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MostlyFiction.com Blogs:
| Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book. ~Author Unknown |
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| Apr 21, 2008 | ||
Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths. Their crime: fighting with white boys. Then two white girls emerge from another freight car, and fast as anyone can say Jim Crow, the cry of rape goes up. One of the girls sticks to her story. The other changes her tune, again and again. A young journalist, whose only connection to the incident is her overheated social conscience, fights to save the nine youths from the electric chair, redeem the girl who repents her lie, and make amends for her own past. Intertwining historical actors and fictional characters, stirring racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism into an explosive brew. (read review) |
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| Apr 20, 2008 | ||
Since his first collection of stories, Descent of Man, appeared in 1979, T.C. Boyle has become an acknowledged master of the form who has transformed the nature of short fiction in our time. (read review) |
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| Apr 19, 2008 | ||
Centering on the fate of one apartment before, during, and after the height of New York’s real estate boom. Clarinetist Ike Morphy, his dog Herbie Mann, and a pair of pigeons who roost on his air conditioner are about to be evicted from their apartment on West 106th Street, also known as Duke Ellington Boulevard. Ike has never had a lease, just a handshake agreement with the recently deceased landlord; and now that landlord’s son stands to make a killing on apartment 2B. (read review) |
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| Apr 18, 2008 | ||
From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicles comes this collection of twenty-four stories that shows again Murakami’s mastery of the form. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining. (read review) |
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| Apr 16, 2008 | ||
An ancient race of lycanthropes has survived to the present day, and its numbers are growing as the initiated convince L.A.'s down and out to join their pack. Paying no heed to moons, full or otherwise, they change from human to canine at will—and they're bent on domination at any cost. Caught in the middle are Anthony, a kind-hearted, besotted dogcatcher, and the girl he loves, a female werewolf who has abandoned her pack. Anthony has no idea that she's more than she seems, and she wants to keep it that way. But her efforts to protect her secret lead to murderous results. Written entirerly in free verse. (read review) |
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| Apr 15, 2008 | ||
A wondrous imagining of an unlikely friendship between the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla and a young chambermaid in the Hotel New Yorker where Tesla lives out his last days. The Invention of Everything Else luminously resurrects one of the greatest scientists of all time, Nikola Tesla, while magically transporting us to an early twentieth-century New York City thrumming with energy, wonder, and possibility. (read review) The latest installment of this infinitely enjoyable and best-selling series, recious Ramotswe, the "traditionally built" proprietor of the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Gaborone, Botswana is doing what she does best--helping people with their problems and enjoying the simple pleasures of life. (read review) |
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| Apr 14, 2008 | ||
A haunting collection of thematically linked stories that traverse the twelve months of a year. The stories in Valentines capture the most candid moments between lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children, when truths and true feelings surge to the surface and everything changes. (read review) |
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| Apr 13, 2008 | ||
Narrated in a bold, fearless, hilarious voice and set against the lush, panoramic backdrop of Hawaii, The Descendants is a stunning debut novel about an unconventional family forced to come together and re-create its own legacy. (read review) |
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| Apr 12 , 2008 | ||
What the pig did – in Joseph Caldwell's charmingly romantic tale of an American in contemporary Ireland – is create a ruckus, a rumpus, a disturbance . . . utter pandemonium. Aaron McCloud has come to Ireland from New York City to walk the beach and pity himself for the cold indifference of the young lady in his writing class he had chosen to be his love. The pig will have none of that. (read review) |
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| Apr 11 , 2008 | ||
It is 1946. De Luca suffers from insomnia and has lost his appetite. He's got problems with women and a case that he can't crack. In this second installment of the heralded De Luca trilogy, the Commissario is posing as a certain Giovanni Morandi to avoid reprisals for the role he played during the fascist dictatorship. Exposed by a member of the partisan police, De Luca is forced to investigate a series of brutal murders, becoming a reluctant player in Italy's postwar power struggle. (read review) |
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| Apr 10 , 2008 | ||
