Fool

Fool by Christopher Moore


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thanks Bill for the recommendation. Fool started out with more bawdy humor than I thought I could stick with but soon there was bawdy humor AND a good story. I will go back and read King Lear soon.

Moore certainly brings the "ordinary bloke" insight into royal drama.

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Remarkable Listen

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed listening to this new Chevalier work. It does not have a page turning plot, or great imaginative leaps of insight, but is a rewarding book to "read" nonetheless. The story is about, Mary Anning, a self-taught fossil hunter of Victorian England. Chevalier took the few facts known about Mary Anning, mixed them with names of people and the life and issues of the time added her own fiction and the result is a picture of Victorian England and the birth of the conflict between evolution and creationism.

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Cellist of Sarajevo

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This novel brings insight into the Siege of Sarajevo and into all wars. The story focuses on the people involved in one event, a cellist pays tribute to 22 people killed while waiting in a breadline by playing Albinoni's Adagio on the street for 22 days honoring the 22 who were killed. The story is not about the cellist; it is about the woman who protects him from snipers, a man who must go out in fear to get water for his family and his neighbor, and an old man, a baker who stays in the city, brings bread to his sister's family and tries to imagine Sarajevo in better times. It is about ordinary people in tense and troubled times.

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Summer shelf......memories

The Madonnas of Leningrad: A Novel by Debra Dean


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Marina's memory is fading. She cannot remember why she is standing at her sink in her kitchen on a sunny day; but she does remember her life as a tour guide in The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia during the war. She remembers facing starvation and misery to preserve the art of the city. The art now returns the gift and offers her solace. A beautiful, art-filled story of war and remembrance.

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Summer shelf......a journey

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Santiago, a Spanish youth, a shepherd, enters on a magical journey from the Andalusians in Spain to the pyramids in Egypt to find a treasure he saw in recurring dreams. He meets guides along the way, a gypsy woman, and alchemist and a king. The outward journey becomes a journey within.

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Summer shelf......check it out!

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The power of One is the story of triumphant survival. In a time when Hitler was bullying the world into submission, Peekay was born in South Africa. He was the victim of bullies who humiliated and tormented him. Through the intervention of mentors he is introduced to the world of boxing. And he changes his life to find the power within himself. A strong compelling story, beautifully written.

Keene Valley Library also has the sequel, Tandia, not easily obtained in this country.

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Summer shelf......DeMille style!

Wild Fire by Nelson DeMille


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The plot is not extraordinary. A former New York City police detective John Corey becomes aware of an American right-wing plot to nuke two U.S. cities. The idea is to provoke an existing government plan called Wild Fire that automatically responds to nuclear terrorism in the homeland with a nuclear attack that will wipe out most of the Middle East. Corey and his FBI agent wife, Kate Mayfield, set off to find antiterrorist agent Harry Muller, who has disappeared after being assigned surveillance duties at the Custer Hill Club. The story is well told in DeMille style but the most interesting part is that the setting for the story is the famous Saranac Lake Resort called "the Point", here named the "Custer Hill Club."

A fun, suspensful novel.

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Summer shelf.....Sand and Fog

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Behrani is an Irani immigrant, living in California, working on the road crew who desperately wants to "keep up appearances" so his children can marry well. It is the tragic flaw that causes so much conflict in the book. The characters are beautifully drawn. They remind us of the American Dream and our memories of better times.

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Summer shelf......passion suspense

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Last night I dreamed I went to Manderlay again." So begins the passion and romance of Rebecca by DeMaurier. The story is as dark and mysterious as the Cornwall estate itself. There is evil and tenderness and an urgency that does not allow the reader to put down the book till reading the last stunning paragraph.

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Summer shelf......a sequel

Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A continuation of the saga of the Chilean familily, Aurora Somers recount her history from 1862 to 1910, remembering her grandmother Eliza Sommer's journey to San Fransisco. A powerful story told by a master storyteller.

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summer shelf------well worth the read!

