The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule

The Stranger Beside Me intrigues me. I don't read many true crime books, but Ted Bundy and his obvious charm and seemingly normal life makes me want to read this one. I haven't read any Ann Rule books, but from her reviews on Amazon it seems I'm missing out!

This story is so chilling, so frightening, it grips you in the gut. Ann Rule has simply stated the facts. No sensationalism, no gratuitous gore, no psychobabble, just the facts as they happend. And even though the reader might think of Ted Bundy as "old news," and even though he was executed in 1989, this book makes one check to see that the doors and windows are locked.

There are actually two stories here: one describes the gradual disintegration of a seemingly normal, affable, brilliant man into a sexual psychopath so evil, so methodical in his vicious killings, that one wonders if he was at all human. The other story is that of Ann Rule herself, a decent, hard-working, middle-aged mother of four who meets and befriends a nice young man working beside her in a crisis clinic. A man she regards as a younger brother; a man she views as a close and trusted friend. The slow but inexorable realization on Rule's part that this man is in fact an unspeakably violent serial killer is as painful to read as it was for her to experience.

Each victim is described in terms of such respect and such anguish that even a family member can feel that his or her daughter has been given a chance to shine, a chance to be more than a victim, more than a nameless number (8th girl killed, and so forth). The poignancy of these girls' very human preoccupations and lives serves to outline the contrasting horror in even more detail. That is why Rule does not have to defile the victims with intricate detail. The contrast between their young lives and their terrible deaths is enough in itself.

Rule's new Afterward, written in 2000, is fascinating. She has not "recovered and moved on"; there is no real "closure." She has come to accept that the incomprehensible contrast between "Ted the Dear Friend" and "Ted the Monster" will never leave her, and will never be fully explained, no matter how many facts she sifts, no matter how much progress has been made in understanding the sexual psychopath. It is her fate to have known Bundy in all his skins; it is our privilege to read her account of it.

Dreams From The Monster Factory by Sunny Schwartz

Dreams from the Monster Factory tells the true story of Sunny Schwartz's extraordinary work in the criminal justice system and how her profound belief in people's ability to change is transforming the San Francisco jails and the criminals incarcerated there. With an immediacy made possible by a twenty-seven-year career, Schwartz immerses the reader in the troubling and complex realities of U.S. jails, the monster factories — places that foster violence, rage and, ultimately, better criminals. But by working in the monster factories, Schwartz also discovered her dream of a criminal justice system that empowers victims and reforms criminals.

Sunny Schwartz's faith in humanity, her compassion and her vision are inspiring.In Dreams from the Monster Factory she goes beyond statistics and sensational portrayals of prison life to offer an intimate, harrowing and revelatory chronicle of crime, punishment and, ultimately, redemption.


At the office where I work, two of our patients work in the prison system. One is a female guard and the other is a nun who does counseling.
They were both in the other day, so I looked for a book on this subject. The title caught my eye and had some very good reviews on Goodreads.

Save Me by Lisa Scottoline

I am a big fan of Lisa Scottoline primarily because she doesn't always tell the same style of story. Some of her books deal with murder and mayhem, while others, like Think Twice, is about a difficult choice a mother has to make about her adopted son. I am downloading this book and definitely putting it Save Me on my "to read" list---which like everyone else who reads this blog, is a mile long!!

Suburban mom, Rose McKenna, is forced to make a split-second decision after an explosion goes off in the school cafeteria in which she volunteers. Should she rescue her own daughter, Melly, trapped in the bathroom, or lead the girls standing in front of her, who constantly bully her daughter, to safety? Her choice reverberates throughout the little town of Reesburgh, Pennsylvania, as she is cast as the villain by the local news anchor, parents, and the school. While her attorney and husband construct a defense plan that includes filing a lawsuit against the school, Rose sets out to seek the truth behind this mysterious, accidental fire. With the help of a construction worker who may know the cause of the explosion as well as an incognito visit to a local factory, Rose slowly unravels the truth and along with it some hidden secrets in Reesburgh's dark past, including one horrifying buried memory of her own. At the quick pace of a thriller, Scottoline masterfully fits every detail into a tight plot chock-full of real characters, real issues, and real thrills. A story anchored by the impenetrable power of a mother's love, it begs the question, just how far would you go to save your child?

