Book #24
Book Title: All Together Dead
Author: Charlaine Harris
Category: mystery; romance
# of pages: 323
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):Bestseller Harris mixes humorous Southern-fried fantasy with biting satirical commentary in her seventh novel to feature Sookie Stackhouse, the bubbly telepathic barmaid from Bon Temps, La. (after 2006's Definitely Dead). Sookie attends an all-important central U.S. vamp summit on the shores of Lake Michigan as a "human geiger counter" for Sophie-Anne Leclerq, vampire queen of a Louisiana weakened by Katrina and who will be tried during the event for murdering her king. Sookie knows the queen is innocent, but she's hardly prepared for other shocking murders, not to mention protests by the Fellowship of the Sun, a right-wing antivampire movement. Her sleuthing skills, along with those of her new telepath friend, Barry the Bellboy, are put to the extreme test. Harris juggles a large cast, including several romantic contenders for Sookie's heart, with effortless exuberance.

My Thoughts: There was so much that took place during this book! If I attempt to explain what happens I think I will spoil the book for others so let me just say that if you're reading this series, then this book twists the plot even further.

Books read this year: 24/50. I'm 48% done!!!


Next read(s): I just started reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

I was given a second copy of Silent In The Grave. It's the only book I've really loved and gone crazy about so far this year. So I am giving a copy away to share the wowness. Details are on my book blog, anyone is welcome to enter. The deadline is 16JUN08.

The blurb: "To say I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor..."

For Lady Julia Grey, her husband's sudden death at a dinner party is extremely inconvenient. However, things take a turn for the worse when inscrutable private investigator Nicholas Brisbane reveals that the death was not due to natural causes. Drawn away from her comfortable, conventional life, Julia is exposed to threatening notes, secret societies and gypsy curses, not to mention Nicholas' charismatic unpredictability. This sparkling, witty tale is the first in a captivating new series featuring Lady Julia and Nicholas Brisbane.

My original review of the book.

X-posted a bit, apologies if you see it in a few places. :)

Book #20
Book Title: Water For Elephants
Author: Sara Gruen
Category: historical fiction; romance
# of pages: 331
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A+
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):Jacob Jankowski says: "I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other." At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.
Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and... he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August's wife. Not his best idea.

The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there's trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the "revenooers" or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena's and Rosie's pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it--and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely.

My Thoughts: This book is one of the best books I have ever read. The story and characters seem so real that it is difficult to believe that this book is a work of fiction. I really liked how the story went from present time to the circus days. This is definitely the best book I have read this year and has now made my Top Ten list. I recommend this book to any and everyone.

Books read this year: 20/50. I'm 40% done!!!


Next read(s): The Host by Stephenie Meyer.

Book #19
Book Title: Blood and Chocolate
Author: Annete Curtis Klause
Category: fiction; romance
# of pages: 264
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from bn.com):Characterizing the adolescent experience as monstrous is not exactly a new idea. M.T. Anderson's woefully confused teen vampire in Thirsty and Jean Thesman's reluctant young witch in The Other Ones serve as excellent examples of this metaphor set to fiction. But no one really captures how our hormones make us howl as well as Annette Curtis Klause. Blood and Chocolate chronicles the longings and passions of one Vivian Gandillon, teenage werewolf. Her pack family, recently burned out of their West Virginia home by suspicious neighbors, has resettled in a sleepy Maryland suburb. At her new school, Viv quickly falls for sensitive heartthrob Aiden, a human--or "meat-boy," as her pack calls him. Soon she is trying to tame her undomesticated desires to match his more civilized sensibilities. "He was gentle. She hadn't expected that. Kisses to her were a tight clutch, teeth, and tongue... His eyes were shy beneath his dark lashes, and his lips curved with delight and desire--desire he wouldn't force on her... he was different." But Vivian's animal ardor cannot be stilled, and she must decide if she should keep Aiden in the dark about her true nature or invite him to take a walk on her wild side.
Klause poetically describes the violence and sensuality of the pack lifestyle, creating a hot-blooded heroine who puts the most outrageous riot grrrls to shame. Blood and Chocolate is a masterpiece of adolescent angst wrapped in wolf's clothing, and its lovely, sensuous taste is sure to be sweet on the teenage tongue.

