Archive for September, 2009

THE LOST SYMBOL by Dan Brown

The movie, NATIONAL TREASURE, enjoyed healthy box office numbers in part because of Dan Brown’s humongous hit of a novel, THE DA VINCI CODE. Instead of mining clues from symbols in architecture and secretive organizations throughout Europe, it zeroed in on Washington D.C. and its Freemason founders. Now, Dan Brown has ironically chosen the same location and the same Masonic brotherhood as the basis for his new Robert Langdon thriller, THE LOST SYMBOL.

September 21, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Posted in: Thriller/Spy/Caper, Washington, D.C.

THE AGE OF ORPHANS by Laleh Khadivi

A young Kurdish boy, living in the Zagros Mountains in 1921, has always felt loved and protected, despite his family’s “poverty.” He enjoys “flying” from the roof of the family’s hut, experiencing the soaring feelings of earth and heaven at the same time, and identifying with the falcons. “With his chest opened upward, he pushes his face deeper into the beam of sun and wishes for his thin bones and narrow shoulders to aspire among the chaotic open-aired thrash of wings, to fly high and above the hemmed land and sweep aloft the delineations marked out of him, on him, into him” as a Kurd. In gorgeous and poetic language, author Laleh Khadivi, recreates the “gloried ground” to which the boy is connected by birth and culture.

September 20, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Debut Novel, Iran, Middle East, Whiting, World Lit

ZEITOUN by Dave Eggers

It’s been four years since one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters, Hurricane Katrina, hit New Orleans, yet the stories of those affected have been making their way out only slowly. Dave Eggers’ ZEITOUN is one such. Here too, as in his brilliant WHAT IS THE WHAT, Eggers does an expert job narrating non-fiction and making the story come alive.

September 19, 2009 · Judi Clark · One Comment
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Class - Race - Gender, Humorous, New Orleans, Non-fiction

THE UNINCORPORATED MAN by Dani and Eytan Kollin

THE UNINCORPORATED MAN has the most unique premise I’ve seen in some time. This debut novel deals with the next evolution in corporate greed. How much are you worth on the stock market? If you were born three hundred years from now in Dani and Eytan Kollin’s vision of the future, you would know precisely. Everyone in THE UNINCORPORATED MAN is incorporated, with shares traded in the stock market.

September 18, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Posted in: 2009 Favorites, Debut Novel, Scifi

NEW WORLD MONKEYS by Nancy Mauro

Duncan and Lily’s marriage is on the brink of disaster. They hope that by spending part of the summer in Osterhagen, in upstate New York, they will have a change of environment and a more peaceful setting than they had in their home in Manhattan, in which to work out their problems. They are heading up to Osterhagen when, suddenly, as if in a suicidal gesture, a wild boar runs into their car and gets caught, nearly dead, on their bumper….

September 17, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Debut Novel, Humorous, Literary, NE & New York, Reading Guide

BENEATH THE BLEEDING by Val McDermid

In BENEATH THE BLEEDING, Val McDermid brings back the formidable pair, Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill, psychologist and profiler. Jordan and Hill have a lengthy history, and if circumstances had been right, they might have married and had a family. As it stands, they are close friends, and Hill is Carol’s landlord. When Tony is attacked by an axe-wielding madman, he is laid up with a severe leg wound, but he still has the mental acuity to assist Jordan with some tricky cases. They include the mysterious poisoning of popular footballer Robbie Bishop and a possible terrorist attack…

September 16, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Sleuths Series, United Kingdom, y Award Winning Author