"Girl with a Pearl Earring"

Author: Tracey Chevalier
Genre: Historical/Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Group, 2001
Pages: 240
My Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Tracy Chevalier's inspiration for Girl with the Pearl Earring was a poster of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. She bought the poster as a nineteen-year-old, and it hung wherever she lived for sixteen years. Chevalier notes that the "ambiguous look" on the girl's face left the "most lasting impression" on her. She describes the girl's expression "to be a mass of contradictions: innocent yet experienced, joyous yet tearful, full of longing and yet full of loss." She began to think that the girl had directed all these emotions at the painter, and began to think of the "story behind that look". Chevalier's research included reading the history of the period, studying the paintings of Vermeer and his peers, and spending several days in Delft. Pregnant at the time of researching and writing, she finished the work in eight months, because, as she admitted, she had a "biological deadline".

Review: I didn't see this movie, but the book was on my "must read" list for awhile. It was excellent. I love that the author took a painting and created a story around it. Someone needs to do that with the Mona Lisa. Chevalier transports the reader back in time to become an invisible character in her story. It ends all too soon.

"East of the Sun"

Author: Julia Gregson
Genre: Historical/Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2009
Pages: 608
My Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: As the Kaisar-i-Hind weighs anchor for Bombay in the autumn of 1928, its passengers ponder their fate in a distant land. They are part of the "Fishing Fleet" — the name given to the legions of Englishwomen who sail to India each year in search of husbands, heedless of the life that awaits them. The inexperienced chaperone Viva Holloway has been entrusted to watch over three unsettling charges. There's Rose, as beautiful as she is naïve, who plans to marry a cavalry officer she has met a mere handful of times. Her bridesmaid, Victoria, is hell-bent on losing her virginity en route before finding a husband of her own. And shadowing them all is the malevolent presence of a disturbed schoolboy named Guy Glover. From the parties of the wealthy Bombay socialites to the poverty of Tamarind Street, from the sooty streets of London to the genteel conversation of the Bombay Yacht Club, East of the Sun is graced with lavish detail and a penetrating sensitivity — historical fiction at its greatest.

Review: A seriously good book. I'm not sure how I got drawn in because it's not like anything super exciting happens, but this is like a good sitcom or drama. I think it speaks to the author as a writer. A good writer can draw you in with the most mundane of topicis - although as you will see in this book, there is nothing mundane about India in the 1920s. In East of the Sun, the characters develop, the story line develops, and the next thing I knew I didn't want to put it down. However, I don't have a single chunk of time in which to devote 608 pages of reading so I did have to put it down. Then I found myself thinking about the characters and their lives at different points throughout the day. Although I don't know much about India and certainly not life in the 1920s, it feels very authentic.

"Here Comes Everybody"

Author: Clay Shirkey
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Penguin Group, 2008
Pages: 336
My Rating: Do Not Recommend

Here Comes Everybody should be revised and updated to be relevant to new media in 2011.

Synopsis: A revelatory examination of how the wildfirelike spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them, with profound long-term economic and social effects-for good and for ill. 

A handful of kite hobbyists scattered around the world find each other online and collaborate on the most radical improvement in kite design in decades. A midwestern professor of Middle Eastern history starts a blog after 9/11 that becomes essential reading for journalists covering the Iraq war. Activists use the Internet and e-mail to bring offensive comments made by Trent Lott and Don Imus to a wide public and hound them from their positions. A few people find that a world-class online encyclopedia created entirely by volunteers and open for editing by anyone, a wiki, is not an impractical idea. Jihadi groups trade inspiration and instruction and showcase terrorist atrocities to the world, entirely online. A wide group of unrelated people swarms to a Web site about the theft of a cell phone and ultimately goads the New York City police to take action, leading to the culprit's arrest.

With accelerating velocity, our age's new technologies of social networking are evolving, and evolving us, into new groups doing new things in new ways, and old and new groups alike doing the old things better and more easily. You don't have to have a MySpace page to know that the times they are a changin'. Hierarchical structures that exist to manage the work of groups are seeing their raisons d'être swiftly eroded by the rising technological tide. Business models are being destroyed, transformed, born at dizzying speeds, and the larger social impact is profound.

