Bookin' It Thru Life

Typical Cornwell with all our favorite players in different places...Scarpetto and Marino are back in Richmond on an ill-advised consulting case; Benton is stuck in Aspen with an reluctant patient and Lucy is in Florida working an attempted murder.  The underlying story was a stretch, the tenuous ties that hold it together stretching even my willing suspension.  And though the main mystery was of course solved by the final page, I was still left with too many unanswered questions to feel fully satisfied-did Dr. Touchy-feely ever get his comeuppance?  Did Mrs. Wacky Sex Life ever face reality?  How did Chief I Suck At My Job really get his position, and did his ghosts ever come home to roost?  I suppose these could be setups for future books but its a stretch to expect that readers will maintain that sort of active curiosity until the next book comes out. Overall, the book was exactly as expected when I grabbed it out of the basement (another one of the trove I...

I had very low expectations for this book which it exceeded.  I think it was on a cheap books list in the Nook...when I don't have any particular next book in mind I'm a sucker for the under $3 cheap read that doesn't require me to do anything except hand over a couple of bucks and hit "Download".  What's not to like?  Well, sometimes the book.  This one was better than average. Cin-opsis:  Liza, Maggie's estranged friend, leaves our heroine her house-with the caveat that the friend's mother (Edith) comes along with the property.  Maggie takes the offer and hopes for the best.  This set-up lends itself to certain comedic tropes around multi-generational living.  While Fishman is not 100% successful, she largely avoids the predictable and tells a funny, touching story.  Both women come to know and appreciate Liza in a new way through her endowment as they grow into their new relationship as "property mates". Rating:  #5 Good Enough...

My sister (the primary school librarian) gave me this book over the summer after she finished it.  Its target audience is the older elementary school/younger middle school student.  Modeled after Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , the book follows the adventures of three youngsters as they travel across the countryside trying (and largely failing) to stay out of trouble.  The children come complete with backstories and baggage and they bond in part because of, and in part in spite of, their differences.  There's a cliffhanger and a twist.  I thought it was good, though it was a bit longer than it needed to be in my opinion.  For what it is worth, I encouraged my 10 year old to read it and he made it through about 20 pages before declaring " I can not read another page of that book !"-so it clearly was not up his alley. I think I would have been a fan had I read it when I was his age. Rating:  #5 Good Enough

Well, I picked this book up sometime this year and did not get around to writing it up until now.  I'm looking at the title thinking, I don't remember a THING about this book.  I googled it and the description did not help.  So I pulled it up on my Nook.  Yes, I ordered the book.  Yes, I apparently read a good part of it.  I seem to have gotten to page 265/341 and apparently bailed.  So put this in the "didn't even finish it" category.  Even after all that, I still don't remember much about it and I made no notes while reading it.  My vague recollection is that the book itself did not track with the description on the cover and if I stopped reading it part way through, it must just have not been that interesting.  I mean, I will sometimes not finish a book because I don't like it-those I generally remember and have strong feeling about re: why I did not like it.  Its very rare that I just stop reading a book and don't even reme...

I hate to say it because my worship of L’Engle knows no bounds, but I did not like this book.   Well written? Sure-that goes without saying.   But it was a little too  dreary and depressing for me and our "hero" was no such thing.  Unrequited love that lasts a lifetime?  Sure, I'll buy it.  Unrequited love that is so consuming that life outside of it is just shadow living for a lifetime ?  Nah.  The book also had overtones of The Great Gatsby which is not a book that I love or really even like.  I've tried Fitzgerald's "masterpiece" three times (twice for classes, in high school and college, and once as an adult) and I. Just. Don't. Get. It.  This book reminded me of that for some reason.  Not all the racy, high fashion nonsense, but the obsession without a relateable reason... I was happy to read it as I had never stumbled over this particular book before and I always like to tick off another L'Engle.  Glad I borrowed it ...

Cin-opsis:   Young woman who hasn’t seen her favorite uncle in 15 or so years inherits his bookstore.   Following clues in imitation of the scavenger hunts they played when she was a child, Miranda susses out her uncle’s life since he disappeared and in the process, discovers herself.    It’s a good read, uncomplicated, easy to like.   Favorite book of the year?   Not even close.   Readable and entertaining?   Sure. Rating:   #5 Good Enough

Our narrator is a young man whose “uncle” was a WWII hero.   The uncle writes a well-received memoir and we as readers are treated to both his story and his “nephew’s” reactions to such.   The war story has all the ingredients of a hit:   love and battles and sex and airplanes, desperate rescues and heroic adventures.   Our narrator is suitably in thrall.   The writing was pleasant:             “ groans of downy sleep, death’s counterfeit ”  and            “And isn’t that the very problem with even the simplest lie, let alone a lie the size of Poxl’s?   It             breeds suspicion, incredulity without bounds ” The book was fine.  I did not find it to be the masterpiece that some did.   In addition, and perhaps overriding what I might otherwise have thought of it, shortly after I read this I read Chabon’s Moonglow and Poxl We...