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2008 |
2007 |
2006 |
MostlyFiction.com Blogs:
| The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page. - St. Augustine |
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| October 3, 2008 | ||
UPDATE on Judi's travel: See my Travel Blog for updates and photos! We are in Phoenix, Arizona for the weekend. |
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| September 30, 2008 | ||
Would you be surprised that road rage can be good for society? Or that most crashes happen on sunny, dry days? That our minds can trick us into thinking the next lane is moving faster? Or that you can gauge a nation’s driving behavior by its levels of corruption? These are only a few of the remarkable dynamics that Tom Vanderbilt explores in this fascinating tour through the mysteries of the road. Based on exhaustive research and interviews with driving experts and traffic officials around the globe, Traffic gets under the hood of the everyday activity of driving to uncover the surprisingly complex web of physical, psychological, and technical factors that explain how traffic works, why we drive the way we do, and what our driving says about us. (read review) UPDATE on Judi's travel: See my Travel Blog for updates and photos! Today we are in Page, Arizona after visiting Monument Valley. |
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| September 27, 2008 | ||
These three lives come together in unexpected and deeply thrilling ways in the latest (unconventional) mystery novel from Kate Atkinson, to feature Detective Jackson Brody. (read review) Note: I'm sitting Arches Book Company in Moab, Utah. Our Internet access is broken in the hotel (figures, most expensive one we have stayed at...) UPDATE on Judi's travel: See my new Travel Blog for updates and photos! |
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| September 23, 2008 | ||
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse, no witnesses, no evidence. But her uncle, Henrik, is convinced that she was murdered by someone from her own deeply dysfunctional Vanger clan. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired to investigate. (read Kirstin's review) (read Sudheer's review) (read Poornima's review) UPDATE on Judi's travel: See my new Travel Blog for updates and photos! |
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| September 18, 2008 | ||
We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Paloma is a 12-year-old genius. Renée is the building concierge. Each hides their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma’s trust and to see through Renée’s timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us. (read review) |
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| September 16, 2008 | ||
Critically acclaimed, Aoibheann Sweeney’s beautifully written debut novel is a story of the profound human need for intimacy. For Miranda, the adolescence spent in her fog-shrouded Maine home has been stark and isolated— alone with her troubled father, a man consumed with his work, her mother mysteriously gone from their lives. Now, having graduated from high school, Miranda’s father arranges for her to stay with old friends in Manhattan. (read review) UPDATE on Judi's travel: We are in New Mexico tonight. Yesterday we did a scenic drive in Texas through the Palo Duro Canyon and spent the night in Santa Rosa, NM. Today we had nachos in Santa Fe. Tomorrow we head to Navajo Nation to see the Canyon de Chelly and Monumment Valley and then the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. This should keep us busy for the next 3 days! I promise to start up a photo blog soon! |
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| September 14, 2008 | ||
Clara Brodeur has spent her entire adult life pulling herself away from her famous mother, the renowned and controversial photographer Ruth Dunne, whose towering reputation rests on the unsettling nude portraits she took of her young daughter. At age eighteen, sick of her notoriety as “the girl in the pictures,” Clara fled New York City, settling and making her own family in small-town Maine. But years later, when Ruth reaches out from her deathbed, Clara suddenly finds herself drawn back to the past she thought she had escaped. (read review) UPDATE on Judi's big move: House was completely empty on Thursday, except for futon mattress (of which I hope my nephew picked up on Friday) and the Prius was packed and ready to go. After an impromptu evening with my family, Carl and I were up early Friday and left Nashua. We drove over 500 miles and stayed in PA, just outside Ohio on Friday night. Probably could have gone further but got stuck in a traffic jam at the 500 mile mark and decided to call it a day when traffic finally started moving again 90 minutes later. Saturday morning we left around 9 am and drove another 600 miles arriving just outside St. Louis, but still in Illinois. This morning we drove through St. Louis and Hurricane Ike (surprise!). Pretty exciting, but not dangerous. Another 550 plus miles and I am sitting in a Holiday Inn Express in Rutherford, OK, just outside of Texas. Each day is getting better and better. Tomorrow we hit New Mexico and we will start to slow down and take in some scenic views. Overall, I am happier than I've been in a long time. I feel that Carl, by encouraging this big change, reached down into a deep, black hole and pulled me out to see the sunshine. Now all I want to be is a nomad. |
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| September 8, 2008 | ||
Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen. As of today, shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Award. (read review) UPDATE on Judi's big move: Moving stuff over to Wishpets is done (thanks Dave & John). It turns out that we only own 2 pallets worth of stuff. It was our goal but I was a bit worried. After today's update, I need to clean, clean, clean! And more trips to-the-dump, to-the-dump, dump, dump, dump. Of the big things, we are down to 1 futon couch and 1 platform queen-size bed left in the apartment. I expect the couch to go tomorrow evening. The bed is destined for the freebie barn at this point. Oh, and I have about 2 dozen books left lying around waiting to be sent to reviewers. |
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| September 8, 2008 | ||
Bennie Ford, a fifty-three-year-old failed poet turned translator, is traveling to his estranged daughter's wedding when his flight is canceled. Stuck with thousands of fuming passengers in the purgatory of O'Hare airport, he watches the clock tick and realizes that he will miss the ceremony. Frustrated, irate, and helpless, Bennie does the only thing he can: he starts to write a letter. (read review) UPDATE on Judi's big move: Nearly everything is packed and the "movers" (our warehouse friends at Wishpets) will be here in the early morning. We really appreciate all our family and friends who have helped take our hand-me-downs. For two people who have tried not to accumulate much, we certainly had a LOT of stuff to get rid of. Carl and I are both amazed at how much stuff we accumulated in the past 10 years! Anyway, sometime tomorrow (Tuesday) we transition from packing to cleaning. Our apartment lease is up on Friday, hopefully that is day we hit the open road! |
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| September 5, 2008 | ||
In the idyllic Berkshires landscape, Willa’s adoptive parents have fled a mysterious past; a feminist sculptor initiates a reckless affair; teenagers live in a world to which adults turn a blind eye; and the headmaster’s wife is busy keeping her husband’s disastrous history and current indiscretions well hidden. The culmination of these forces is the collision of two very different fathers—biological and adoptive—and a villain whose ends and means slowly unfold with the help, witting and unwitting, of all around him. (read review and INTERVIEW) Also, read a review of Elizabeth Brundage's first novel, THE DOCTOR'S WIFE. |
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| September 3, 2008 | ||
One moment, the World War II hospital ship Benevolence is patrolling the South Pacific on a mission of mercy—to save wounded American soldiers. The next, Benevolence is split in two by a torpedo, killing almost everyone on board. A small band of survivors, including an injured Japanese soldier and a young American nurse whom he saves from drowning, makes it to the deserted shore of a nearby island. The castaways endure a world not of their making—a world as barbaric as it is beautiful, as hateful as it is loving. (read review) |
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MARS LIFE
from 2 reviews
TRAFFIC: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What it Says About Us)
from 38 reviews
WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG
AMONG OTHER THINGS, I'VE TAKEN UP SMOKING
from 10 reviews
BLACK AND WHITE
DEAR AMERICAN AIRLINES
SOMEBODY ELSE'S DAUGHTER
BESIDE A BURNING SEA
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