Hare's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 02 May 2025 07:01:58 -0700 60 Hare's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Mercury 127305817
It’s 1990 and seventeen-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone’s table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town is three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun.

The Joseph brothers become Marley’s whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all. As their own mother fades away and their roofing business crumbles under the weight of their unwieldy father’s inflated ego, Marley steps in to shepherd these unruly men. Years later, an eerie discovery in the church attic causes old wounds to resurface and suddenly the family’s survival hangs in the balance. With Marley as their light, the Joseph brothers must decide whether they can save the family they’ve always known―or whether together they can build something stronger in its place.]]> 336 Amy Jo Burns 1250908566 Hare 0 to-read 3.78 2024 Mercury
author: Amy Jo Burns
name: Hare
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/02
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]]> Beach Music 16729
A Southerner living abroad, Jack McCall is scarred by tragedy and betrayal. His desperate desire to find peace after his wife’s suicide draws him into a painful, intimate search for the one haunting secret in his family’s past that can heal his anguished heart. Spanning three generations and two continents, from the contemporary ruins of the American South to the ancient ruins of Rome, from the unutterable horrors of the Holocaust to the lingering trauma of Vietnam, Beach Music sings with life’s pain and glory. It is a novel of lyric intensity and searing truth, another masterpiece among Pat Conroy’s legendary and beloved novels.]]> 800 Pat Conroy 0553381539 Hare 3 4.17 1995 Beach Music
author: Pat Conroy
name: Hare
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1995
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/05/01
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I can appreciate Pat Conroy’s ability to write, and many passages are a pleasure to read. But there are times the novel tends to ramble with too much melodrama. I found myself wondering whether this book could have benefited from more editing.
]]> The Dutch House 44318414
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.]]> 337 Ann Patchett 0062963678 Hare 5 4.08 2019 The Dutch House
author: Ann Patchett
name: Hare
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/04/20
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Great writing. This story includes elements of fairy tales, such as an evil stepmother, and going from rags to riches…or vice-versa! But the contemporary prose is so engaging: Brothers Grimm for mature readers!
]]> Truly Madly Guilty 26247008
Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other.

Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate. Having Tiffany and Vid’s larger than life personalities there will be a welcome respite.

Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves the question: What if we hadn’t gone?

In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty takes on the foundations of our lives: marriage, sex, parenthood, and friendship. She shows how guilt can expose the fault lines in the most seemingly strong relationships, how what we don’t say can be more powerful than what we do, and how sometimes it is the most innocent of moments that can do the greatest harm.]]> 432 Liane Moriarty 1250125561 Hare 3 3.49 2016 Truly Madly Guilty
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Hare
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2020/04/22
date added: 2025/04/19
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]]> My Losing Season: A Memoir 119216 “I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one. . . .There was a time in my life when I walked through the world known to myself and others as an athlete. It was part of my own definition of who I was and certainly the part I most respected. When I was a young man, I was well-built and agile and ready for the rough and tumble of games, and athletics provided the single outlet for a repressed and preternaturally shy boy to express himself in public....I lost myself in the beauty of sport and made my family proud while passing through the silent eye of the storm that was my childhood.�

So begins Pat Conroy’s journey back to 1967 and his startling realization “that this season had been seminal and easily the most consequential of my life.� The place is the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, that now famous military college, and in memory Conroy gathers around him his team to relive their few triumphs and humiliating defeats. In a narrative that moves seamlessly between the action of the season and flashbacks into his childhood, we see the author’s love of basketball and how crucial the role of athlete is to all these young men who are struggling to find their own identity and their place in the world.

In fast-paced exhilarating games, readers will laugh in delight and cry in disappointment. But as the story continues, we gradually see the self-professed “mediocre� athlete merge into the point guard whose spirit drives the team. He rallies them to play their best while closing off the shouts of “Don’t shoot, Conroy� that come from the coach on the sidelines. For Coach Mel Thompson is to Conroy the undermining presence that his father had been throughout his childhood. And in these pages finally, heartbreakingly, we learn the truth about the Great Santini.

In My Losing Season Pat Conroy has written an American classic about young men and the bonds they form, about losing and the lessons it imparts, about finding one’s voice and one’s self in the midst of defeat. And in his trademark language, we see the young Conroy walk from his life as an athlete to the writer the world knows him to be.]]> 402 Pat Conroy 0553381903 Hare 4 3.89 2002 My Losing Season: A Memoir
author: Pat Conroy
name: Hare
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/14
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review:
I’d rather read or attend a concert than watch a basketball game. In spite of that, I was completely entertained by this tale of Pat Conroy’s losing season at The Citadel in the mid-�60s. As the author details each game, he also describes the emotions he’s experiencing, those feelings influenced by memories of an abusive father who continues to mock his college-aged son. The team is also sabotaged by a coach who doesn’t seem to support or understand his own players. It’s clear that writing this book must have served as much-needed therapy for Mr. Conroy.
]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Hare 3 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Hare
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/04/04
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The Wedding People: both the title and description printed on the dust jacket indicate “romance� as the genre. Though I’m not normally drawn to romance novels, this is a well-told story. Great writing style, a good blend of drama and humor that encouraged me to keep reading. That said, I did feel that the author might have been running out of steam about halfway through writing. However, I would recommend this book to others, especially as a beach-read.
]]> <![CDATA[The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland]]> 148775 Come from Away.
When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. The citizens of Gander met the stranded passengers with an overwhelming display of friendship and goodwill. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held on board for nearly 24 hours while security checked all of the baggage, they were greeted with a feast prepared by the townspeople. Local bus drivers who had been on strike came off the picket lines to transport the passengers to the various shelters set up in local schools and churches. Linens and toiletries were bought and donated. A middle school provided showers, as well as access to computers, email, and televisions, allowing the passengers to stay in touch with family and follow the news.


Over the course of those four days, many of the passengers developed friendships with Gander residents that they expect to last a lifetime. As a show of thanks, scholarship funds for the children of Gander have been formed and donations have been made to provide new computers for the schools. This book recounts the inspiring story of the residents of Gander, Canada, whose acts of kindness have touched the lives of thousands of people and been an example of humanity and goodwill.]]> 256 Jim DeFede Hare 5 4.22 2002 The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland
author: Jim DeFede
name: Hare
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/03/20
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review:
Uplifting and entertaining nonfiction. So encouraging to read about people treating other people-complete strangers-with such kindness and generosity. I’d requested this book from the library, knowing that I would be better prepared before seeing “Come From Away� later this spring: so glad I did. An enjoyable read.
]]> The Color Purple 52892857 Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker's epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

𲹻徱Բ The Color Purple was the first time I had seen Southern, Black women’s literature as world literature. In writing us into the world—bravely, unapologetically, and honestly—Alice Walker has given us a gift we will never be able to repay.� —Tayari Jones

�The Color Purple was what church should have been, what honest familial reckoning could have been, and it is still the only art object in the world by which all three generations of Black artists in my family judge American art.� —Kiese Laymon]]> 287 Alice Walker 0143135694 Hare 5 4.40 1982 The Color Purple
author: Alice Walker
name: Hare
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1982
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/03/08
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Beautifully told. I’d seen the original Spielberg movie many years ago, but had never read the book. So glad I treated myself to this wonderful novel.
]]> Horse 59109077 A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.]]> 401 Geraldine Brooks 0399562966 Hare 4 4.17 2022 Horse
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Hare
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/27
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This novel provides parallel stories of racism in the antebellum south and today…while also providing a well-researched history of horse-racing. The entertaining plot is followed by an interesting “Afterword� and “Lexington’s Historical Connections�: I enjoyed reading each description of the actual people who became characters in the novel.
]]> The World Below 409995 While I Was Gone, a stunning new novel that showcases Sue Miller's singular gift for exposing the nerves that lie hidden in marriages and families, and the hopes and regrets that lie buried in the hearts of women.

Maine, 1919. Georgia Rice, who has cared for her father and two siblings since her mother's death, is diagnosed, at nineteen, with tuberculosis and sent away to a sanitarium. Freed from the burdens of caretaking, she discovers a nearly lost world of youth and possibility, and meets the doomed young man who will become her lover.

Vermont, the present. On the heels of a divorce, Catherine Hubbard, Georgia's granddaughter, takes up residence in Georgia's old house. Sorting through her own affairs, Cath stumbles upon the true story of Georgia's life and marriage, and of the misunderstanding upon which she built a lasting love.

With the tales of these two women--one a country doctor's wife with a haunting past, the other a twice-divorced San Francisco schoolteacher casting about at midlife for answers to her future--Miller offers us a novel of astonishing richness and emotional depth. Linked by bitter disappointments, compromise, and powerful grace, the lives of Georgia and Cath begin to seem remarkably similar, despite their distinctly different times: two young girls, generations apart, motherless at nearly the same age, thrust into early adulthood, struggling with confusing bonds of attachment and guilt; both of them in marriages that are not what they seem, forced to make choices that call into question the very nature of intimacy, faithfulness, betrayal, and love. Marvelously written, expertly told, The World Below captures the shadowy half-truths of the visible world, and the beauty and sorrow submerged beneath the surfaces of our lives--the lost world of the past, our lost hopes for the future. A tour de force from one of our most beloved storytellers.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 275 Sue Miller 0747584583 Hare 4 3.59 2001 The World Below
author: Sue Miller
name: Hare
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2001
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/27
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A lot of self-reflection by Cath, called from modern life in San Francisco to her grandmother’s home in rural Vermont, having inherited it after Georgia’s death. Cath had spent much of her childhood there because of her mother’s mental illness and early death. We are also privy to Georgia’s story; Cath pieces together much of her grandmother’s past after finding and reading diaries found in the attic of the house Georgia left her. By reading the diaries and examining her own life-which includes two failed marriages and raising three children-Cath gains wisdom from the past and the confidence to embrace the future. Another well-told story from Sue Miller.
]]> <![CDATA[Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse]]> 40222545 Now a Washington Post Bestseller.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump proclaimed, “The American Dream is dead,� a message that resonated across the country. Washington Examiner editor Timothy Carney traveled Middle America, pored over county-level maps and data, and sorted through sociological studies, and had a startling revelation: Donald Trump is right, but the death of the American Dream is a social phenomenon, not an economic one.

In some parts of the United States, life seems to be getting worse because citizens are facing their problems alone. These communities have seen declines in marriage, voting, church attendance, and volunteer work. Even when money comes back to town, happiness does not return if people there do not reengage. The educated and wealthy elites, on the other hand, tend to live in places where institutions are strong, or have enough money to insulate themselves.

Carney visits all corners of America, from the dim country bars of southwestern Pennsylvania to the bustling Mormon wards of Salt Lake City, and provides the most important data and research to explain why failing social connections are responsible for the great divide in America. Alienated America confirms the conservative suspicion that these places can’t be fixed with job-training programs or more entitlement spending,and backs up the liberal belief that new Trump voters aren’t coming to his rallies for the corporate tax cuts and Obamacare repeal.

Tim Carney will change the way you look at the challenges facing modern America and present a frameworkfor leadingus out of the wilderness.]]> 368 Timothy P. Carney 0062797107 Hare 1 3.91 2019 Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse
author: Timothy P. Carney
name: Hare
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2019
rating: 1
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date added: 2025/02/27
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review:
Conservative bias and lack of objectivity obvious from the moment I started reading this book. I read enough to know that I would not have the fortitude to finish to its conclusion. It’s clear that Mr. Carney knew what his conclusion would be before he traveled to “research� America.
]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Hare 4 4.11 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Hare
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/13
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This novel tackles timely issues of identity-racial, sexual…without “preachy prose�: the writing is nuanced, making the characters and their feelings seem authentic. The characters are varied and complex, but most of the time likable. It’s also a story of how family relationships can be a challenge-and whether differences can be resolved or overcome.
]]> <![CDATA[The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2)]]> 5941114 466 Tana French 0143115626 Hare 2 The characters: unlikeable.
The editing: not enough of it! The writing was so wordy; the story dragged. This almost 500-page novel could have been told within 250-300 pages. ]]> 4.06 2008 The Likeness (Dublin Murder Squad, #2)
author: Tana French
name: Hare
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2008
rating: 2
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date added: 2025/01/31
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The plot: far-fetched.
The characters: unlikeable.
The editing: not enough of it! The writing was so wordy; the story dragged. This almost 500-page novel could have been told within 250-300 pages.
]]> The Girls 26893819 355 Emma Cline 081299860X Hare 4 3.48 2016 The Girls
author: Emma Cline
name: Hare
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/16
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Had I based my review on the first 100 pages, I’d have given a two- or three-star rating: the writing seemed much too wordy. That said, I’m glad I kept reading to the book’s conclusion; by the end, I’d decided that this fictionalized account of a young girl’s association with a cult was well-done. Even though Evie was not directly involved with the crimes committed, the writing reveals how her time spent with the group (obviously modeled after the Manson Family) has haunted her into old age. She wonders: If she’d been with the others that night, would she have been an active participant?
]]> <![CDATA[The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939�45]]> 128066 The Pianist is Szpilman's account of the years inbetween, of the death and cruelty inflicted on the Jews of Warsaw and on Warsaw itself, related with a dispassionate restraint borne of shock. Szpilman, now 88, has not looked at his description since he wrote it in 1946 (the same time as Primo Levi's If This Is A Man?; it is too personally painful. The rest of us have no such excuse.

