A late-spring storm capped the last daffodils and the first tulips with dollops of snow, which melted when the sun came back out. The snow seemed to have a bracing effect on the flowers; their roots drank the cold melt, their stalks straightened from the chilly drink; their petals, supple and hale, were spared the…

If you like best book lists, you’ll want to check out the New York Times list of Ten Best Books of 2008 while you’re at it, you might want to look at their list of 100 Notable Books or the Notable Children’s Books. We’re excited that Hannah Tinti, who recently visited us, made the list.

  “Back when I was riding patrol you know that they called a killing that came down to simple street justice?” “What?” “The brass verdict”   Mickey Haller, of The Lincoln Lawyer, is back in the attorney’s saddle again. He is , however, still running his law office out of his fleet of Lincolns. When high-powered…

Being a lover of coffee, I was anxious to read this book after reading a positive review. After about 30 pages, I found it not to be what I expected and put it aside. The cover continued to haunt me, however, and a few weeks later I gave it a second chance.  It is a…

In medieval Cambridge, England, four children have been murdered. The crimes are immediately blamed on the town’s Jewish community, taken as evidence that Jews sacrifice Christian children in blasphemous ceremonies. To save them from the rioting mob, the king places the Cambridge Jews under his protection and hides them in a castle fortress. King Henry…

The Little Book is the extraordinary tale of Wheeler Burden, California-exiled heir of the famous Boston banking Burdens, philosopher, student of history, legend’s son, rock idol, writer, lover of women, recluse, half-Jew, and Harvard baseball hero. In 1988 he is forty-seven, living in San Francisco. Suddenly he is—still his modern self—wandering in a city and…

I am so sad – stunned. It reminds us all of how fragile we are and how close at hand the darkness is,” – A.M. Holmes David Foster Wallace, whose prodigiously observant, exuberantly plotted, grammatically and etymologically challenging, philosophically probing and culturally hyper-contemporary novels, stories and essays made him an heir to modern virtuosos like…

Andrew Davidson’s book is a series of balancing acts. His characters represent extremes and his stories come very close to being over-the-top, but somehow he manages to maintain the balance just when you are ready to give up on him. Once beautiful, the narrator is now burned beyond recognition due to a car crash. One…

This is a work of historical fiction about two unlikely characters that meet during the seige of Leningrad in World War II. One is a young Jewish boy who had the misfortune of being the last one over the wall after he and his friends happened upon a dead paratrooper and decided to take some…

The author of IN THE WOODS has written another engrossing psychological thriller. A young girl is found stabbed to death in an abandoned cottage outside of Dublin. The character of Cassie Maddox returns to help in the investigation. The twist in the case is that the murdered girl bears a striking resemblance to Cassie. The…

Michael Lavigne has written a brave and courageous first novel. Cynthia Ozick calls it “radiantly imagined” and Ron Rosenbaum terms it “a daring, even dangerous act of the imagination”. Lavigne confronts some rather incendiary and critical moral issues in this book and he does so with great skill and a fair dose of levity. One…

After Dark follows the intersecting paths of a handful of characters over the course of one night in Tokyo. Supermodel, Eri Asai, is alone in a room sleeping. Her sister Mari, a young college student, has decided to spend the night in the city, where she happens to meet Takahashi a young jazz musician. As…

We were fortunate enough to have author Andre Dubus at the library last Thursday. In addition to reading from his latest novel, The Garden of Last Days, he talked about the writing process. He mentioned that he loves to read poetry and we thought you might be interested in some of his favorite poets: Billy…

Thanks to Booklogged at A Reader’s Journal for the following link: Colleen Gleason When Twilight Burns Book Release Webcast August 5, 2008 – 8:30 P.M. Eastern Time Enter Here Join Colleen Gleason, author of the acclaimed Gardella Vampire Chronicles, as she celebrates the release of her fourth book. She’ll read an excerpt from When Twiilght…

It has been over twenty years since Toni Morrison wrote her groundbreaking novel Beloved. With a long awaited novel The Mercy, coming out in November and billed as a “companion piece to Beloved,” Morrison has a lot to celebrate. But, a simple commemoration on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina may be an equal cause for…

