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Wicked [Unabridged Library Edition]

Gregory Maguire

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1526 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Great *adult* read (too sexy by half) 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I'm coming at this rather late (the Wicked wave having crested several years back) but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Wicked is the back story of the Wicked Witch of the West as told from a sympathetic point of view. Greg McGuire has woven a compelling story that , while not contradicting the familiar story lines of "The Wizard of Oz," certainly gives it a new spin. The WWW in "Wicked" is the deformed child of a failed preacher and a lonely mother, whose personality, while as sharp as her prowlike facial features, is more hurt than evil. Accustomed to being shut out, she develops a dislike for authority and finds herself at odds with the Wizard himself, seen through her eyes as a genocidal despot.

"Wicked" gives us the dark side of Oz -- a land of industrial exploitation, racial prejudice, backwardness, religious turmoil and political intrigue. It is populated by talking animals, empty-headed social butterflies and nasty boarding school matrons. In spite of her sharp tongue, rude manners and irreligiosity, Elphaba Throp (WWW's given name) sees too clearly to be a comfortable friend. Knowing that an ordinary life as wife and mother is likely out of her reach due to her green skin, she strokes out in more dangerous directions.

"Wicked" is mostly clever about the way Elphaba gathers the familiar accouterments of her screen namesake. It would spoil the book by telling how, but by the end of the book, the reader will have seen her slow transformation from a scorpion-tongued schoolgirl to the dark robed keeper of magic brooms, looking glasses and flying monkeys.

The book does lag in places, notably a section about the politics of Oz and another related to Elphaba's flight from civilization. In addition, at some point, it becomes fairly clear (from elements) that Elphaba gathers around her) how the familiar Wizard of Oz characters -- like the flying monkeys that terrified me as a child -- will come to be. Other sections were a bit too spicy for me and *way* too sexy for any but the savviest high schoolers. Two sections stand out as quite uncomfortable -- the night at the Philosopher's club (an audience-interactive sex show) and a graphic description of a love affair. Film this movie as written and it would rate a solid R, if not an NC-17. Not the kind of book to give a young person who loved the tamer Broadway show.

"Wicked" is compelling reading, written with wit, humor and sparkling prose. Bravo to Greg McGuire for re-imagining a familiar world and imbuing it for plausible features of our own. Bravo to John McDonough for a terrific narration of the audio book, giving the characters their own voice, and giving Elphaba the rough, petulant and wounded voice of her own.

Editorial Review:

14 cassettes; 19.75 hours. Recorded Books catalog # 95950.

Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera, Book 5)

Jim Butcher

Amazon Price: $32.97 List Price: $49.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Audio Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $26.44

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A bit disappointed 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful.

As I read the other reviews posted here, I can't help but wonder if we all read the same book. I agree that the character growth was good, and Jim's writing style is enjoyable to me in both his Codex Alera and Dresden files novels, but this book felt like filler to me.

Perhaps it is necessary at times in the world of serial novels to write an installment that doesn't accomplish too much. Although there was plenty of action, only one major plot point really helped advance the story for me.

Jim Butcher's fans tend to be rabidly supportive, so I expect to be panned for this viewpoint, but really - without including plot spoilers, I felt like much of the novel was just illustrating more of Tavi's cleverness, educating everyone on the racial peculiarities of the Canim and sending Amara and Bernard on another improbable mission.

Ah well, we all have opinions, and this was still enjoyable enough of a read - I'm not sure Jim Butcher CAN write a poor book at this point in his career. I eagerly (and impatiently) await the next installment. Thank goodness Turn Coat comes out in April.

Editorial Review:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Captain’s Fury and the Dresden Files novels.

Tavi of Calderon, now recognized as Princeps Gaius Octavian and heir to the crown, has achieved a fragile alliance with Alera’s oldest foes, the savage Canim. But when Tavi and his legions guide the Canim safely to their lands, his worst fears are realized.

The dreaded Vord—the enemy of Aleran and Cane alike—have spent the last three years laying waste to the Canim homeland. And when the Alerans are cut off from their ships, they find themselves with no choice but to fight shoulder to shoulder if they are to survive.

For a thousand years, Alera and her furies have withstood every enemy, and survived every foe.