Szpilman's family were deported to Treblinka, where they were exterminated; he survived only because a music-loving policeman recognised him. This was only the first in a series of fatefully lucky escapes that littered his life as he hid among the rubble and corpses of the Warsaw Ghetto, growing thinner and hungrier, yet condemned to live. Ironically it was a German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld, who saved Szpilman's life by bringing food and an eiderdown to the derelict ruin where he discovered him. Hosenfeld died seven years later in a Stalingrad labour camp, but portions of his diary, reprinted here, tell of his outraged incomprehension of the madness and evil he witnessed, thereby establishing an effective counterpoint to ground the nightmarish vision of the pianist in a desperate reality. Szpilman originally published his account in Poland in 1946, but it was almost immediately withdrawn by Stalin's Polish minions as it unashamedly described collaborations by Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Poles and Jews with the Nazis. In 1997 it was published in Germany after Szpilman's son found it on his father's bookcase. This admirably robust translation by Anthea Bell is the first in the English language. There were 3,500,000 Jews in Poland before the Nazi occupation; after it there were 240,000. Wladyslaw Szpilman's extraordinary account of his own miraculous survival offers a voice across the years for the faceless millions who lost their lives. --David Vincent

]]> 222 Władysław Szpilman 057506708X Hare 4 4.23 1946 The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45
author: Władysław Szpilman
name: Hare
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1946
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/04
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I read this memoir after seeing the movie adaptation. Reading Szpilman’s amazing story of survival was like reading the screenplay, meaning…I now know the film to be true to the book. Loved the movie. Enjoyed the book.
]]> Broken Music: A Memoir 277412
And so Broken Music began to take shape. It is a book about the early part of my life, from childhood through adolescence, right up to the eve of my success with the Police. It is a story very few people know.

I had no interest in writing a traditional autobiographical recitation of everything that’s ever happened to me. Instead I found myself drawn to exploring specific moments, certain people and relationships, and particular events which still resonate powerfully for me as I try to understand the child I was, and the man I became.]]> 337 Sting 0385338651 Hare 4 3.85 2003 Broken Music: A Memoir
author: Sting
name: Hare
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> In Cold Blood 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]> 343 Truman Capote 0679745580 Hare 5 4.08 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: Hare
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/12/25
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review:
By the late �60s and for many years after, this book, with its single drop of blood on both the front cover and on its spine, was shelved behind Dad’s reading chair…noticed by myself and my four sibs as children. And many of us have become familiar with the story of the Clutter family murders via two great movies: “In Cold Blood� and “Capote�. But until now, I’d not read the novel. What a pleasure to read such smooth prose and learn what happened in such detail from many different perspectives. I read this book during this year’s Christmas season: not an uplifting holiday story, but I so enjoyed Capote’s writing.
]]> <![CDATA[The House at Pooh Corner (Winnie-the-Pooh, #2)]]> 776407 180 A.A. Milne 0525444440 Hare 4 4.37 1928 The House at Pooh Corner (Winnie-the-Pooh, #2)
author: A.A. Milne
name: Hare
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1928
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/22
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]]> March 13529 Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

From the author of the acclaimed Year of Wonders, a historical novel and love story set during a time of catastrophe, on the front lines of the American Civil War. Acclaimed author Geraldine Brooks gives us the story of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women—and conjures a world of brutality, stubborn courage and transcendent love. An idealistic abolitionist, March has gone as chaplain to serve the Union cause. But the war tests his faith not only in the Union—which is also capable of barbarism and racism—but in himself. As he recovers from a near-fatal illness, March must reassemble and reconnect with his family, who have no idea of what he has endured. A love story set in a time of catastrophe, March explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief.]]> 280 Geraldine Brooks Hare 4
At times, the beginning chapters seemed to drag. However, persistence paid off. I enjoyed this book overall.

The afterword offers a brief and interesting history of the Alcott family, reminding the reader that March is modeled after A. Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women.]]> 3.77 2005 March
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Hare
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/05
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Mr. March is a minor character in Little Women. Such an interesting idea to write a novel in which he’s the main character, detailing his work as an abolitionist and experiences as a Union Army chaplain. And he is certainly a three-dimensional character-very human, both his flaws and heroics laid bare.

At times, the beginning chapters seemed to drag. However, persistence paid off. I enjoyed this book overall.

The afterword offers a brief and interesting history of the Alcott family, reminding the reader that March is modeled after A. Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women.
]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Hare 3 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Hare
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/11/28
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review:
Mansfield Park: Lots of love triangles and lessons in morality that could have been told with less detail.
]]> The Berry Pickers 123036004 A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.]]> 307 Amanda Peters 1646221958 Hare 4 4.04 2023 The Berry Pickers
author: Amanda Peters
name: Hare
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/11/26
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review:
In so many ways a tragic story, but also heartfelt and entertaining. I appreciated the setting: I have fond memories of a vacation spent in Maine and Nova Scotia with my husband many years ago…familiar places, such as Bar Harbor and Bay of Fundy.
]]> Before the Ruins 50403527 A gripping, multilayered debut in the tradition of Tana French and Donna Tartt about four friends, an empty manor, and a night that will follow them for the rest of their lives

It's the summer of 1996 and school's out forever for Andy, her boyfriend Marcus, her best friend Peter, and Em. When Andy's alcoholic mother predicts the apocalypse, the four teenagers decide to see out the end of the world at a deserted manor house, the site of a historic unsolved mystery. There they meet David—charming and unreliable, he seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

David presents an irresistible lure for both Andy and Peter and complicates the dynamics of their lifelong friendship. When the group learns that a diamond necklace, stolen fifty years ago, might still be somewhere on the manor grounds, the Game—half treasure hunt, half friendly deception—begins. But the Game becomes much bigger than the necklace, growing to encompass years of secrets, lies, and, ultimately, one terrible betrayal.

Meticulously plotted and gorgeously written, Before the Ruins is a page-turner of the highest order about the sealed-off places in our pasts and the parts of ourselves waiting to be retrieved from them.]]> 288 Victoria Gosling 1250759153 Hare 2 3.05 2021 Before the Ruins
author: Victoria Gosling
name: Hare
average rating: 3.05
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:
There are well-written passages, indicating the author’s possible talent. However, the writing lacks cohesiveness. The plot is confusing, the frequent transition from past to present not at all fluid. By the time I completed this novel, I no longer cared about the outcome for these unlikeable characters.
]]> West With Giraffes 56449476 An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.

“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…�

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.

It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.

Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late.]]> 346 Lynda Rutledge 1542023351 Hare 5
I loved the quote included at the front of this novel:
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.�
-Anatole France, Nobel Laureate, 1921
Amen.]]> 4.34 2021 West With Giraffes
author: Lynda Rutledge
name: Hare
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/11/05
shelves:
review:
A lot of adventure is packed into this fact-based story. It captures what I’d imagine it would feel like to cross the continent with two giraffes in a “two-story homemade boxcar plopped down on the entire length of the truck bed� during the Great Depression. Told in first-person by Woodrow Wilson Nickel, through Woody we meet Old Man and Red. They encounter many challenges and learn much about each other as they cross the country from east to west coast, in order to deliver the two giraffes to the San Diego Zoo.

I loved the quote included at the front of this novel:
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.�
-Anatole France, Nobel Laureate, 1921
Amen.
]]> City of Light 419394
Louisa Barrett has made this dazzling city her home. Headmistress of Buffalo’s most prestigious school, Louisa is at ease in a world of men, protected by the titans of her city. But nothing prepares her for a startling discovery: evidence of a murder tied to the city’s cathedral-like power plant at nearby Niagara Falls. This shocking crime--followed by another mysterious death--will ignite an explosive chain of events. For in this city of seething intrigue and dazzling progress, a battle rages among politicians, power brokers, and industrialists for control of Niagara. And one extraordinary woman in their midst must protect a dark secret that implicates them all�

ձ> 503 Lauren Belfer 0385337647 Hare 3 3.75 1999 City of Light
author: Lauren Belfer
name: Hare
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
review:
Harnessing the power of Niagara Falls to generate electricity at the turn of the 20th century: much description of the politics-and the people, both actual and fictional. The plot becomes weighed down with wordy passages and too many unlikeable characters (including the supposed-but irritating-heroine). I rarely give up on a novel; I didn’t give up on this one and read to its conclusion, but I would certainly understand why one might consider abandoning this book partway through.
]]> A Mercy 3009435 This is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives.
A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter - a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.]]> 167 Toni Morrison 0307264238 Hare 4 3.76 2008 A Mercy
author: Toni Morrison
name: Hare
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves:
review:
Although less than 170 pages, this novel packs a lot of emotional punch. Told from the perspective of several characters-a landowner and mistress, slaves, indentured servants-it describes the horrific institution of slavery and how it shaped attitudes in American society-attitudes still too prevalent today. The ignorance of people and how religious sects were able to prey on the simple and uneducated is also a recurring theme, much like the evangelical groups who follow corrupt politicians today.
]]> <![CDATA[Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books]]> 200987258
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic� books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.

But Beverly’s daughter Lindsay sneaks in by night and secretly fills Lula Dean’s little free library with banned books wrapped in “wholesome� dust jackets. The Girl’s Guide to the Revolution is wrapped in the cover of The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. A jacket that belongs to Our Confederate Heroes ends up on Beloved. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. It’s a diverse and surprising bunch—including the local postman, the prom queen, housewives, a farmer, and the former DA—all of whom have been changed by what they’ve read. When Lindsay is forced to own up to what she’s done, the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.]]> 298 Kirsten Miller 0063348691 Hare 3
Each chapter focuses on a character whose view of the world is influenced by a book they’ve just read. These characters also begin to influence each other, most of them uniting to fight for positive change and justice. This novel delivers a timely message and is a needed attempt to fight this era of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and attempts to take away hard-fought freedoms.]]> 4.06 2024 Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
author: Kirsten Miller
name: Hare
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:
The writing seemed pretty mediocre, especially at the beginning of this satire. However, my patience paid off. I began to enjoy reading about the people of this fictional southern town.

Each chapter focuses on a character whose view of the world is influenced by a book they’ve just read. These characters also begin to influence each other, most of them uniting to fight for positive change and justice. This novel delivers a timely message and is a needed attempt to fight this era of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and attempts to take away hard-fought freedoms.
]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Hare 4 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Hare
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves:
review:
The writing is wonderful, and the characters are well-developed. I’d ordinarily attach the highest rating to any novel with those qualities. However, the lengthy descriptions of abuse and torture that take up much of the story’s 700+ pages seem excessive. Most readers would still be able to sympathize or empathize with characters and situations given less pages to read.
]]> Familiaris 200262412 The follow-up to the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling modern classic The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Familiaris is the stirring origin story of the Sawtelle family and the remarkable dogs that carry the Sawtelle name.

It is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle's imagination has gotten him into trouble ... again. Now John and his newlywed wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and their three dogs, are setting off for Wisconsin's north woods, where they hope to make a fresh start—and, with a little luck, discover what it takes to live a life of meaning, purpose, and adventure. But the place they are headed for is far stranger and more perilous than they realize, and it will take all their ingenuity, along with a few new friends—human, animal, and otherworldly—to realize their dreams.