Seattle Girl by Lucy Kevin

The first time Georgia Fulton gets behind a microphone at her college radio station (because of a guy, of course...), she's hooked. (Who would have thought she'd ever find a potential job where a boss would appreciate her big mouth?) Unfortunately, being a smart-mouth doesn't necessarily keep her from getting hurt by one guy after another.

With help from her friends - and loyal listeners - will Georgia finally figure out the real deal about sex, love...and maybe even herself?

Untouchables: My Family's Triumphant Escape from India's Caste System by Narendra Jadhav

This type of story always amazes me. One, because it is 2011 and things like this should not be happening, and two, the resilence of people and the fortitude they have. I haven't read this, but came across it while looking at Amazon's best seller list. I have definitely put this on my "to read soon" list.

Every sixth human being in the world today is an Indian, and every sixth Indian is an untouchable. For thousands of years the untouchables, or Dalits, the people at the bottom of the Hindu caste system, have been treated as subhuman. In this remarkable book, at last giving voice to India's voiceless, Narendra Jadhav tells the awe-inspiring story of his family's struggle for equality and justice in India. Based on his father's diaries and family stories, Jadhav has written the triumphant story of his parents--their great love, unwavering courage, and eventual victory in the struggle to free themselves and their children from the caste system. He vividly brings his parents' world to light and unflinchingly documents the lives of untouchables--the hunger, the cruel humiliations, the perpetual fear, and the brutal abuse. Untouchables is an eye-opening work that gives readers insight into the lives of India's 165 million Dalits, whose struggle for equality continues even today.

Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

I chose non-fiction this week for no particular reason. I read this book about 8 years ago and fell in love with the writing style of David McCullough. Although you are reading about history, I know many of those reading this blog hate it, he tells the story through narrative style which makes it so much more interesting to read. I've also read John Adams and 1776 and plan to read his newest; The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. He tells a tale like no other; you are missing out if you haven't read any of his books.

The history of civil engineering may sound boring, but in David McCullough's hands it is, well, riveting. His award-winning histories of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal were preceded by this account of the disastrous dam failure that drowned Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889. Written while the last survivors of the flood were still alive, McCullough's narrative weaves the stories of the town, the wealthy men who owned the dam, and the forces of nature into a seamless whole. His account is unforgettable: "The wave kept on coming straight toward him, heading for the very heart of the city. Stores, houses, trees, everything was going down in front of it, and the closer it came, the bigger it seemed to grow.... The height of the wall of water was at least thirty-six feet at the center.... The drowning and devastation of the city took just about ten minutes." A powerful, definitive book, and a tribute to the thousands who died in America's worst inland flood.

Don't Breathe a Word

On a soft summer night in Vermont, twelve-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again. Before she disappeared, she told her little brother, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen.

Fifteen years later, Phoebe is in love with Sam, a practical, sensible man who doesn’t fear the dark and doesn’t have bad dreams—who, in fact, helps Phoebe ignore her own. But suddenly the couple is faced with a series of eerie, unexplained occurrences that challenge Sam’s hardheaded, realistic view of the world. As they question their reality, a terrible promise Sam made years ago is revealed—a promise that could destroy them all.

This book was classified as "Fantasy". It sounds pretty good, so I put it on my "to-read" list.

It's the first day of summer!

Today marks the first day of summer! It's time for a new reading challenge...but first, how did you do with the spring challenge?

I finished The Almost Moon just in time for the end of spring! It's not as good as The Lovely Bones, though, so not a must-read.