The thousand years are over…

The Given Day CD

Dennis Lehane

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 74 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.

Grace: A Novel

Richard Paul Evans

Amazon Price: $21.29 List Price: $29.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Audio Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $11.79

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

We Can Bury the Past, But It Never Really Dies

Dear Listener,

I am often asked where my stories come from. I'm not always sure. Sometimes a story just comes to me in waves (or trickles) of inspiration and oftentimes it's not until the very end of the book that I see where my characters are taking me. This is such a tale.

Grace is the story of a young runaway girl and the boy who hides her from a frightening world too large and unfathomable for him to comprehend. It is also about two brothers and the love that binds them together through difficult times.

In some ways this is the most autobiographical of all my novels. When I was eight years old my father lost his job, and we sold our home in beautiful and aptly named Arcadia, California, to move to a poor neighborhood in Utah and into a rundown home like the one I describe in the story. I have no fond memories of that time. Not one. I wanted to go home.

I've found my home now, and it has nothing to do with the place where I live, and everything to do with the family I love.

Sincerely,

Richard Paul Evans

All Together Dead (Southern Vampire Mysteries)

Charlaine Harris, Mary Janice Davidson, Kyra Davis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 184 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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

Continuing Sookie Stackhouse's adventures with such an array of other-worldly creatures is an interesting idea all by itself, but the author has such an incredible imagination that I was more than deeply engrossed. Each time I move to the next book in her series, I find that I can't wait for the book to get here and then I sit down and read it all the way through as soon as it arrives. I can't wait for Book 8!

Editorial Review:

Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full dealing with every sort of undead and paranormal creature imaginable. And after being betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Sookie must not only deal with a new man in her life-the shapeshifter Quinn-but also contend with the long-planned vampire summit.

The summit is a tense situation. The vampire queen of Louisiana is in a precarious position, her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans. And there are some vamps who would like to finish what nature started. Soon, Sookie must decide what side she'll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe.

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

Amazon Price: $28.37 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Audio Amazon Marketplace: 72 new & used starting at $8.48

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2521 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The #1 National Bestseller

Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable and beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan grow up in different worlds: Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant, is a Hazara -- a shunned ethnic minority. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them. When Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him.

The Kite Runner is a novel about friendship and betrayal, and about the price of loyalty. It is about the bonds between fathers and sons, and the power of fathers over sons -- their love, their sacrifices, and their lies. Written against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, The Kite Runner describes the rich culture and beauty of a land in the process of being destroyed. But through the devastation, Khaled Hosseini offers hope: through the novel's faith in the power of reading and storytelling, and in the possibilities he shows us for redemption.

Definitely Dead (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 6)

Charlaine Harris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 150 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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

This was such a bizarre entry in what has become one of my favorite mystery series. First of all, starting this book will be totally confusing for anyone who hasn't read "One Word Answer," a short Sookie Stackhouse story that Harris wrote for an anthology. How do I know? Because I hadn't read it by the time I began "Definitely Dead," and I was definitely confused. Sookie's cousin was murdered in New Orleans, and the Vampire Queen of Louisiana sent an emissary to visit Sookie in Bon Temps? When? Not in any of the previous books I'd read. I knew I couldn't be crazy, so I did some online research, found the short story, and was able to download it for free. Then the beginning of the book made sense to me. But how unfair is that to readers who either don't know about the story or have access to the internet? At least publish the short story in the paperback edition of "Definately Dead" so that readers aren't completely lost. Or include a note at the beginning of the book that directs readers to the anthology. Something, anything.

Second of all, the story involving Sookie's dead vampire cousin, the core of the book, doesn't really get rolling again until around page 130. Before then, the book is strictly filler, with unimportant subplots, one involving Jason and his werepanther girlfriend, the other about a missing child, who Sookie helps find. Those aren't spoilers, folks, because these side stories have NOTHING to do with the book's actual plot. So why are they even there? Who knows? Maybe Harris is setting things up for future entries, but that doesn't make for an involving reading experience this time around.