My Thoughts: This was actually quite the fascinating plot that kept me interested the whole time I read this book. The only problem with the book is how unlikeable all of the characters were, especially Vivian's selfishly annoying mother Esme.

Books read this year: 19/50. I'm 38% done!!!


Next read(s): I am not sure what I am going to read next.

Book #18
Book Title: In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash
Author: Jean Shepherd
Category: memoir; humor
# of pages: 264
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from bn.com):Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean Shepherd: a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant—and utterly hilarious—works of comic art. In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations.
In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage "You can never go back." Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth.
A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.


My Thoughts: I found this book to be absolutely hilarious. It is wonderful the way that Shepherd describes the events that happened around him as a child. His descriptions were over the top, like a child's thoughts and portrayals of events often are. He has such a great storytelling nature that hooks you into his world from page one. If you loved the movie A Christmas Story (from which a lot of this book is based off of), then you will really like this book.

Books read this year: 18/50. I'm 36% done!!!


Next read(s): I am about to start Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris.

Book #17
Book Title: The Hobbit
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Category: fiction; fantasy
# of pages: 330
</b>My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].:</b> B
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure.
The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader.
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My Thoughts: I thought that this was a very interesting read. There were a few parts where it seemed slow and I think that is why it took me so long to read. I can't wait to start reading Lord of the Rings!

Books read this year: 17/50. I'm 34% done!!!


Next read(s): I am probably going to read the next Sookie Stackhouse book.

Full Blast by Janet Evanovich & Charlotte Hughes
Wolfman / Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin

Cross-posted like crazy! ;)

News from an Unknown Universe by Frank Schaetzing

Cross-posted like crazy! ;)

Book #16
Book Title: Dead to the World
Author: Charlaine Harris
Category: fiction; mystery
# of pages: 291
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: A
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):It continues the story of psychic waitress Sookie Stackhouse, who has fallen out with her undead lover, Bill. Bill has no sooner departed for Peru, than Sookie finds the head vampire, Eric, running naked and terrified through the rural night. She helps Eric, and discovers his memory has been destroyed by a coven of unscrupulous, astonishingly powerful witches, newly arrived in her small Louisiana town, and offering a huge reward for Eric. Sookie tries to hide Eric, but her brother sees him--and immediately disappears. And Sookie finds herself caught in a war among witches, vampires, and werewolves.

My Thoughts: I really liked this book because Eric is by far my favorite of all of the characters in the series and I found the whole memory loss aspect to be quite interesting. The other plot about Sookie's brother just added more greatness to the series. I don't think that I can recommend this series of books enough. Also am I the only one who cannot stand Bill?

Books read this year: 16/50. I'm 32% done!!!


Next read(s): I think I am going to start reading The Hobbit tonight.

X-posted to my book community, book_stuff and a whole lot of other places!

Title: The Ninth Stone</b>.
Author: Kylie Fitzpatrick, 2008.
Genre: Victorian mystery. Coming of Age.
Page count: 313 pages. Hardback edition.

This is a book recommended to me by Amazon UK on its publication in January probably because I've been buying others novels set in the Victorian period. I managed to be the first borrower of a copy from my local library. It is Book 45 for me this year as part of my reading challenge.

It is a novel in two parts; something not obvious from the cover blurb or publicity summaries. The first part is set in 1864, London. Fourteen-year old Sarah O'Reilly and her younger sister Ellen are orphans, who have managed to stay out of the workhouse after their parents' deaths by Sarah disguising herself as a boy and finding work at a newspaper office. The owner, Septimus Harding, soon saw through her disguise but allowed her to continue working there because she was good at her job. He did say she'd need to keep up the fiction of being 'Sam' and wearing breeches, because it 'wouldn't do to have a girl working in a newspaper office'. He introduces Sarah to Lily Korechyna, a wealthy young widow who writes a column on 'exceptional women' for the paper. Lily also has to disguise her gender due to the sensibilities of the age and writes under the pen name of 'Mr. Evans'. Lily takes Sarah under her wing becoming a friend and mentor.

