Comments (0)

By Beth, September 1, 2010

The Mysterious Howling
By Maryrose Wood

A Whole Nother Story
By Dr. Cuthbert Soup

When You Reach Me
By Rebecca Stead

Sometimes you just want to feel like a kid again.  If you like gloomy mansions, governesses, orphans, and sly humor, try The Mysterious Howling.  If hilarious wordplay, Lemony Snicket, and The Mysterious Benedict Society are more your style, try the madcap romp A Whole Nother Story.  And if you want a nostalgic 1970’s-era time travel story, try Newbery-winner When You Reach Me.

Comments (0)

By Amanda, July 10, 2010

Dead in the Family
By Charlaine Harris

I don’t know why everyone told me this was not a good book.  I almost didn’t read it because I didn’t want to waste my time.  And while this isn’t my mostest favoritest series by my mostest favoritest authors (for those, see my PNRUFy list), I’m still glad I picked it up.

SPOILER ALERT – If you’d like to remain blissfully unaware of any events in the book, please stop reading now, go check it out, peruse it, and then come back.  We’ll still be here.  For the rest of us who’ve read the thing or for those of you who like to read the back page first (gasp!), soldier on…

This is the tenth book in Harris’s popular Southern Vampire series, and I must admit that the last couple haven’t really floated my train (yes, I know that train’s don’t float, as a rule, but imagine how good something would be to make that happen!).  I’m not really sure why I’m not in love with Sookie and her world, but the books usually just leave me flat.

This one, however, I thought was better.  There wasn’t one big plot device that Sookie and pals had to overcome.  It was more of a regrouping after the last couple of death-defying endings.  I enjoyed seeing the characters go about their everyday lives for a change.  After all, you don’t have to have an apocalypse in every book, right?

It was good for Bill to get some page time – even if it wasn’t under better circumstances.  I have to say, True Blood has redeemed Bill a little bit in my eyes, but I am still an Eric girl at heart.  Which means, I’m very glad Sookie and Eric got to spend a good chunk of time together.  They still have a few issues to work through, but I am keeping my fingers crossed for those two crazy kids.

Ok, fellow PNRUFy freaks, here’s my call on this one.  Not the best book you’ll ever read, but definitely worth the couple of hours it will take you to get through it.  When you’ve finished, treat yourself by checking out a few episodes of True Blood (We just got in season two! Woohoo!). 

Happy Sookiefying (Sookiesizing?)

Amanda

Comments (0)

By Jenny, July 1, 2010

The Cellist of Sarajevo
by Steven Galloway

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Canadian author Steven Galloway, is a brief novel of four ordinary people trying to maintain their humanity in the midst of war.

A young father meticulously makes his way through Sarajevo’s streets to bring back water from the brewery, the only safe source of water in the whole city, provided by springs deep beneath the earth. He loves his family. He wants to help his grumpy old neighbor lady. He keeps moving, one excruciating step at a time. Every intersection is perilous and snipers kill in an instant.

A man old enough to yearn for retirement finds himself toiling in the only bakery still operating in the city. He dreams of Sunday picnics and playing with grandchildren. Every day his walk to work is perilous. He is all alone in the city after his wife and son escaped on the last bus out of Sarajevo.

Amidst this danger, a cellist appears at 4pm daily on the spot where 22 people were gunned down standing in line for bread. He plays Albioni’ Adagio, a piece of music from 17^th century Venice discovered in the rubble of WW II’s firebombing of Dresden surviving that other terrible war. Is he playing for the dead or the living?

Arrow is the sharp shooter assigned to protect the cellist daily. Morally repulsed by this task, she was recruited for this duty against her will because she served on the university rifle team. Each of these characters yearns for normalcy and strives for humanity. This is an elegant and thought provoking little book.

- Phyllis

Comments (0)

By Amanda, June 19, 2010

The Help
By Kathryn Stockett

I like reading about the south.  It’s usually fiction and usually about the Civil War.  However, recently I’ve heard so many good things about Katheryn Stockett’s, The Help, that I decided to try it out – even though it’s set a century later than my favorite time period.  Thank you to everyone who told me to check out this book, because it was completely worth it.

