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Looking For Alibrandi: Library Edition

Melina Marchetta

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 106 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Wow. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is a testament for those people who admit that there are no unique premises anymore, only unique ways of telling them. Coming-of-age stories are tough because they can be a rather indistinguishable group with only the author's voice as the discriminant. Thank God Melina Marchetta's got one hell of a voice in this novel.

I'll admit that when I started reading this story, I thought it would be one of those formulaic, nothing-special tales about an obnoxious girl who goes to school, is in the middle of a family feud with her foul-tempered relatives, and through a series of unlikely events, falls "in love" with some bland boy whose only attribute is his good-looks. The beginning chapter, where you get to see a firsthand example of Josephine's cheekiness, didn't help in deterring my theory. But then... well, as they say, then it's all history. I got engrossed in the story. Josephine Alibrandi is sassy and sometimes too spoiled for her own good, but she's a fun character to read about. You find yourself laughing at her thoughts (not because they are petty but because they are truly funny) and you find that you can relate to her. This is especially true in the parts where you see her friends and the two boys who're special to her.

The part I liked best of this story, though, was the family aspect of it. Josephine's family is from Sicily and their culture shines through in many ways. I was amazed by the "family secrets" subplot, which was very cleverly crafted and contributed to the depth of this book in many ways. The relationships in the family are tested and we get to see what lies underneath the surface, what makes the family members the way they are, and what put everyone in the less-than-perfect predicament they're in when the novel begins.

In short: Melina Marchetta has written an unforgettable story with touching characters, a tight plot, and great wit. This is an all-time must-read and if you haven't read it yet, you're missing out big time.

Editorial Review:

For as long as Josephine Alibrandi can remember, it’s just been her, her mom, and her grandmother. Now it’s her final year at a wealthy Catholic high school. The nuns couldn’t be any stricter—but that doesn’t seem to stop all kinds of men from coming into her life.

Caught between the old-world values of her Italian grandmother, the nononsense wisdom of her mom, and the boys who continue to mystify her, Josephine is on the ride of her life. This will be the year she falls in love, the year she discovers the secrets of her family’s past—and the year she sets herself free.

Told with unmatched depth and humor, this novel—which swept the pool of Australian literary awards and became a major motion picture—is one to laugh through and cry with, to cherish and remember.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Library Edition

Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, Camille Kingsolver

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Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A few comments and an interesting fact 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 17 people found this review helpful.

Dostoyevski's underground man character, although conceived in 1864, presages by more than 50 years the alienation and disaffection that became so widespread in the 20th century, especially in the so-called "lost generation" that grew up between the two world wars. As such, it became the pattern for generations of other literary anti-heroes whose existential angst was to reverberate through literature for the next hundred years and beyond. Overall, still a great classic and one whose philosophical and literary influences still resonate today.

Dostoyevsky is of interest for another reason that has only recently come to the attention of medical science. Based on the notes in his diaries, Dostoyevsky may have had the very unusual neurological condition known as temporal-lobe epilepsy. This form of epilepsy produces no motor convulsions or seizures as in the classical Jacksonian epilepsy that is so well known. Rather, the effects are on the person's mental and emotional state.

In his notebooks Dostoyevsky reported experiencing visions and emotional states of such an intense nature, saying that that were so ecstatic that one would be willing give up one's life to experience it one more time, that it seems likely he did indeed have this rare neurological syndrome. It can produce intensely vivid imagery and visions, and ecstatic and euphoric emotional states. However, in some cases, it also produces uncontrollable rage and violence, but it appears that Dostoyevsky had the more pleasant and benign form of this disease.

Having studied the excerpts from his diaries describing these experiences and compared them to contemporary patients who have been diagnosed with the disease, the evidence seems compelling to me too that he did indeed have this condition. How it ultimately affected his writing I don't know, but perhaps this will be something that will enable us to gain further insight into his writings in the future.

Editorial Review:

Unabridged audiobook in MP3 format.

Magic Street: Library Edition

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Orson Scott Card has the distinction of having swept both the Hugo and Nebula awards in two consecutive years with his amazing novels Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. For a body of work that ranges from science fiction to nonfiction to plays, Card has been recognized as an author who provides vivid, colorful glimpses between the world we know and worlds we can only imagine.

