Literature & Fiction Books - Page 17

Serena: A Novel

Ron Rash

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains -- but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.

Rash's masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a riveting novel that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.

The Widows of Eastwick

John Updike

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

More than three decades have passed since the events described in John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick. The three divorcées—Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie—have left town, remarried, and become widows. They cope with their grief and solitude as widows do: they travel the world, to such foreign lands as Canada, Egypt, and China, and renew old acquaintance. Why not, Sukie and Jane ask Alexandra, go back to Eastwick for the summer? The old Rhode Island seaside town, where they indulged in wicked mischief under the influence of the diabolical Darryl Van Horne, is still magical for them. Now Darryl is gone, and their lovers of the time have aged or died, but enchantment remains in the familiar streets and scenery of the village, where they enjoyed their lusty primes as free and empowered women. And, among the local citizenry, there are still those who remember them, and wish them ill. How they cope with the lingering traces of their evil deeds, the shocks of a mysterious counterspell, and the advancing inroads of old age, form the burden on Updike’s delightful, ominous sequel.

Goodnight Bush: A Parody

Gan Golan, Erich Origen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Brutally funny take on the Bush years 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

A dark comedic masterpiece to anyone intimately familiar with the original "Goodnight Moon" and deeply disturbed by the Bush legacy. Having read "Goodnight moon" literally hundreds of times to my children when they were young, every page hit a familiar, yet oddly discordant note. The same kind of surreal visual progression yet lulling cadence is used as in the original to great effect. Lots of small details to notice on subsequent readings. A sad story, but one that carries a positive message that the end of this long trying "day" in American history is nearly over. A book you'll likely either love or hate.

Editorial Review:

A brilliant parody of the children's classic Goodnight Moon, built around the coming end of the worst presidency ever.

Goodnight Bush: An Unauthorized Parody is a hilarious and poignant visual requiem for the Bush administration. In it we see a childlike George W. Bush tucked safely away in the confines of his own room with all of the toys he's willfully destroyed, abused, or defaced. Complete with a quiet Dick Cheney whispering "hush," this bedtime story lets us finally say goodnight to the disaster that was the last eight years.

State of Fear

Michael Crichton

List Price: $28.90 By: HarperCollins Audio Amazon Marketplace: 9 new & used starting at $16.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1275 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Coco the clowns guide to climate change 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 23 people found this review helpful.

Hmm, I feel like an interrogator pulling on my thin leather gloves wondering which part of a particularly corpulent and repulsive individual to punch first.

Ok, as a scientific effort into repudiating climate change, this book makes the dinosaur cloning in Jurassic Park look believable.
This book provides a charter for all of those out there who want a "get out of jail free card" to wave so they can continue to lead lifestyles that feature conspicuous consumption and a lack of personal and moral accountability, with respect to our poor planet and the less fortunate individuals that inhabit the "poor bits", the "hot bits", the "not very nice bits" and the "prone to war and famine bits".

The science is selective and poor, and flies in the face of actual experts in the field (myself being one of them). The worrying thing is that people actually believe this stuff, and when I read he was asked to address Congressional Committees I was flabbergasted. I can only presume they were committees that were looking into cloning a mega-army of semi-intelligent dinosaurs, who ironically would probably be too intelligent to read this book.

Phew, thats better, and if this review gets published, I'll be a monkeys uncle (possibly one of the monkeys in "Next", his tirade into the world of genetic engineering, and considering where his dinosaurs come from, I mean, talking about biting the hand that feeds you!!!)

Edit - Ok Mr Amazon, send me some bananas!

Editorial Review:

Another bestselling thriller from the author of Jurassic Park and Prey The "Crichton effect" -- this term has come to signify the distinctive blend of fear, fantasy, and authentic cutting-edge science driving the blockbuster novels of Michael Crichton. Hailed as "the father of the techno-thriller", Crichton boasts an impressive history of global bestsellers -- from The Andromeda Strain to Jurassic Park to Prey -- that explore the frightening possibilities of breakthrough research led astray by abuse and corruption. Drawing on his past as a Harvard Medical School student and his ongoing study of the world of technology, Crichton's gripping fiction is grounded in scientific fact culled from the latest academic journals.

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1220 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Poorly Equipped Dreamer 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It's ok to be a dreamer. It's ok to want to 'find yourself.' It's really ok to hike and backpack. I've done it myself, but I would never, never enter a wilderness area without, at least, a topographical map. Chris McCandless' story is nothing short of tragic.
Jon Krakauer does a fine job of getting you into the mind of this doomed traveler while also taking you into the adventure and beauty of the wilderness.

Dull 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Why would I read a book that basically tells me the plot and resolution of the book on the cover? Way to keep readers engaged with the summary of the novel on the cover. I knew what happened without even opening the book, and when I was forced to read it, I found it quite dull and pointless.

Editorial Review:

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter....

7th Heaven (The Women's Murder Club)

James Patterson, Maxine Paetro

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 117 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Hot! Hot! Hot! 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I like all of James Patterson's books, but I am particularly fond of the Women's Murder Club and was excited when it became a series on television. This particular novel was very personal for all of the characters and that is what seemed to draw me in even more.

Patiently waiting for the next one!

Editorial Review:

A terrible fire in a wealthy suburban home leaves a married couple dead and Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner Rich Conklin searching for clues. And after California's golden boy, Michael Campion has been missing for a month, there finally seems to be a lead in his case--a very devastating lead.

As fire after fire consume couples in wealthy, comfortable homes, Lindsay and the Murder Club must race to find the arsonists responsible and get to the bottom of Michael Campion's disappearance. But suddenly the fires are raging too close to home.