The Help is about a handful of African-American maids and the white society ladies they work for in Jackson, MS during the racially-charged 1960’s.  I thought the characters were well developed and I really enjoyed how Stockett wove all the different story lines together.  Growing up in the racially-homogenous north (in a slightly more recent decade), we didn’t have help in the house, so I don’t know about the accuracy of the author’s portrayal.  All I know is that it was a good story and an enjoyable read – which is what I’m looking for in a book. 

Now, when you finish with The Help, I predicting that you’re gonna come in and say, “Amanda, I really liked this one.  What else you got like it?”  Well, because you asked so nicely, I am going to give them to you right now…no waiting.  I’ve got three books that I think are both very similar to, and as good as, The Help.

Book #1: The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder
by Rebecca Wells

I’ve told you about this little gem before.  Check out what I said here, and then feel free to jump into the fun. (Get it?  Jump in…because the girl of the cover is jumping…ha ha…but seriously folks…)

Book #2: Between, Georgia
by Joshilyn Jackson

I thought this one felt a lot like The Help. Not quite as racially divergent or controversial, but still a good, solid read.

 
Book #3: To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

Ok, I must admit I’m not the only one to make this comparison, but I do think it’s a good one.  Both of these are set in the south.  Both cover racial issues and civil rights tension.  And both are first major novels from their authors.   Mockingbird actually makes a few cameos in The Help, as the main characters read it.  One of my All-Time Top-Ten Reads (Ever!), you definitely can’t go wrong with this one.

So let’s get readin’, y’all.  (Sorry, that’s my best attempt at a southern accent…)

 Amanda

Comments (1)

By Jenny, June 17, 2010

Peninsula of Lies:  A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love
by Edward Ball

What Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil did for Savannah, this story does for Charleston.  I’m not sure why this story never achieved the same level of bestsellerdom but it’s just as lurid and fascinating.

It is the story of Gordon Langley Hall, the only son of parents who were “in service” to British aristocrats. After making his way to America he somehow managed to inherit the personal fortune of elderly American heiress Isabel Whitney. Hall headed to Charleston where he embarked on a grand restoration of an antebellum home on Society Street, filling it with fine antiques and making a place for himself in Charleston society. Adding further to his celebrity status he somehow managed to publish a string of  biographies, including one of Lady Bird Johnson.

All of this is scandalous enough but the real story begins when he takes up with a much younger African American man, changes his name to Dawn and has a sex change operation at Johns Hopkins. Bear in mind this all took place in the late sixties and early seventies. Think of the gossip. But wait, there’s more. Dawn shows up with a baby. Author Ball is to be commended for sorting the truth in the midst of a Gordian knot of lies, deceits and conflicting stories in this entertaining read.

- Phyllis

Comments (1)

By Amanda, June 12, 2010

Ok.  So I am cough cough years old (excuse me, ah, something in my throat :) ) and have never, until very recently, understood the allure of audio books.  I thought because I tend to read things very quickly that the slower pace of the books would bore me and make me lose interest.

But I’ve heard such good things about a few series, that I just decided to try a couple.  It’s not like it cost me anything but time (thank you, NPL!).  First up on the docket – my Harrys.  Harry Potter and Harry Dresden. 

The Harry Potter series  (by JK Rowling) is read by the illustrious Jim Dale who somehow manages to create a different timbre of voice for each of the myriad number of characters he presents.  I have read the print books numerous times and have the movies memorized, but it is still fun to hear them read to me in my car as I drive to work.  And somehow I manage to find something new every now and again.  The library has all the HP books on audio, so feel free to start listening today!

