Literature & Fiction Books - Page 8

A Lion Among Men (The Wicked Years, Book 3)

Gregory Maguire

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

amonther waste of a good title 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I only kind of liked the first book, was out and out dissatisfied/ disgusted with #2 and this on was a waste. I couldn't finish it; better things to do with my time. I'm not even sure the author knows what he's writing about. What's next for this lack luster writer, a perverse re-telling of CS Lewis?
Perhaps if he had created his own world I wouldn't be so put out, but to take a great work of fantasy and social commentary and to twist it like this. DON'T bother reading this.

Stick to re-tellings like those by Robin McKinley or Donna Jo Napoli.

Editorial Review:

In the much-anticipated third volume of the Wicked Years, we return to Oz, seen now through the eyes of the Cowardly Lion.

While civil war looms in Oz, a tetchy oracle named Yackle prepares for death. Before her final hour, a figure known as Brrr—the Cowardly Lion—arrives searching for information about Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West. Abandoned as a cub, his path from infancy is no Yellow Brick Road. In the wake of laws that oppress talking Animals, he avoids a jail sentence by agreeing to serve as a lackey to the warmongering Emperor of Oz.

A Lion Among Men chronicles a battle of wits hastened by the Emerald City's approaching armies. Can those tarnished by infamy escape their sobriquets to claim their own histories, to live honorably within their own skins before they're skinned alive?

Gregory Maguire's new novel is written with the sympathy and power that have made his books contemporary classics.

The Given Day LP: A Novel

Dennis Lehane

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane's long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters more richly drawn than any Lehane has ever created, The Given Day tells the story of two families—one black, one white—swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. Beat cop Danny Coughlin, the son of one of the city's most beloved and powerful police captains, joins a burgeoning union movement and the hunt for violent radicals. Luther Laurence, on the run after a deadly confrontation with a crime boss in Tulsa, works for the Coughlin family and tries desperately to find his way home to his pregnant wife.

Here, too, are some of the most influential figures of the era—Babe Ruth; Eugene O'Neill; leftist activist Jack Reed; NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois; Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson's ruthless Red-chasing attorney general; cunning Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge; and an ambitious young Department of Justice lawyer named John Hoover.

Coursing through some of the pivotal events of the time—including the Spanish Influenza pandemic—and culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, The Given Day explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. As Danny, Luther, and those around them struggle to define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they gradually find family in one another and, together, ride a rising storm of hardship, deprivation, and hope that will change all their lives.

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 104 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas MOVIE Review from The Massie Twins 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The absolute high point of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is the attention to character development witnessed in every persona that appears onscreen. Thought-provoking and powerful, the backdrop of World War II, prison camps, and Nazis perfectly clash with the innocence of a child's mind and the injustice and compassion perceived through his eyes. At once painful, tear-jerking and deeply emotional, this is a film that cannot be easily forgotten.

Little Bruno (Asa Butterfield) and his family relocate to the countryside and out of Berlin during World War II. Bruno's father (David Thewlis) has just received a promotion to oversee a German concentration camp, much to the disapproval of his politically forthright parents, which takes the family away from friends and comfort. Bruno is initially upset, especially with boredom due to the lack of other children around the secluded house they move to, but he secretly wanders outside to investigate his surroundings.

Not far from the lonely home is the camp and its odd "farmers" who occasionally act as servants for the family. When Bruno works up the courage to travel to the gaunt resort, he meets Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) dressed in funny pajamas and looking glum. Soon the two consider themselves friends, even though they are separated by an electrified fence and can only meet in secrecy. Bruno brings food and games to play, but envisages himself as the unlucky one; he is tutored most of the day and trapped in a solitary fortress while Shmuel gets to roam freely (within the confines of the camp). Bruno's family life begins to falter when his mother (Vera Farmiga) discovers the true purpose of the camp and her husband's duties, and so he plots to join Shmuel in his search for his own missing father.

