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MostlyFiction.com Blogs:
| Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors. - Joseph Addison | ||
| Dec 31, 2008 | ||
Being the last day of 2008, it's the time to reflect on the past year. I'm still in awe that Barack Obama was elected as our next president and will always hold that has the highlight of 2008. The most visual event for the year was the Beijing Summer Olympics opening ceremony. So the last day of the year seemed a good time to post Poornima's review of a book on the new China, also, one on her best of 2008 reads. (read review) |
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| Dec 30, 2008 | ||
In this gripping and suspenseful novella from the Egyptian Nobel Prize-winner, three young friends survive interrogation by the secret police, only to find their lives poisoned by suspicion, fear, and betrayal. Mary says, "It's one of the most compressed stories I've ever read, dealing with major themes in ways that keep the reader totally engaged." (read review) |
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| Dec 29, 2008 | ||
Sprung from a timeless dream, Shadowbridge is a world of linked spans arching high above glittering seas. It is a world of parading ghosts, inscrutable gods, and dangerous magic. Most of all, it is a world of stories. No one knows those stories better than Leodora, a young shadow-puppeteer who travels Shadowbridge collecting the intertwining tales and myths of each place she passes through, then retells them in performances whose genius has begun to attract fame . . . and less welcome attention. (read review)
Lord Tophet is the completion of the two-book adventure. (read review) |
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| Dec 27, 2008 | ||
It's been awhile since I've bothered to feature a new Patricia Cornwell novel. We original fans, tried sticking with her but book after book just disappointed. In the past few years, we let others read them and then we'd check Amazon.com for the readers' ratings, always hoping that this new book, will be the one; you know, as good as the the early books. But, to be honest expectations are just low at this point. So I was truly surprised to discover that people LIKE this book, maybe it's time to try one of her novels again. (read review)
Fran has been happily married to Nick for twelve years, until a "little stranger" arrives in the form of a baby, and their lives are irrevocably changed. Louis has good health and a sweet nature, but Fran feels stifled with her old life merely a memory. So, one day, she simply walks away. (read review) |
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| Dec 26, 2008 | ||
There is never a quiet moment on 44 Scotland Street. Pat deals with the reappearance of Bruce, which has her heart skipping—and not in a pleasant way. Angus Lordie's dog Cyril has been taken away by the authorities, accused of being a serial biter. Unexpectedly, Domenica has offered to help free him. As usual, Big Lou is still looking for love, and handing out coffee and advice to the always contemplative Matthew. And Bertie, the beleaguered Italian-speaking six year old prodigy, now has a little brother, Ulysses, who Bertie hopes will help distract his pushy mother Irene. Beautifully observed, cleverly detailed, and a treat. (read review) |
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| Dec 25, 2008 - Merry Christmas | ||
As he tries to save the lives of two men, Omar Yussef is confronted with the corruption and violence of Gaza's warring government factions and the criminal gangs with which they are connected. Second in this new series set in the Palestinian territories. (read review)
James Watson Bolsover is an apparently normal middle-aged man, a shy yet soulful engineer turned technical writer who for many years shared a passionate marriage with his lovely wife, Katherine. Bolsover’s wife and his deep interest in his work made his life perfect, but then–by chance, misfortune, bad luck–he lost Katherine and, with her, his innocence. Now he travels by sea to a remote island and checks into what seems to be an ordinary hotel; in this safe haven he hopes to understand the past and start afresh. (read review) |
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| Dec 23, 2008 | ||
Driven by the memory of a fallen teammate, TSU’s 1941 starting lineup went down as legend in Montana football history, charging through the season undefeated. Two years later, the "Supreme Team" is caught up in World War II. Ten of them are scattered around the globe in the war’s various lonely and dangerous theaters. The eleventh man, Ben Reinking, has been plucked from pilot training by a military propaganda machine hungry for heroes. He is to chronicle the adventures of his teammates, man by man, for publication in small-town newspapers across the country like the one his father edits. The law of averages, which holds that all but one of his teammates should come through the conflict unscathed, seems to be being tested. (read review) |
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| Dec 22, 2008 - Happy Hannukah | ||
A couple, long married, are spending an unaccustomed week apart. Amotz, an engineer, is busy juggling the day-to-day needs of his elderly father, his children, and his grandchildren. His wife, Daniella, flies from Tel Aviv to East Africa to mourn the death of her older sister. There she confronts her anguished seventy-year-old brother-in-law, Yirmiyahu, whose soldier son was killed six years earlier in the West Bank by “friendly fire." Yirmiyahu is now managing a team of African researchers digging for the bones of man’s primate ancestors as he desperately strives to detach himself from every shred of his identity, Jewish and Israeli. (read review) |
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| Dec 21, 2008 | ||
I just learned that Sudheer Apte also reviewed this book but somehow it got lost in cyberspace. I believe the book is worth the second review, but check out the reviews for yourself! (read review) |
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| Dec 19, 2008 | ||
Inspired by Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, Castorp recounts Hans Castorp's student years in Gdansk, Poland. Pawel Huelle imagines what happened when Castorp encounters people, events, and ideas that anticipate the years to come, including an enigmatic woman who becomes his obsession. (read review)
A small culturally mixed community living in an apartment building in the center of Rome is thrown into disarray when one of the neighbors is murdered. An investigation ensues and as each of the victim’s neighbors is questioned, the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome. (read review) |
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| Dec 17, 2008 | ||
A first novel of the first order—provocative, exuberant, wickedly clever—that reimagines the conspiracies and coincidences leading to the mysterious 1988 plane crash that killed Pakistan’s dictator General Zia ul-Haq. (read review)
A tall, yellow-haired, young European traveler calling himself “Mogor dell’Amore,” the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the Emperor Akbar, lord of the great Mughal empire, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the imperial capital, a tale about a mysterious woman, a great beauty believed to possess powers of enchantment and sorcery, and her impossible journey to the far-off city of Florence. (read review) |
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OUT OF MAO'S SHADOW: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China
from 18 reviews
KARNAK CAFE
from 2 reviews
SHADOWBRIDGE
LORD TOPHET
SCARPETTA
A LITTLE STRANGER
from 1 reviews
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BERTIE
from 8 reviews
A GRAVE IN GAZA
BY CHANCE
THE ELEVENTH MAN
from 7 reviews
FRIENDLY FIRE
A CASE OF EXPLODING MANGOES
CASTORP
CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS OVER AN ELEVATOR IN PIAZZA VITTORIO
THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE
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