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, mysterious and enchanting, Familiaris takes readers on an unforgettable journey from the halls of a small-town automobile factory, through an epic midwestern firestorm and an ambitious WWII dog training program, and far back into mankind's ancient past, examining the dynamics of love and friendship, the vexing nature of families, the universal desire to create something lasting and beautiful, and of course, the species-long partnership between Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris.]]> 979 David Wroblewski Hare 5 4.07 2024 Familiaris
author: David Wroblewski
name: Hare
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:
While reading this almost 1,000-page novel, it seemed certain chapters or sections could have benefited from more editing. That said, the writing is beautiful. Characters are well-developed with distinct personalities. Much of it is a love story between two main characters, John and Mary Sawtelle-the kind of love story most romance novels lack. And it’s also so much more…many characters in interesting-sometimes challenging-situations. Because I read Edgar Sawtelle years ago, I looked forward to reading this prequel: it did not disappoint.
]]> The Wren, the Wren 77265006 An incandescent novel about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of women.

Nell McDaragh never knew her grandfather, the famed Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless, full of verve and wit, twenty-two-year-old Nell leaves her mother Carmel’s home to find her voice as a writer and live a life of her choosing. Carmel, too, knows the magic of her Daddo’s poetry—and the broken promises within its verses. When Phil abandons the family, Carmel struggles to reconcile “the poet� with the man whose desertion scars Carmel, her sister, and their cancer-ridden mother.

The Wren, the Wren brings to life three generations of women who contend with inheritances—of abandonment and of sustaining love that is “more than a strand of DNA, but a rope thrown from the past, a fat twisted rope, full of blood.� In sharp prose studded with crystalline poetry, Anne Enright masterfully braids a family story of longing, betrayal, and hope.]]> 278 Anne Enright 1324005696 Hare 3 The narrative is given primarily by the daughter and granddaughter of a famous Irish poet who is admired by the public but a lousy spouse and father who abandoned his family. It’s evident that this desertion has had lifelong repercussions for both Carmel/daughter and Nell/granddaughter. There are some disturbing passages as they navigate the world with their acquired low self esteem. I enjoyed the second half of the novel more-as the healing process takes place. ]]> 3.51 2023 The Wren, the Wren
author: Anne Enright
name: Hare
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/07/15
shelves:
review:
I almost gave up on this novel. It took time for me to get used to the unusual-at times rambling-writing style. However, I am glad I persevered�
The narrative is given primarily by the daughter and granddaughter of a famous Irish poet who is admired by the public but a lousy spouse and father who abandoned his family. It’s evident that this desertion has had lifelong repercussions for both Carmel/daughter and Nell/granddaughter. There are some disturbing passages as they navigate the world with their acquired low self esteem. I enjoyed the second half of the novel more-as the healing process takes place.
]]> We Were the Mulvaneys 5204 454 Joyce Carol Oates 0452282829 Hare 5 3.75 1996 We Were the Mulvaneys
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: Hare
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/07/11
shelves:
review:
One event affects the lives of the Mulvaneys, not only because it occurs, but because of the family’s unhealthy reaction to what happened that night. The family dysfunction that follows threatens to destroy not only the family unit, but also each family member. Although I was often frustrated by the actions of the characters and wondered about their motivation, this book is a page-turner. I’ll not soon forget the plot, and I’ll especially remember how it made me feel.
]]> Out of the Dust 25346 227 Karen Hesse 0439771277 Hare 5 3.76 1997 Out of the Dust
author: Karen Hesse
name: Hare
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/06/30
shelves:
review:
This Newbery winner can easily be read in a couple hours. Though not a long novel, the free verse is packed with emotion and imagery-a “Grapes of Wrath� for children. The target audience: upper elementary…but it is a story for all ages.
]]> The Grapes of Wrath 18114322
First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 496 John Steinbeck 067001690X Hare 5
I enjoyed reading many great five-star reviews!]]> 4.06 1939 The Grapes of Wrath
author: John Steinbeck
name: Hare
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1939
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/06/30
shelves:
review:
Though fictional, the Joads of Steinbeck’s novel represent the many underprivileged during the Great Depression. How capitalism can cause loss of morality and lack of empathy for the poor are constant themes. Many more social safety nets exist today. However, the gap between the (few) very rich and (the many) very poor continues to widen.

I enjoyed reading many great five-star reviews!
]]> America's First Daughter 25817162
From her earliest days, Patsy Jefferson knows that though her father loves his family dearly, his devotion to his country runs deeper still. As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, she becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of her mother’s death, traveling with him when he becomes American minister to France.

It is in Paris, at the glittering court and among the first tumultuous days of revolution, that fifteen-year-old Patsy learns about her father’s troubling liaison with Sally Hemings, a slave girl her own age. Meanwhile, Patsy has fallen in love—with her father’s protégé William Short, a staunch abolitionist and ambitious diplomat. Torn between love, principles, and the bonds of family, Patsy questions whether she can choose a life as William’s wife and still be a devoted daughter.

Her choice will follow her in the years to come, to Virginia farmland, Monticello, and even the White House. And as scandal, tragedy, and poverty threaten her family, Patsy must decide how much she will sacrifice to protect her father's reputation, in the process defining not just his political legacy, but that of the nation he founded.]]> 606 Stephanie Dray Hare 2 4.17 2016 America's First Daughter
author: Stephanie Dray
name: Hare
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves:
review:
Historical fiction that proved to be pretty sappy fiction. This novel is, for the most part, based on letters written by Thomas Jefferson. However, it reads like a melodramatic TV romance movie. I was unable to put myself through reading the entire novel, but before abandoning, I read “Note from the Authors� at the back of the book. They admit to taking many liberties, such as omissions and combining or simplifying events “for maximum dramatic punch.� Ugh.
]]> Revolutionary Road 48328 355 Richard Yates Hare 5 3.92 1961 Revolutionary Road
author: Richard Yates
name: Hare
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves:
review:
Great writing. This novel seems ahead of its time: Published long before anyone watched episodes of “Mad Men�, the author questions the roles husband and wife are expected to play. One immediately senses trouble in the mid-50s household since it’s clear that April is expected to conform to her husband’s wishes-with tragic results.
]]> <![CDATA[Love and Let Die: James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche]]> 61272022 A deep-dive into the unique connections between the two titans of the British cultural psyche—the Beatles and the Bond films�and what they tell us about class, sexuality, and our aspirations over sixty dramatic years.

The Beatles are the biggest band in the history of pop music. James Bond is the single most successful movie character of all time. They are also twins.Dr No,the first Bond film, andLove Me Do,the first Beatles record, were both released on the same Friday 5 October 1962. Most countries can only dream of a cultural export becoming a worldwide phenomenon on this scale. For Britain to produce two iconic successes on this level, on the same windy October afternoon, is unprecedented.

Bond and the Beatles present us with opposing values, visions of the British culture, and ideas about sexual identity.Love and Let Dieis the story of a clash between working class liberation and establishment control, and how it exploded on the global stage. It explains why James Bond hated the Beatles, why Paul McCartney wanted to be Bond, and why it was Ringo who won the heart of a Bond Girl in the end.

Told over a period of sixty dramatic years, this is an account of how two outsized cultural phenomena continue to define American aspirations, fantasies, and our ideas about ourselves. Looking at these two touchstones in this new context will forever change how you see the Beatles, the James Bond films, and six decades of cross-Atlantic popular culture.]]> 518 John Higgs 1639363319 Hare 4 4.15 2023 Love and Let Die: James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche
author: John Higgs
name: Hare
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/06/13
shelves:
review:
Interesting analysis comparing two cultural influences, Beatles and Bond-Bond representing Death, Beatles representing Love. The author presents some interesting well-written insights.
]]> <![CDATA[The Ballad of Tom Dooley (Ballad, #9)]]> 10616505
A literary triumph; what began as a fictional re-telling of the historical account of one of the most famous mountain ballads of all time became an astonishing revelation of the real culprit responsible for the murder of Laura Foster

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley; The folk song, made famous by the Kingston Trio, recounts a tragedy in the North Carolina mountains after the Civil War. Laura Foster, a simple country girl, was murdered and her lover Tom Dula was hanged for the crime. The sensational elements in the case attracted national attention: a man and his beautiful, married lover accused of murdering the other-woman; the former governor of North Carolina spearheading the defense; and a noble gesture from the prisoner on the eve of his execution, saving the woman he really loved.

With the help of historians, lawyers, and researchers, Sharyn McCrumb visited the actual sites, studied the legal evidence, and uncovered a missing piece of the story that will shock those who think they already know what happened and may also bring belated justice to an innocent man. What seemed at first to be a sordid tale of adultery and betrayal was transformed by the new discoveries into an Appalachian Wuthering Heights. Tom Dula and Ann Melton had a profound romance spoiled by the machinations of their servant, Pauline Foster.

Bringing to life the star-crossed lovers of this mountain tragedy, Sharyn McCrumb gifts understanding and compassion to her compelling tales of Appalachia, and solidifies her status as one of today's great Southern writers.
]]> 311 Sharyn McCrumb 0312558171 Hare 3 3.62 2011 The Ballad of Tom Dooley (Ballad, #9)
author: Sharyn McCrumb
name: Hare
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/06/04
shelves:
review:
The author presents a well-researched theory about the events leading to an 1866 murder in North Carolina. Was Tom Dula truly responsible for Laura Foster’s death? Reading about the real-life characters and discovering what actually might have happened would prove more interesting if the writing were less dry and repetitive. The novel would have benefited from more (and better) editing. For example: The plot’s summary on the back cover reads that the book is “…a fictional retelling of the 1865 crime…�-an incorrect statement since the murder occurred about a year after the Civil War’s end, in May 1866.
]]> <![CDATA[The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, #1)]]> 40914165 An alternate cover edition for ISBN 978-1492671527 can be found here.

In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned 19-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry.

The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.

Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government's new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.]]> 309 Kim Michele Richardson Hare 4 4.17 2019 The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, #1)
author: Kim Michele Richardson
name: Hare
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/05/27
shelves:
review:
This is an entertaining story, while also informing the reader of the unique history of Kentucky’s Pack Horse Library during the Great Depression. I enjoyed the interview with the author included at the back of this edition.
]]> Then She Was Gone 35297426 She was fifteen, her mother's golden girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone.

NOW
It’s been ten years since Ellie disappeared, but Laurel has never given up hope of finding her daughter.

And then one day a charming and charismatic stranger called Floyd walks into a café and sweeps Laurel off her feet.

Before too long she’s staying the night at this house and being introduced to his nine year old daughter.

Poppy is precocious and pretty - and meeting her completely takes Laurel's breath away.

Because Poppy is the spitting image of Ellie when she was that age. And now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.

What happened to Ellie? Where did she go?

Who still has secrets to hide?]]> 359 Lisa Jewell 1501154648 Hare 4 4.02 2017 Then She Was Gone
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Hare
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/05/25
shelves:
review:
An engaging and entertaining read.
]]> The Silent Patient 40097951
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.]]> 336 Alex Michaelides 1250301696 Hare 3 4.17 2019 The Silent Patient
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Hare
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/05/15
shelves:
review:
This novel is a page-turner and an easy read. I was enjoying this mystery until I reached the disappointing plot-twist� The story’s ending seemed a bit abrupt and clumsy.
]]> Not Our Kind 35955187 The Rules of Civility and The Boston Girl, a compelling and thought-provoking novel set in postwar New York City, about two women—one Jewish, one a WASP—and the wholly unexpected consequences of their meeting

One rainy morning in June, two years after the end of World War II, a minor traffic accident brings together Eleanor Moskowitz and Patricia Bellamy. Their encounter seems fated: Eleanor, a teacher and recent Vassar graduate, needs a job. Patricia’s difficult thirteen-year-old daughter Margaux, recovering from polio, needs a private tutor.

Though she feels out of place in the Bellamys� rarefied and elegant Park Avenue milieu, Eleanor forms an instant bond with Margaux. Soon the idealistic young woman is filling the bright young girl’s mind with Shakespeare and Latin. Though her mother, a hat maker with a little shop on Second Avenue, disapproves, Eleanor takes pride in her work, even if she must use the name “Moss� to enter the Bellamys� restricted doorman building each morning, and feels that Patricia’s husband, Wynn, may have a problem with her being Jewish.