Mystery writer Howard Engel woke up one morning terrified to find that he couldn’t read the words in the newspaper. In his new memoir, Engel describes living with a rare condition called word blindness, which leaves him able to write, but unable to read. Could this be one of the worst nightmares for Read This!…

I’m on a desperate (or should I say deliberate?) search for a piece of postmodern fiction that I might actually enjoy-unfortunately Mr. Clarke’s book isn’t it. The “heartbreaking hilarity” was a bit lost on me. Anyone remember Cher in “Moonstruck” when she slaps Nicolas Cage across the face and shouts “Snap out of it!”? That’s…

Sometimes it’s the little things – the touch of a hand, a sudden change in plans – that set off a chain of life-changing events. In the days before 9/11, a stripper named April brings her daughter to work at the Puma Club for men because her babysitter is in the hospital. Franny stays in…

Now, my friends, is the time to nurture your creative side. If you need an excuse let’s call it a “job responsibility” that comes with parenting, okay? Nurturing your own creative spirit will not only bring more peace, satisfaction and joy into your life and the lives of those around you, but it will also…

“Rosie and Abigail are like family,” Ina Merriweather used to say. That is, until the day Ina abruptly cast out her housekeeper, Rosie, and her fifteen-year-old daughter Abigail. Abigail felt deeply betrayed, especially by Ina’s daughter Lila, who was her closest friend. Only Lila’s twin brother Vaughn, with whom Abigail had been exploring the joys…

Take a secret society, a hawk-tracking boy, a hummingbird in winter and plunk them down in a watermelon patch and you have the makings of a wonderful coming of age story. March Anne Tanner lives in Jubilee, GA with her brother, father and grandmother. At the change of each season, March Anne and her friends…

This is the second novel written by the author of The Lobster Chronicles, The Hungry Ocean and All Fishermen are Liars. The main character, Jane Bunker (introduced in Slipknot) continues her role as an investigator for a maritime insurance company.  She finds herself in the middle of a family feud, with one young man dead…

        “Twenty years ago, three children walked into the woods. Only one returned.” So begins the blurb for this psychological suspense novel set in Ireland. Adam Ryan was the only child to return that day. He has no memory of what happened to his two friends, Peter and Jamie. He alone was found in a…

Have you read about the controversy regarding the Harry Potter Lexicon? Here are some opinions on the issue: From Orson Scott Card From Slate.com From Neil Gaiman What’s your take? Leave a comment. Let us know.

  Written chronologically in reverse, this new novel by one of my favorite authors keeps the reader guessing.  It begins with the wedding preparations of Allie a transplanted American in London.  She’s invited her sister to be her maid of honor. Maddy has always been jealous of her sister, but agrees to be a part…

At night the garden drops below daylight language and murmurs in an older tongue, in voices of wormwood and rue, black cohosh and henbane, reminding me that the plants of the garden attend to me as well as allowing me to attend to them. In the berry patches, orchards and vegetable, herb, and flower beds…

This book contains eight short pieces of fiction with a common theme. The characters are all immigrants from India living in the United States. Very smoothly written, the topics include dealing with aging parents, marital infidelity, breast cancer, alcoholism, family bonds and trust.  Reminiscent of O’Henry’s stories, many end with a touch of irony.

“Like any young boy, Paolo becomes obsessed with what he can’t have — in his case, a violin. Hidden away in his parents’ room, it beckons the boy to release the music inside it. The music leads Paolo to a family secret, a story of World War II that changed the course of his parents’…

Like his other books, this novel is wonderfully descriptive both in plot and character. The subject matter is very depressing, and true to form, the author depicts a very real picture of the horror of living in Nazi Germany. The storyline starts with the characters of a Prussian family and Scottish POW who are fleeing…

April Newton has just reached her 5 year “cancer-free” mark. Her friends want to celebrate, her husband, a contractor, is building them their “dream house”, and her teenage daughter is growing apart from her. Dealing with all this and her mid-life crisis involves, sexy lingerie, getting a tattoo, and entering a lottery to buy a…

Perhaps familiarity really does breed contempt-I so looked forward to reading Banks’ new novel about my favorite part of the world, the High Peaks of the Adirondacks that I suppose I couldn’t help but be disappointed. Banks beautifully recreates a landscape and truthfully conveys the class distinctions that define the way of life among these…