In a peaceful, prosperous African American neighborhood in Los Angeles, Mack Street is a mystery child who has somehow found a home. Discovered abandoned in an overgrown park, raised by a blunt-speaking single woman, Mack comes and goes from family to family–a boy who is at once surrounded by boisterous characters and deeply alone. But while Mack senses that he is different from most, and knows that he has strange powers, he cannot possibly understand how unusual he is until the day he sees, in a thin slice of space, a narrow house. Beyond it is a backyard–and an entryway into an extraordinary world stretching off into an exotic distance of geography, history, and magic.

Passing through the skinny house that no one else can see, Mack is plunged into a realm where time and reality are skewed, a place where what Mack does and sees seem to have strange affects in the “real world” of concrete, cars, commerce, and conflict. Growing into a tall, powerful young man, pursuing a forbidden relationship, and using Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream as a guide into the vast, timeless fantasy world, Mack becomes a player in an epic drama. Understanding this drama is Mack’s challenge. His reward, if he can survive the trip, is discovering not only who he really is . . . but why he exists.

Both a novel of constantly surprising entertainment and a tale of breathtaking literary power, Magic Street is a masterwork from a supremely gifted, utterly original American writer–a novel that uses realism and fantasy to delight, challenge, and satisfy on the most profound levels.

Light of Other Days, The

Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Infodumping at its worst, but perhaps OK for young readers 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The Light of Other Days, ostensibly co-authored by Arthur C. Clarke, is marketed as a philosophically intriguing tale of the transformation of Earth society in the not-so-distant-future, upon the advent of a remote viewing technology that removes all pretense of privacy from people's lives, and even allows observing events in the past. This is an enticing premise, but it's all downhill from page 1. In fact, the premise is all that's left after you discard the juvenile writing style, the paper-thin plot, the one-dimensional characters, and the Discover magazine-grade science.

I actually gave up on it halfway through, after enduring chapter after chapter of egregious exposition. Relentless, finger-wagging infodumps in dialogue and newscasts read like the following (paraphrased, but not the least bit exaggerated): "'As you know, David, the warning signs of global warming went unheeded way back in the early 2000s, and now there's a permanent El Niño.' 'Why yes, Kate, not only is England, which had to become the 52nd U.S. state after international trade collapsed, locked in ice, but more than 60% of the earth's land is no longer farmable.'" The most blatant morality plays in Star Trek aren't even this bad. These passages are also buffered by a superfluous sex scene that tries to appeal to women, but was clearly written by a man.

And then there's this gem of dialogue, at which point the book cannot be taken any less seriously: "It's like what happened to the copyright laws with the advent of the Internet. You remember that? ... No, you're too young. The Global Information Infrastructure--the thing that was supposed to replace the Berne copyright convention--collapsed back in the nought-noughts. Suddenly the Internet was awash with unedited garbage. Every damn publishing house was forced out of business, and all the authors went back to being computer programmers, all because suddenly somebody was giving away for free the stuff they used to sell to earn a crust."

Yeah, 2001 or Rendezvous With Rama this is not; it's nowhere near the quality of Clarke's own masterworks, or any others in the genre, for that matter. That said, though, had this been marketed as a teen/preteen volume, I think it would be tolerable. However, I expected far more sophistication from an adult work, especially one with Clarke's name on it. Save your cash and wait for the TV movie.

Editorial Review:

The Light of Other Days tells the tale of what happens when a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses the cutting edge of quantum physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see one another at all times: around every corner, through every wall, into everyone's most private, hidden, and even intimate moments. It amounts to the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy - forever.

Then, as society reels, the same technology proves able to look backwards in time as well. Nothing can prepare us for what this means. It is a fundamental change in the terms of the human condition.

Bluish: Library Edition

Virginia Hamilton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Bluish 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Bluish is the story of a young girl, Dreenie who lives in New York City. She lives with an annoying little sister and an almost more annoying best friend, Tuli. The book tells the story of these three girls befriending a girl at school who no one likes. The kids call her Bluish. She sits alone in a wheelchair when she comes to school and talks to no one. she has no hair. Only hats. And she is so sickly pale her skin has a blue tint. At first the girls fear her but through the story they accept her as one of their own.

This book Virginia Hamilton is written very choppy. It jumps around a lot and doesn't stick to one theme. It is very repetitive and at times I even thought I was rereading a page. i would not reccommend this book.