Shogun by James Clavell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Shogun is a multifaceted book; a deep look into Japan of the 16th century, a high adventure; a study into the complexity of character and politics. This is a sometimes harsh and sometimes tender story of Toranaga, the unifier of medieval Japan when he meets John Blackthorn, an English sailor and survivor of a shipwreck. The story is complex and fills more than 1200 pages, but it is a page-turner, an epic, multi-leveled pager turner!

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summer shelf------local author

Mists of the Couchsacrage: Rescue from State Land by ALDEN L. DUMAS


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Local author, Alden Dumas, sets his adventure in the Adirondack adventure around a plane crash deep in the wilderness. A good read!

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summer shelf------check it out!

Wish You Well by David Baldacci


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
David Baldacci is an compelling writer of suspense and thrillers, but not in Wish you Well. Here he applies his writing skills to a novel of life in rural Virginia in the early 1950's. His storytelling expertise introduces us to a family and a time period that we can almost remember.

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summer shelf------a classic

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
If you have a classic on your summer to-read list, choose The Good Earth! Olan and Wang Lung journey through life in China under the last emperor.

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summer shelf------check it out!

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Even after almost 25 years, the Handmaid's Tale is still a powerful story of what happens to a society when one group of people are subjugated to another. In the this speculative fiction, women are denied their power by a theocracy that has taken over the country. This book stands beside 1984 and Brave New World as it pushes commonly held beliefs to their logical conclusions. In doing so, Atwood exposes their terror.

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summer shelf------check it out!

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Eliza Sommers, an orphan raised in Chili in the mid 1800s by a British spinster and her brother, falls in love and follows her beloved to California where he has gone to search for gold. The characters in this family saga are beautifully and richly drawn. The setting is colorful, and as in other Latino literature, magical. Allende weaves elements of history and character and setting in a multicultural adventure. The story is also well told in an audio version (cassetes only at KVLA but available elsewhere on CD).

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summer shelf------check it out!

Griffin & Sabine - An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fine example of Epistolary fiction! Griffin, a lonely Londoner and Sabine, a mysterious woman in the South Pacific exchange hand made postcards and letters in lovely envelops. Their story emerges through the correspondence. The intrigue of the story is heightened because each letter must be pulled out of the envelop to be read. It is like reading someone else's mail. A most unusual book, followed by equally delightful sequels.

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On the shelf....check it out!

The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Bohjalian, a writer from Vermont, mixes reality and fantasy in a great psychological insight into trauma. The Double Bind begins after Laura Estabrook is attacked while bicycling on a back road in Vermont; she begins work in a homeless shelter to regain her hold on her life. She finds photographs taken by a shelter resident and becomes obsessed with trying to discovery how a man with such talent became so lost. In her search she is lead into the life of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. The story is rich and complex with an ending that leaves the reader stunned.

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Away by Amy Bloom

Away: A Novel by Amy Bloom


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Lillian Leyb flees Russia after losing her family in a pogrom. She comes to America thinking her daughter has survived. She begins an odyssey that takes her into the Yiddish theater of New York, through Chicago by train, into Seattle's African-American world of Jazz and across the Alaskan wilderness towards Siberia. This is a wonderful novel of strength and humor.

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On the shelf....check it out!

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Geraldine Brooks is an author with many wonderful books to her credit. IN Year of Wonders, a tailor brings the plague to a village in Derbyshire, England in the sixteen hundreds. The town decides to isolate itself to prevent the spread of the disease. The story is about the humanity they find or do not find in each other as they face the disaster. Though it sounds distressing and depressing, it is not. It is a story of courage and strength based on an actual village.

Also consider People of the Book by Brooks, another story based on history. People of the Book The Sarajevo Haggadah had a chaotic journey through many generations. This is the story of that book and the many people who were touched by it.

Also by Brooks, is the story of Mr. March, father to the March sisters of Little Women. A Pulizer prizer winner.March

Check Out Geraldine Brooks.

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The Pact

The Pact by Jodi Picoult


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jodi Picoult explores the forbidden and casts light on the darker side of issues that most people only whisper about. And she does it again in the Pact. The topic is teen suicide. The teens are struggling relationships and mistakes and love. The parents are caught up in the "perfect relationships of their offspring and do not recognize the dangers. I couldn't put it down.

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