Jacki Lydon did an interesting  interview with Jonathan Rosen author of Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature last night on NPR. Rosen is an urban birdwatcher, novelist and contributer to The New Yorker. Here are two excerpts: Rosen contends that everyone is a birdwatcher. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says…

Anam’s debut novel is a wonderful journey through the birth of a nation and the lengths a mother will go to protect her children. When Rehana Haque’s husband dies, she loses her children to her brother-in-law in Pakistan. She manages to get them back by building a new home on the front lawn of her…

When the Queen in pursuit of her wandering corgis stumbles upon a mobile library she feels duty bound to borrow a book. Aided by Norman, a young man from the palace kitchen who frequents the library, Bennett describes the Queen’s transformation as she discovers the liberating pleasures of the written word. Julie recommended this one;…

This is a fun little book filled with photos of – you guessed it – band t-shirts. Did you know there was an Elvis t-shirt for Heartbreak Hotel? Most of the shirts are from the 80s but there representatives from the 70s onward. If you are looking for your favorite pop rock t-shirts you probably…

This is a great first novel about love, family relationships and the immigrant experience. The Karim family is full secrets. The father, Rashid, marries Henna who was supposed to be a sophisticated young woman, only to find out that she is an illiterate, 14 year-old who married him in order to improve her social status.…

Sasha Goldberg, the main character in Anya Ulinich’s absurdly funny, coming-of-age novel, seems out-of-place just about everywhere. She’s a mixed-race, Jew living in a town in Siberia called Asbestos 2. Her only solace is in an after-school art program. When she becomes pregnant, her mother takes the baby and sends Sasha to an art-school in…

In a mere 146 pages, Stewart O’Nan has managed to capture the essence of the working person. For all of us who have ever worked in retail or the food industry, there is much in this short novel to relate to. Manny DeLeon is the manager of a Red Lobster restaurant that is slated to…

For the Jews of Buenos Aires there is one cemetery, but a high wall gates off the members of the Benevolent Self (pimps and prostitutes) from the rest of the dead. Kaddish Posnan, the son of a whore, is the only descendant who thinks it is important to honor the dead members of the Benevolent…

The immigrant experience is often a great topic for fiction. In this edition of Marie’s Monthly Minutes, we’ll look at three books that explore the adjustments that immigrants and children of immigrants have to make when they settle in America. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides “Narrator Calliope “Cal” Stephanides is a Greek-American hermaphrodite who eventually becomes…

This novel came to my attention from a very unlikely source. It is an eclectic mix of several genres, including mystery, suspense, historical fiction, and the occult.  The title refers to the art of “lace reading”, a method of fortelling the future.  Some historical references to the Ipswich lace industry are made at the beginning of…

If you haven’t read GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens, this short novel may move you to do so…or not. It is told from the viewpoint of Matilda, a 14 year old girl living on a fictional island during a civil war among the soldiers and rebels. Only one white person remains, a man named Mr.…

One of our patrons highly recommended this book. Making her way to a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland in the waning days of World War II, Sheilagh Fielding learns the identity of a man who has shadowed her for twenty years, a finding that coincides with the discovery of the fate of her…

Tip and Teddy Doyle are the adopted sons of the former mayor of Boston and his late wife. They know nothing of their African American parentage. One evening, while attending a lecture with their father, Tip’s life is saved by an unknown woman who darts in front of  an oncoming car. This act tips the…

“Though “Tree of Smoke” is hobbled by a plot that starts and stops and lurches wildly about, it’s a powerful story about the American experience in Vietnam, with unsettling echoes of the current American experience in Iraq. It is a story about bad intelligence and military screw-ups and people who have lost their way, a…

This month we’ve picked three books from Marie’s list of favorites in which a minor character becomes the focus of the story. The Red Tent~Anita Diamant “The story of Dinah, a tragic character from the Bible whose great love, a prince, is killed by her brother, leaving her alone and pregnant. The novel traces her…

If you loved Empire Falls, you’re in for a treat. Richard Russo’s latest is another peek into a small town and its collection of quirky inhabitants.  The story is told as a biography of the main character, “Lucy” (Lou C.) Lynch, the only son of a milkman and part-time bookkeeper. The storyline develops as the…

“Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fuku – the ancient curse that haunts Oscar’s family for generations,…