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Liberty: A Lake Wobegon Novel (Lake Wobegon Novels)

Garrison Keillor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A national holiday in Lake Wobegon is always gaudy and joyful. But what is going on between Clint Bunsen and Miss Liberty?

Clint Bunsen is one of the old reliables in Lake Wobegon— the treasurer of the Lutheran church and the auto mechanic who starts your car on below-zero mornings. For six years he has run the Fourth of July parade, turning what was once a line of pickup trucks and girls pushing baby carriages that hold their cats into an event of dazzling spectacle. Blazing bands, marching units, cannons, horses, a fireworks show, and the famous Living Flag—one thousand men and women wearing red, white, or blue, standing in formation—have attracted the attention of CNN and prompted the governor to put in an appearance as well. The town is dizzy with anticipation. Until, that is, they hear of Clint’s ambition to run for Congress. They’re embarrassed for him. They know him too well—his unfortunate episodes involving vodka sours, his rocky marriage. And then there is his friendship, or whatever it is, with the twenty-four-year-old girl who dresses up as the Statue of Liberty for the parade. It’s rumored that underneath those robes she is buck naked, and that her torch contains a quart of booze.

It’s Lake Wobegon as it’s always been—good loving people who drive each other crazy.

The Stand

Stephen King

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 936 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

In 1978 Stephen King published The Stand, the novel that is now considered to be one of his finest works. But as it was first published, The Stand was incomplete, since more than 150,000 words had been cut from the original manuscript.

Now Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been restored to its entirety. The Stand : The Complete And Uncut Edition includes more than five hundred pages of material previously deleted, along with new material that King added as he reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new characters and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning and a new ending. What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral comlexity of a true epic.

For hundreds of thousands of fans who read The Stand in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those who are reading The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival.

Naked

David Sedaris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 415 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Absolutely fantastic 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This has become a very famous book and it deserves to be. It is certainly the type that has you lending it to all your friends and telling them about which pieces are your favorites. I love reading about his family and am a big fan of sister Amy so whenever there's a mention of her I get excited. So many of these stories are hilarious but there are also others that are incredibly sad. Ashes is an unforgettable read. The last selection, Naked, also has some very memorable moments, but the collection as a whole is extremely satisfying. Lots of reviewers make it seem as though reading the book is one marathon of comedy, but I find that a lot of his writing also has really interesting things to say about society and the way people treat others. A lot of the pieces seem to have pain in them but are presented in a generally light and humorous way. A wonderful book from a very talented writer.

Editorial Review:

Hip radio comedy fans and theater folks who belong to the cult of Obie-winning playwright/performer David Sedaris must kill to get this book. These would be fans of the scaldingly snide Sedaris's hilariously described personal misadventures like The Santaland Diaries (a monologue about his work as an elf to a department store Santa) seen off-Broadway in 1997. In a series of similarly textured essays, Sedaris takes us along on his catastrophic detours through a nudist colony, a fruit-packing plant, his own childhood, and a dozen more of the world's little purgatories.

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)

George R.R. Martin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1516 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

A GAME OF THRONES

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Middlesex: A Novel

Jeffrey Eugenides

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 856 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license...records my first name simply as Cal."So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

Sarah's Key (Thorndike Reviewers' Choice)

Tatiana De Rosnay

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

One of the best reads of 2008 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This novel was a great piece of historical fiction tying the events involving Sarah, a ten-year-old girl in 1942 Paris to the life of Julia Jarmond in 2002. Jarmond is an American journalist who is investigating the holocaust roundup that took place in Paris. The events and surprising connections will keep you spellbound. I have to warn you this mesmerizing book is hard to put down and is one of the best reads I've had all year.

Editorial Review:

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

Chasing Harry Winston: A Novel

Lauren Weisberger

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 125 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada and Everyone Worth Knowing returns with the story of three best friends who vow to change their entire lives...and change them fast.

