New Books of May 2012
02 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Books Tags: clutter, coming of age, dogs, fiction, historical fiction, indians, Korean War, list, magicians, Native Americans, new, organizations, racism, readalikes, reincarnation
A Dog’s Journey
W. Bruce Cameron
Buddy is a good dog. After searching for his purpose through several eventful lives, Buddy is sure that he has found and fulfilled it. Yet as he watches curious baby Clarity get into dangerous mischief, he is certain that this little girl is very much in need of a dog of her own. When Buddy is reborn, he realizes that he has a new destiny. He’s overjoyed when he is adopted by Clarity, now a vibrant but troubled teenager. When they are suddenly separated, Buddy despairs – who will take care of his girl?
The Lower River
Paul Theroux
Ellis Hock loved teaching in Malawi for the Peace Corps, but that experience was cut short when he had to return to take over the family business. Thirty-five years later, the store and his marriage have failed, and he returns to Malawi for a nostalgia-induced vacation. He’s warned on arrival that people are hungry and only want money, but he heads into the bush with a bagful of it. Malabo, the remote riverbank village where he’s remembered as the mzungu (white man) who helped build the school and clinic, gives him a warm welcome, but Hock’s disillusion sets in fast. The school is a ruin; the visiting doctor is a quack; AIDS is rampant; requests for money are constant. The villagers keep him under surveillance at the direction of the headman Manyenga, who is all smiles and lies. He makes three escape attempts. All his escapes are foiled by the formidable Manyenga. This novel will have you on the edge of your seat wondering whether he will escape, and what will happen to the villagers.
Magic Words
Gerald Kolpan
Young Jewish immigrant Julius comes of age surrounded by the wild world of 1867 Nebraska. While traveling in the American West, he is captured by the Ponca Indian tribe. Living as a slave, Julius meets the noble chief Standing Bear and his young daughter, Prairie Flower, with whom he falls in love. Becoming the tribe’s interpreter-its speaker-his life seems safe and settled. But Julius has reckoned without the arrival of his older cousin, Alexander-who, as the Great Herrmann, is the most famous young magician in America. Filled with adventure, humor, and colorful characters, Magic Words is a riveting adventure about the nature of prejudice, the horror of genocide, and a courageous young man who straddles two worlds to fight for love and freedom.
A Gift for My Sister
Ann Pearlman
Sky and Tara share the same mother but different fathers. Sky is cautious, dutiful, marrying the perfect man, practicing her dream career as a lawyer, and raising their daughter, Rachel. Music is all Tara cares about until Aaron, a black rapper with a juvenile record, comes along. Tara gets pregnant in high school and runs away with Aaron and his rap crew. About the time Tara and Aaron’s music takes off and they are on their way to stardom, Sky’s life crashes. Tara attempts to step in and help only to be met with anger and jealousy. The two sisters, along with an interesting collection of other characters, spend the time on the road, and between gigs, trying to understand what it’s like to be the other sister and just what love and family mean.
Home
Toni Morrison
Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits his memories from childhood and the war that have left him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he had thought he could never possess again.
Objects of My Affection
Jill Smolinski
Lucy Bloom is broke, freshly dumped by her boyfriend, and forced to sell her house to send her nineteen-year-old son to drug rehab. So when she’s offered a high-paying gig helping clear the clutter from the home of reclusive and eccentric painter Marva Meier Rios, Lucy grabs it. Fueled by a burning desire to get her life back on track, Lucy rolls up her sleeves to take on the mess that fills every room of Marva’s huge home. Lucy soon learns that the real challenge may be taking on Marva, who seems to love the objects in her home too much to let go of any of them. Lucy discovers that Marva isn’t just hoarding, she is also hiding a big secret. The two form an unlikely bond, as each learns from the other that there are those things in life we keep, those we need to let go but it’s not always easy to know the difference.