One of the culture's wisest observers of the transformational power of the new forms of tech-enabled social interaction is Clay Shirky, and Here Comes Everybody is his marvelous reckoning with the ramifications of all this on what we do and who we are. Like Lawrence Lessig on the effect of new technology on regimes of cultural creation, Shirky's assessment of the impact of new technology on the nature and use of groups is marvelously broad minded, lucid, and penetrating; it integrates the views of a number of other thinkers across a broad range of disciplines with his own pioneering work to provide a holistic framework for understanding the opportunities and the threats to the existing order that these new, spontaneous networks of social interaction represent. Wikinomics, yes, but also wikigovernment, wikiculture, wikievery imaginable interest group, including the far from savory. A revolution in social organization has commenced, and Clay Shirky is its brilliant chronicler.

Review: I read this for my Writing for Digital Media course as part of the Masters of Professional Writing program at Chatham University. Here Comes Everybody was published in 2008. Already, just three years later, the information seems a little outdated in that ideas or theories Shirky proposes or surmises about have happened or are occurring. I would be interested in reading an updated edition. In 2011 we know even better the social impact the internet has made. I would recommend this book to better understand:
• The impact of the internet on society
• The phenomenon of groundswell
• The responsibility we have to ourselves and one another on the Web.

"Let the Great World Spin"

Author: Colum McCann
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing, 2009
Pages: 400
My Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis (barnesandnoble.com): A Pushcart Prize-winning author and contributor to the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and GQ, Colum McCann is renowned for his carefully constructed character studies. No exception, Let the Great World Spin follows the fortunes of a menagerie of New Yorkers through a day in 1974—the day of Philippe Petit's deathdefying tightrope walk between the newly built Twin Towers.

Review: The wonderful-ness of this book was lost on me. It won several awards and reviews make it sound amazing. However, I found it to be a very tedious read. The author's style didn't appeal to me and the plot wasn't enough to keep me interested. It also seemed to jump around quite a bit and I had a hard time following. Even those that like it admitted that it was backward and forward and one person even recommended reading the paperback, as opposed to eBook format, so if the reader wanted to go back a chapter or two for clarification they could do so easily. That's too much work for me. However, if anyone cares to “dumb” this down for me, please comment below. 

"The Day the Falls Stood Still"

Author: Cathy Marie Buchanan
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Hyperion, 2009
Pages: 310
My Rating: Recommend

Synopsis (book jacket): Steeped in the intriguing history of Niagara Falls, this epic love story is as rich, spellbinding, and majestic as the falls themselves

1915. The dawn of the hydroelectric power era in Niagara Falls. Seventeen-year-old Bess Heath has led a sheltered existence as the youngest daughter of the director of the Niagara Power Company. After graduation day at her boarding school, she is impatient to return to her picturesque family home near Niagara Falls. But when she arrives, nothing is as she had left it. Her father has lost his job at the power company, her mother is reduced to taking in sewing from the society ladies she once entertained, and Isabel, her vivacious older sister, is a shadow of her former self. She has shut herself in her bedroom, barely eating--and harboring a secret. The night of her return, Bess meets Tom Cole by chance on a trolley platform. She finds herself inexplicably drawn to him--against her family's strong objections. He is not from their world. Rough-hewn and fearless, he lives off what the river provides and has an uncanny ability to predict the whims of the falls. His daring river rescues render him a local hero and cast him as a threat to the power companies that seek to harness the power of the falls for themselves. As their lives become more fully entwined, Bess is forced to make a painful choice between what she wants and what is best for her family and her future. Set against the tumultuous backdrop of Niagara Falls, at a time when daredevils shot the river rapids in barrels and great industrial fortunes were made and lost as quickly as lives disappeared, The Day the Falls Stood Still is an intoxicating debut novel.

Review: This book was a return to my favorite genre, historical fiction. In a way the story line is predictable and even a bit lacking, but reading about life in that era, in that setting was fascinating. It helps that the author has firsthand knowlege of Niagara Falls having been raised there. Don't expect much depth to the storyline or characters, but for light reading as a "nice story", it will not disappoint.

The House on Mango Street

Author: Sandra Ciscernos
Genre: Fiction, Coming-Of-Age
Publisher: San Val, Incorporated, 1999
Pages: 110
My Rating: Highly Recommend.

The House on Mango Street is literary genius.