Humorously recounts the journey of Taddeus Augustus Baps, a 47-year old Jamaican man who becomes a duppy, or spirit, after he dies. With his characteristic outrageousness, the author defies taboos and subverts conventional thinking in this entertaining, thought-provoking, and ultimately uplifting novel. (read review) |
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| Apr 9, 2008 | ||
Paddy Meehan is no stranger to murder--as a reporter she lives at crime scenes--but nothing has prepared her for this visit from the police. Her former boyfriend and fellow journalist Terry Patterson has been found hooded and shot through the head. She is bewildered to learn that in his will he has left her his house and several suitcases full of notes. Drawn into a maze of secrets and lies, Paddy begins making connections to Terry's murder that no one else has seen. (read review) I'm back from my two week trip to China, one day early. I'm exhausted, can't tell if it is jet lag or too much work. Same result -- can't stay awake! But, still managed to get this quick up date done since I have so many reviews in the queue that I can't wait to post. For this trip I borrowed by sister's Sony E-Reader and thought I'd share the results with you. Essentially I can not imagine travelling or commuting without this device ever again. The Sony format is very book like and comfortable to hold and "flip" pages. The batttery lasted through the first three books and might have lasted longer but I didn't dare get back on the plane without recharging. The choice of Sony books that are available for download is not as broad a selection as what is available for Amazon's Kindle, But still I found plenty of books to download. In fact, I carried 37 books in one volume the size of a thin Trade Paperback. This gave me the flexibility to pick and choose what I felt like reading without the burden of carrying extra books, which take up valuable luggage space and are just too heavy. So what did I read? I decided to concentrate on books that have been made into movies, so that I can now see the movies without wishing I had read the book first. Thus, I read NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by Cormac McCarthy, THE KITE RUNNER by Khaled Hosseini and ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan. All three were good reads and I'm glad I finally had a chance to catch up on them. On the way home I decided it was time for some sci-fi, which I normally enjoy on a long trip. I chose FOUNDATION by Isacc Asimov since I had never read any of this series and felt I should, er, build upon my own "foundation" in this genre. I gave up on it about a third the way through because it is too dated. So I a bounced around a bit and finally settled on reading another older book that I missed, THE CONCRETE BLONDE by Michael Connelly. I love being able to load up the SONY E-reader with a variety of books and have a choice! My only regret is that I didn't have more time to read during the trip. Oh, and that I must return the e-reader to my sister... |
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| Mar 25 -Apr 9, 2008 | ||
Gone to China to seek out new plush toys for Wishpets. We'll have more great reviews when I get back! Meanwhile, please follow links to NEXT AUTHOR or READ MORE... in left column of each book review for suggestions on more reviews... There are thousands on this site, so you shouldn't miss me much! -- Judi/Editor |
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| Mar 24, 2008 | ||
Richard Price (Clockers) tears the shiny veneer off the “new” New York to show us the hidden cracks, the underground networks of control and violence beneath the glamour. Lush Life is an Xray of the street in the age of no broken windows and “quality of life” squads. (read review) |
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| Mar 23, 2008 | ||
London, 1893. Elderly Mrs. Bentley is on her deathbed, and her son Robert has returned from France. But in the Bentleys’ well-appointed home, everyone has their secrets, including Robert’s beautiful and elusive wife, the orphan maid she hires from the country, and the mysterious young woman who arrives, claiming to be the bride of Robert’s drowned brother. Robert is quickly developing a reputation in anthropometry, the nascent science of identifying criminals by body measurements. Yet soon he is caught up in the deceptions swirling around him, for no one under his roof is quite what they seem. (read review) |
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| Mar 21, 2008 | ||
The story of a woman who returns to her roots and discovers much more than herself. Born in Somalia but raised in North America, Cambara flees a failed marriage by traveling to Mogadishu. And there, amid the devastation and brutality, she finds that her most unlikely ambitions begin to seem possible. Conjuring the unforgettable extremes of a fractured Muslim culture and the wayward Somali state through the eyes of a strong, compelling heroine, Knots is another Farah masterwork. (read review) |
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SCOTTSBORO 
from 2 reviews
TOOTH AND CLAW 
from 10 reviews
ELLINGTON BOULEVARD 
from 7 reviews
BLIND WILLOW, SLEEPING WOMAN 
SHARP TEETH 
THE INVENTION OF EVERYTHING ELSE 
THE MIRACLE AT SPEEDY MOTORS 
VALENTINES 
THE DESCENDANTS 
THE PIG DID IT 
THE DAMNED SEASON 
THE DUPPY 
SLIP OF THE KNIFE 
LUSH LIFE 
from 78 reviews
THE DARK LANTERN 
KNOTS 
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