James Horner's preeminent score gives extra depth and resonance to outstanding performances and dire depictions of a catastrophic period. The film is told through the eyes of an innocent boy, giving a considerably unique approach to a Holocaust film. Based on the novel by John Boyne, the film never delves into actual atrocities, but instead focuses on the misinterpretations of a child's mind and the innocent interactions with both dutiful Nazis and suffering prisoners.

Every character is incredibly complex, from Jewish servant Pavel, who was once a doctor and now peels potatoes and serves drinks (Bruno can't understand why he'd give up his career), to Lieutenant Kotler, the intimidating German officer who shows no clemency to the Jews, yet carefully hides his own doubts about the orders he carries out. No supporting character is wasted, and each is perfectly portrayed by an incredibly talented cast.

Some aspects of the film's realism are questionable, from the use of servants to Schmuel's age to young Bruno's naïveté, but the message behind The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is nonetheless powerful and emotional. It's a difficult film to watch, but well paced and enlightening, despite the terribly bleak setting. The acting and character designs are simply phenomenal and unquestionably highlight this traumatizing World War II drama.

- Mike Massie

Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1546 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

One of the worst books I've ever read 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 14 people found this review helpful.

This book is just flat-out terrible. There's no other way that I can put it. You would think that in a book over 1,000 pages long you'd have characters that show certain degrees of subtlety, nuance, and growth. Not so with this book. Absolutely everything is in black and white terms, and the result is something closer to a religious text than a novel probing into the mind of man. I came away from this book hating every single character in it. The "dialog" is the flattest I've ever read...it's nothing more than Rand spewing her philosophy out of characters that might as well be wearing white hats and black hats as in an old Western film, in case the good/bad distinction wasn't made clearly enough for you. There are some decent parts, such as the first run on the John Galt line, but nearly everything is ruined by Rand's literary version of stamping her feet and screaming "if you don't agree with me, then I'm going to take all my toys and go home!" It's a great endurance test, and I do take a certain snobbish pleasure in saying that I finished one of the longest books ever written, but overall this book was a huge waste of time.

I would like to state one last thing: I happen to agree with certain parts of Rand's philosophy, and I've read Anthem and The Fountainhead. Someone responded to a review I wrote of Anthem stating that a historical perspective was important. Yes, it is important, but all the historical perspective in the world isn't going to make this a good book. You don't need historical perspective to enjoy Don Quixote, or Candide, or the works of Shakespeare. You don't even need to like the characters to enjoy a book: Lolita is a great book, but I disliked everyone in it. I also know Rand's background, how her knowledge of Socialism was a lot deeper than most other writers at the time. I can understand why she would feel the way she felt and why she would write the way she wrote. Still, taking everything into consideration, Rand was still a lousy writer, and Atlas Shrugged is still one of the biggest loads of garbage I've ever wasted my time reading.

Editorial Review:

Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand's greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex.

Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life-from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy...to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction...to the philosopher who becomes a pirate...to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad...to the lowest track worker in her train tunnels.

Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller.

The Northern Clemency

Philip Hensher

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The award-winning author of The Mulberry Empire brings us a sweeping chronicle of ordinary lives profoundly shaped by both the subtleties of everyday experience and the larger forces of history.

In 1974, the Sellers family is transplanted from London to Sheffield in northern England. On the day they move in, the Glover household across the street is in upheaval: convinced that his wife is having an affair, Malcolm Glover has suddenly disappeared. The reverberations of this rupture will echo through the years to come as the connection between the families deepens. But it will be the particular crises of ten-year-old Tim Glover—set off by two seemingly inconsequential but ultimately indelible acts of cruelty—that will erupt, full-blown, two decades later.

These lives unfold against the vividly rendered backdrop of twentieth-century England at the dawn of the Thatcher era: prosperity for some and disenfranchisement for others, which will have a drastic impact on both families.

Expansive and deeply felt, The Northern Clemency shows Philip Hensher to be one of our most masterly chroniclers of modern English life, and a storyteller of virtuosic gifts.

