Reviews

Carl Hiaasen's children's book, Scat is written in the traditional Hiaasen flavor which blends humor, suspense, action adventure and heroism all thrown together in the Florida swampland. All of us, at one time or another, have encountered scary teachers and found ourselves in unfair situations. Bunny Starch, the biology teacher, struck fear in the hearts of every student until one day on a biology field trip to the Black Vine Swamp, she mysteriously disappeared.

I picked this book up after hearing the author interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Aire program. In his memoir, Crazy for God, Frank Schaeffer, recounts his life as the son of evangelical Christian missionaries who founded a community in Switzerland, where Frankie spent his childhood. No family secret goes unrevealed.

Back pain is a common problem that can range in intensity from an annoying occasional pinch to a flat-on-your-back debilitation. If you find yourself suffering from back pain and tell others about it, you’re sure to get lots of sympathy and stories of others’ back woes. Sometimes you’ll also get suggestions for things to try to remedy the situation, which is what happened to me recently when a colleague recommended a book recommended to her when she was suffering.

The Sound and the Fury is one of the few novels that I have read many times. I find something new in it with each reading. It is also one of the most difficult novels I have read. The story is centered on the Compson family in Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Point of view shifts from section to section. The first part is written in a stream of consciousness style and this technique also reappears later in the novel. The voice that we hear in the first chapter will puzzle the first-time reader.

In her latest book Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel, Jeannette Walls introduces her maternal grandmother Lily Casey Smith, an intelligent, resourceful and hardworking woman.

Four women met regularly at the Cedar Roe Library to share their stories and write this book; the result is an inspiring collection of thoughts on family, spirituality, happiness, struggles, and friendship.

Mark Jackson, Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter, contributed a volume on asthma for Oxford University Press’s series Biographies of Disease.  Asthma and allergies, as you may know, have been on a progressive trend afflicting more and more people since the beginn

On the Ohio Frontier during the American Revolution, Nonhelema – known to history as “The Grenadier Squaw” - and her brothers, Cornstalk and Silverheels– also Shawnee Chiefs – counsel peace and cooperation in dealing with the American troops sent to protect the Virginians pouring into Shawnee hunting grounds.

Reasons I enjoyed this book

A. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE STAND-UP COMEDY. I listen to it on XM radio, watch Comedy Central and visit the comedy clubs as often as possible.

B. I am a female. I enjoyed reading about these comedians and why some women did not find their shtick so funny.

Lisa See returns to her Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery series with The Shanghai Moon. It has been so long since the last Chin/Smith mystery that I have forgotten what exactly happened between these two characters.