With Harry Dresden (by Jim Butcher), on the other hand, we were a little more selective in purchasing.  You can’t get the first couple of books on audio from us, but the back half of the series is just waiting on you to check them out.  This series is read by James Marsters – or Spike of Buffy fame, if you will.  He even uses his Spike voice when he reads Bob’s parts, which is awesome.  Marsters has that dry wit that totally works for Harry and I’ve long thought these two were a match made in heaven, and now I can see that I wasn’t wrong.  Good times.

I will admit that I have read all of these books before I listened to them, and I’m not sure I could tackle an audio book for a first “read.”  There are times when I find my mind wandering, which doesn’t matter so much if you already know the story.  Also, I can guarantee that the reason I like these so much is directly attributable to the reader.  If there was someone not quite as talented, that would be a complete turn-off for me (as would smelly feet and an overinflated sense of ego, but I digress…). 

After I finish with the Harrys, I’m going to listen to Paolini’s Eragon and Eldest to refresh my memory before I start Brisingr.  We’ll see how that works out with a new reader.   Fingers crossed…

So you may now consider me convinced (partially, at least) that audio books are good.  My name is Amanda, and I am an official audio book convert (more or less…).

Amanda

Comments (2)

By Jenny, June 10, 2010

Maisie Dobbs
by Jacqueline Winspear

My favorite mysteries feature women detectives who rely on pure intellect to solve their cases. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Dorothy L. Sayers Harriet Vane come to mind. Add to this list Maisie Dobbs, nurse, veteran of the First World War, Cambridge educated, psychologist and private detective. This series by Jacqueline Winspear begins with Maisie Dobbs and continues with the seventh volume, Mapping of Love and Death, due out in March 2010.

Begin with this first volume, for background on how a bright working class girl developed into the remarkable Maisie. Starting out as a servant after the death of her mother, she is taken under the wing of Lady Rowan, the vivacious and progressive aristocrat who recognizes Maisie’s talent and sees she receives a first rate education after intense tutoring by her friend psychologist Maurice Blanche. During WW I Maisie finds herself a nurse in a field hospital in France where she treats victims of mustard gas and other horrific injuries before she and her fiancé, surgeon Simon Lynch are both injured themselves.

This war experience provides the foundation for all of Maisie’s work as a private detective, giving her compassion and understanding as she navigates the harsh realities of post war England when the tremendous death toll of the war left many damaged souls as well as social and economic devastation. Somehow, the conclusions she reaches while solving her cases move Maisie and her clients a little closer to healing the wounds of war. For mystery lovers who relish plowing through multiple volumes at once, this character driven series is a prize.

- Phyllis

Comments (0)

By Amanda, June 5, 2010

My Soul to Take
By Rachel Vincent

Ah, teenage romance.   It’s fun for everyone.  Teens.  Vampires.  Bean Sidhes (also known as banshees).  In Vincent’s newest series, Soul Screamers, high school student Kaylee Cavanaugh is about to learn that things are not always what they seem.  Pretty girls around her keep dying, which is really freaking Kaylee out.  Literally.  She sees about-to-be-dead people and all she wants to do is scream.  Unfortunately, that’s what got her locked up in the psych ward.

But she can’t help feeling the way she does.  Turns out, Kaylee’s a bean sidhe.  Screaming around dead people is what she’s genetically programmed to do.   Doesn’t mean she has to like it.  Take the angst of Twilight, the female empowerment of Buffy, and add just a dab of that creepy I-see-dead-people kid from The Sixth Sense, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for with this one.

This series wasn’t quite as enjoyable as Vincent’s Werecats, but it did have its own unique take on banshee mythology.  A little predictable in places, Vincent’s left herself quite a few possibilties for future story lines. Before you pick up My Soul to Take, though, make sure you read the prequel, My Soul to Lose, which is a free download from Vincent’s website.  It’s short and if you don’t read it, you’ll be lost through most of the book.  Just FYI.