Frightened for her life and torn between two men, Lindsay must find a way to solve the most daunting dilemmas she's ever faced--at work and at home.

The Savage Detectives: A Novel

Roberto Bolano

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

All that glitters is not gold 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I hesitate to criticize Roberto Bolano too much, because many people find great enjoyment in his work. You might be one of them. I simply did not like this novel.

Much has been written about the brilliance of The Savage Detectives, but I found it merely unusual, not brilliant. There are parallels to The Dharma Bums, with the aimless wanderings of the characters, their deliberate bohemian lives, and their radical ideas about literature, politics and sexuality. There is extensive discussion about literature, but it is mostly an absurd discussion, often written for laughs that I could not appreciate. The nihilism of the author, reflected in his characters, may strike a cord in those of similar outlook. Unfortunately, I did not like the main characters. They steal from helpless people, smoke dope, sell drugs, and occasionally write poetry which you never get to read. Worse, I have the impression that Bolano did not care for them either.

Reading this novel was a depressing experience. I find it difficult to enjoy a novel unless I care about someone in the book. Great literature does not have to be enjoyable, but there was more missing from this story than enjoyment. His wandering, discursive style is difficult to follow. Perhaps Bolano was making a point about pointlessness, but after several hundred pages, I didn't care anymore. I don't believe that this book deserves all of the praise that has been lavished upon it.

Editorial Review:

National Bestseller 

In this dazzling novel, the book that established his international reputation, Roberto Bolaño tells the story of two modern-day Quixotes--the last survivors of an underground literary movement, perhaps of literature itself--on a tragicomic quest through a darkening, entropic universe: our own. The Savage Detectives is an exuberant, raunchy, wildly inventive, and ambitious novel from one of the greatest Latin American authors of our age.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

E. L. Konigsburg, William Shakespeare

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 309 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Still good after all these years 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I feel funny reviewing books that are older than I am (this was published in 1967), but I will share what I thought. I thought this was a cute story, and I don't know how I missed this one when I was young...it seems like it would have been just my style! And, except for a few details (such as how much things cost and the fact that Claudia wears a petticoat), it doesn't feel like it's outdated. I thought a couple of parts were particularly funny, like when Claudia and Jamie find an unopened candy bar on the ground, and Jamie wants to eat it. Claudia says "You better not touch it. It's probably poisoned or filled with marijuana, so you'll eat it and become either dead or a dope addict." How funny!

Editorial Review:

When Claudia decided to run away, she planned very carefully She would be gone just long enough to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia appreciation.  And she would live in comfort-at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  She invited her brother Jamie to go, too, mostly because he was a miser and would have money



The two took up residence in the museum right on schedule.  But once the fun of settling in was over, Claudia had two unexpected problems: She felt just the same, and she wanted to feel different; and she found a statue at the museum so beautiful she could not go home until she had discovered its maker, a question that baffled even the experts.  The former owner of the statue was Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler And without her help Claudia might never have found a way to go home.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Jared Diamond

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1075 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great subject and treatment - shakey science 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I know everyone says this - just adding my voice.

The author needs to define his terms - what does he mean by 'smart' when talking about the New Guineans. What does he mean by calling Australia 'backwards'? I wish he developed these vague/biased terms.

Fascinating! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

It took me a while to open this book, as I was absolutely convinced that, with a title like Guns, Germs and Steel, the subject could only be war. Eventually, however, I opened the book, and was absolutely fascinated by it. The premise of the book is Yali's question. Yali, a native of New Guinea, has never been out of his country, is "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?"
The answer to this question takes about 430 pages of very interesting reading, going back to the rise and spread of food production, from food to guns, germs and steel, around the world in 5 chapters. The writer, Jared Diamond delves into pre-history, how and why the nomadic hunter/gatherers became more stationary, and started to form villages, and what effect that had on their way of life. What is necessary to sustain villages. The advance of specialisation. Why some areas were more susceptible to change than others. The geographic climate that helped or hindered.
As I say, this is a very interesting book, and one that will long live with you. However, it is perhaps rather hard reading, insofar as it is written probably for college students. It is not a book that should be read in a hurry, but should be savoured.

Editorial Review:

13,000 years of human history,beginning when stone-age gathers constituted the entire population.

T is For Trespass

Sue Grafton

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Total reviews: 197 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

tres•pass \'tres-p  s\ n: a transgression of law involving one’s obligations to God or to one’s neighbor; a violation of moral law; an offense; a sin –Webster’s New International Dictionary (second edition, unabridged)

In what may be her most unsettling novel to date, Sue Grafton’s T is for Trespass is also her most direct confrontation with the forces of evil. Beginning slowly with the day-to-day life of a private eye, Grafton suddenly shifts from the perspective of Kinsey Millhone to that of Solana Rojas, introducing listeners to a chilling sociopath. Rojas is not her birth name. It is an identity she cunningly stole, an identity that gives her access to private care-giving  jobs. The true horror of this novel builds with excruciating tension as the listener foresees the awfulness that lies ahead. The wrenching suspense lies in whether Kinsey Millhone will realize what is happening in time to intervene.

T is for Trespass–dealing with issues of identity theft, elder abuse, betrayal of trust, and the breakdown in the institutions charged with caring for the weak and the dependent–targets an all-too-real rip in the social fabric. Grafton takes us into far darker territory than she has ever traversed, leaving us with a true sense of the horror embedded in the seeming ordinariness of the world we think we know. The result is terrifying.