This summer, we've decided to read two follow-up books to previous book club selections. The first book we'll be reading in the summer challenge is Dreams of Joy by Lisa See. Shanghai Girls was a favorite book for us in 2010 and we can't wait to read the sequel!

In her beloved New York Times bestseller, Shanghai Girls, Lisa See has brilliantly illuminated the potent bonds of mother love, romantic love, and love of country. Now, in her most powerful novel yet, she returns to these timeless themes, continuing the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.

Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father—the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime.

Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy’s and Pearl’s separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China’s history threatens their very lives.

Acclaimed for her richly drawn characters and vivid storytelling, Lisa See once again renders a family challenged by tragedy and time, yet ultimately united by the resilience of love.

...............................................................................

Our second choice for summer is Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. Still Alice was our favorite book of 2009 and we're definitely ready to read something else by Lisa Genova.

Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children—Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus.

Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son's teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it's a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe.

A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt.

A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future.

Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny—her new, true life—may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.

Can't wait to start reading these! We'll meet sometime at the end of September or beginning of October to discuss them.

Halfway through the reading year!

Can you believe we're halfway through the 2011 reading year already? Have you started thinking about what book club books we'll read next year? Have you seen the June 2011 Indie Next list? Lots of good ones to choose from, including this one:

Sister by Rosamund Lupton

When her mom calls to tell her that Tess, her younger sister, is missing, Bee returns home to London on the first flight. She expects to find Tess and give her the usual lecture, the bossy big sister scolding her flighty baby sister for taking off without letting anyone know her plans. Tess has always been a free spirit, an artist who takes risks, while conservative Bee couldn’t be more different. Bee is used to watching out for her wayward sibling and is fiercely protective of Tess (and has always been a little stern about her antics). But then Tess is found dead, apparently by her own hand.

Bee is certain that Tess didn’t commit suicide. Their family and the police accept the sad reality, but Bee feels sure that Tess has been murdered. Single-minded in her search for a killer, Bee moves into Tess’s apartment and throws herself headlong into her sister’s life—and all its secrets.

Though her family and the police see a grieving sister in denial, unwilling to accept the facts, Bee uncovers the affair Tess was having with a married man and the pregnancy that resulted, and her difficulty with a stalker who may have crossed the line when Tess refused his advances. Tess was also participating in an experimental medical trial that might have gone very wrong. As a determined Bee gives her statement to the lead investigator, her story reveals a predator who got away with murder—and an obsession that may cost Bee her own life.

A thrilling story of fierce love between siblings, Sister is a suspenseful and accomplished debut with a stunning twist.

My 2012 list is getting too long already!

Group Picture-The Bucolic Plague

We really enjoyed this book! We liked the writing style and all the insider info about Martha! This memoir is highly recommended...very funny and entertaining (a nice switch from last month).

Get your goat soap today!

Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson

Before I Go to Sleep sounds like it will be on everyone's "to read" list this summer!

Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is a stranger to her, and he's obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis--all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. With the encouragement of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: "Don't trust Ben." Suddenly everything her husband has told her falls under suspicion. What kind of accident caused her condition? Who can she trust? Why is Ben lying to her? And, for the reader: Can Christine’s story be trusted? At the heart of S. J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep is the petrifying question: How can anyone function when they can't even trust themselves? Suspenseful from start to finish, the strength of Watson's writing allows Before I Go to Sleep to transcend the basic premise and present profound questions about memory and identity. One of the best debut literary thrillers in recent years, Before I Go to Sleep deserves to be one of the major blockbusters of the summer.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Louis Zamperini? Who is he? Laura Hillenbrand's near 500-page reply will answer the question not only once, but for all. He is the California boy who was a kleptomaniac, a running prodigy who competed at Hitler's Berlin Olympics, shook hands with the Fuhrer, and was almost shot by Nazi guards for stealing a Nazi souvenir. He is the American serviceman who entered the Pacific theater, crashed into the sea, and spent a harrowing forty-odd days floating on a disintegrating raft circled by aggressive sharks, scorched by a relentless sun, and gnawed to the bone by an inescapable hunger.