Alrighty.  Well, you better get reading.  After all, you’re not going to live forever…or are you? (insert evil laugh here)

Amanda

Comments (3)

By Amanda, May 29, 2010

The Spellmans Strike Again
By Lisa Lutz

Ok, let me ask you something.  When was the last time you started to read a book on the same day you checked it out from the library?  Maybe you’re a better library patron than I am, starting each book responsibly, as soon as you get it home.  But me?  I have what some would call a massive To-Be-Read (from here on known as TBR) pile, and what usually happens is that the books I get from the library go on top (because they have to go back before the ones I bought, which I own in perpetuity) and hopefully I get to them before my third renewal runs out (yes, you get three!  Woohoo!). 

Except with this book.

On the Friday I checked this out (I remember it was a Friday because I had to watch Friday Night Lights before I could read), I went home, had supper, watched TV, and then started it.  Being the fourth book and final (gasp) book in this series, I couldn’t wait to see what happened to my beloved Spellmans. 

If you’ve never met the Spellmans, let me bring you up to speed.  A family of PIs, the five members (Dad, Mom, David, Izzy, Rae - in birth order) seem to spend more time investigating each other than solving local mysteries.  Lutz has a charmingly eccentric writing style that includes the use of humorous footnotes.  Here are the books you need to read sooner than later:

Without giving too much away, this last entry finds Izzy struggling to deal with her family while at the same time trying to maintain the family business.  Her friend Len is pretending to be a butler, Henry is pretending he likes her again, and good old Morty is pretending to like the great state of Florida.

Lutz hasn’t said definitively that she’ll never write another Spellman book, but if she does, I’m going to have to wait a VERY VERY long time for it (sigh).  And that makes me sad. 

What am I gonna do without my annual Spellman fix? Oh yeah, my massive TBR pile. That’ll work.

Amanda

Comments (0)

By Bryan, May 17, 2010

Can’t get enough of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy? Can’t wait for the third book to come out in the U.S.? Check out these Stieg Larsson read-a-likes…

Comments (0)

By Amanda, May 8, 2010

Darkly Dreaming Dexter
By Jeff Lindsay

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a fan of the TV show Dexter (if you missed my previous thoughts, feel free to catch up here).  I’ve only got one more season to go before I am caught up with the general viewing public – so don’t spoil it for me.  (Yes, I heard what happens, but I’m still going to be surpised when the dark deed occurs.) 

While I’m waiting for the latest season to emerge on DVD, I thought I’d give the novels a chance.  I’m always curious to see how close the show/movie comes to the author’s original vision.  So to begin at the beginning, I picked up Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay.

Lindsay’s style of writing is good – narrative with just a hint of sarcasm.  It’s written in first person, much like the show is narrated with a Dexter voice-over.  We get all of the wonderfully macabre thoughts that flit across his brain.

Plotwise, the story is pretty similar to season one.  Bad guy is the same.  End result is slightly different – one character dies in the book that doesn’t die on the show and Deb has a different level of involvement with our villain, but the main objective is still acheived.

Since the endings were slightly different, I’m interested to see where book #2 goes, compared to season 2.  in fact, I may have to read all four books in the series (a fifth is coming out in September 2010). 

TBR pile: 429-1+4…  Will it never end?

Amanda

Comments (0)

By Kyle, May 7, 2010

Pressed for time? Check out these three stellar collections of Southern short stories:

Reasons for and advantages of breathing

Mrs. Darcy and the blue-eyed stranger : new and selected stories

New stories from the South : the year’s best, 2009

- Beth

Comments (0)

By Bryan, May 3, 2010

Chronic City
by Jonathan Lethem

Chronic City concerns Chase Insteadman, a washed-up-by-choice ex-child actor who lives off royalties and gourmet chow at Manhattan dinner parties. Though he has no paying roles, his life his is public theater as his fiance Janice is stuck in orbit above Earth in a failing space station. Her government censored love letters to him are published in the New York Times for all the world to read.  Succumbed to being the public’s emo boy, Chase’s life is revived when he meets Perkus Tooth, a washed-up-by-force counter culture film critic. Via Perkus, Chase also meets Richard Abneg, an ex-squatters rights advocate turned enforcer for the billionaire mayor, and Oona Laszlo, an ex-protege of Perkus, who now ghost writes celebrity biographies. Ironically, these are the most authentic people Chase knows in Manhattan.