Synopsis: The House on Mango Street, which appeared in 1983, is a linked collection of forty-four short tales that evoke the circumstances and conditions of a Hispanic American ghetto in Chicago. The narrative is seen through the eyes of Esperanza Cordero, an adolescent girl coming of age. These concise and poetic tales also offer snapshots of the roles of women in this society. They uncover the dual forces that pull Esperanza to stay rooted in her cultural traditions on the one hand, and those that compel her to pursue a better way of life outside the barrio on the other. Throughout the book Sandra Cisneros explores themes of cultural tradition, gender roles, and coming of age in a binary society that struggles to hang onto its collective past while integrating itself into the American cultural landscape. Cisneros wrote the vignettes while struggling with her identity as an author at the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop in the 1970s. She was influenced by Russian-born novelist and poet Vladimir Nabokov's memoirs and by her own experiences as a child in the Chicago barrio. This engaging book has brought the author critical acclaim and a 1985 Before Columbus American Book Award. Specifically, it has been highly lauded for its impressionistic, poetic style and powerful imagery. Though Cisneros is a young writer and her work is not plentiful, The House on Mango Street establishes her as a major figure in American literature. Her work has already been the subject of numerous scholarly studies and is often at the forefront of works that explore the role of Latinas in American society.

Review: This book is literary genius. It's a vignette of Esperanza Cordero's life in Chicago. I'd been wanting to read this for awhile now and was expecting a traditional novel. It's not. It's better. I loved it, but it did take some time to get into the "vignette" format. It's a book that isn't meant to just be read, it's also meant to be appreciated. It reads fast as each chapter is only 2 to 3 pages long.

With that said, I realized that this is typically a book assigned to students in 7th to 12th grades and it surprised me. This is just the type of book teachers love to assign because, at best, it pushes their students to think and develop an understanding of fiction as art. However, the flip side is that it also frustrates them and leaves them feeling incompetent (I'm having flashbacks to reading Mark Twain and William Faulkner in high school).

Only an adult can fully appreciate all that The House on Mango Street has to offer.

"I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced"

Author: Nujood Ali and Delphine Minoui
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group, 2010
Pages: 192
My Rating: Highly Recommend

Some people are just born to change the world and Nujood is one of them.  I hug my little girls a little tighter now because of this story. This is a must-read.

"I'm a simple village girl who has always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything. Today I have decided to say no."

Synopsis: Forced by her father to marry a man three times her age, young Nujood Ali was sent away from her parents and beloved sisters and made to live with her husband and his family in an isolated village in rural Yemen. There she suffered daily from physical and emotional abuse by her mother-in-law and nightly at the rough hands of her spouse. Flouting his oath to wait to have sexual relations with Nujood until she was no longer a child, he took her virginity on their wedding night. She was only ten years old. Unable to endure the pain and distress any longer, Nujood fled—not for home, but to the courthouse of the capital, paying for a taxi ride with a few precious coins of bread money. When a renowned Yemeni lawyer heard about the young victim, she took on Nujood’s case and fought the archaic system in a country where almost half the girls are married while still under the legal age. Since their unprecedented victory in April 2008, Nujood’s courageous defiance of both Yemeni customs and her own family has attracted a storm of international attention. Her story even incited change in Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries, where underage marriage laws are being increasingly enforced and other child brides have been granted divorces. Recently honored alongside Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice as one of Glamour magazine’s women of the year, Nujood now tells her full story for the first time. As she guides us from the magical, fragrant streets of the Old City of Sana’a to the cement-block slums and rural villages of this ancient land, her unflinching look at an injustice suffered by all too many girls around the world is at once shocking, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable.

Review: Nujood is an amazing girl with an almost unbelievable, heart-wrenching story. This is one of the best books I've ever read. It was impossible to put down and I finished it in one sitting. It's been ages since I've been able to do that. It would be impossible to read her story and not take something away from it. 

As a parent, I could not stop asking how. How does a parent put their child in this situation? Isn't it our duty, as parents, to protect our children and want what is best for them?

This will move and stay with you long after you read the last page. Hers is a story that needed to be told.

"A Matter of Class"

Author: Mary Balogh
Genre: Romance
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Pages: 190
My Rating: Highly Recommend

A Matter of Class has a fun little twist that makes this book one of my favorites in this genre.