Thirdly, I wish Sookie would settle on a boyfriend. Bill, Eric, Sam, Quinn...On the one hand, I've always enjoyed Harris's ability to keep readers on their toes and defy expectations, but Sookie is starting to look like a right little pop tart. And was it really necessary for Harris to give us a plot twist that makes us detest and reevaluate a favorite character? Again, Harris likes to pull the rug out from under Sookie (and us, vicariously), but it seemed excessive and very mean-spirited. Harris hasn't seemed to know what to do with this character for a few books now, and it shows. Fourthly, when Sookie does make it to New Orleans and the book's real story actually begins, it turns out to be an uninteresting, overcomplicated one, with a plot element that was corny when Dumas used it in "The Three Musketeers."

Lastly, Harris throws us all a curve and gives us a hint about Sookie's family background that's completely inconsistent with the rest of the series, and made for a lot of backtracking. What, is Harris making this stuff up as she goes along? Sure sounds like it. Every writer should take a page out of JK Rowling's playbook and plan a series in advance. It goes a LONG way towards avoiding this kind of sloppy plotting. And if Sookie is a -- well, I don't want to give it away -- then it means she's not a normal woman in abnormal circumstances. Which means she's not us, the reader, and that's a shame.

And did it bother anyone else that Quinn took Sookie to see "The Producers?" Why couldn't Harris just say "the theater?" There have never been other references to present day movies or TV shows -- not that I remember -- and I found it very bizarre. Maybe I just don't see Sookie liking or getting that particular show. "Rent," yes -- "The Producers," no. Maybe it's just me.

All in all, if you're following Sookie's story, you're going to want to read this one as well, but prepare to put the book down, as I did, every few days. It's that dull.

Editorial Review:

The new Sookie Stackhouse novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Dead as a Doornail.

Spiked with a "frothy fusion of romance, mystery, and fantasy" (Publishers Weekly), this "deliciously fiendish...increasingly riotous series" (Dallas Morning News) sends the supernaturally gifted cocktail waitress to New Orleans, where she has to deal with the legacy of one of her own family and a host of potentially dangerous characters.

Dead as a Doornail (Southern Vampire Mysteries)

Charlaine Harris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 157 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Dead As A Doornail 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I love Charlaine Harris's books about Sookie Stackhouse. Once I start one, I can't bear to put it down. Charlaine keeps you wanting to know what's going to happen next.

Sookie carries on with her "charmed existance" 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If you are up to book 5, you've been bitten by the Sookie Stackhouse book and I don't have to tell you how riveting her life is. Charlaine Harris does it again -- and superbly: keeps you enthralled with an unlikely heroine, vampires, werewolves, and all sorts of creatures that you should know better than believe in.

In book 5, brother Jason is now a shifter himself (and still as dumb as dirt and more handsome than he deserves), a sniper is out hunting his shifter kind, and Sookie is (of course) caught in the middle -- with one romantic challenge after another.

Go ahead and read this one too: Work, kids, the grass, and tax day can just wait!

Editorial Review:

When Sookie's brother Jason's eyes start to change, she knows he's about to turn into a were-panther for the first time. But her concern becomes cold fear when a sniper sets his deadly sights on the local changeling population-and Jason's new panther brethren suspect he may be the shooter. Now, Sookie has until the next full moon to find out who's behind the attacks, unless the killer decides to find her first.

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1295 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

spiritual hogwash 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I was expecting more from this book. Unfortunately, it did not deliver. The author borrows heavily from earlier writings, showing little in the way of true originality or creativity. His ideas seem simplistic and shallow (e.g., Personal Legend), while the repetetiveness of certain words like "omen" and phrases (e.g., Language of the World)are laughable. Worse, he seems to believe that "when a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help him get it." What nonsense! On the plus side the story was somewhat interesting. However, the central ideas are simply not seminal and to be perfectly blunt, the book seemed amateurish.
If you are looking for a great spiritual book written by a true master, read Journey to Ixtland by Carlos Castenda. His other books are almost as good. Hermann Hesse is another terrific writer with something important and original to say.

Enjoy!!

Editorial Review:

A New York Times Bestselling Author

This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. What starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasures found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.

Available only in Dist. 5 & deluxe.

T Is for Trespass

Sue Grafton

List Price: $44.95 By: Random House Audio Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $19.99

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Total reviews: 199 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.