Chase, Perkus and company sit in Perkus’ rent controlled apartment smoke up (the chronic of the title), chug coffee, and literally deconstruct the universe. On one level it is a bromance between Chase and Perkus. On another level it is an exploration of the relationship between mental space and physical space. As more plot altering truths about the nature of the city are revealed Chase’s life begins to solidify while Perkus’ begins to disintegrate. This where Philip Dick’s influence on Lethem comes into play. Reality is a pastiche. It can be cut and pasted, melted, recycled. It’s a dream Manhattan. It’s winter time all year. The skyscrapers on the cover are the tiny golden books compacted in your laptop– the things we write ourselves in and out of existence with– the things those who live who live further up town than us write us in and out of existence with.

Lethem has created an unclassifiable book that doesn’t fit in any easy categories. I loved it.  Chronic City recommend it to anyone that has ever sat around with friends geeking out over books, movies and music, and to anyone who fears they are slowly only living their life through the internet.

Comments (2)

By Pam, April 16, 2010

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag
by Alan Bradley

I wish I were finding this book (and its predecessor, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) twelve years from now. I love discovering a worthy series and then greedily reading all the titles one after the other, in order, of course! More’s the pity when you begin a series early on and have to wait a year between titles.

This second in the Flavia de Luce series is every bit as enticing as the first (read the staff review by Phyllis). We’ve come to adore our heroine Flavia, an 11-year-old chemistry savant with a penchant for poison and an encyclopedic memory for English literature and history. I’ve read criticism that the character is unbelievable in that regard, but my friend Ariel, a retired librarian with legendary recall, could easily have been Flavia in another life. And hey, it’s just a story, so lighten up!

This time around, Flavia unravels two mysterious deaths in her village of Bishop’s Lacey–one in the present (well, in the 1950s present) and one in the past. Along the way, we meet Rupert the creepy but talented puppeteer, the aged singing and piano playing Puddock sisters, overbearing Aunt Felicity from London, and Dieter, an Anglophile POW from Hitler’s Luftwaffe.  And there are roles for our favorites from Sweetness, as well: Dogger the shellshocked gardener/butler; Mad Meg the town nutter; and, of course, Flavia’s mean sisters Feely and Daffy. By the end of the book, every human being in Bishop’s Lacey is suspect, including the sainted vicar, and it’s great fun to ponder along with Flavia even if you can’t do the chemistry.

My sole criticism is that the publisher cheaped out on the book’s manufacture. The cover illustration and title of Sweetness is charmingly printed directly on the book’s cover board, with no dust jacket, giving it an old-fashioned look and feel. Random House didn’t do a thing in the world with Weed’s binding, opting instead for a dust jacket design. So they’ve already spoiled the design of what deserves to be a very a collectible set. –Pam

Comments (0)

By Pam, April 9, 2010

City of Silver
by Annamaria Alfieri

I bumped into this book browsing the new books at the main library and loved the cover so much I had to check it out. Well, let me tell you, it was fascinating. So who knew anything about the silver mines in Peru in the 17th century? Certainly not I—I must have been asleep when we went over Peruvian history in high school.

This is a very nice little mystery featuring Mother Maria Santa Hilda, abbess of a convent in the booming town of Potosi (upper Peru, part of Bolivia now). Mother Maria must prove that a wealthy townsman’s daughter did not commit suicide under her care at the convent in order to save herself from the fires of the Inquisition, brought all the way from Spain to the New World. The mystery is pleasant enough, but it’s almost a side story to the class and color wars, the horror of the silver mines, and the stories of the Spaniards who found themselves trying to recreate their former social system in the thin air of the Andes. The sidelines about the Church and Inquisition are worthy, as well. For those who love clerical mysteries (here’s a huge list of literary priests, pastors, rabbis, monks & nuns), this fits the bill.