Synopsis: This is the story of Lady Annabelle Ashton, the only child of the most austere Earl of Havercroft and Reginald Mason, the son of a crass social climbing merchant. When the book opens Reginald is being schooled by his father. During the last year Reginald has become a profligate dandy. His father seeks to put an end to his extravagance. Reginald counters that he is a young up-and-comer who, at the age of twenty five years, is only aping the behavior of his gentlemen companions. These are the activities and interests of the idle gentry class. And, oh by the way, his is not the worst transgression in the neighborhood, has his father heard about the Earl's diamond of a daughter? No? Well, she has utterly and completely ruined herself in a failed attempt at elopement with her father's handsome footman. Reginald's father gleefully smiles and rubs his palms together. Here is an opportunity, for advancement and revenge. His old enemy, the Earl, is in dire straits, he needs the money his daughter was to marry into. No one of his class will have the chit now. He, the one the Earl looks down his long nose at, will save the family from ruin and in doing so elevate his son. Proud Annabelle has been locked in a barren room with only her bible for companionship. She is to be sent to a distant estate to live out her days as a spinster. How far she has fallen. Even her mother's companionship is to be denied to her. How could her plans have gone so horribly awry? Annabelle is no ones damsel in distress, but if ever she needed a knight it is now. Someone to fight by her side. Her father enters her cell, the family has been saved. Saved by that odious merchant and his limp noodle of a son. So begins Reginald and Annabelle's story. It is a lighthearted tale. With Ms. Balogh's trademarks of sweet humor, strong characters and engaging plot. From the beginning we know that all is not exactly as it seems and it is fun work figuring out exactly what these two characters have been up to.

Review: I just happened to see this book sitting on the shelf with new arrivals at the library and since it was short decided to check it out. It's a thoroughly enjoyable light read. There's a fun little twist that I did suspect eventually, but I'd love to read another of Balogh's novel(la)s. It's a short 190 pages (I finished it in a few hours) and I loved every minute. 

"Composed"

Author: Roseanne Cash
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Penguin Group, 2010
Pages: 256
My Rating: Recommend

Composed is more autobiography than memoir, but interesting nonetheless.

Synopsis: For thirty years as a musician, Rosanne Cash has enjoyed both critical and commercial success, releasing a series of albums that are as notable for their lyrical intelligence as for their musical excellence. Now, in her memoir, Cash writes compellingly about her upbringing in Southern California as the child of country legend Johnny Cash, and of her relationships with her mother and her famous stepmother, June Carter Cash. In her account of her development as an artist she shares memories of a hilarious stint as a twenty-year-old working for Columbia Records in London; recording her own first album on a German label; working her way to success; her marriage to Rodney Crowell, a union that made them Nashville's premier couple; her relationship with the country music establishment; taking a new direction in her music and leaving Nashville to move to New York; motherhood; dealing with the deaths of her parents, in part through music; the process of songwriting; and the fulfillment she has found with her current husband and musical collaborator, John Leventhal. Cash has written an unconventional and compelling memoir that, in the tradition of M. F. K. Fisher's The Gastronomical Me and Frank Conroy's Stop-Time, is a series of linked pieces that combine to form a luminous and brilliant whole.

Review:  It took me a few chapters to get into Cash's style and flow, but she manages to take what is surprisingly a pretty mundane life (her own) and makes it interesting. Not the most compelling, inspiring memoir I've read, but as a huge Johnny, Roseanne, and June Carter Cash fan I liked it. I especially enjoyed her memories as a young, working mother. She also wrote several amazing, moving eulogies for her father, stepmother, and stepsister. She can write, there is no doubt about that, but I'm not sure her style is 100% suitable to a memoir, it's more autobiographical in feel.

"Sarah's Key"

Author: Tatiana de Rosnay
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2007
Pages: 123
My Rating: Recommend

Sarah's Key is a story that needs to be told, but it is not for the faint of heart.

Synopsis (book jacket): Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life. Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

Review: This book was very difficult for me to read, particularly early on. Too easily I immersed myself into the characters' lives and it took an emotional toll. I had to put it down several times and come back to it hours later. I thought the author could have done a better job with Julia's storyline and motivations, but I was intrigued by Sarah (although there were a couple parts I thought were "cop-outs"). Overall, this story did not reach its full potential, but it was a good read nonetheless.

"Heresy"

Author: S. J. Parris
Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Religion/Beliefs
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Pages: 448
My Rating: Recommend

Heresy is a historical thriller with religious undertones. It offers something for everyone.

Synopsis: Masterfully blending true events with fiction, this blockbuster historical thriller delivers a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus. Giordano Bruno was a monk, poet, scientist, and magician on the run from the Roman Inquisition on charges of heresy for his belief that the Earth orbits the sun and that the universe is infinite. This alone could have got him burned at the stake, but he was also a student of occult philosophies and magic. In S. J. Parris's gripping novel, Bruno's pursuit of this rare knowledge brings him to London, where he is unexpectedly recruited by Queen Elizabeth I and is sent undercover to Oxford University on the pretext of a royal visitation. Officially Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen.