Invited to keep Margaux company at the Bellamys� country home in a small town in Connecticut, Eleanor meets Patricia’s unreliable, bohemian brother, Tom, recently returned from Europe. The spark between Eleanor and Tom is instant and intense. Flushed with new romance and increasingly attached to her young pupil, Eleanor begins to feel more comfortable with Patricia and much of the world she inhabits. As the summer wears on, the two women’s friendship grows—until one hot summer evening, a line is crossed, and both Eleanor and Patricia will have to make important decisions—choices that will reverberate through their lives.

Gripping and vividly told, Not Our Kind illuminates the lives of two women on the cusp of change—and asks how much our pasts can and should define our futures.]]> 352 Kitty Zeldis 0062844253 Hare 4 3.76 2018 Not Our Kind
author: Kitty Zeldis
name: Hare
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/05/05
shelves:
review:
I found this novel on the bookshelves of our beach rental. I’m glad I decided to read this book while here. An entertaining read: Chapters alternate between the voices of Eleanor and Patricia. Both they and other characters seem three-dimensional. The interesting plot and writing style made this book a page-turner.
]]> The Third Wife 22430311 A tragic accident? Or suicide? Her grief-stricken husband, Adrian, is determined to find out.

Maya had a job she enjoyed; she had friends. They'd been in love. She even got on with his two previous wives and their children. In fact, they'd all been one big happy family.

But before long Adrian starts to identify the dark cracks in his perfect life.
Because everyone has secrets. And secrets have consequences. Some of which can be devastating.]]> 337 Lisa Jewell Hare 4 3.43 2014 The Third Wife
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Hare
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/05/03
shelves:
review:
This novel is not a typical mystery. The author keeps you guessing regarding the circumstances of Maya’s death, but there’s also an emphasis on character development and family dynamics. Loved the believable dialogue and the writing style in general.
]]> Empire Falls 187020
Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it’s Janine, Miles� soon-to-be ex-wife, who’s taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it’s the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town–and seems to believe that “everything� includes Miles himself. In Empire Falls Richard Russo delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace]]> 483 Richard Russo 0375726403 Hare 5 3.94 2001 Empire Falls
author: Richard Russo
name: Hare
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/05/01
shelves:
review:
Great writing. Believable characters. Interesting plot.
]]> The Women 127305853 De la autora superventas de El Ruiseñor , una historia de mujeres valientes decididas a arriesgar su vida por los demás en uno de los momentos más peligrosos de la historia.

Inspiradas por el coraje. Ligadas por la amistad. Unidas por la esperanza.

«Las mujeres pueden ser heroínas». Cuando Frankie McGrath, estudiante de enfermería de veinte años, oye por primera vez estas inesperadas palabras, siente una revelación. Criada en el idílico y soleado sur de California y protegida por sus conservadores padres, siempre se ha enorgullecido de hacer lo que se espera de ella, de ser una buena chica. Pero en 1966 el mundo está cambiando y, de repente, su vida parece abrirse a nuevas posibilidades. Cuando su hermano parte para combatir en Vietnam, ella se une de manera impulsiva al Cuerpo de Enfermeras del Ejército para seguirle.

Allí, Frankie se siente igual de inmadura e inexperta que los jóvenes enviados para luchar, y se ve abrumada por el caos y la destrucción de la guerra. Además, un trauma inesperado la golpea al volver a casa, el de encontrar un país cambiado y dividido, un país que quiere olvidar. Frankie descubrirá el verdadero valor de la amistad y el dolor que puede causar un corazón roto.

***Número 1 en las listas de best sellers de The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, la Asociación de Librerías Independientes, Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Amazon, Audible y Los Angeles Daily News***

Sobre la novela han
«De nuevo, Hannah ilumina con su luz a mujeres que la historia ha ignorado».
People Magazine

«Hannah está en su mejor momento en esta novela».
The New York Times

«Conmovedora y excepcionalmente documentada».
Stephen King

«ʴǻDz».
Matt Haig, autor de La biblioteca de la medianoche

«Kristin Hannah, una de las mejores narradoras de nuestro tiempo, aborda una de las más crueles y viles guerras del último Vietnam. Las mujeres de la guerra revela la enorme contribución y los horribles sacrificios de las enfermeras militares que sirvieron en ella... Nunca una novela de guerra se ha metamorfoseado tan profundamente en una historia sobre el corazón humano».
Delia Owen, autora de La chica salvaje

«Este libro es ficción histórica en su mejor versión. Tan conmovedor, tan desgarrador, y, sin embargo, en última instancia, optimista. ¡Bravo!».
Nicholas D. Kristof, ganador del Premio Pulitzer y coautor de La mitad del cielo

«Deslumbra con su sacrificio; y eleva el ánimo con su heroísmo... Un importante y largamente esperado tributo a las valientes enfermeras que sirvieron en Vietnam».
Bonnie Garmus, autora de Lecciones de química

«Los fans de los libros históricos protagonizados por mujeres van a disfrutar esta magnética novela».
Publishers Weekly

Please This audiobook is in Spanish.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Hare 4
This book tells a very human story of one woman’s horrific experiences as a combat nurse and the challenges of returning to civilian life with no acknowledgment or appreciation of her sacrifices.

“It’s hard to see clearly when the world is angry and divided and you’re being lied to.�-This quote appears toward the novel’s conclusion, surely (also) a commentary about today’s politics.]]> 4.58 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Hare
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/05/01
shelves:
review:
Anyone who reads this novel will be reminded of the turbulence surrounding the Vietnam War, both at home and abroad. The American men and women involved in the conflict were a few years older than I was, but even elementary and high school students like myself were aware of the divisiveness caused by a government supporting a war that could not result in a positive outcome.

This book tells a very human story of one woman’s horrific experiences as a combat nurse and the challenges of returning to civilian life with no acknowledgment or appreciation of her sacrifices.

“It’s hard to see clearly when the world is angry and divided and you’re being lied to.�-This quote appears toward the novel’s conclusion, surely (also) a commentary about today’s politics.
]]> The Exiles 49397137 The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in nineteenth-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.

Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,� Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.


During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.

Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.

In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose,The Exilesis a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.


]]> 370 Christina Baker Kline 0062356348 Hare 4 4.12 2020 The Exiles
author: Christina Baker Kline
name: Hare
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/04/22
shelves:
review:
Most are familiar with Australia’s beginnings as a penal colony; this novel focuses on the challenging and sometimes horrifying experiences of female convicts sent from England to Van Diemen’s Land. I was glad the author also included the story of native Mathinna, who serves as an example of the injustices endured by the Aboriginal population. Though fictionalized, Mathinna truly existed and was forced to live with the governor of Tasmania. A great four-star review by “Diane S� includes a link to some history re Mathinna.
]]> The Nightingale 21853621 Der Weltbestseller � die Nr. 1 aus den USA.
Zwei Schwestern im von den Deutschen besetzten Während Vianne ums Überleben ihrer Familie kämpft, schließt sich die jüngere Isabelle der Résistance an und sucht die Freiheit auf dem Pfad der Nachtigall, einem geheimen Fluchtweg über die Pyrenäen. Doch wie weit darf man gehen, um zu überleben? Und wie kann man die schützen, die man liebt?
In diesem epischen, kraftvollen und zutiefst berührenden Roman erzählt Kristin Hannah die Geschichte zweier Frauen, die ihr Schicksal auf ganz eigene Weise meistern.]]> 564 Kristin Hannah 0312577222 Hare 5 4.63 2015 The Nightingale
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Hare
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves:
review:
I read this novel many years ago and hadn’t intended to read again. However, it was recently chosen by a member of my library book club: I needed to rediscover details I’d forgotten. I enjoyed reading this wonderful story even more the second time around!
]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Hare 2
There is no economy of writing, and the uninteresting repetitive dialogue causes the story to drag. The characters are not really developed: to describe them, the author was “all tell, no show.�

There were many moments while reading that I found myself rolling my eyes at the absurd situations and clunky dialogue, and the absurd plot twist at the end made me laugh out loud.

I am astonished that critics and readers alike have praised this book. I would urge others to not waste their time.]]> 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Hare
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves:
review:
This novel was chosen (and described as “lightweight�) by a member of my book club. “Poorly written� would have been a more accurate description. I had to force myself to plow through it�

There is no economy of writing, and the uninteresting repetitive dialogue causes the story to drag. The characters are not really developed: to describe them, the author was “all tell, no show.�

There were many moments while reading that I found myself rolling my eyes at the absurd situations and clunky dialogue, and the absurd plot twist at the end made me laugh out loud.

I am astonished that critics and readers alike have praised this book. I would urge others to not waste their time.
]]> 700 Sundays 263429 192 Billy Crystal 0446698512 Hare 4 4.03 2005 700 Sundays
author: Billy Crystal
name: Hare
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/04/04
shelves:
review:
An interesting memoir. Billy met many legends of music and entertainment long before stardom, through his family’s business ventures and interest in jazz. This book details how his loving and close-knit family triggered a career in show business.
]]> The Boy Between Worlds 40537814
Waldemar is unique as a biracial young man in post WWII Netherlands—and his search for his own path in life is sure to engage even the hardest hearts.]]> 218 Annejet van der Zijl 1542090091 Hare 3 4.16 2004 The Boy Between Worlds
author: Annejet van der Zijl
name: Hare
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/04/02
shelves:
review:
Although this biography seems to drag at times, it’s worth reading. The center section of photographs-of people, letters, documents, etc.-adds interest. The author’s afterword explains why she felt compelled to share this story.
]]> Small Mercies 61812308 The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River —an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,� the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.]]> 303 Dennis Lehane 0062129481 Hare 5 4.22 2023 Small Mercies
author: Dennis Lehane
name: Hare
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/03/27
shelves:
review:
The violence which surrounded the desegregation of Boston’s public schools in 1974 was a reality. The characters in Small Mercies engage in such believable dialogue that I had to remind myself that the characters are fictional. This is well written and thought-provoking. A page-turner.
]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Hare 4 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Hare
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[All the Lost Girls: Confessions of a Southern Daughter (Deep South Books)]]> 1274959
Patricia Foster’s lyrical yet often painful memoir explores the life of a white middle-class girl who grew up in rural south Alabama in the 1950s and 1960s, a time and place that did not tolerate deviation from traditional gender roles. Her mother raised Foster and her sister as “honorary boys,� girls with the ambition of men but the temperament of women.

An unhappy, intelligent woman who kept a heartbreaking secret from everyone close to her, Foster's mother was driven by a repressed rage that fed her obsession for middle-class respectability. By the time Foster reached age fifteen, her efforts to reconcile the contradictory expectations that she be at once ambitious and restrained had left her nervous and needy inside even while she tried to cultivate the appearance of the model student, sister, and daughter. It was only a psychological and physical breakdown that helped her to realize that she couldn't save her driven, complicated mother and must struggle instead for both understanding and autonomy.
ձ> 328 Patricia Foster 0817310479 Hare 3 3.37 2000 All the Lost Girls: Confessions of a Southern Daughter (Deep South Books)
author: Patricia Foster
name: Hare
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves:
review:
Decent writing, but somehow not captivating.
]]> The Last Night in London 54814347 New York Times bestselling author Karen White weaves a story of friendship past and present, love, and betrayal that moves between war-torn London during the Blitz and the present day.

A captivating story of friendship, love and betrayal � and finding hope in the darkness of war.

London, 1939. Beautiful and ambitious Eva Harlow and her American best friend, Precious Dubose, are trying to make their way as fashion models. When Eva falls in love with Graham St. John, an aristocrat and Royal Air Force pilot, she can’t believe her luck � she’s getting everything she ever wanted. Then the Blitz devastates her world, and Eva finds herself slipping into a web of intrigue, spies and secrets. As Eva struggles to protect everything she holds dear, all it takes is one unwary moment to change their lives forever.

