Archive for March, 2010

HUSH by Kate White

In Kate White’s Hush, forty-four year old Lake Warren’s life is going downhill. Her husband of fifteen years, Jack, has left her and is suing for custody of their two children. To make matters worse, Lake has reason to believe that someone at the Park Avenue Fertility Center, where she works as a marketing consultant, may be up to no good.

March 14, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Mystery/Suspense, New York City

SECRET DAUGHTER by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

THE SECRET DAUGHTER by Shilpi Somaya Gowda is an engaging and captivating novel about adoption, family, and the search for self. Set against the backdrop of India, we share the life of Asha, along with her adoptive and biological parents, from the day of Asha’s birth to her development into a young woman.

March 13, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Class - Race - Gender, Debut Novel, Family Matters, India-Pakistan, Reading Guide, World Lit

UNSEEN ACADEMICALS by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett’s books are ingenious satires peopled with imaginative caricatures rather than merely characters. In UNSEEN ACADEMICALS, he once again pokes fun at bureaucracy and thumbs his nose in a hysterical manner at revered, yet moth-eaten, institutions.

March 12, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Humorous, Satire, Speculative (Beyond Reality), y Award Winning Author

MEXICO CITY NOIR edited by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

As a fan of author Paco Ignacio Taibo II, the founder of the Mexican neodetective story, I knew I had to read Mexico City Noir released 2/10 by Akashic books. I am addicted to Taibo’s series detective novels which feature the philosophical one-eyed detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne. Hector’s favoured modus operandi is to snoop around and to be a big enough pain that someone somewhere breaks ranks and rattles loose with a clue or two. It’s a method that gets Taibo into a great deal of trouble (hence the one-eye), and keeps him poor, but he never loses his sense of humour. Anyway, add me to the legion of Taibo’s fans who’d read this writer’s shopping list if he bothered to write it on a piece of toilet paper.

March 11, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Mexico, Mystery/Suspense, Noir, Short Stories

LOST by Alice Lichtenstein

LOST, by Alice Lichtenstein, is a beautiful, literary and profoundly poetic novel. It will appeal to anyone who has ever known or loved a person with Alzheimer’s or has lost someone they loved. The descriptions of loss and grief are profound and the book keeps on getting better with each page.

March 10, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Contemporary, Family Matters, NE & New York, Reading Guide

THE SURRENDERED by Chang-Rae Lee

Author Chang-Rae Lee had always heard that his father lost a sister on the eve of the Korean War. Then many years later, when Lee decided to interview his father about the war for a college project, he learned that a brother too had been lost then. The real-life horrific details for exactly how this brother was lost in a mass exodus of refugees from North Korea to the South form the backbone of the first chapter in Chang-Rae Lee’s haunting new novel, The Surrendered. It’s breathtakingly well-crafted and details the trek of 11-year-old orphaned June as she travels atop a boxcar full of refugees caring for two of her younger siblings.

March 9, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Korea, Reading Guide, World Lit, y Award Winning Author