Review: I don't read a lot of mysteries, but I'd love to read another by this author. Maybe because I was raised Catholic I found this fascinating (the story is interwoven with the stories of Catholic martyrs). It was also interesting to read about a time in which there was no freedom of religion. We avoid a lot of problems in the United States by allowing Freedom of Religion and I hadn't given that much thought prior to reading this story. Heresy has an excellent plot with lots of twists and turns. Definitely a page turner although the first two chapters were a challenge - the language, the writing style, and just the information necessary to get the story going was challenging to read. I wanted to like it so I forced myself to hang in there and by chapter 3 I was hooked. 

"Water for Elephants"

Author: Sara Gruen
Genre: Historical
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007
Pages: 350
My Rating: Highly Recommend

Water for Elephants will stay with you long after reading the last page.

Synopsis: As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

Review: I finished this book and thought "now that was an interesting story" and then I slept on. It was more than interesting. The author was able to successfully weave the past and present into a really great story. One of my coworkers said his sister-in-law found it depressing. While I found certain themes to be depressing, I felt the author did a good job of presenting life as it must have been like at that time. Human right and animal rights were still a thing of the future. People were just trying to survive any way they knew how. This is a story that will stay with you.

"Secrets of Eden"

Author: Chris Bohjalian
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group, 2010
Pages: 384
My Rating: Do Not Recommend.

For having been written by a critically acclaimed, best selling author, Secrets of Eden was disappointing to say the least.

Synopsis (from book jacket): Reverend Stephen Drew finds his faith in God beginning to falter after his parishioner Alice Hayward is murdered by her husband only hours after her baptism. Drew finds solace and more from Heather Laurent, the author of a series of inspirational books on angels whose parents also died in a grisly murder-suicide. The riveting premise turns takes a thrilling swerve when clues begin to appear that Alice's husband, thought to have killed himself, may still be alive.

Review: After an extremely slow start this book gradually improved. However, I finished it feeling as though I'd just been taken on a wild goose chase and had wasted my time. Part of me would like to read another book by this author, but part of me isn't sure I could ever bring myself to actually do it. Maybe in a year or two.

I would argue that the person who wrote the synopsis did not read the book. At no point did anyone suggest Alice's husband wasn't dead. I think the gory description of what had to be cleaned up following the murder-suicide is proof of that. The whole premise of the book is "was it murder-suicide" or "something else"? I just expected so much more from a critically acclaimed author. Very disappointing.

"Happens Every Day"

Author: Isabel Gillies
Genre: Memoir. Chick Lit
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2010
Pages: 261
My Rating: Highly Recommend

Happens Every Day brings truth to the saying, why must all good things end.

Synopsis: Isabel Gillies had a wonderful life—a handsome, intelligent, loving husband who was a professor; two glorious toddlers; a beautiful house in their Midwestern college town; the time and place to express all her ebullience and affection and optimism. Suddenly, the life Isabel had made crumbled. Her husband, Josiah, announced that he was leaving her and their two young sons. "Happens every day," said a friend. Far from a self-pitying diatribe, Happens Every Day reads like an intimate conversation between friends. It is a dizzyingly candid, compulsively readable, ultimately redemptive story about love, marriage, family, heartbreak, and the unexpected turns of a life. On the one hand, reading this book is like watching a train wreck. On the other hand, as Gillies herself says, it is about trying to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, and loving your life even if it has slipped away.

Review: The worst part about "Happens Every Day" was that it ended. I could have kept reading and reading. . .and reading. I couldn't put it down and read it in one evening. When I read the synopsis on barnesandnoble.com it sounded good, but then I read some reviews and thought maybe I wouldn't be able to relate. It seemed as though everyone who wrote a review was going through a divorce. The author is real and lets the reader into her life. I often wonder about people who write memoirs - is it therapeutic, narcissism, a way to make money. . .in Gillies case, I'd say it's therapeutic. She's also living proof that, at the end of the day, everything really will be okay. Maybe not as we imagined it, but okay. The synopsis is spot on "Far from a self-pitying diatribe, Happens Every Day reads like an intimate conversation between friends. It is a dizzyingly candid, compulsively readable, ultimately redemptive story about love, marriage, family, heartbreak, and the unexpected turns of a life." 

And, just to note, Isabel Gillies plays Detective Stabler's wife on Law and Order SVU.

"The Middle Place"

Author: Kelly Corrigan
Genre: Memoir. Mommy/Chick Lit
Publisher: Hyperion
Pages: 272
My Rating: Recommend

The Middle Place is worth reading, but I enjoyed Lift more.