London, 2019. American journalist Maddie Warner travels to London to interview Precious about her life in pre-WWII London. Maddie, healing from past trauma and careful to close herself off to others, finds herself drawn to both Precious and to Colin, Precious� enigmatic surrogate nephew. As Maddie gets closer to her, she begins to unravel Precious� haunting past � and the secrets she swore she’d never reveal …]]> 480 Karen White 0451492013 Hare 2 4.13 2021 The Last Night in London
author: Karen White
name: Hare
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/02/26
shelves:
review:
I almost gave up before reading this novel to its predictable conclusion. It would have benefited from more editing and less sappy romance. It became difficult to care about the fate of the main characters since they seemed to make such stupid decisions.
]]> The Good Lord Bird 16171272 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

From the bestselling author of The Color of Water and Song Yet Sung comes the story of a young boy born a slave who joins John Brown’s antislavery crusade—and who must pass as a girl to survive.

Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1857, when the region is a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces. When John Brown, the legendary abolitionist, arrives in the area, an argument between Brown and Henry’s master quickly turns violent. Henry is forced to leave town—with Brown, who believes he’s a girl.

Over the ensuing months, Henry—whom Brown nicknames Little Onion—conceals his true identity as he struggles to stay alive. Eventually Little Onion finds himself with Brown at the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859—one of the great catalysts for the Civil War.

An absorbing mixture of history and imagination, and told with McBride’s meticulous eye for detail and character, The Good Lord Bird is both a rousing adventure and a moving exploration of identity and survival.]]> 417 James McBride 1594486344 Hare 4 3.90 2013 The Good Lord Bird
author: James McBride
name: Hare
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/02/08
shelves:
review:
This is certainly a unique retelling of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Historical fiction is a favorite genre, but I don’t often read it as satire. The story seemed to drag at times with an overload of details and “country talk� (main character’s narration). However, it is cleverly written, with a lot of imagined details along with details based on research. While reading this novel, I found interesting information via nps.gov re Harper’s Ferry. This event took place in 1859, yet we still struggle with the same issues today: race, religion, politics, gender�
]]> <![CDATA[An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood]]> 9347 In An Hour Before Daylight, Jimmy Carter, bestselling author of Living Faith and Sources of Strength, recreates his Depression-era boyhood on a Georgia farm before the civil rights movement forever changed it and the country.

Carter writes about the powerful rhythms of countryside and community in a sharecropping economy, offering an unforgettable portrait of his father, a brilliant farmer and a strict segregationist who treated black workers with respect and fairness; his strong-willed and well-read mother; and the five other people who shaped his early life, three of whom were black.

Carter's clean and eloquent prose evokes a time when the cycles of life were predictable and simple and the rules were heartbreaking and complex. In his singular voice and with a novelist's gift for detail, Jimmy Carter creates a sensitive portrait of an era that shaped the nation and recounts a classic, American story of enduring importance.]]> 288 Jimmy Carter 0743211995 Hare 3 The writing is a bit dry and rambling at times. Some of the lengthy descriptions of minutiae could have benefited from more editing. That said, there were some interesting passages concerning family dysfunction!]]> 3.97 2000 An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood
author: Jimmy Carter
name: Hare
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/01/18
shelves:
review:
Born in rural Georgia in the mid 1920s, living through the Depression, and working hard on the family farm: there is much to admire about what Jimmy Carter has accomplished in his life considering his beginnings. His views concerning race have frequently been deemed liberal by many of his southern peers. However, his writing includes some romanticism of the relationships between the blacks and whites of his boyhood community. He’s still a product of time and place. The peacefulness he remembers? Though poor, he was white and his family more privileged and influential. The blacks in his orbit were tenant farmers, many of them working for his father and “knew their place.�
The writing is a bit dry and rambling at times. Some of the lengthy descriptions of minutiae could have benefited from more editing. That said, there were some interesting passages concerning family dysfunction!
]]> <![CDATA[Me Before You (Me Before You, #1)]]> 17347634 A newer edition of ISBN 978-0143124542 can be found here.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars, discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me.

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A Love Story for this generation and perfect for fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?]]> 369 Jojo Moyes 0670026603 Hare 5 4.26 2012 Me Before You (Me Before You, #1)
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Hare
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves:
review:
This is a love story that is (thankfully) not your typical romance novel. It is not sappy or trite. The plot includes much more than a romance between two people. The well-developed characters are human but also likable. This novel raises thought-provoking questions about how one chooses to live one’s life, especially after a catastrophic event.
]]> The Lost Girls of Paris 39816076 From the author of the runaway bestseller The Orphan’s Tale comes a remarkable story of friendship and courage centered around three women and a ring of female spies during World War II.

1946, Manhattan

Grace Healey is rebuilding her life after losing her husband during the war. One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, she finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs—each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station.

Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a ring of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn to a young mother turned agent named Marie, whose daring mission overseas reveals a remarkable story of friendship, valor and betrayal.

Vividly rendered and inspired by true events, New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff shines a light on the incredible heroics of the brave women of the war, and weaves a mesmerizing tale of courage, sisterhood and the great strength of women to survive in the hardest of circumstances]]> 377 Pam Jenoff 0778330273 Hare 2 To get a fuller description of how I felt about this book, read the two-star review by “Matt”� He says it all!]]> 3.88 2019 The Lost Girls of Paris
author: Pam Jenoff
name: Hare
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/12/27
shelves:
review:
Disappointing. The prose is less than inspiring. The female characters profiled in this novel seem to quickly develop immature crushes on male counterparts. In the case of Marie, a secret agent for the Allies, her love sickness clouds what should have been more professional judgment. Many lives were at stake.
To get a fuller description of how I felt about this book, read the two-star review by “Matt”� He says it all!
]]> <![CDATA[One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World]]> 60321431
The remarkable story of ninety-nine-year-old Stella Levi whose conversations with the author over the course of six years bring to life the vibrant world of Jewish Rhodes, the deportation to Auschwitz that extinguished ninety percent of her community, and the resilience and wisdom of the woman who lived to tell the tale.

With nearly a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Greenwich Village apartment one Saturday afternoon to ask her a question about the Juderia, the neighborhood on the Greek island of Rhodes where she’d grown up in a Jewish community that had thrived there for half a millennium.

Neither of them could know this was the first of one hundred Saturdays over the course of six years that they would spend in each other’s company. During these meetings Stella traveled back in time to conjure what it felt like to come of age on this luminous, legendary island in the eastern Aegean, which the Italians conquered in 1912, began governing as an official colonial possession in 1923, and continued to administer even after the Germans seized control in September 1943. The following July, the Germans rounded up all 1,700-plus residents of the Juderia and sent them first by boat and then by train to Auschwitz on what was the longest journey—measured by both time and distance—of any of the deportations. Ninety percent of them were murdered upon arrival.

Probing and courageous, candid and sly, Stella is a magical modern-day Scheherazade whose stories reveal what it was like to grow up in an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time—and to construct a life after that place has vanished. One Hundred Saturdays is a portrait of one of the last survivors drawn at nearly the last possible moment, as well as an account of a tender and transformative friendship between storyteller and listener, offering a powerful “reminder that the ability to listen thoughtfully is a rare and significant gift� ( The Wall Street Journal).]]> 240 Michael Frank 198216722X Hare 5
As Stella shares details, she also imparts a lot of wisdom. “You don’t need to believe to be a Jew. You are a Jew because you are born into a tradition. But whether you believe in God, it’s important to remember a simple thing: no one idea about God is better than another. In the end we are all similar, everyone with differences and defects. What’s essential is to value humanity.�
Amen.]]> 4.21 2022 One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World
author: Michael Frank
name: Hare
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/12/16
shelves:
review:
While reading Stella Levi’s amazing story-of growing up in the Juderia of the island of Rhodes, surviving the Holocaust and beyond, it becomes clear that she becomes more and more trusting and respectful of Michael Frank as he records the story of her life.

As Stella shares details, she also imparts a lot of wisdom. “You don’t need to believe to be a Jew. You are a Jew because you are born into a tradition. But whether you believe in God, it’s important to remember a simple thing: no one idea about God is better than another. In the end we are all similar, everyone with differences and defects. What’s essential is to value humanity.�
Amen.
]]> <![CDATA[Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI]]> 29496076
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,� roamed � virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. The book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward Native Americans that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly riveting, but also emotionally devastating.]]> 359 David Grann 0385534256 Hare 4 4.12 2017 Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
author: David Grann
name: Hare
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/12/01
shelves:
review:
This book ends with “The blood cries out from the ground.� All of us need to listen to that cry to achieve a fuller understanding of our history-to recognize that greed and corruption led to the murder of many Osage, usually with no justice for the victims or their families. Because Martin Scorsese is telling this story through film, many more will learn of this brutal American tragedy.
]]> <![CDATA[It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)]]> 27362503
Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up � she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating� rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan � her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.]]> 386 Colleen Hoover 1668021048 Hare 2
The characters seem shallow most of the time, and the cultural references add to the feeling of YA writing. Lily, the main character, rereads a diary she wrote as a girl; every diary entry begins with “Dear Ellen� since she always imagined sharing her thoughts with Ellen DeGeneres when writing in her journal. Even character names are cringe-worthy: Lily Blossom Bloom, who dreams of-and does launch-a flower shop.]]> 4.11 2016 It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Hare
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves:
review:
This book has been marketed as a romance novel. However, it’s really more a story of physical abuse with subjects such as homelessness added to the mix. And the mix includes less than inspiring writing. Although all of the characters are adults, they use immature language more typical of teenagers. For example, “Pinterest whore� is used to describe someone who frequently uses that website. (I’m probably being unfair to teens; maybe it’s just ignorant adults who talk or write in this way.)

The characters seem shallow most of the time, and the cultural references add to the feeling of YA writing. Lily, the main character, rereads a diary she wrote as a girl; every diary entry begins with “Dear Ellen� since she always imagined sharing her thoughts with Ellen DeGeneres when writing in her journal. Even character names are cringe-worthy: Lily Blossom Bloom, who dreams of-and does launch-a flower shop.
]]> The Aviator's Wife 13642950 In the spirit of Loving Frank and The Paris Wife, acclaimed novelist Melanie Benjamin pulls back the curtain on the marriage of one of America’s most extraordinary couples: Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

When Anne Morrow, a shy college senior with hidden literary aspirations, travels to Mexico City to spend Christmas with her family, she meets Colonel Charles Lindbergh, fresh off his celebrated 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic. Enthralled by Charles’s assurance and fame, Anne is certain the aviator has scarcely noticed her. But she is wrong. Charles sees in Anne a kindred spirit, a fellow adventurer, and her world will be changed forever. The two marry in a headline-making wedding. In the years that follow, Anne becomes the first licensed female glider pilot in the United States. But despite this and other major achievements, she is viewed merely as the aviator’s wife. The fairy-tale life she once longed for will bring heartbreak and hardships, ultimately pushing her to reconcile her need for love and her desire for independence, and to embrace, at last, life’s infinite possibilities for change and happiness.

Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.]]> 416 Melanie Benjamin 0345528670 Hare 3 3.88 2013 The Aviator's Wife
author: Melanie Benjamin
name: Hare
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/11/07
shelves:
review:
Decent writing, but unlikeable characters. Charles Lindbergh is depicted as an international hero but a very flawed human being. The author’s portrayal of Anne: an intelligent woman who spends her entire married life tolerating her husband’s cold and calculating personality and demands. The many decades of acting as a rug under her husband’s feet-hard to respect the character with whom you’re supposed to sympathize. It was hard for me to like either of the Lindberghs-the aviator OR his wife.
]]> <![CDATA[Crimson Stain: The Shocking True Story of the Only Amish Man Ever Convicted of Homicide (Berkley True Crime)]]> 349951 354 Jim Fisher 0425174336 Hare 4 3.85 2000 Crimson Stain: The Shocking True Story of the Only Amish Man Ever Convicted of Homicide (Berkley True Crime)
author: Jim Fisher
name: Hare
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/10/23
shelves:
review:

]]> The Orchard Keeper 46506 256 Cormac McCarthy 0330314912 Hare 3 3.53 1965 The Orchard Keeper
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Hare
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/10/22
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review:
I had high expectations for The Orchard Keeper since I’d so admired The Road. I was disappointed but should not have been surprised-comparing McCarthy’s debut novel (The Orchard Keeper) to his last novel (The Road). His novels are all about the prose-lots of unique description. McCarthy’s writing evokes interesting images; it’s just that the amount of descriptive language in Orchard Keeper seemed to slow progression of the plot.
]]> Cutting for Stone 3591262
Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.
(front flap)]]> 560 Abraham Verghese 0375414495 Hare 5 4.32 2009 Cutting for Stone
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Hare
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/10/10
shelves:
review:
Jason’s five-star review (with 500+ “likes�) says it all. GoodReads describes this novel as a sweeping saga: so true!
]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Hare 5 This novel has received many positive reviews, I think rightly so-as has Verghese’s “Cutting for Stone”…my next read!]]> 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Hare
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/09/21
shelves:
review:
What a saga. Lots of characters spanning several generations whose lives intersect in interesting ways. A major plot surprise was revealed at the end which I didn’t see coming!
This novel has received many positive reviews, I think rightly so-as has Verghese’s “Cutting for Stone”…my next read!
]]> The Secret Book of Flora Lea 61964751
In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.

