurel, then 16, witnesses a horrific act committed by her mother, Dorothy. Then, we jump ahead to 2011, and Dorothy is dying. Laurel has never forgotten what she saw so many years before, and wants to uncover what really happened before her mother dies.  The tension slowly builds as Laurel realizes that the woman she has known as her sweet, loving mother was an entirely different person when she was young.

The Secret Keeper is the story of love, hope, desperation and deceit. Just as expected, the author has written an intense novel with special attention to historical details and the complexities of the human spirit and the will to survive.

At 484 pages, I was still left with wanting more. You really care about her characters, and do not want the story to end.

This is well worth the time it takes to finish!

Karen

Read-alike: The Sins of the Father by Jeffrey Archer




Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich

Okay, okay. I was not expecting anything new when I read Janet Evanovich's newest Stephanie Plum novel. And judging by all of the comments I have read online, neither had anyone else. But that is the beauty of Notorious Nineteen. We are not checking this out to be inspired or educated; we are checking it out to be entertained. And entertain she does!

This time Stephanie and her sidekick Lula are on the trail of an embezzler that has disappeared from a hospital after an appendectomy. Of course there are the usual car explosions, dead bodies, and bad hair days, but that's part of the appeal of this series.

Don't be a hater - just enjoy. And maybe, just maybe, #20 will be the one where the Ranger/Morelli decision is made! One can only hope... That is the reason we all continue to read these, right???

Karen

Monday, April 8, 2013

Crossroads by Wm. Paul Young



Young is the author of the mega best-selling Christian novel The Shack.  His new book, Crossroads, while less provocative, nonetheless deals with death.  In this case, though, it is spiritual death.  Tony Spencer is a wealthy real estate businessman who experienced familial loss and has alienated his remaining family members.  After suffering a cerebral hemorrhage and falling into a coma, he undergoes a spiritual rebirth.  The book is full of metaphors, and Young personifies the Holy Spirit as a Native American grandmother.  Tony is stuck "in between" life and death and encounters Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who show him what the current condition of his heart and ego are like.  Tony is also given some gifts:  the ability to "slide" into the bodies of various people and the ability to heal one person with the help of God.  Since I haven't read Young's first book, and I am leery of Christian fiction that tries too hard to make its point, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I was deeply moved by the narrative and the unique way Young portrays Tony's change of heart. The book will cause the reader to think about the state of his own heart and how he relates to others.

Dawn

If you enjoy Young's books, you may also enjoy books by Ted Dekker.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

A Cold and Lonely Place



A man is found encased in ice in upstate New York. Who is he? How did he get there? Freelance writer Troy Chance is documenting the Winter Carnival ice palace, and knows exactly who the dead man is. He is the boyfriend of Troy’s roommate, who is quickly implicated in his death. The harder question to answer is how did the man end up under the ice. The dead man’s sister asks Troy to write an in-depth feature on him. Troy assumes that he is a no-good deadbeat. She discovers that there is much more than meets the eye.

I loved the premise of A Cold and Lonely Place, but I didn’t love the book. Many of the details were simply told to readers, instead of shown. Troy’s roommate is implicated almost immediately, which was too convenient. A detail that’s revealed at the very end of the book could have been brought out much earlier to make it more plausible that the roommate did it. There were a lot of interesting family secrets revealed much too late. I felt that the book was wrapped up too quickly and neatly.

This was the second book from Sara J. Henry that features Troy Chance. I didn’t read the first book, but the author gave me enough background where I didn’t feel completely lost.


Read-alike book: The Water’s Lovely by Ruth Rendell


Carrie

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The Circle by Bentley Little

This creepy novella is just what you would expect from Bentley Little.

The CircleThe inhabitants of the neighborhood of William Tell Circle (better known as The Circle are in for quite a night. For Helen and her husband, a knock at the door brings a very unwanted and unpleasant stranger. And what this stranger leaves behind is even more unwanted and unpleasant.

And then there is young Frank, who with some local boys decide to investigate a shrine on the property of a very strange lady. Frank knows his older brother and one of his friends are going that night, and decide to follow them. What do Frank and his buddies see? Once again, very unwanted and very unpleasant.

And finally there is Gil, who goes out into the night simply to walk his dog. But when Gil encounters the son of one of his neighbors, well, let's just say being nosy can make you not only unwanted but also unpleasant.

The three stories are loosely linked, and only a master horror writer like Bentley Little can pull it all together.

So if you are in the mood for something unwanted and unpleasant, here you go...

Karen

Read-alike author: Stephen King (but only for this novella)

Monday, April 1, 2013

Give Me Everything You Have by James Lasdun


We have all heard the recent stories about cyber-bullying , particularly among teenagers, but James Lasdun, the author of Give Me Everything You Have: On BeingStalked, had it happen to him in middle age for reasons that he spends most of this book trying to figure out. Lasdun calls his stalker Nasreen (not her real name) and first meets her in a creative writing class he teaches at an east coast college. He likes her writing very much and gives her what he feels are encouraging but entirely appropriate comments.  When she contacts him again several years later about reading the novel she has been working on he politely declines but suggests she send it to a friend of his who is a literary agent.