Same Kind Of Different As Me

Ron Hall, Denver Moore

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 207 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Powerful story of friendship and faith 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore is a different kind of love story. Two men, who couldn't be more different, are brought together by their love for one woman who has a powerful love for God. Ron Hall is a successful art dealer in Dallas, Texas when his wife, Deborah, hears a message from God to serve the homeless in a dilapidated shelter. He goes along with his wife, only for love of her. But when Deborah tells him that she has seen a vision of a man who will change the city with his wisdom, and that the man is Denver, one of the biggest, most frightening men in the shelter, Ron struggles to believe as well. Through Deborah, the two men become friends, of the forever kind, and God will use that friendship to change the city. This nonfiction tale of friendship is wonderfully written in alternately chapters in Ron and Denver's voices. Denver, who was a sharecropper in Louisiana, never learned to read or write, but has a deep sense of right and wrong, and he manages to teach Ron and Deborah both what true Christianity means. This is the kind of book that makes you long to have a deeper relationship with God so that you can see miracles the way these two men have. Denver says, "I'm just a nobody tryin' to tell everybody about the Somebody who can save everybody." Amen!

Editorial Review:

Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless-until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together.

But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing?

Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader or listener will ever forget it.

One Fifth Avenue

Candace Bushnell

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Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"ONE FIFTH AVENUE is a modern comedy of manners -- a landmark novel, if you like. Its observations about money, the Internet, the function of art in society as wellas sex romps, social climbing and snobbery enhance Bushnell's reputation as an astute observer of modern life....Carrie Bradshaw wannabes as well as women (and men) near Bushnell's age -- she turns 50 this year -- will be pulled into this refreshing and highly entertaining novel about the power of money, sex and celebrity."
--USA TODAY

"Bushnell...broadens her scope in her latest ode to New York strivers and sophisticates...The fun lies in the author's acute observations about everything from real estate envy to midlife crises."
--More

"Where [Bushnell] goes, her army of stilletoed fans follow. You gotta love it: the conflict, the secrets-telling, the peek into the world of the rich and valueless. It all adds up to a juicy summer read."
--New York Post

"One Fifth Avenue is all things an escapist read she be: quick and wicked and wry. There's a blown-out bitch to root against, a star-crossed couple to root for, and a Tim Gunn-style best friend who deserves his own book. Great, guiltless fun."
--Entertainment Weekly

From one of the most consistently astute and engaging social commentators of our day comes another look at the tough and tender women of New York City--this time, through the lens of where they live.

One Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco beauty towering over one of Manhattan's oldest and most historically hip neighborhoods, is a one-of-a-kind address, the sort of building you have to earn your way into--one way or another. For the women in Candace Bushnell's new novel, One Fifth Avenue, this edifice is essential to the lives they've carefully established--or hope to establish. From the hedge fund king's wife to the aging gossip columnist to the free-spirited actress (a recent refugee from L.A.), each person's game plan for a rich life comes together under the soaring roof of this landmark building.

Acutely observed and mercilessly witty, One Fifth Avenue is a modern-day story of old and new money, that same combustible mix that Edith Wharton mastered in her novels about New York's Gilded Age and F. Scott Fitzgerald illuminated in his Jazz Age tales. Many decades later, Bushnell's New Yorkers suffer the same passions as those fictional Manhattanites from eras past: They thirst for power, for social prominence, and for marriages that are successful--at least to the public eye. But Bushnell is an original, and One Fifth Avenue is so fresh that it reads as if sexual politics, real estate theft, and fortunes lost in a day have never happened before.

From Sex and the City through four successive novels, Bushnell has revealed a gift for tapping into the zeitgeist of any New York minute and, as one critic put it, staying uncannily "just the slightest bit ahead of the curve." And with each book, she has deepened her range, but with a light touch that makes her complex literary accomplishments look easy. Her stories progress so nimbly and ring so true that it can seem as if anyone might write them--when, in fact, no one writes novels quite like Candace Bushnell. Fortunately for us, with One Fifth Avenue, she has done it again.