But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.

Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars . Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?

As Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling.]]> 355 Patti Callahan Henry 1668011832 Hare 2 4.03 2023 The Secret Book of Flora Lea
author: Patti Callahan Henry
name: Hare
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/09/03
shelves:
review:
I wanted to like this book since I’m drawn to stories of WWII, and the plot-description appealed. However, the writing seemed a bit syrupy, and I began to notice mistakes� The story alternates between wartime and postwar 1960. If the main character, Hazel, is fourteen years old in 1939, what would her age be in 1960? You don’t have to be a mathematician to know: 35. However, in a passage taking place in 1960…”At twenty-five years old, she’d realized that all she could do with the ache and shame was to live with it, allow it to walk next to her like a shadow, a ghost, a living memory…�: This quote illustrates both the mistakes in arithmetic as well as the less than inspiring writing. I decided to not waste time reading to the book’s conclusion.
]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Hare 5 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Hare
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/09/01
shelves:
review:
Loved this story. The author has created likable three-dimensional characters, one of them a dog named Six-thirty.
]]> The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1) 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Hare 4 3.71 2022 The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1)
author: Nita Prose
name: Hare
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves:
review:
This is a unique murder mystery, and Molly the Maid a unique character. A fun read.
]]> <![CDATA[Morning Glory On The Vine: Early Songs and Drawings]]> 44303636
In 1971, as her album Blue topped charts around the world, Joni Mitchell crafted one hundred copies of Morning Glory on the Vine as a holiday gift for her closest friends. For this stunningly beautiful book, Joni hand-wrote an exquisite selection of her own lyrics and poems and illustrated them with more than thirty of her original pictures. Handcrafted, signed, and numbered in Los Angeles, the existing copies of this labor of love have rarely been seen in the past half-century.
Now, during Joni’s seventy-fifth birthday year, Morning Glory on the Early Songs and Drawings will be widely available for the first time. In this faithfully reproduced edition, Joni’s best-loved lyrics and poems spill across the pages in her own elegant script. The lively, full-color drawings depict a superb array of landscapes, still lifes, portraits of friends, self-portraits, innovative abstractions, and more. All the artwork from the original book is included, along with several additional pictures that Joni drew of her friends from the same period. Finally, the refreshed volume features an original introduction written by Joni. Morning Glory on the Vine is a gorgeous and intimate keepsake and an invitation to explore anew the dazzling, visionary world of Joni Mitchell.]]> 136 Joni Mitchell 0358181720 Hare 4 4.54 2019 Morning Glory On The Vine: Early Songs and Drawings
author: Joni Mitchell
name: Hare
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2019
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/08/19
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review:
Joni’s foreword explains that this book was first printed to provide friends with a special Christmas gift, now shared with all of her fans. Poetic lyrics accompanied by drawings on heavy paper. Easy for many of us to recognize her celebrity friends…like Neil Young, David Crosby, and Graham Nash.
]]> Hang the Moon 61272702
Most folk thought Sallie Kincaid was a nobody who’d amount to nothing. Sallie had other plans.

Sallie Kincaid is the daughter of the biggest man in a small town, the charismatic Duke Kincaid. Born at the turn of the 20th century into a life of comfort and privilege, Sallie remembers little about her mother who died in a violent argument with the Duke. By the time she is just eight years old, the Duke has remarried and had a son, Eddie. While Sallie is her father’s daughter, sharp-witted and resourceful, Eddie is his mother’s son, timid and cerebral. When Sallie tries to teach young Eddie to be more like their father, her daredevil coaching leads to an accident, and Sallie is cast out.

Nine years later, she returns, determined to reclaim her place in the family. That’s a lot more complicated than Sallie expected, and she enters a world of conflict and lawlessness. Sallie confronts the secrets and scandals that hide in the shadows of the Big House, navigates the factions in the family and town, and finally comes into her own as a bold, sometimes reckless bootlegger.

You will fall in love with Sallie Kincaid, a feisty and fearless, terrified and damaged young woman who refuses to be corralled.]]> 368 Jeannette Walls 1501117297 Hare 2 3.67 2023 Hang the Moon
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Hare
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/08/12
shelves:
review:
Disappointing, like the plot of a Lifetime movie.
]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man]]> 62918681 One of our nation’s most prominent writers finds the truth about how to live a long and happy life in the centenarian next door.

When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president.

David Von Drehle came to understand that Charlie’s resilience and willingness to grow made this remarkable neighbor a master in the art of thriving through times of dramatic change. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets. The Book of Charlie is a gospel of grit—the inspiring story of one man’s journey through a century of upheaval. The history that unfolds through Charlie’s story reminds you that the United States has always been a divided nation, a questing nation, an inventive nation—a nation of Charlies in the rollercoaster pursuit of a good and meaningful life.]]> 194 David von Drehle 1476773920 Hare 4 3.86 2023 The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
author: David von Drehle
name: Hare
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/05
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review:
As the author tells the story of Charlie’s life, he includes miniature history lessons; this helps to match Charlie’s actions to the times. Included are questions and possible answers to how to live one’s life, whether living a short life or 109 years-like Charlie.
]]> The Silver Star 18070168 An impetuous optimist, Bean discovers who her father was and learns many stories about why their mother left Virginia in the first place. Money is tight, so Liz and Bean start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Madox, foreman of the mill in town, a big man who bullies workers, tenants and his wife. Bean adores her whip-smart older sister, inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, non-conformist. But when school starts in the autumn, it is Bean who easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz who becomes increasingly withdrawn. And then something happens between Liz...]]> 267 Jeannette Walls 147112908X Hare 3 3.89 2013 The Silver Star
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Hare
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/08/03
shelves:
review:
The Glass Castle, Jeannette’s memoir, was such an incredible story of survival. Somehow, this work of fiction missed the mark for me.
]]> Hello Beautiful 61771675
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters� unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?]]> 416 Ann Napolitano Hare 5
The reader first meets William, and while reading about his life (his childhood in particular), you so hope for him to find the happiness and love absent from his life. As a young man, he meets-and becomes part of-the Padavano family, which includes four seemingly inseparable sisters.

Loved the writing: “With her eyes closed, Sylvie could imagine William walking into the lake, feeling like a tablespoon of water that could no longer stay on a spoon. There had been no more gravity holding him together, and so he’d tried to dissolve into the giant body of water. Sylvie sat at his bedside, loose inside her own skin, so she could share some of her strength with him while he slept.� Wow.]]> 4.14 2023 Hello Beautiful
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Hare
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/08/02
shelves:
review:
Described as an homage to Little Women, Hello Beautiful is a story of the power of family and friendship-and the bonds of sisterhood. Told from several points of view, the author creates a distinct personality for each character.

The reader first meets William, and while reading about his life (his childhood in particular), you so hope for him to find the happiness and love absent from his life. As a young man, he meets-and becomes part of-the Padavano family, which includes four seemingly inseparable sisters.

Loved the writing: “With her eyes closed, Sylvie could imagine William walking into the lake, feeling like a tablespoon of water that could no longer stay on a spoon. There had been no more gravity holding him together, and so he’d tried to dissolve into the giant body of water. Sylvie sat at his bedside, loose inside her own skin, so she could share some of her strength with him while he slept.� Wow.
]]> <![CDATA[Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the 116 Days that Changed the World]]> 48590165 From Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday, comes an electrifying behind-the-scenes account of the secret meetings and events across the globe during the 116 days leading up to the world’s first use of the atomic bomb in wartime—the American attack on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

April 12, 1945: After years of bloody conflict in Europe and the Pacific, America is stunned by news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. Countdown 1945 tells the gripping true story of the turbulent days, weeks, and months to follow, leading up to August 6, 1945, when new President Harry Truman gives the order to unleash the world’s first atomic bomb. Featuring some of history’s most remarkable leaders, page-turning action, and vivid details, Countdown 1945 is a thrilling narrative of the covert meetings and pivotal developments that took place in the United States and around the world during the volatile spring and summer of 1945.

Countdown 1945 takes readers inside the minds of the iconic and elusive figures who join the quest for the bomb, each for different reasons: the legendary Albert Einstein, who eventually calls his vocal support for the atomic bomb “the one great mistake in my life�; lead researcher Robert “Oppie� Oppenheimer and the Soviet spies who secretly infiltrate his team; the fiercely competitive pilots of the plane selected to drop the bomb; and many more. Perhaps most of all, Countdown 1945 is the story of an untested new president confronting a decision that he knows will change the world forever. Truman’s journey during these 116 days is a story of high drama: from the shock of learning of the bomb’s existence, to the conflicting advice he receives from generals like Eisenhower and George Marshall, to wrestling with the devastating carnage that will result if he gives the order to use America’s first weapon of mass destruction.

But Countdown 1945 is more than a book about the atomic bomb. It’s also an unforgettable account of the lives of ordinary American and Japanese civilians in wartime—from “Calutron Girls� like Ruth Sisson in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to ten-year-old Hiroshima resident Hideko Tamura, who survives the blast at ground zero but loses her mother, and later immigrates to the United States, where she lives to this day—as well as American soldiers fighting in the Pacific, waiting in fear for the order to launch a possible invasion of Japan. Told with vigor, intelligence, and humanity, Countdown 1945 is the definitive account of one of the most consequential moments in history.]]> 320 Chris Wallace 1982143347 Hare 5 4.20 2020 Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the 116 Days that Changed the World
author: Chris Wallace
name: Hare
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves:
review:
A well-researched history lesson that is also entertaining. The authors present many points of view, debating whether development and use of the atom bomb was necessary to end WW2 in the Pacific.
]]> <![CDATA[Clara's War: A Young Girl's True Story of Miraculous Survival Under the Nazis]]> 3390864
Mr. Beck was a womaniser, a drunkard and a self-professed anti-Semite, yet he risked his life throughout the war to keep his charges safe. Nevertheless, life with Mr. Beck was far from predictable. From the house catching fire, to Beck's affair with Clara's cousin, to the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room just above, Clara's War transports you into the dark, cramped bunker, and sits you next to the families as they hold their breath time and again.

Sixty years later, Clara Kramer has created a memoir that is lyrical, dramatic and heartbreakingly compelling. Despite the worst of circumstances, this is a story full of hope and survival, courage and love.]]> 352 Clara Kramer 0091924405 Hare 4 4.09 2008 Clara's War: A Young Girl's True Story of Miraculous Survival Under the Nazis
author: Clara Kramer
name: Hare
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves:
review:
Clara Kramer learned through personal experience just how cruel people can be to one another. What an experience she endured. It’s incredible that both she and her diary survived to tell this story. She also learned that an unlikely savior-known as an antisemite-would save 18 people from the Holocaust and restore her faith in humanity.
]]> Mad Honey 59912428 A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.]]> 464 Jodi Picoult 1984818384 Hare 4 4.05 2022 Mad Honey
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Hare
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves:
review:
Members of my book club often choose Jodi Picoult novels. I’ve been a lukewarm fan. However, I must admit that I enjoyed reading Mad Honey. Even though written and pieced together by two authors, Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, the story flows pretty seamlessly. The authors� notes indicate that each author took primary responsibility for providing the voice of one of two main characters but sometimes switched duties. Their hard work resulted in an interesting story. The book tackles a timely and (unfortunately) politically-charged topic, but the writing seemed nuanced, not preachy.
]]> Northanger Abbey 50398 Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's "Gothic parody." Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.