In the following months, Lasdun and Nasreen initially engage in what he feels are friendly emails he might send to other fellow writers, and since he does admire her work and she is no longer his student he sees nothing inappropriate in the exchanges. Things take a bizarre turn once the agent passes on Nasreen’s book and her emails quickly start to become bizarre and accusatory. Nasreen starts making anti-Semitic comments (Lasdun is Jewish) and accuses him of taking her manuscript and selling parts of it off to other writers. She also accuses him of setting up an alleged attack that happened to her before the two had even met. Soon Nasreen’s wrath moves beyond emails and she starts emailing the author’s colleagues and attacking his work and his character on various websites, some of which have a wide readership.

Lasdun spends a large part of the book trying to investigate if there was something he might have done to provoke any of this. Could an innocent comment he made here or there have meant something more to her? He also finds, somewhat surprisingly, that there are moments even when she is at her most bizarre that he pities Nasreen. He goes to the police and the FBI several times but never with much of anything in the way of results. Ultimately, this book is not just a story about being stalked but one that shows how much our legal system has not adapted to the age of the internet.

John

Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay

Trust Your Eyes has to be the most suspenseful book I have read in years! This is the story of Ray Kilbride, a talented illustrator living a fairly simple life. But this simple life is turned upside down when the accidental death of his father means having to move back home to look after his adult brother Thomas, who has schizophrenia. Thomas is really into maps. And I mean really into maps. Maps cover the walls of not only his entire bedroom, but all over the hallway as well. Thomas is also on a mapping website that shows you areas in real time. You see, Thomas has been doing work for the government. He believes there is a security threat to the nation's GPS System, and at some point they will need him because not only does Thomas really like maps, he can memorize them. He can tell you exactly what is on the corner of Main and Second Streets in Boston. Or Chicago. Or Paris. Thomas is very happy with his work until one day, while on the website, he believes he witnesses a murder in New York. Thomas begs Ray to investigate.

Is there anything to be found, or is it all in his brother’s head?

Karen

Read-alike author: Harlan Coben

April Fool's Day Brings Quirky Characters



Happy April Fool’s Day! It’s a day full jokes, pranks, and tricks. April Fool’s Day makes me think of books with quirky characters. If you like funny characters with lots of quirks, check out these books. 

C by Tom McCarthy

Opening in England at the turn of the twentieth century, C is the story of a boy named Serge Carrefax, whose father spends his time experimenting with wireless communication while running a school for deaf children. Serge grows up amid the noise and silence with his brilliant but troubled older sister, Sophie: an intense sibling relationship that stays with him as he heads off into an equally troubled larger world. After a fling with a nurse at a Bohemian spa, Serge serves in World War I as a radio operator for reconnaissance planes. When his plane is shot down, Serge is taken to a German prison camp, from which he escapes. Back in London, he's recruited for a mission to Cairo on behalf of the shadowy Empire Wireless Chain. All of which eventually carries Serge to a fitful--and perhaps fateful--climax at the bottom of an Egyptian tomb.

 The Devil in the Junior League by Linda Francis Lee


The Junior League of Willow Creek, Texas, is tres exclusive. Undesirables need not apply. Fredericka Mercedes Hildebrand Ware (Frede to her friends) is a member beyond reproach...until her life begins to unravel. When her husband betrays her, steals her money, and runs off to places unknown, it's something Frede would rather keep under wraps. The last thing she needs is to become fodder for the JLWC gossip mill. And to make matters worse, there's only one person in town who stands a chance at helping her get revenge: Howard Grout, a tasteless, gold-chain-wearing lawyer who has bought his way into Frede's tony neighborhood. But there’s a price: She has to get his tacky, four-inch-stiletto-and-pink-spandex-wearing wife Nikki into the Junior League. 




Bruno Littlemore is quite unlike any chimpanzee in the world. Precocious, self-conscious and preternaturally gifted, young Bruno, born and raised in a habitat at the local zoo, falls under the care of a university primatologist named Lydia Littlemore. Learning of Bruno's ability to speak, Lydia takes Bruno into her home to oversee his education and nurture his passion for painting. But for all of his gifts, the chimpanzee has a rough time caging his more primal urges. His untimely outbursts ultimately cost Lydia her job, and send the unlikely pair on the road in what proves to be one of the most unforgettable journeys -- and most affecting love stories -- in recent literature.

Flamingo Rising by Larry Baker

In this touching, hilarious novel of the heart and mind, of dreams and memory, of desire and first love, Abe Lee comes of age in the 1960s, living with his unforgettable family at the Flamingo Drive-In Theatre on a scrubby patch of coast between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida. There, some of America's last sweet moments of innocence are unfolding. For Abe's father, Hubert, there's nothing better than presenting larger-than-life Hollywood fantasies on his vast silver screen. Nothing, that is, except gleefully sparring with Turner West--a funeral home operator who doesn't much appreciate the noise and merriment from the drive-in next door. Within the lively orbit of this ongoing feud is Abe's mother, Edna Marie, whose calm radiance conceals deep secrets; his sister, Louise, who blossoms almost too quickly into a stunning, willful young woman; and Judge Lester, a clumsy man on the ground who turns graceful when he takes to the sky, towing the Flamingo banner behind his small plane. Then Abe falls for Turner's beautiful daughter Grace. That's when, long before the Fourth of July festivities, the fireworks really begin.