Suite 606

J.D. Robb, Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, Mary Kay McComas

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

Another terrific J.D. Robb anthology! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Four very different paranormal romances! I enjoyed all the stories in this book but the first and last were my favorites.

The first is J.D. Robb's "Ritual in Death" where Eve is with Roarke at a wealthy friend's party in a penthouse at Roarke's Palace hotel when in walks a naked man holding a knife and covered in blood. Eve and Roarke retrace his steps to another penthouse where they find a pentagram and a young woman brutally murdered. As Eve uses her superior detective skills, Roarke also uses any means at this disposal since his security personnel were involved. How both their approaches work at different angles to still come up with the same suspects and final resolution is a terrific story.

The second story takes place around 1814 in England. Summer Cassidy married to Reggie and mother of a darling daughter is shocked when late at night an old friend, Lord Stephen Bradley comes to the door to tell her that her husband was set upon by thieves and his neck is broken. Summer cannot believe he is dead and insists they bring his body to his room and get a physician. When she looks into his eyes though she knows. Summer is frustrated as her husband is a gambler and has left her many debts. Lord Stephen wants to help her but she cannot trust him as he and her husband had a bet going just before she married Reggie. However, Reggie comes back six months after his death as a ghost and appears to their daughter and to Summer as he needs to make things right. A very fun story however whimsical.

The third story involves a detective Sam Hunter who made a name for himself with his partner solving cold cases. In their last case, his partner stepped in front of him and took a bullet meant for Sam. Sam cannot forgive himself for not reacting more quickly and at the same time is angry at this ex-partner for taking the bullet and saving his life. He heads for an old inn in the countryside of Vermont to take some time to re-evaluate his life. He is caught in a bad ice and snowstorm and his car is wrecked in a ditch. He starts walking and sees a light. It is an old farmhouse where they live in an old-fashioned way and the daughter of the house Mary Catherine is kind where her stepfather is cruel. Very intense plot and several twists to the story.

The final and fourth story involves a mom, Marie Barnett, who is divorced and had had addiction problems and is trying to become re-acquainted with her twelve year old son, Hugh. They are going through a museum and come upon an artifact which when the power in the museum goes down, her son picks up and is whisked away leaving the artifact behind. How Marie is brave enough to follow her son and meets a wizard and all the adventures they have is a very magical tale.

Highly recommended!

Editorial Review:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb headlines a hot new anthology of paranormal romance.

FEATURING A NEW EVE DALLAS NOVELLA.

J.D. Robb plunges Lieutenant Eve Dallas into the violent aftermath of a ritualistic murder.

Mary Blayney, investigates a deception that has kept two lovers apart for years.

Ruth Ryan Langan brings a lost man out of a storm to face a breathtaking twist of fate.

And Mary Kay McComas follows a mother, her son, and a wizard lost through the threads of time.

Anticancer: A New Way of Life

David Servan-Schreiber

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Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

At age thirty-one David Servan-Schreiber was a rising neuroscientist with his own laboratory for brain imaging funded by the National Institutes of Health. While testing brain-scanning equipment, he discovered a tumor the size of a walnut in his own brain. This is the moving story of how a researcher and scientist who believed only in conventional treatments was transformed into an integrative physician who realized the importance and power of the body's natural defenses against chronic disease.

Dr. Servan-Schreiber's advice details how to find the right blend of traditional and alternative health care; how to develop a science-based anticancer diet (and the small changes that can make a big difference); the top ten household products to replace; understanding the effects of helplessness and "unhealed wounds" both physical and emotional, and how to regain balance; and how to reap the benefits of exercise, yoga, and meditation.

Anticancer takes us on an inspiring personal journey and ultimately guides us to a new way of life.

Unabridged on 7 CDs.

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story

Diane Ackerman

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Total reviews: 86 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

the New York Times bestseller: a true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

When Germany invaded poland, stuka bombers devastated warsaw—and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants—otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes.

with her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her. 8 pages of illustrations.