The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry's mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.]]> 260 Jane Austen 1593082649 Hare 5 3.85 1817 Northanger Abbey
author: Jane Austen
name: Hare
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1817
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/06/20
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review:
With more time at home during COVID restrictions, I decided it was time to read (among other things) the works of Jane Austen. Although Northanger Abbey was the first written, it was the last published. And it was the last of Austen’s novels read by yours truly. It is certainly worth reading. Such fun characters caught in interesting situations.
]]> <![CDATA[Cilka's Journey (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #2)]]> 45033931 The Tattooist of Auschwitz, the author tells the story, based on a true one, of a woman who survives Auschwitz, only to find herself locked away again.

Cilka Klein is 18 years old when Auschwitz-Birkenau is liberated by Soviet soldiers. But Cilka is one of the many women who is sentenced to a labor camp on charges of having helped the Nazis--with no consideration of the circumstances Cilka and women like her found themselves in as they struggled to survive. Once at the Vorkuta gulag in Sibera, where she is to serve her 15-year sentence, Cilka uses her wits, charm, and beauty to survive.]]> 352 Heather Morris 1250265703 Hare 3 4.38 2019 Cilka's Journey (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #2)
author: Heather Morris
name: Hare
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/06/18
shelves:
review:
Because I so enjoyed reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I had high expectations for this second novel of Heather Morris’s trilogy. This is another incredible story of survival. However, the writing seems lacking/not as engaging. Also, The Tattooist� is based on actual interviews with Lale Sokolov, so it seems more authentic. This second in the series is a more fictionalized account (the author freely admits) of Cilka’s life.
]]> <![CDATA[Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #3)]]> 56269187 A promise to stay together.
An unbreakable bond.
A fierce will to survive.

From international bestselling author Heather Morris comes the breathtaking conclusion to The Tattooist of Auschwitz trilogy.

When they are girls, Cibi, Magda and Livia make a promise to their father - that they will stay together, no matter what.

Years later, at just 15 years old, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Cibi, only 19 herself, remembers their promise and follows Livia, determined to protect her sister, or die with her.

In their hometown in Slovakia, 17-year-old Magda hides, desperate to evade the barbaric Nazi forces. But it is not long before she is captured and condemned to Auschwitz.

In the horror of the death camp, these three beautiful sisters are reunited. Though traumatised by their experiences, they are together.

They make another promise: that they will live. Their fight for survival takes them from the hell of Auschwitz, to a death march across war-torn Europe and eventually home to Slovakia, now under iron Communist rule. Determined to begin again, they embark on a voyage of renewal, to the new Jewish homeland, Israel.

Rich in vivid detail, and beautifully told, Three Sisters will break your heart, but leave you amazed and uplifted by the courage and fierce love of three sisters, whose promise to each other kept them alive. Two of the sisters are in Israel today, surrounded by family and friends. They have chosen Heather Morris to reimagine their story in her astonishing new novel, Three Sisters.]]> 416 Heather Morris 1250276896 Hare 4 4.34 2021 Three Sisters (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #3)
author: Heather Morris
name: Hare
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/06/10
shelves:
review:
The third in Heather Morris’s “Tattooist trilogy,� this is another incredible story of survival. These sisters survived the unimaginable at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I also enjoyed the afterword and the addition of family photographs.
]]> Family Pictures 409991 Family Pictures follows the conflict between husband and wife, over a beautiful autistic child. Randall is both angel and demon. His father, David, a coolly rational psychiatrist, wants him placed in an institution; his mother, Lainey, insists on keeping him at home. Yet it is not just David and Lainey who are struggling to come to terms with a difficult and unpredictable child; there are five other children in the family, each of them coping with the dramas and rifts surrounding them, each of them affected by Randall.]]> Sue Miller 0575403217 Hare 5 3.82 1990 Family Pictures
author: Sue Miller
name: Hare
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/05/21
shelves:
review:
Family life can be difficult even when circumstances are “normal�; Family Pictures presents a family of eight-parents and six children, third of these six a special needs child with severe autism. The demands of Randall’s care is physically and mentally exhausting, especially for the children’s mother, Lainey. This story is believable. It’s told from several points of view-each of the parents and some of the children. Anyone who has experienced family life understands how each family member contributes to the family dynamic. Each character seems real, and the story convincing.
]]> <![CDATA[An Irish Country Doctor (Irish Country #1)]]> 173233 An Irish Country Doctor from bestselling author Patick Taylor is a charming and engrossing tale that will captivate readers from the very first page--and leave them yearning to visit the Irish countryside of days gone by.



Barry Laverty, M.B., can barely find the Northern Ireland village of Ballybucklebo on a map when he first sets out to seek gainful employment there. But Barry jumps at the chance to secure a position as an assistant in a small rural practice.

At least until he meets Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly.

The older physician has his own way of doing things. At first, Barry can't decide if the pugnacious O'Reilly is the biggest charlatan he has ever met or the best teacher he could ever hope for. Through O'Reilly, Barry soon gets to know all of the village's colourful and endearing residents and a host of other eccentric characters who make every day an education for the inexperienced young doctor.

Ballybucklebo is a long way from Belfast, and Barry is quick to discover that he still has a lot to learn about country life. But with pluck and compassion, and only the slightest touch of blarney, he will find out more about life--and love--than he ever imagined back in medical school.]]> 352 Patrick Taylor 0765316234 Hare 4 3.88 2004 An Irish Country Doctor (Irish Country #1)
author: Patrick Taylor
name: Hare
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves:
review:
A charming story. I enjoyed getting to know the characters of the (fictional) Ulster town of Ballybucklebo.
]]> The Last Thing He Told Me 54981009
As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a U.S. marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.]]> 307 Laura Dave 1501171348 Hare 3 3.78 2021 The Last Thing He Told Me
author: Laura Dave
name: Hare
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/05/01
shelves:
review:
A quick read-and entertaining enough to keep me interested, but the ending seemed a bit far-fetched.
]]> A Thousand Acres 41193 371 Jane Smiley 1400033837 Hare 5 3.82 1991 A Thousand Acres
author: Jane Smiley
name: Hare
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/25
shelves:
review:
This modern retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear is not light entertainment. Lots of family dysfunction and tragedy. Depressing, but a page-turner. Great writing.
]]> John 35238
The time has come when I feel ready to tell the truth about John and me, our years together and the years since his death. There is so much that I have never said, so many incidents I have never spoken of and so many feelings I have never great love on one hand; pain, torment, and humiliation on the other. Only I know what really happened between us, why we stayed together, why we parted, and the price I have paid for being John’s wife. —From the Introduction]]> 306 Cynthia Lennon 0307338568 Hare 5 4.09 2005 John
author: Cynthia Lennon
name: Hare
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2014/06/19
date added: 2023/04/15
shelves:
review:

]]> In a Dark, Dark Wood 27834600
Sometimes the only thing to fear…is yourself.

When reclusive writer Leonora is invited to the English countryside for a weekend away, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. But as the first night falls, revelations unfold among friends old and new, an unnerving memory shatters Leonora’s reserve, and a haunting realization creeps in: the party is not alone in the woods.]]> 352 Ruth Ware 1501112333 Hare 4 3.76 2015 In a Dark, Dark Wood
author: Ruth Ware
name: Hare
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/13
shelves:
review:
Though somewhat predictable, this is an entertaining mystery. I enjoyed this much more than “One By One� (also by Ruth Ware).
]]> A Dutiful Daughter 1880412 Thomas Keneally 0207954232 Hare 1 3.13 1971 A Dutiful Daughter
author: Thomas Keneally
name: Hare
average rating: 3.13
book published: 1971
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2023/04/09
shelves:
review:
I found this novel in a box in my attic: I remember reading it as a young teenager. I’d thought it a weird story then and started to read again to see if I would have the same opinion now, in my 60s. Still a strange story. Not enjoyable.
]]> I Know This Much Is True 227711
One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.]]> 897 Wally Lamb 0060987561 Hare 4
Why four stars instead of five?…Grandfather Domenico Tempesta’s memoir seemed longer than necessary. I thought the information about the family’s past could have been delivered in fewer pages.]]> 4.21 1998 I Know This Much Is True
author: Wally Lamb
name: Hare
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/06
shelves:
review:
I’d read Wally Lamb’s “She’s Come Undone� many years ago: not a novel I would recommend to friends. So� I was skeptical when a friend recommended “I Know This Much is True� However, I enjoyed the writing; the characters were well developed-imperfect and human, the situations seemed believable, and I found myself wanting to know how this story would end. (And I found the ending satisfying.)

Why four stars instead of five?…Grandfather Domenico Tempesta’s memoir seemed longer than necessary. I thought the information about the family’s past could have been delivered in fewer pages.
]]> <![CDATA[My Ticket to Ride: How I Ran Away to England to Meet the Beatles and Got Rock and Roll Banned in Cleveland (A True Story from 1964)]]> 58942702 A true-adventure, coming-of-age tale set in the exhilarating first wave of Beatlemania It's 1964, and 16-year-old Janice is struggling in a grim foster home in Cleveland when she falls suddenly, deeply in love . . . with the Beatles. They and their music stir in her an ecstatic new sense of freedom. With a friend, she hatches a bold plan to escape their dreary lives and run away to London to meet the Fab Four. On their own for the first time--in Beatleland--they explore a new city, a new culture, and a new life, visiting the hippest clubs of Soho, meeting some nice English boys, and hitchhiking to Liverpool. But unbeknownst to them, the runaways have become international news--and a hunt is on. Adventure and newfound freedom end abruptly when Janice is apprehended by London police and hauled home to Cleveland and an unforgiving juvenile justice system. Warned by responsible adults to put it all behind her, she doesn't speak of her extraordinary adventure for more than fifty years. In this memoir, she looks back with fresh insight on the heady early days of Beatlemania and an era in America when young women exercising some control over their lives presented a serious threat to adult society.]]> 304 Janice Mitchell 1598511165 Hare 4
The surprise, for me, is that I’d never heard of this adventure Also, the latter part of the book describes the stark contrast between how the girls were treated by British authorities vs. the U.S., especially Cleveland Police and juvenile court system.

In spite of a tough beginning in life, Ms. Mitchell has managed to have a successful career and in retirement, has gifted us with this rock ‘n roll adventure.]]> 4.07 My Ticket to Ride: How I Ran Away to England to Meet the Beatles and Got Rock and Roll Banned in Cleveland (A True Story from 1964)
author: Janice Mitchell
name: Hare
average rating: 4.07
book published:
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/04
shelves:
review:
This was a fun read -a must-read for any Beatles fan of a certain age. I had just started elementary school when the Beatles entered the U.S. consciousness in 1963-64; my siblings and I were immediate fans. The author was a bit older-a teen-when she and her friend escaped Cleveland in 1964 to attempt to live in “Beatleland.� Though written when in her 70s, Janice Mitchell seems to have found her “teenage voice�: the prose is pretty basic, but reads as if written by the teen girl she once was.

The surprise, for me, is that I’d never heard of this adventure Also, the latter part of the book describes the stark contrast between how the girls were treated by British authorities vs. the U.S., especially Cleveland Police and juvenile court system.

In spite of a tough beginning in life, Ms. Mitchell has managed to have a successful career and in retirement, has gifted us with this rock ‘n roll adventure.
]]> <![CDATA[Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest]]> 42389 Foreword
"We wanted those wings"; Camp Toccoa, 7-12/42
"Stand up & hook up"; Benning, Mackall, Bragg, Shanks, 12/42-9/43
"Duties of the latrine orderly"; Aldbourne, 9/43-3/44
"Look out, Hitler! Here we come!"; Slapton Sands, Uppottery, 4/1-6/5/44
"Follow me"; Normandy, 6/6/44
"Move out!"; Carentan, 6/7-7/12/44
Healing wounds & scrubbed missions; Aldbourne, 7/13-9/16/44
"Hell's highway"; Holland, 9/17-10/1/44
Island; Holland, 10/2-11/25/44
Resting, recovering & refitting: Mourmelon-le-Grand, 11/26-12/18/44
"They got us surrounded-the poor bastards"; Bastogne, 12/19-31/44
Breaking point; Bastogne, 1/1-13/45
Attack; Noville, 1/14-17/45
Patrol: Haguenau, 1/18-2/23/45
"Best feeling in the world": Mourmelon, 2/25-4/2/45
Getting to know the enemy: Germany, 4/2-30/45
Drinking Hitler's champagne; Berchtesgaden, 5/1-8/45
Soldier's dream life; Austria, 5/8-7/31/45
Postwar careers; 1945-91
Acknowledgments & Sources
Index]]> 432 Stephen E. Ambrose 0743464117 Hare 4
I have yet to watch the acclaimed HBO series based on this book. I plan to do so soon!]]> 4.43 1992 Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
author: Stephen E. Ambrose
name: Hare
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/14
shelves:
review:
My eldest son encouraged me to read this book. Though a genre I seldom choose, I enjoyed reading this history of 506’s Easy Company. That said…nothing they did was “easy�-quite the contrary. That any of them survived WWII is beyond amazing. This incredible tale of heroism and survival ends with a chapter describing “Postwar Careers� and postwar reunions. It was clear to the author, and becomes obvious to the reader, that these were special men who’d had to trust and depend on one another under the most horrible of circumstances, therefore forming an unbreakable bond.