The Hearse Case Scenario by Tim Cockney

Hitchcock Sewell is up to his ears in murders, and the latest clues point to a Baltimore nightclub. Following his nose, Hitch uncovers a host of nefarious goings-on as well as some downright strange characters, including a felonious artist, a Miles Davis wanna-be, an Ida Lupino look-alike, and one very irritated dance instructor. Put them all together, throw in a bag full of cash and an incriminating Polaroid, and you have another surefire, humor-laced hit.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Somewhere in the not-so-distant future, the screwed-up residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the Enfield Tennis Academy search for the master copy of a movie so dangerously entertaining that its viewers die in a state of catatonic bliss. Explores essential questions about what entertainment is, why we need it, and what it says about who we are. 
  
Lowboy by John Wray

Early one morning in New York City, Will Heller, a sixteen-year old paranoid schizophrenic, gets on an uptown B train alone. Like most people he knows, Will believes the world is being destroyed by climate change; unlike most people, he's convinced he can do something about it. Unknown to his doctors, unknown to the police - unknown even to Violet Heller, his devoted mother - Will alone holds the key to the planet's salvation. To cool down the world, he has to cool down his own overheating body: to cool down his body, he has to find one willing girl. And he already has someone in mind.

 Office Girl by Joe Meno

Odile is a lovely twenty-three-year-old art-school dropout, a minor vandal, and a hopeless dreamer. Jack is a twenty-five-year-old shirker who's most happy capturing the endless noises of the city on his out-of-date tape recorder. Together they decide to start their own art movement in defiance of a contemporary culture made dull by both the tedious and the obvious. Set in February 1999, just before the end of one world and the beginning of another, Office girl is the story of two people caught between the uncertainty of their futures and the all-too-brief moments of modern life. 
 

Out of Warranty by Haywood Smith

"If you have anything weird wrong with you in this country, you'd better be Canadian." So says widowed Cassie Jones when, after being written off by countless doctors, she finally finds one who diagnoses her with a rare genetic form of arthritis. The condition is manageable, but not curable, and a new diagnosis, so her health insurance refuses to pay for most of her expensive medications and treatment. So widowed Cassie, still grieving for the love of her life and facing destitution because of her medical bills, decides she has to remarry for better health coverage. Enter one-legged hermit and curmudgeon Jack Wilson, on the same appointment schedule at their specialists, who's rude and obnoxious, but eventually tries to help by setting up e-dating for Cassie. After a hilarious round of fix-ups and e-dating, Cassie's left with no hope and no prospects. That's when Jack offers a strictly business marriage that could solve both their problems, with a serious set of house rules, including separate bedrooms. How well it will work remains to be seen.

 The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

After losing virtually everything meaningful in his life, Benjamin trains to be a caregiver, but his first client, a fiercely independent teen with muscular dystrophy, gives him more than he bargained for and soon the two embark on a road trip to visit the boy's ailing father.




Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline—think Buddenbrooks set in the Florida Everglades—and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as the World of Darkness.

Ava, a resourceful but terrified twelve year old, must manage seventy gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief. Her mother, Swamplandia!’s legendary headliner, has just died; her sister is having an affair with a ghost called the Dredgeman; her brother has secretly defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their sinking family afloat; and her father, Chief Bigtree, is AWOL. To save her family, Ava must journey on her own to a perilous part of the swamp called the Underworld, a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine.


This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family--including Judd's mother, brothers, and sister--have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd's wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd's radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch's dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family. As the week quickly spins out of control, longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed, and old passions reawakened. For Judd, it's a weeklong attempt to make sense of the mess his life has become while trying in vain not to get sucked into the regressive battles of his madly dysfunctional family. All of which would be hard enough without the bomb Jen dropped the day Judd's father died: She's pregnant.

Until I Find You by John Irving

When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womanizer, is always a step ahead – has always just departed in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local master or “scratcher.”

Alice and Jack abandon their quest, and Jack is educated at schools in Canada and New England – including, tellingly, a girls’ school in Toronto. His real education consists of his relationships with older women – from Emma Oastler, who initiates him into erotic life, to the girls of St. Hilda’s, with whom he first appears on stage, to the abusive Mrs. Machado, whom he first meets when sent to learn wrestling at a local gym.  


Jack has always lived in the shadow of his absent father. But as he grows older – and when his mother dies – he starts to doubt the portrait of his father’s character she painted for him when he was a child. This is the cue for a second journey around Europe in search of his father, from Edinburgh to Switzerland, towards a conclusion of great emotional force.

  
Carrie