New Books of March 2012
14 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Books Tags: family, fiction, historical fiction, list, mystery, new, reviews, romance
The O’Briens
Peter Behrens
In a family saga that begins in 1887, we follow Joe O’Brien through a harsh childhood in the Canadian bush, then into the wider world where three siblings enter the religious life, another dabbles in real estate, and Joe builds railroads. On a business trip to Venice, CA, he meets and marries Iseult and brings her back to Canada to live. Over their years together, Joe becomes the wealthy owner of a construction company, occasionally escaping to New York for alcoholic benders, while Iseult dedicates herself to their three children, her photography, and helping the less fortunate. Through births and deaths, love and wars, they struggle to make sense of themselves and their marriage.
The Good Father
Noah Hawley
Paul Allen, a successful Manhattan rheumatologist is completely stunned when two Secret Service agents inform him that his son by his first marriage, 20-year-old Daniel Allen, aka Carter Allen Cash, has killed a rising political star and presidential candidate. Resistant to the idea that his son is the actual assassin, he is taken aback when Daniel pleads guilty. He then becomes obsessed with finding out how his son could commit such a barbaric act. Combing Daniel’s childhood for clues to the one parental misstep that sent him down the path to becoming a killer and poring over documentation of Daniel’s every move in the 18 months prior to the assassination, Paul becomes a haunted figure.
The Dog Who Danced
Susan Wilson
Justine Meade has spent most of her 43 years on the move. She left home young, got in and out of an early marriage, and had a son who, unhappy with her restless life, went to live with his father. When Justine learns that her father is dying, she hitches a cross-country ride with a long-haul trucker from Seattle to Massachusetts, hoping for a resolution to their relationship. Her companion on the journey is Mack, a sheepdog trained to dance. But at a rest stop, her ride drives off, unknowingly taking Mack with him. Later abandoned, Mack is found by an older couple still grieving after their teenager daughter’s suicide years earlier. Meanwhile, Justine reaches her father in time to revisit the fight that sent her away from home. She gets a new perspective on the past while Mack, nearer to Justine than she realizes, helps the old couple heal. When chance reunites Justine and Mack, she decides to get back in touch with her son.
Carry the One –a Novel
Carol Anshaw
The one that must be carried when the Kenney siblings add themselves up is the girl who was hit and killed when two siblings, Nick and Alice, were driving home, stoned and stupid, from their sister Carmen’s wedding. That’s the first chapter: the rest of the novel and the rest of their lives-sex and drugs and prison visits, family parties and divorce, raising teenagers, painting, politics, and addiction-play out with that guilt and loss forever in the background.
Another Piece of My Heart
Jane Green
Andi has spent much of her adult life looking for the perfect man, and at thirty-seven, she’s finally found him. Ethan – divorced with two daughters, Emily and Sophia – is a devoted father and even better husband. Always hoping one day she would be a mother, Andi embraces the girls like they were her own. But in Emily’s eyes, Andi is an obstacle to her father’s love, and Emily will do whatever it takes to break her down. When the dynamics between the two escalate, they threaten everything Andi believes about love, family, and motherhood – leaving both women standing at a crossroad in their lives and in their hearts.
PageTurners Read “Lord of the Flies”
15 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in PageTurners Tags: drama, dystopia, fiction, PageTurners, piggy, ralph, reviews, school boys, ww3
Lord of the Flies
William Golding
At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued… This work is a frightening parody on man’s return (in a few weeks) to that state of darkness from which it took him thousands of years to emerge.
* * * *
The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 6 pm. Nine people attended. Discussion lasted an hour; at times it was heated as participants debated the merits of this classic novel. The average rating was 2.9 / 5 books; the lowest rating was a 1, and the highest was a 4.
Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.
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Lord of the Flies by William Golding is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.
The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.
New Books of February 2012
08 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Books Tags: family, fiction, historical fiction, list, new, romance
Defending Jacob : a Novel
William Landay
A 14-year-old boy is stabbed to death in the park near his middle school in an upper-class Boston suburb, and Assistant District Attorney Andy Barber takes the case, despite the fact that his son, Jacob, was a classmate of the victim. But when the bloody fingerprint on the victim’s clothes turns out to be Jacob’s, Barber is off the case and out of his office, devoting himself solely to defending his son. Even Barber’s never-before-disclosed heritage as the son and grandson of violent men who killed becomes potential courtroom fodder, raising the question of a “murder gene.”