I have yet to watch the acclaimed HBO series based on this book. I plan to do so soon!
]]> <![CDATA[Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore]]> 32620349
But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia?

As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left.]]> 328 Matthew J. Sullivan 1501116843 Hare 3 3.77 2017 Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
author: Matthew J. Sullivan
name: Hare
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/03/02
shelves:
review:
Murder mysteries-not my favorite genre, but a friend had recommended this book. The dialogue between characters in the first few chapters didn’t resonate with me, and I almost decided to discontinue reading. However, I kept reading and began to enjoy the plot and, later, the novel’s conclusion.
]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780063251922.

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver Hare 2 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Hare
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves:
review:
The Poisonwood Bible, also by Barbara Kingsolver: Great writing, memorable characters and plot. Therefore, my expectations exceeded reality: I found that Demon Copperhead lacked many things, including better editing (length of this book-questionable) and nuance. Told in first person, Demon’s voice seemed inauthentic to me. So many stereotypes of southern Appalachian people and culture. Most reviews of this novel have been positive. However, I found a negative review included in The Telegraph, “How not to update Dickens� (David Copperfield).
]]> The Road 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Hare 5
Interesting to read reviews of The Road-many positive, but some even questioning whether it deserved the Pulitzer. What I know for sure is…It made me feel. When the man and boy walk through a familiar area and find the man’s childhood home, now dark and empty, the man stands at the fireplace mantle: “He stood there. He felt with his thumb in the painted wood of the mantle the pinholes from tacks that had held stockings forty years ago.� Who, especially in older age, after the loss of parents and other loved ones, can’t relate to that? So many reminders of what’s been lost. Even in an intact world, we all have those feelings of loss. Like Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.�

Though it seems unlikely that anyone could survive the horrific conditions described in the novel, it ends with a glimmer of hope.]]> 3.99 2006 The Road
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Hare
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/02/03
shelves:
review:
Such cold, darkness, hopelessness. It’s hard to imagine how this father and son could possibly survive each day physically or mentally.

Interesting to read reviews of The Road-many positive, but some even questioning whether it deserved the Pulitzer. What I know for sure is…It made me feel. When the man and boy walk through a familiar area and find the man’s childhood home, now dark and empty, the man stands at the fireplace mantle: “He stood there. He felt with his thumb in the painted wood of the mantle the pinholes from tacks that had held stockings forty years ago.� Who, especially in older age, after the loss of parents and other loved ones, can’t relate to that? So many reminders of what’s been lost. Even in an intact world, we all have those feelings of loss. Like Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.�

Though it seems unlikely that anyone could survive the horrific conditions described in the novel, it ends with a glimmer of hope.
]]> <![CDATA[How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals]]> 37569338 National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery reflects on the personalities and quirks of 13 animals--her friends--who have profoundly affected her in this stunning, poetic, and life-affirming memoir featuring illustrations by Rebecca Green.

Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet's rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy's life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets.

This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals--Sy's friends--and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.]]> 208 Sy Montgomery 0544938321 Hare 3 4.04 2018 How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals
author: Sy Montgomery
name: Hare
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/01/27
shelves:
review:
An easy but interesting read. I enjoyed reading this memoir, but when comparing it to any other collection of animal stories, it fell short (for me). I’d be more likely to recommend animal stories of James Herriot, for example.
]]> Our Missing Hearts 60149573 A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture� in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.]]> 335 Celeste Ng 0593492544 Hare 4 3.74 2022 Our Missing Hearts
author: Celeste Ng
name: Hare
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/01/24
shelves:
review:
A cautionary tale that certainly reflects the politics and injustices of the past and, unfortunately, today.
]]> Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 Hare 5
I’ve been told the TV adaptation of Normal People is worth watching. I plan to watch soon!]]> 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Hare
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/01/13
shelves:
review:
I admire Sally Rooney’s writing. I will not soon forget the characters of Connell and Marianne. Theirs is not a typical romance, at least not one to aspire to! This story reminds the reader how difficult it is to overcome a dysfunctional family, being typed as a social outcast in school, etc. Even when trying to reinvent themselves in college and beyond, the ghosts of the past continue to haunt.

I’ve been told the TV adaptation of Normal People is worth watching. I plan to watch soon!
]]> <![CDATA[The Whistling Season (Morrie Morgan #1, Two Medicine Country #7)]]> 262545 345 Ivan Doig 0151012377 Hare 3 4.03 2006 The Whistling Season (Morrie Morgan #1, Two Medicine Country #7)
author: Ivan Doig
name: Hare
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2016/01/11
date added: 2023/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Life of Violet Grant (Schuyler Sisters, #1)]]> 18667976 Passion, redemption, and a battered suitcase full of secrets: the New York Times-bestselling author of A Hundred Summers returns with another engrossing tale.

Manhattan, 1964. Vivian Schuyler, newly graduated from Bryn Mawr College, has recently defied the privilege of her storied old Fifth Avenue family to do the unthinkable for a budding Kennedy-era socialite: break into the Mad Men world of razor-stylish Metropolitan magazine. But when she receives a bulky overseas parcel in the mail, the unexpected contents draw her inexorably back into her family’s past, and the hushed-over crime passionnel of an aunt she never knew, whose existence has been wiped from the record of history.

Berlin, 1914. Violet Schuyler Grant endures her marriage to the philandering and decades-older scientist Dr. Walter Grant for one reason: for all his faults, he provides the necessary support to her liminal position as a young American female physicist in prewar Germany. The arrival of Dr. Grant’s magnetic former student at the beginning of Europe’s fateful summer interrupts this delicate détente. Lionel Richardson, a captain in the British Army, challenges Violet to escape her husband’s perverse hold, and as the world edges into war and Lionel’s shocking true motives become evident, Violet is tempted to take the ultimate step to set herself free and seek a life of her own conviction with a man whose cause is as audacious as her own.

As the iridescent and fractured Vivian digs deeper into her aunt’s past and the mystery of her ultimate fate, Violet’s story of determination and desire unfolds, shedding light on the darkness of her years abroad . . . and teaching Vivian to reach forward with grace for the ambitious future––and the love––she wants most.]]> 432 Beatriz Williams 0399162178 Hare 3 4.00 2014 The Secret Life of Violet Grant (Schuyler Sisters, #1)
author: Beatriz Williams
name: Hare
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story]]> 61065813 Bono--artist, activist, and the lead singer of Irish rock band U2--has written a memoir: honest and irreverent, intimate and profound, Surrender is the story of the remarkable life he's lived, the challenges he's faced, and the friends and family who have shaped and sustained him.

"When I started to write this book, I was hoping to draw in detail what I'd previously only sketched in songs. The people, places, and possibilities in my life. Surrender is a word freighted with meaning for me. Growing up in Ireland in the seventies with my fists up (musically speaking), it was not a natural concept. A word I only circled until I gathered my thoughts for the book. I am still grappling with this most humbling of commands. In the band, in my marriage, in my faith, in my life as an activist. Surrender is the story of one pilgrim's lack of progress ... With a fair amount of fun along the way." --Bono

As one of the music world's most iconic artists and the cofounder of the organizations ONE and (RED), Bono's career has been written about extensively. But in Surrender, it's Bono who picks up the pen, writing for the first time about his remarkable life and those he has shared it with. In his unique voice, Bono takes us from his early days growing up in Dublin, including the sudden loss of his mother when he was fourteen, to U2's unlikely journey to become one of the world's most influential rock bands, to his more than twenty years of activism dedicated to the fight against AIDS and extreme poverty. Writing with candor, self-reflection, and humor, Bono opens the aperture on his life--and the family, friends, and faith that have sustained, challenged, and shaped him.

Surrender's subtitle, 40 Songs, One Story, is a nod to the book's forty chapters, which are each named after a U2 song. Bono has also created forty original drawings for Surrender, which appear throughout the book.]]> 564 Bono 0525521046 Hare 4 4.19 2022 Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story
author: Bono
name: Hare
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/01/09
shelves:
review:
This is a must-read for any U2 fan.
]]> <![CDATA[The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (The Supremes, #1)]]> 17978443
Now, however, they’re about to face their most challenging year yet. Proud, talented Clarice is struggling to keep up appearances as she deals with her husband’s humiliating infidelities; beautiful Barbara Jean is rocked by the tragic reverberations of a youthful love affair; and fearless Odette is about to embark on the most terrifying battle of her life. With wit, style and sublime talent, Edward Kelsey Moore brings together three devoted allies in a warmhearted novel that celebrates female friendship and second chances.]]> 384 Edward Kelsey Moore 0307950433 Hare 4 4.01 2013 The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (The Supremes, #1)
author: Edward Kelsey Moore
name: Hare
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2022/12/17
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]]> Saving CeeCee Honeycutt 6617928
The day CeeCee discovers Camille in the front yard wearing a tattered prom dress and tiara as she blows kisses to passing motorists, she knows her mother has completely flipped. When tragedy strikes, Tootie Caldwell, a previously unknown great-aunt comes to CeeCee’s rescue and whisks her away to Savannah. Within hours of her arrival, CeeCee is catapulted into a perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricities—a world that appears to be run entirely by women.

While Tootie is busy saving Savannah’s endangered historic homes from the wrecking ball, CeeCee encounters a cast of unforgettable, eccentric characters. From the mysterious Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in an outdoor tub under the watchful eyes of a voyeuristic peacock, to Oletta Jones, the all-knowing household cook, to Violene Hobbs, the loud-mouthed widow who entertains a local police officer in her yellow see-through peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

But CeeCee’s view of the world is challenged in ways she could have never imagined: there are secrets to keep, injustices to face, and loyalties to uphold. Just as she begins to find her ballast and experiences a sense of belonging, her newfound joy collides with the long-held fear that her mother’s legacy has left her destined for destruction.

Laugh-out-loud funny, at times heartbreaking, and written in a pitch-perfect voice, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is a spirited Southern tale that explores the intricate frailties and strengths of female relationships while illuminating the journey of a young girl who loses her mother but finds many others.]]> 10 Beth Hoffman 0143145541 Hare 3 3.94 2010 Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
author: Beth Hoffman
name: Hare
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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date added: 2022/12/17
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]]> The Unremembered Girl 34884900 In the deep woods of East Texas, Henry supports his family by selling bootleg liquor. It’s all he can do to keep his compassionate but ailing mother and his stepfather—a fanatical grassroots minister with a bruising rhetoric—from ruin. But they have no idea they’ve become the obsession of the girl in the woods.

Abandoned and nearly feral, Eve has been watching them, seduced by the notion of family—something she’s known only in the most brutal sense. Soon she can’t resist the temptation to get close. Where Henry’s mother sees a poor girl in need, his father sees only wickedness. When Henry forges an unexpected bond with Eve, he believes he might be able to save her. He doesn’t know how wrong he is.

Eve is about to take charge of her own destiny—and that of Henry’s family. As both their worlds spin violently out of control, Henry must make an impossible choice: protect the broken young woman who’s claimed a piece of his soul, or put everyone he loves at risk in order to do the right thing.

]]> 334 Eliza Maxwell 1542095859 Hare 3 3.94 2017 The Unremembered Girl
author: Eliza Maxwell
name: Hare
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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date added: 2022/12/17
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