Editorial Review:

Dreenie Douglass keeps a day-to-day journal that seems to revolve around Bluish, a girl in her fifth-grade class. The other girls call her Bluish because she looks like moonlightŠ ³So pale you can see the blue veins on her face and the back of her handsŠ² Dreenie¹s fascination with Bluish becomes all consuming, causing even her moods to be based on her interactions with the bluish girl. This obsession is a way of escape for Dreenie, who takes care of her sister Winnie and her friend Tuli.

Typhoon (MP3 CD)

Joseph Conrad

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A 1903 Classic Novel of the Sea 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Great narration on the audio book captures the British and Scottish dialects, but it's so smooth that it's easy to be lulled into dreamland. I had to go back to the excerpts on Amazon and replay parts of the tape to catch the true impact of Conrad's words.

Captain Mac Whirr, a short, fat, dull but dependable seaman, commands the Nan-Shan for a Siamese merchant firm. He writes twelve letter a year to his uncaring wife and has two children who barely know him. During typhoon season in the China Sea Jukes the first mate tells the Captain to change course to avoid the looming storm, but Mac Whirr will think of nothing but forging straight ahead. The Captain and Jukes as well as Solomon Rout the chief engineer (Long Sol, Old Sol or father Rout to his shipmates and Solomon Sez to his wife who quotes pearls of wisdom from his letters to anyone who'll listen) and the Bosun are at the center of the crisis that follows.

During a storm like no other the actions of everyman are almost predetermined by their biases, intrenched beliefs and in some cases ability to react. In six short chapters Conrad develops a great story of how different men behave in a fight for survival.

The tale of the last leg is told in pieces from letters home. The Captain's letter is barely read by his wife who has no idea what happened. Solomon's is sentimental and cherished by his beloved. Jukes reveals the most. Unsurprisingly we find that Captain Mac Whirr wasn't so dumb after all.

It would probably be better read than listened to and deserves at least four stars for the classic it is.

Editorial Review:

Calm, stoic captain Mac Whirr has just been given command of a new steamship, the Nan-Shan. He and his crew are transporting Asian workers across the China Sea when a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure alerts Mac Whirr of, "some uncommonly dirty weather knocking about."

Charles Dickens Christmas Set: The Chimes, the Cricket on the Hearth, the Seven Poor Travellers and a Christmas Carol

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Golden

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

enchantedly wonderful 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

When Lissy James moves from California to Oklahoma, she expects her new home life to be exceedingly boring. After all, what is even in Oklahoma? When she gets to Emory High, however, she realizes it is going to be anything but boring. The social structure -- Goldens vs. Nons, is both extremely prominent and hard to understand. Lissy is even more worried about Emory High discovering her Aura Vision, which is growing stronger all the time and sure to label her as a freak and a Non for life. The more time she spends there the more she realizes that the may not be the only one with "powers" and that not even her aura vision can help her know at all times who is good and who is not. Readers will cheer for Lissy as she battles evil, some in the form of her school's alpha female, some much more dangerous. This new-girl tale has far too many supernatural elements to be completely familiar, yet girls everywhere will relate, and the characters are realistic enough that you may start to wonder when you'll receive your powers.

Editorial Review:

When Lissy James moves from California to Oklahoma, she finds herself in the middle of a teenage nightmare: a social scene to rival a Hollywood movie. And as if understanding the hierarchy of the Goldens vs. the Nons isn't hard enough, Lissy's ever-growing Aura Vision is getting harder and harder to hide. If she's not careful, she's going to become a Non faster than you can say “freak.”

But it's becoming clear that Emory High has a few secrets of its own. Around the halls, the term “special powers” goes way beyond one's ability to attract the opposite sex, and there may be something more evil than the A-crowd lurking in the classrooms. Lissy can see a lot more than the average girl, but she's about to learn the hard way that things aren't always as they appear and you can't always judge a girl by her lip gloss.

Pendragon Book Four: The Reality Bug (Pendragon) (Pendragon)

D. J. MacHale

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Editorial Review:

The territory of Veelox has achieved perfect harmony. Fifteen-year-old Bobby Pendragon arrives on this territory in pursuit of the evil Saint Dane, but all is peaceful on Veelox – because it’s deserted. The inhabitants have discovered a way to enter their own personal dream worlds, where they can be whomever they want, wherever they want. Their bodies lie in stasis while their minds escape to this dream realm.

Fresh from his battle with Saint Dane on 1937 Earth, Bobby is confident that he can defeat whatever Saint Dane has planned for this world. But once Bobby enters the virtual world, will he be able to resist the lure of the ultimate in escapism?