Posts

Julie Powell felt she was in a rut. Turning thirty, dead end temp secretary job, crappy loft apartment and trouble with her husband. On a visit home, she finds her mothers copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 50th Anniversary Edition and decides to cook every recipe in the book. In one year. And write about it online. The book was not what I expected. I was expecting a book about the author’s love of cooking and her experiences and challenges cooking in a decades old style. But instead, the book doesn’t discuss the actual cooking much at all. Instead, the book is about the author, her friends and her emotional challenges. ...

(Anonymous Submission to old ClubReading website) Lindsay or Linbaba, as the Indian people named him, is a fugitive who escaped prison in Australia, where he served two years of his 19-year sentence of arms robberies, which he used to do to support his heroin addiction caused by loosing custody of his daughter in a failed marriage. After the escape, Linbaba lands in Bombay on a fake New Zealand passport. Upon landing, he meets Prabaker who plays the guide role and shows him even the most secretive parts of Bombay. In the same time Lindsay meets Karla, a beautiful Swiss-American who works at Leopold’s cafÈ the place where all the ex-pats hang out. Linbaba falls deeply in love with Karla and the love takes a complicated role in the plot. ...

Jarrod Jarvis was a child actor in a successful sitcom in the 80’s. Now he is in 30’s and struggling to reignite is career. At the premier party of Jarrod’s latest disastrous movie roll (held in the Starbucks across the street from the theater), Jarrod is approached by Wallace Goodwin, one of the writers from the sitcom. Wallace has written a play and wants Jarrod for a particular part. Even more surprising, the play is being produced and will run on London’s West End. ...

If you enjoy light, easy mystery books, then this book is for you. Jane Kelly followed a boyfriend from California to Washington state. She stayed; he didn’t. She studied criminology because he was, and now she’s using that in serving eviction notices. But things get complicated when her ex-boyfriend shows up. And eventually the body of a man who has been missing for four years. There’s our mystery. I wasn’t thrilled with this mystery, but Jane has some wonderful possibilities. Her twin brother could have been called Dick, but Jane’s mother decided that having Dick and Jane as her children would not be a good idea. And one of Jane’s friends talks about fishing, saying that when you get a fish on the end of the line, it’s a wonderful feeling, but sometimes it doesn’t feel right because there’s not enough fight. That’s when you know it’s a hatchery fish on the end. And, Jane’s friend says, that’s what is wrong with his kids: they are hatchery fish. ...

Reviewer: bardsandsages “Bokuru” by Jon C. Hall When a prominent archeologist’s mysterious death is quickly ruled a suicide, trial attorney and amateur archeologist Jim Henderson is hired to go to Africa and investigate. What seems to be a museum simply trying to make sure it can collect on a life insurance policy soon turns into a dangerous mystery involving missing relics, native legends, and hints at the very origins of humanity. ...

I learned of this book from Educating Alice (see previous review). While Alice is touring Jane Austin’s England, she receives the recommendation for this book. I also received that recommendation, and am so glad Alice shared it! Lark Rise to Candleford is the story of England on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. More specifically, it’s the story of one young woman’s memories of growing up in a very small hamlet, when the men still plowed the farms with horses, and the girls all “went into service.” ...

Reviewer: Bardsandsages Author Bernadette Y. Connor spins a thought-provoking tale of abuse, survival, redemption, and the need for forgiveness in her novel Damaged! The novel centers around the relationship of teenager Adrena Reynolds and her psychiatrist Vivian Matthews. As a child, Adrena was raped and beaten by her violent father while her drug addicted mother sat by and watched. After being rescued from her abusive home, the girl is assigned to Dr. Matthews for treatment and placed in foster care. But Dr. Matthews’ inexperience in her position is evident, as she allows herself to become overly attached emotionally to her young charge, and Adrena’s own sociopathic tendencies readily become evident as she manipulates her relationship with Matthews like some emotional vampire. ...

Bernie Rhodenbarr just wants a quiet weekend in the country. But who to take? The woman he has been dating is getting married on Thursday, so he ends up taking his best friend Carolyn. But he does have other reasons for wanting to get away. There is a book that needs stealing. But nothing is ever that simple. Trapped by a snowstorm in an old English-style home turned hotel, Bernie is forced to solve several interesting murders. ...

This book discusses how we make snap judgments, or decide things “in a blink.” The stories are interesting, but I was disappointed in the lack of depth in the theory and explanation. Perhaps I had too high expectations, since this is the same author who wrote The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, which I really enjoyed (I recall sitting in a drive-thru reading it!). Blink is also a snapshot of how things happen, in this case how we “thin-slice” or make decisions based upon limited data. ...

Maquire has done it again; he’s taken us into Oz, but not Baum’s Oz, a new, different Oz. This book begins just after the Wicked Witch of the West has her meltdown. Liir, a boy who was raised by (as he thinks of her) “the Witch,” has to go out on his own. He returns to the Emerald City with Dorothy, but then is left on his own. His adventures are absorbing, and the issue of whether is the son of the Witch is left in mystery until the very end. ...