The Healing : a Novel
Jonathan Odell
Pre-Civil War Mississippi plantation mistress Amanda Satterfield loses her daughter to cholera after her husband refuses to treat her for what he considers to be a “slave disease.” Insane with grief, Amanda takes a newborn slave child as her own and names her Granada, much to the outrage of her husband and the amusement of their white neighbors. Troubled by his wife’s disturbing mental state and concerned about a mysterious plague sweeping through his slave population, Master Satterfield purchases Polly Shine, a slave reputed to be a healer. But Polly’s sharp tongue and troubling predictions cause unrest across the plantation. Complicating matters further, Polly recognizes “the gift” in Granada, the mistress’s pet, and a domestic battle of wills ensues. Seventy-five years later, Granada, now known as Gran Gran, is still living on the plantation and must revive the buried memories of her past in order to heal a young girl abandoned to her care. Together they learn the power of story to heal the body, the spirit and the soul.
The House I Loved
Tatiana de Rosnay
As all Francophiles know, Paris was remade in the 1860s by order of Emperor Napoleon III, with Baron Haussmann initiating a plan that included the long, straight, sweeping boulevards that give the city its dramatic character (and got rid of many crooked little alleys where rebellious types could hide). Set during this era, Rose Bazelet fights to keep her family home from being demolished while confronting a secret she’s kept for 30 years.
A Good American
Alex George
An uplifting novel about the families we create and the places we call home. It is 1904. When Frederick and Jette must flee her disapproving mother in Germany, where better to go than America, the land of the new? Originally set to board a boat to New York, at the last minute, they take one destined for New Orleans instead (“What’s the difference? They’re both new”), and later find themselves, more by chance than by design, in the small town of Beatrice, Missouri. Not speaking a word of English, they embark on their new life together. From bare-knuckle prizefighting and Prohibition to sweet barbershop harmonies, the Kennedy assassination, and beyond, James’s family is caught up in the sweep of history. Each new generation discovers afresh what it means to be an American. And, in the process, Frederick and Jette’s progeny sometimes discover more about themselves than they had bargained for.
The Garden Intrigue
Lauren Willig
Secret agent Augustus Whittlesby has spent a decade undercover in France, posing as an insufferably bad poet. The French surveillance officers can’t bear to read his work closely enough to recognize the information drowned in a sea of verbiage. As Napoleon pursues his plans for the invasion of England, Whittlesby hears of a top-secret device to be demonstrated at a house party at Malmaison. The catch? The only way in is with Emma Morris Delagardie, a thorn in Augustus’ side who enjoys mocking him, who has been asked to write a masque for the weekend’s entertainment. In this complicated masque within a masque, nothing goes quite as scripted- especially Augustus’s feelings for Emma.
New Books of January 2012
18 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Books Tags: fiction, list, new, thrillers, what to read
An Available Man
By Hilma Wolitzer
Edward Schuyler is now in his mid-sixties, but as a younger man he had his share of love’s highs and lows. His first love, the beautiful Laurel, left him stranded at the altar. Years later he met Bee and her two children. He fell madly in love, and his family was complete. But after 20 years, Bee got sick and died. Once the shock clears, Edward is stunned to realize what a “catch” he is. When his grown stepchildren place a personal ad for him in the New York Review of Books, the women respond in droves. Edward is forced into the dating world, and the results are heartbreaking, maddening, comical, and poignant.
The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen
By Thomas Caplan
Ty Hunter, once an intelligence officer and now a major movie star (it’s a lot more plausible than it sounds), is tasked by the U.S. president to find out whether billionaire Ian Santel has anything to do with some nukes stolen by a now-deceased Russian colonel. The novel boasts great, James Bond…style supporting characters—the colorful Santel; his alluring goddaughter, Isabella Cavill, who designs expensive jewelry and seems to have designs on Ty; Santel’s protégé and henchman, Philip Frost. And it has a story that, with its action and intrigue, is guaranteed to keep readers glued to their seats.
