Reviews

This book I love. Julian Barnes is an author of essays and works of fiction, most recently his novel, Arthur and George. In this memoir, Barnes explores his thoughts on religion and death, more specifically fear of death. He muses on his parents life and death with open eyes, devoid of the maudlin adoration often bestowed on family memories.

“Life is a work in progress” and Joan Anderson’s autobiography A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Life encourages us to take time to reflect.

Cathy Ferris is sitting at her lunch table with her friends minding her own business when all of a sudden another student, Tommy, approaches her calling her by the name Murielle and insisting that she is his lost cousin.

The murder of Professor Kellen Zant, an African American, sets off the plot for this story set in a prestigious New England university. The deceased was a former lover of the university president’s wife, Julia Carlyle.

Even though my kids are well into their teenage years, I really enjoyed listening to this audio book that promotes a new less-stressed parenting style that may well lead to more confident and certainly happier children. Lenore Skenazy got alot of negative press a few years back for allowing her 10 year old son to use the NY subway to travel to a friends home alone.

Bill Parrish and his wife are trying to come to terms with the death of their 11-year-old son, Nathaniel. Bill agrees to coach a Little League team and hopes to exorcise his grief by surrounding himself with boys and girls who were his son’s friends. A mysterious boy joins the team, however, and Bill is disturbed by his similarity to his child. Lucky is mute, doesn’t go to school as far as anyone can tell, and is evasive about where he lives and who his parents are. Bill and his wife Harper, are drawn to the boy, as well as repelled by him.

If you like manga, you’ve probably heard of the artistic group Clamp. If you’re new to graphic fiction, Clamp makes for an excellent introduction to Japanese comics, as their ability to cross genres provides something for every age group and taste.

Barbara Kingsolver wrote The Bean Trees during pregnant insomniac nights, inside a closet so she wouldn’t wake her sleeping husband. I know. When I was pregnant during sleepless nights I turned the AC on full blast and ate ice cream out of the container in bed while my husband tried to avoid hypothermia under three blankets and his parka.

Stones into Schools: Promoting peace with books, not bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, picks up where the author’s first book, the best-seller Three Cups of Tea, left off.

In this follow up to “Escape”, Jessop effectively answers the question, “If life is so bad for women in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) why don’t they leave?”