The mystery element of the novel involves a series of murders connected to a collection of nine rare diamonds entrusted by the Maharajah of Benares to Lady Cynthia Herbert, a friend of Lily's. Lady Herbert had brought the gems to London to have them made into a special charm called a navaratna. The gems disappear and are believed stolen, though neither Lady Herbert nor the Maharajah's man in London will confirm this to the police. The second half of the novel takes place seven years later as Sarah, now 21, travels to India to fulfil a promise to Lily. While there she finds that the missing gems continue to have an influence over a number of lives and she is drawn to seek an answer to their disappearance and the London murders.

This is Fitzpatrick's first novel and she has created an engaging mystery and shown a good feel for period detail for both Victorian London and India during the early years of the British Raj. She weaves in elements of early feminism, the Victorian interest in spiritualism and Theosophy, Indian culture, the impact of the British in India and the cult of the goddess Kali. I immediately loved Lily Korechyna as a character and did quickly warm to Sarah, though preferred her older self. While there are a number of strong male supporting characters, it really is women who drive the story: from Lily, Sarah, Ellen and Martha, Lily's faithful housekeeper, to the Maharajah's chief wife, the Maharanee, and his concubine the beautiful but very spoiled Sarasvati.

I felt Fitzpatrick had done well in conveying her settings of London's East End and contrasting it to the opulence of the Maharajah's palace as well as commenting on the poverty Sarah encounters outside those walls. Her treatment of the mystical elements of Indian culture and British spiritualism were well-observed and presented without sensationalism. Reading the acknowledgements it is clear Fitzpatrick did considerable research into gems and Victorian jewellery and travelled to India as part of her research.

It is certainly a book I enjoyed reading and shall be looking out for further works from Fitzpatrick in the future.

I've stolen greencudagal's way of posting.. Hope it's okay.
 
Book Title: A Great and Terrible Beauty
Author: Libba Bray
Category: fiction; supernatural
# of pages: 402
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B+
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from back of the book):GEMMA DOYLE isn't like other girls. Girls with impeccable manners, who speak when spoken to, who remember their station, and who will lie back and think of England when it's required of them.
  
 No, sixteen-year-old Gemma is an island unto herself, sent to the Spence Academy in London after tradedy strikes her family in India. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visons of the future that havean uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma finds a chilly reception. But she's not completely alone...she's been followed by a mysterious young man, who warns her to close her mind against the visions. 

 For it's at Spence that Gemma's power to attrack the supernatural unfolds; there she becomes entangled with the school's most powerful girls and discovers her mother's connection to a shadowy group called the Order.It's there that her destiny wait... if only she can believe in it.

My Thoughts: The story was amazing. Easy to read. The characters are well developped and charming. I really hope to see the relation between Gemma and Kartik flourish in the next book. This novelis a mix of suspence, romance, drama and supernatural.


Next read(s): Rebel Angels

Book #15
Book Title: Club Dead
Author: Charlaine Harris
Category: fiction; mystery
# of pages: 292
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B+
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):Sookie Stackhouse is having man trouble. Her vampire boyfriend, Bill, has been distant and inattentive lately. Then he announces that he is going on a business trip, which clearly is more than it seems. After a werewolf tries to abduct Sookie at work, Bill's boss, Eric, tells her that Bill fell under the sway of his--Bill's, that is--ex, a sexy vamp named Lorena, and has been kidnapped. Eric wants Sookie's help in getting Bill back, and despite her hurt over Bill's betrayal, Sookie agrees to go to Jackson, Mississippi, to find her wayward lover. Eric has persuaded Alcide, a dashing werewolf, to get Sookie access to Josephine's, aka Club Dead, the local hangout of Jackson's supernatural element. In between dodging kidnappers, the advances of amorous Eric, and her growing feelings for Alcide, Sookie has to find out who kidnapped Bill and figure out a way to rescue him. With some droll touches--Elvis, now a vampire, is Sookie's faithful guard --Club Dead is ideal for readers who like their vampire fiction light, humorous, and fast-paced.

My Thoughts: This book was pretty good. I really like Alcide and am hoping to see more of him as the rest of the series progresses. I can say right now that I am not a fan of Bill especially after this book. I am ready to see what happens to all of the characters in the books that follow.

Books read this year: 15/50. I'm 30% done!!!


Next read(s): I think I am going to read the next book in the Sookie Stackhouse series.

X-posted to my book community, book_stuff and a whole lot of other places!