How It All Began
By Penelope Lively
Author Lively explores the far-reaching effect of happenstance, as individual circumstances shift, lives change, and the known is perceived in an altogether new light. The novel opens with the mugging of retired schoolteacher Charlotte Rainsford on a London street. Subsequently, a diverse cast of richly embroidered acquaintances and strangers find their lives irrevocably altered by this event, which many of them haven’t even heard about. We see how the mugging affects Charlotte’s daughter Rose, who works for a historian desperate to return to the limelight, and the spillover to his niece Marion, a cash-poor interior designer hunting for a business partner while carrying on an affair eventually revealed through a stray cell-phone call.
The Orphan Master’s Son
By Adam Johnson
The Orphan Master’s Son follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea. Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return. Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”
Home Front
By Kristin Hannah
Jolene, 41, struggles with her marriage, her 12-year-old daughter, and a traumatic relationship with her parents. She even has a plucky best friend who lives next door. But Home Front is different because Jolene is a Black Hawk helicopter pilot. Just when her marriage has neared its breaking point, and her children need her more than ever, Jolene is deployed to active duty in Iraq. She returns home seriously injured physically and emotionally and must learn to swallow her pride, accept help, and continue living in the face of heartbreaking loss.
PageTurners Read “Winter Garden”
11 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in PageTurners Tags: family drama, fiction, historical fiction, Kristin Hannah, Leningrad, Winter Garden, world war II
Winter Garden
by Kristin Hannah
Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time — and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.
* * * *
The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 6 pm. Nine people attended. Discussion lasted an hour; most participants agreed that the historical aspects of the story were strongest and that the ending was too coincidental. The average rating was 3.5 / 5 books; the lowest rating was a 1, and the highest was a 4.5.
Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.
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Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.
The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.
New Books of December 2011
14 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in New Books Tags: fiction, historical fiction, list, mystery, new
Lost December
By Richard Paul Evans
When Luke Crisp graduates from business school, his father, CEO and co-founder of Fortune 500 Crisp’s Copy Centers, is ready to share some good news: he wants to turn the family business over to his son. But Luke has other plans. Taking control of his trust fund, Luke leaves home to pursue a life of reckless indulgence. But when his funds run out, so do his friends. Humbled, alone, and too ashamed to ask his father for help, Luke secretly takes a lowly job at one of his father’s copy centers. There he falls in love with a struggling single mother and begins to understand the greatest source of personal joy.
The Drop
By Michael Connelly
Harry Bosch has two new cases demanding his attention. In the first, DNA from a 1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional Crime Lab? Then in a second case, Bosch and his partner are called to a death scene fraught with internal politics. Councilman Irvin Irving’s son jumped or was pushed from a window at the Chateau Marmont. Irving, Bosch’s longtime nemesis, has demanded that Harry handle the investigation. Relentlessly pursuing both cases, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a killer operating unknown in the city for as many as three decades, and a political conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department.
The Maid of Fairbourne Hall
By Julie Klassen
Pampered Margaret Macy flees London in disguise to escape pressure to marry a dishonorable man. With no money and nowhere else to go, she takes a position as a housemaid in the home of Nathaniel Upchurch, a suitor she once rejected in hopes of winning his dashing brother. Praying no one will recognize her, Margaret fumbles through the first real work of her life. If she can last until her next birthday, she will gain an inheritance from a spinster aunt–and sweet independence. Observing both brothers as an “invisible” servant, Margaret learns she may have misjudged Nathaniel. Is it too late to rekindle his admiration? And when one of the family is nearly killed, Margaret alone discovers who was responsible. Should she come forward, even at the risk of her reputation and perhaps her life?
The Leopard
By Jo Nesbo
After two women are found dead in Oslo, each with bizarre puncture wounds that were caused from the inside of their mouths, police are baffled, but homicide detective Kaja Solness is called to Hong Kong to track down a former serial killer specialist, Harry Hole, whom they hope can solve the case. Hole has to battle a new enemy-the impending death of his father-as well as the usual suspects: one (or more?) pathological killers, natural dangers, internecine warfare within the Oslo police department, and, most of all, himself.
The Winter Palace –a novel of Catherine the Great
By Eva Stachniak
Catherine the Great was born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, this “pale, appealing sliver of a girl” arrives in St. Petersburg in 1743 as a potential bride for Peter, Empress Elizabeth’s weak-willed nephew and heir. Readers follow Catherine from her early years of barrenness and disfavor through her even more demoralizing years of motherhood. While Elizabeth tolerates and even encourages Catherine’s sexual liaisons, she separates her from her children. During the massive rebuilding of the Winter Palace and war with Prussia, which impoverish Elizabeth’s subjects, a steelier, more confident Catherine emerges.
