Reviews

This popular title presents an interesting view into the upper echelons of French society.  Told in two voices, one of the building concierge and the other of a twelve year old girl who lives in the building with her family, this story unfolds slowly as we get to know the minds of the two characters.  Each character has her own issues reveal

Published in 1978, Once a Runner is dated; but charmingly so. While there is a noticeable absence of iPods, cell phones, and cable television, exclamations of “Great God in Heaven” and “they don’t know a flying you-know-what about spring sports” are the most notable indicators. Quentin Cassidy is a collegiate “miler”. After he is expelled from the fictional Southeastern University, fellow runner, friend and former Olympian Bruce Denton mentors him as he prepares to break the four minute mile.

“Everyone has secrets. Some are just bigger and dirtier than others. At least that’s what I told myself whenever I stood in a crowd of normal-looking people and felt like I was the only one.” Lucy has been living with a shameful secret.

This book follows two stories, one fiction and one science fiction/utopian fiction. It's a very interesting blend of these two genres, as well as others like feminist fiction.

When John Perry turns 75, he has a choice to make.  Spend his few remaining years without his wife, who recently passed away, or join the army.  The same army that somehow recruits 75 year olds and turns them into young, fit, professional soldiers.  The choice isn’t very difficult for Perry, who has little to live for and finds the prospect of renewed youth appealing.  He quickly learns that the army he’s joining turns its elderly recruits into much more than simply younger versions of themselves.

Schmitt’s Counterstrike is as lucid, clear and comprehensive an explanation of the country’s foreign policy direction as we are ever likely to have in non-government speak.  The book is not an apology, defense or condemnation.  It begins with a fact – terrorism is a l

Isaac Marion’s debut novel, Warm Bodies is a love story with a twist.  One half of the couple is a zombie and the other is a “warm body”.  A zombie love story was one reason the book presents a fresh perspective on this genre.

Maggie O’Dell, FBI profiler is off to Pensacola Beach where a fishing cooler has been found floating in the Gulf of Mexico filled with body parts.  In Maggie’s job, this may not be an exceptional find except for the fact that the body parts belong to more than one person.  Maggie is able to determine that the torso found in the cooler belongs to a man who mysteriously vanis

Oh, what fun!!!  Allende has invented a beginning for the Zorro stories.  I remember the TV series and I was totally smitten with the swashbuckling, mysterious avenger.  Okay, I was just a kid, but the TV Zorro was a much more convincing character than any other swashbucklers I’d seen—Errol Fly