Book #14
Book Title: Ten Big Ones
Author: Janet Evanovich
Category: fiction; thriller
# of pages: 319
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B+
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):Stephanie Plum, girl bounty hunter, the terror of Trenton, the bane of her boyfriend Joe Morelli's existence, and the delight of her crazy grandma's heart, is in the wrong place at the wrong time--as usual. Just happening to be indulging her nachos jones at a local deli when it's robbed by the notorious Red Devils, Plum is the eye witness who could put the gang leader, known as the Junkman, behind bars... if he just lets her live long enough. Looking for a place to hide out from the killer until the cops catch up with him, Stephanie sneaks into her fellow bounty hunter Ranger's apartment without telling Morelli, who's not overly fond of him. All the usual suspects in this long-running series are along for a wilder than ever ride, including Lula the gun-toting ex-hooker, Grandma Mazur, Stephanie's pregnant sister Valerie and her fiancé, as well as a host of minor characters who bring Trenton's seedier environs to life. Ten Big Ones is another madcap caper by a writer whose fans will doubtless catapult this easy beach read to the top of the bestseller list.

My Thoughts: This book was pretty funny. However to me the plot seemed a bit simple to predict. However this series is really funny and the characters are great.

Books read this year: 14/50. I'm 27% done!!!


Next read(s): I am about to start Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

X-posted to my book community, book_stuff and a whole lot of other places!

Hello, a new member and first time poster here. I'm Odyssey, a bibliophile pretty much like the rest of you and mostly come bearing reviews (a whole lot of which can be found in my journal).

Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
About a Boy by Nick Hornby
The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Also, I'd be very happy if you could point out any book or author who writes in the same style or quality as Nick Hornby. Thanks in advance and happy reading! :)

The following are books that I own and that I want to read this year. If you would give your opinions on these reads that would be great.

( Read more... )

If you have any other book recommendations let me know!

Book #13
Book Title: Life Strategies
Author: Phillip C. McGraw
Category: self help; nonfiction
# of pages: 332
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best].: B+
Short description/summary of the book: (taken from amazon.com):Some people spend their lives reacting to what life hands them, while others craft life to fit their goals. Author Phillip C. McGraw, who is a psychologist but describes himself as a strategist, is determined to make sure that his readers are the creators of their lives, not created by their lives. By accepting that you are personally accountable for every element of your life, McGraw says, you can erase the negative "epidemic behaviors" (found in all of American society: denial, false assumptions, inertia, deceptive masking) in your life and reach your goals.
Written in a tough-love, sometimes cantankerous tone, this self-help book is not for those looking to explore their inner child or visualize away negative energy. No, this is pull-yourself-up-by-the- bootstraps advice from someone who's done just that. McGraw opens with a scene describing how he helped Oprah Winfrey survive--and win--the 1998 "Mad Cow" lawsuit in Texas, when she was having difficulty coping with the reality of what was happening to her. He helped her face the facts about the lawsuit, after which she was better able to participate in crafting a strategy to win it.

McGraw first forces you to take a good hard look at who you are by dissecting your personality. It may be painful to realize that you fall into the "Porcupine" or "Perfecto" or any of the other personality types McGraw delineates, but here it's true that there's no gain without pain, because (Life Law No. 4) "You Can't Change What You Don't Acknowledge." He then describes in depth all 10 "Life Laws"--the rules by which the world plays--that he learned the hard way. Laws such as "You Either Get It, or You Don't," "Life Is Managed; It Is Not Cured," and "You Have to Name It to Claim It" make up the bulk of the book and McGraw's realist philosophy.

If you learn and abide by the Life Laws and go on to create a Life Strategy, McGraw claims you will not only know yourself better and eliminate negative behaviors, you will also know how to reach any goal you set for yourself.


My Thoughts: This was a very informative read that really has some great points on how to get the best out of life. The Life Lessons and Strategies were great points that everyone could learn from. However Dr. Phil seemed to be quite repetitive and there were times that it seemed to get dull. Overall it was an interesting read that I recommend to others that want a little more out of their lives.

Books read this year: 13/50. I'm 26% done!!!


Next read(s): I started Sweethearts for a Lifetime by Wayne A. Mack and Carol Mack.

X-posted to my book community, book_stuff and a whole lot of other places!