Emmy is newly single, and not by choice. She was this close to the ring and the baby she's wanted her whole life when her boyfriend left her for his twenty-three-year-old personal trainer -- whose fees are paid by Emmy. With her plans for the perfect white wedding in the trash, Emmy is now ordering takeout for one. Her friends insist an around-the-world sex-fueled adventure will solve all her problems -- could they be right?

Leigh, a young star in the publishing business, is within striking distance of landing her dream job as senior editor and marrying her dream guy. And to top it all off, she has just purchased her dream apartment. Only when Leigh begins to edit the enfant terrible of the literary world, the brilliant and brooding Jesse Chapman, does she start to notice some cracks in her perfect life...

Adriana is the drop-dead-gorgeous daughter of a famous supermodel. She possesses the kind of feminine wiles made only in Brazil, and she never hesitates to use them. But she's about to turn thirty and -- as her mother keeps reminding her -- she won't have her pick of the men forever. Everyone knows beauty is ephemeral and there's always someone younger and prettier right around the corner. Suddenly she's wondering...does Mother know best?

These three very different girls have been best friends for a decade in the greatest city on earth. As they near thirty, they're looking toward their future...but despite all they've earned -- first-class travel, career promotions, invites to all the right parties, and luxuries small and large -- they're not quite sure they like what they see...

One Saturday night at the Waverly Inn, Adriana and Emmy make a pact: within a single year, each will drastically change her life. Leigh watches from the sidelines, not making any promises, but she'll soon discover she has the most to lose. Their friendship is forever, but everything else is on the table. Three best friends. Two resolutions. One year to pull it off.

Keeping Faith: A Novel

Jodi Picoult

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Total reviews: 149 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For the second time in her marriage, Mariah White catches her husband with another woman, and Faith, their seven-year-old daughter, witnesses every painful minute. In the aftermath of a sudden divorce, Mariah struggles with depression and Faith seeks solace in a new friend -- a friend who may or may not be imaginary.

Faith talks to her "Guard" constantly and begins to recite passages from the Bible -- a book she's never read. Fearful for her daughter's sanity, Mariah sends her to several psychiatrists. Yet when Faith develops stigmata and begins to perform miraculous healings, Mariah wonders if her daughter -- a girl with no religious background -- might indeed be seeing God. As word spreads and controversy heightens, Mariah and Faith are besieged by believers and disbelievers alike; they are caught in a media circus that threatens what little stability they have left.

What are you willing to believe? Is Faith a prophet or a troubled little girl? Is Mariah a good mother facing an impossible crisis...or a charlatan using her daughter to reclaim the attention her unfaithful husband withheld? As the story builds to a climactic battle for custody, Mariah must discover that spirit is not necessarily something that comes from religion but from inside oneself.

Fascinating, thoughtful, and suspenseful, Keeping Faith explores a family plagued by the media, the medical profession, and organized religion in a world where everyone has an opinion but no one knows the truth. At her controversial and compelling best, Jodi Picoult masterfully explores the moment when boundaries break down, when illusions become reality, and when the only step left to take is a leap of faith.

The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown

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Total reviews: 3864 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

THE DA VINCI CODE heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightning-paced, intelligent thriller…utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.

The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 708 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Entertaining and Enlightening Introduction to Story Telling 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Sections of this book were assigned to me as coursework. What I read was so entertaining that I immediately purchased the book and had read and reread it within a weekend. I admit that I'd not have seen the depth of O'Brien's true literary genius had my professor not shed light on some of the subtle issues addressed herein (i.e. the retelling of The Lemon Tree story as a portrait of literary progression through history, etc.). Still, even without an appreciation of or interest in top quality literature, the interested reader will find great insight into character and plot development within this literary masterpeice.
Be warned though that this story is not a historical account of a soldier's horrific experience in Vietnam. Instead, the author's experience in Vietnam is used to illustrate the true purpose of the piece: how a story teller accurately transmits a message to the audience. To all of those who criticize this book as being poorly written because of its historical inaccuracies, I kindly paraphrase the author's own words: you obviously weren't listening.

Editorial Review:

In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato--a novel about the Vietnam War--won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades later.