Reviews

This is the story of an unusual friendship that developed between poor, uneducated Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster in early 1800’s England, pre-Darwin. They shared a common passion, fossil hunting and through trials and tribulations maintained a friendship for several decades.

If you’ve ever done genealogical (or historical) research and felt the intrigue and energy of peeling back layers of information to open windows on the past, this is a beautifully written description of the process. Ms. Gerzina embarked on a search to authenticate the story of Lucy Terry. Born a slave in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts, Lucy Terry was reputed to have argued a case before the Supreme Court. How much of this story could be true? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to document it?

The Best Skillet Recipes is just one of many great cookbooks put out by America’s Test Kitchen.  Their mission is to test recipes over and over until they find the “best” version, using blind taste tests.  This particular test kitchen book has chapters on skillet basic

At the age of three Mike May was blinded after trying to clean a glass jar scrounged from the cluttered garage in the plastic swimming pool in his yard. The jar contained chemicals that, when combined with water, caused an explosive reaction. After several corneal transplants, May  was told he would never see again.

Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has been one of the most popular novels of recent years, and the furor has only continued with the release of the second novel in the series: The Girl Who Played with Fire. His last book (both in the Millennium Trilogy, and forever - Larsson is being published posthumously), The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, is due out in the US May 25th.

Written in 1993, Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying takes us back to the 1940s South and young, innocent Jefferson sitting in a Louisiana jail waiting to be executed. His Tante Lou and Godmother Miss Emma are determined that he should die like a man. Their nephew Grant, the one-room school teacher, is sent to teach the despondent prisoner the lessons of life. Gripping, gritty and heartbreaking this novel goes to the depths of the soul yet takes us up to the universal meaning of life.

I have read the book (previously reviewed/blogged 1/26/10) and listened to the cd audio version of The Help and recommend both versions. The audio version gives the reader an enhanced reading/ listening experience.

Cara Black's mysteries, set in Paris in the late 1990s, are appealing to mystery lovers and Francophiles alike, what with all the name-dropping of Parisian streets, monuments, subway lines, and cafes.

I recently read The Blood Ballad, the 11th book in the Torie O'Shea mystery series by Rett MacPherson. While this series is made up of cozy mysteries that are very easy, mild reads (the exact opposite of my favorite Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly), I've chosen to read them because they combine three of my special interests: mysteries and genealogy and Missouri. Torie O'Shea lives in a fictitious small town just south of St. Louis. She is the resident genealogist, historian, tour guide of historic buildings, snoop, plus a harried wife and mother.