REAL LIFE & LIARS by Kristina Riggle
Book Quote:
“I choose my favorite summer dress, an olive green thing with shiny metal beads sewn all around the neckline. It hangs like a sack and feels so good, it’s like being naked.
I should ask to be buried in this. Katya would be horrified, because it’s not at all appropriate. Ivan wouldn’t want any part of that decision, nor would Max. Death and fashion together—not a male specialty. Irina would argue with Katya just out of habit.
No, it would be selfish for me to dictate what happens after I’m dead, when it couldn’t possibly matter to me.  I’m being greedy enough by daring to set the agenda of my own demise.
If I have to go down,  fine.  But I’m going down with both tits swinging.”
Book Review:
Review by Terez Rose (OCT 19, 2009)
In Real Life & Liars, protagonist Mira Zielinski represents a new demographic for our times: hippie turned senior, at age sixty-five still free-spirited and defiant, who has decided to refuse treatment for her recently diagnosed breast cancer. She’s also decided to withhold the diagnosis from her three grown children, as they converge on the family home in Charlevoix, Michigan for a grand 35th anniversary party. As it turns out, however, the Zielinski children are bringing home a few secrets of their own.
October 19, 2009
Tags: Family Matters, Michigan Posted in: Book Club Choice, Debut Novel, End-of-Life, Family Matters, Happiness, Motherhood, US Midwest 
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GENEROSITY: AN ENHANCEMENT by Richard Powers
Book Quote:
“He concedes that genetic enhancement does force major reconsiderations, starting with the boundaries between justice and fate, the natural and the inevitable. But so did the capture of fire and the invention of agriculture.”
Book Review:
Review by Poornima Apte (OCT 18, 2009)
There are many reasons why Thassadit Amzwar should not be the way she is—always happy. For one thing, she has lost most of her family in the ongoing Algerian civil war. Her father is killed and her mother dies soon after from pancreatic cancer. She has left her home behind and is now a refugee studying in a mediocre college, Mesquakie, in Chicago.
It is here that she runs into Russell Stone—who is teaching the creative writing course she is enrolled in. Stone is a disillusioned writer who works at a day job editing content for a self-help magazine. Along with his students—who are various shades of young adults—Stone is really struck by Thassa’s boundless enthusiasm for life. She is labeled “Miss Generosity” –for the eternal sunshine she visits on those around her and for her generosity of spirit.
October 18, 2009
Tags: 21st-Century, Chicago, Contemporary, Happiness, Literary, Sciences, Top Picks Posted in: Award Winning Author, Contemporary, Happiness, Literary, Top Picks, US Midwest, Writing Life No Comments
POISONVILLE by Massimo Carlotto
Book Quote:
“What bound them together was much more important than sex.”
Book Review:
Review by Guy Savage (OCT 17, 2009)
I first came across Italian author Massimo Carlotto in 2006 when I read Death’s Dark Abyss and The Goodbye Kiss. Death’s Dark Abyss is a tale of long-simmering revenge as a man plots against the killer of his wife and child, and The Goodbye Kiss is the story of an amoral career criminal who’s living a straight life when his past comes back to haunt him. In Death’s Dark Abyss, the main character has nothing whatsoever to lose whereas in The Goodbye Kiss, the protagonist stands to lose newly earned social status and affluence. Both scenarios create dangerous characters, and these very different Ubermenschen take fate into their own hands and move beyond traditional morality in these dark, nihilistic novels. Read the rest of this post »
October 17, 2009
Tags: Europa, italy, murder mystery, Noir Posted in: Greed & Corruption, Mystery/Suspense, italy No Comments
BOX 21 by Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström
Book Quote:
“In Lithuania, trading in narcotics, say, is a serious crime. Heavy sentences are passed. Long, harsh punishments are meted out. But trading in people, in young women, that’s risk-free. In Lithuania pimps are hardly ever punished. No one is sentenced, no one gets a spell in prison.”
Book Review:
Review by Mary Whipple (OCT 16, 2009)
The grisly lives of innocent, sixteen- and seventeen-year-old Lithuanian girls, tricked into leaving their homeland on the promise of good jobs, unfold in tawdry detail as Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström focus on the sex trade in Sweden, its clientele, the financial syndicates which profit from it, the enforcers which protect it, and the police and others who allow it to flourish. Lydia Grajauskas, a “pro” with three years of experience by the age of twenty, like her friend Alena Sljusareva, serves twelve customers a day, earning almost no income except what she can negotiate with her customers for “extras.” Living in an apartment which a Russian with a diplomatic passport claims as “Lithuanian territory,” exempt from Swedish laws, Lydia can expect little help from the local police. Until she is beaten within an inch of her life.
October 16, 2009
Tags: Foreign Detective, prostitution, Sleuth Posted in: Immigration / Diaspora, Sleuths Series, Sweden, Translated No Comments
TELL ME SOMETHING TRUE by Leila Cobo
Book Quote:
“There is a picture of my mother. She is kneeling in front of a bed of roses in the garden of our Los Angeles home, one hand holding a huge straw hat against an obvious gust of wind, the other clutching weeds and roots she’s just dug up from the moist soil. Her long, curly hair is blowing around her face, and she’s smiling and she looks beautiful and impossibly happy.
I had that picture in my bedroom, and it was my favorite for many years, before I learned that my mother hated gardening. That every plant she ever touched died. That the beautiful day in that beautiful garden was a fluke. That at the time the picture was taken, she was probably already thinking of another life, another place, far from me, far from us.”
Book Review:
Review by Bonnie Brody (OCT 15, 2009)
Leila Cobo’s debut novel, Tell Me Something True, is an utterly wonderful and riveting book that had me in its clutches from the first page. It is lyrical and sensual with no word out of place. The character development is perfect, deep and meaningful, bringing the reader into the heart of the protagonists and their lives. In a sense, this novel sang to me in its poignant story of great loves.
The story is about Gabriella, a young woman who is half American and half Colombian. She was orphaned at four years old when her mother died in a plane crash. Every year Gabriella goes to Cali, where her mother is from, to spend a month with her grandparents. She has always believed that her mother and father led an idyllic and perfect life until she finds her mother’s diary in Cali – - and then she realizes that what she thought was true is a lie. Read the rest of this post »
October 15, 2009
Tags: Around-the-World, Columbia, Latin American Posted in: Book Club Choice, Debut Novel, Family Matters, Latin America, Latin American, World Literature No Comments
SOME THINGS THAT MEANT THE WORLD TO ME by Joshua Mohr
Book Quote:
“Shame is the strongest God in the Solar system.”
Book Review:
Review by Bonnie Brody (OCT 15, 2009)
What a wonderful book this is. As a clinical social worker and marriage and family therapist, I was very impressed with the clinically accurate portrayal of Rhonda, the protagonist. Rhonda is a 30-year-old man who suffers from depersonalization disorder which is one of the more severe symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is virtually always caused by extreme childhood abuse. When someone suffers from depersonalization, they can go into what is considered a fugue state or see themselves or parts of their body as “other.” As part of his disorder, and also as an homage to his resiliency, Rhonda has an inner child that accompanies him from time to time. He calls this child “Little Rhonda.” Â He also has an older Rhonda as a friend. She is nurturing and loving towards him and he calls her “Old Lady Rhonda.” Both of these Rhondas help him come to terms with his present life in relation to the trauma he’s suffered in the past. Read the rest of this post »
October 15, 2009
Tags: Family Matters, Mental-Illness Posted in: California, Contemporary, Debut Novel, Family Matters, Mental Health, Top Picks, US Southwest No Comments