New Books of October
19 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in New Books Tags: fiction, historical fiction, list, mystery, new
The Cat’s Table
By Michael Ondaatje
In 1953, an 11-year-old boy spends 21 unsupervised days, aboard the ocean liner Oronsay, in order to meet up with his mother in London. This voyage proves momentous as significant events during the crossing profoundly impact the boy’s future while immensely expanding his world. Although seemingly at the periphery of society, seated at the so-called cat’s table, the boy’s dining mates are, in fact, a lot more instrumental in the ensuing intrigue aboard the ship than originally appears. As the years pass, the boy grows up to be an acclaimed writer with an international reputation (not unlike Ondaatje, especially for The English Patient, 1992), and frequently returns to the events of those three weeks and demonstrates how “over the years, confusing fragments, lost corners of stories, have a clearer meaning when seen in a new light, a different place.”
The Dovekeepers
By Alice Hoffman
In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on a mountain in the Judean desert, Masada. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic historical event, Hoffman weaves a spellbinding tale of four extraordinary, bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom comes to Masada by a different path.
House of Secrets
By Tracie Peterson
The lives of sisters Bailee, Geena, and Piper Cooper are shrouded in secrecy and shame. A request to return to the beach house of their youth is certain to unearth what they fear the most, and one thing is assured: their family will never be the same again. A romance for one of the sisters provides a welcome distraction. As facts are revealed and each character tries to accept the truth, readers will be riveted by Peterson’s skill in building mystery while deftly addressing the stigma associated with mental illness.
The Marriage Plot
By Jeffrey Eugenides
Set in the early 1980s, this is the tale of Madeleine Hanna, recent Brown University English grad, and her admirer Mitchell Grammaticus, who opts out of Divinity School to walk the earth as a pilgrim in India. Madeleine is equally caught up, both with the postmodern vogue and with the brilliant Leonard Bankhead, whom she met in semiotics class and whose fits of manic depression jeopardize his suitability as a marriage prospect. The book’s fidelity to its young heroes and to a superb supporting cast of enigmatic professors, feminist theorists, neo-Victorians, and concerned mothers, and all of their evolving investment in ideas and ideals is such that the central argument of the book is also its solution: the old stories may be best after all, but there are always new ways to complicate them.
Nightwoods
By Charles Frazier
Luce becomes foster mother to young twins when her sister is murdered by her husband. The traumatized children seem to have reverted to a wild state; they do not speak and have a troubling inclination to set fires. She is so isolated that she never even hears the news that her brother in law has somehow been declared innocent and is headed her way, in search of money he believes his deceased wife may have passed along to her. Time passes slowly for Luce and the children: she takes up with a local man who has inherited the rundown hotel where she lives, and the twins gradually begin to open up. When the children’s father arrives on their doorstep, the story takes a shocking turn.
PageTurners Read “Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter”
12 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in PageTurners Tags: fiction, mystery, PageTurners, readalikes, reviews
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Tom Franklin
Silas “32″ Jones and Larry Ott were great friends for a few brief months in their childhood. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to last. Suspicion is cast upon Larry when a girl goes missing who was last seen with him. Silas moved away to pursue his dreams of playing baseball and Larry remained, convicted but not in prison. Twenty five years later, a new mystery draws them together again. Another girl is missing, and everyone seems to think Larry caused it. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter explores the thin line between friendship and hatred.
The PageTurners Book Club met on Thursday, October 6 at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library to discuss this book. Six people attended.
Click on the book graphic below to see a full recap of book club members’ opinions.
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Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin is available at the Rice Lake Public Library. There are over ten copies of this book in the MORE System. Please visit the card catalog website or call us at 234-4861 to reserve a copy today.
The PageTurners Book Club is sponsored by the Friends of the Rice Lake Public Library. It usually meets on the first Thursday of each month at 6 pm at the Rice Lake Public Library. Discussion lasts an hour; everyone is welcome.