Synopsis (from book jacket): For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything. At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, two funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as the daughter of garrulous Irish-American charmer George Corrigan. She was living deep within what she calls the Middle Place—"that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap"—comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care. But Kelly is abruptly shoved into coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast—and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. When George, too, learns that he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her—and to show us a woman who finally takes the leap and grows up.

Review: A childless childhood friend of mine recommended this. She liked it and thought that because I'm a mom I'd get even more out of it than she had. Coincidentally I read Lift earlier this month and when I found out the same author wrote The Middle Place I looked forward to starting it. I find Kelly Corrigan so easy to relate to, as a woman and as a mom (although the deeper I got into this book the more she came across as the spoiled "baby" and only girl in her family and I don't think she has a clue that that's how she comes across). Her daughters are about 18 months apart (like my daughters) and when The Middle Place opens she mentions her children's ages which are coincidentally the same ages as mine. The ways in which her girls are different are so like my own. I love Corrigan's friendly, chatty writing style and just the way she brings the reader into her life. This is worth reading, but I enjoyed Lift more.

"Lift"

Author: Kelly Corrigan
Genre: Mommy/Chick Lit
Publisher: Hyperion, 2010
Pages: 96
My Rating: Highly Recommend

Lift is a must-read for all moms.

Synopsis (book jacket): "No matter when and why this comes to your hands, I want to put down on paper how things started with us." Written as a letter to her children, Kelly Corrigan's Lift is a tender, intimate, and robust portrait of risk and love; a touchstone for anyone who wants to live more fully. In Lift, Corrigan weaves together three true and unforgettable stories of adults willing to experience emotional hazards in exchange for the gratifications of raising children.

Lift takes its name from hang gliding, a pursuit that requires flying directly into rough air, because turbulence saves a glider from "sinking out." For Corrigan, this wisdom—that to fly requires chaotic, sometimes even violent passages—becomes a metaphor for all of life's most meaningful endeavors, particularly the great flight that is parenting. Corrigan serves it up straight—how mundanely and fiercely her children have been loved, how close most lives occasionally come to disaster, and how often we fall short as mothers and fathers. Lift is for everyone who has been caught off guard by the pace and vulnerability of raising children, to remind us that our work is important and our time limited. Like Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, Lift is a meditation on the complexities of a woman's life, and like Corrigan's memoir, The Middle Place, Lift is boisterous and generous, a book readers can't wait to share.

Review: FANTASTIC. Short, sweet, funny, candid, memorable. . .a must read for all moms.

"Twisted Tree"

Author: Kent Meyers
Genre: Western/Murder Mystery (?)
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010
Pages: 289
My Rating: Not Recommended

I need someone to explain Twisted Tree to me. Please comment below.

Synopsis (book jacket): Hayley Jo Zimmerman is gone. Taken. And the people of small-town Twisted Tree must come to terms with this terrible event—their loss, their place in it, and the secrets they all carry. In this brilliantly written novel, one girl’s story unfolds through the stories of those who knew her. Among them, a supermarket clerk recalls an encounter with a disturbingly thin Hayley Jo. An ex-priest remembers baptizing Hayley Jo and seeing her with her best friend, Laura, whose mother the priest once loved. And Laura berates herself for all the running they did, how it fed her friend’s addiction, and how there were so many secrets she didn’t see. And so, Hayley Jo’s absence recasts the lives of others and connects them, her death rooting itself into the community in astonishingly violent and tender ways. Solidly in the company of Aryn Kyle, Kent Haruf, and Peter Matthiessen, Kent Meyers is one of the best contemporary writers on the American West. Here he also takes us into the complexity of community regardless of landscape, and offers a tribute to the powerful effect one person's life can have on everyone she knew.

Review: Hmmm. Yeah. What to say about this one? I made it to about page 100 (out of a 289 page book). I hate not finishing a book. It's like the book "wins" or gets the best of me or whatever, but I'm waving the white flag. Supposedly this book is a literary masterpiece written by a literary genius, but I didn't get it. I spent 80 some pages not knowing who was speaking or what was going on. The first chapter was good. I was impressed; however, it went downhill quickly. I went online to see what others thought and someone described Twisted Tree as not so much a novel, but as a collection of short stories related to one event (the disappearance of Hayley Jo Zimmerman). That made sense to me, but didn't make it any easier to read. I read for entertainment, enjoyment, and food for thought and this book was not entertaining, not enjoyable, and offered no food for thought. If someone else were to read this (or has read it), I'd love to hear your thoughts, impressions, and what you got out of it.