Who is Louis Zamperini? He is a man who overcame all THAT only to be "rescued" by the wrong side -- the Japanese. He is the man who went from being a prisoner of starvation and sharks that actually leaped up and tried to snatch him out of the foundering raft to being a prisoner of Japanese guards who were every bit as predatory as the great white of the seas. He is the man who was beaten every day by a particular Japanese corporal named Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a.k.a. "the Bird." He is, in short, the Unbroken One -- the man who kept getting up, coming back, rebounding, and holding on to the tenuous thread that connected him with life and hope, past any duration that any of us could possibly imagine. And, as YOU can imagine, his story is compelling. In fact, in the capable hands of Laura Hillenbrand, author of SEABISCUIT, it reads like a thriller, a page-turner, a fictional product of a keenly talented mind -- proving once again that truth can trump fiction when it comes to stories and mankind's love of hearing them.

When you reach the end of this man's incredible journey, you will be awed by the scope of Hillenbrand's writing. It is clear that she did a vast amount of research; reading letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, radio transcripts, etc., AND interviewing not only Zamperini himself, but his family members, friends, surviving fellow servicemen, and even Japanese captors. Woven in her biography are many statistics and facts from the history of World War II as well. You will learn about the science of survival -- why certain men live and certain men die -- and about the strengths and weaknesses of America's planes that carried servicemen over the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean. You will learn about the war strategy, the Japanese culture and its effects on treatment of POWs as well as on conducting (and refusing to surrender in) a war to the bitter end. And, sadly, you will learn about the aftermath of war in Japan.

It's all here, bigger than life, packed into the small frame of one man from Torrance, California -- a man that could, and did, live to tell about a page in history we hope never to repeat. Both a personal tale of redemption and resilience, UNBROKEN is destined to become a classic in the category of narrative nonfiction. I was spellbound from the start. It's big, but reads small. I think, when you reach the end, you, too, will sing its (and Louie's) praises (at 93, Zamperini is still alive and still "Unbroken"!).

ERMA BOMBECK

This past Saturday was The Susan G Komen Race For The Cure. I thought I would highlight an author who battled breast cancer.

Erma was a stay at home mom who, in the early 60's started writing a humorous column for a local newspaper, for a whopping $3 a column. It quickly became popular and was syndicated nationwide. She soon began writing for the popular magazines of the 70's, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Family Circle, Mccall's and Readers Digest. She also lectured across the country.

I remember reading her column in the Post. I also enjoyed reading her books The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank and If Life Is A Bowl of Cherries, Why Am I In The Pits? She wrote several others.

Here's a word of advice from Erma. Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. She was a funny lady. Check her out.

Faking It by Elisa Lorello

Wow, it has been a long time since I have read a book without putting it down and finished it in one day. There were moments where you cry with her and then moments where you share in her happiness. I look forward to many more books from this author!!!


After breaking off her engagement, thirty-something writing professor Andi Cutrone abandons New England for her native Long Island to focus on her career and start over. When she meets Devin at a cocktail party, the sight of an honest-to-goodness male escort shocks her—and fascinates her more than a little. Months later, Andi impulsively calls Devin. Over cheesecake in Brooklyn, she offers him a proposition: he will teach her how to be a better lover, and in return, she will give him writing lessons. He agrees, and together they embark upon an intense partnership that proves to be as instructive as it is arousing. For in the midst of lessons in rhetorical theory and foreplay, Andi and Devin delve into deeper questions about truth, beauty, and self, gradually coming face-to-face with the issues at the core of their emotional limitations. Smart, witty, and introspective, Faking It is an engrossing novel about two people discovering their authentic selves.

Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops?: The Lost Toys, Tastes, and Trends of the 70s and 80s

In the not to distant past my sisters and I went on a trip to Branson, MO. There we stopped in an old-fashioned candy store and a general store. We relived the past through the displays of candy and odd objects the owners had chosen to sell. What fun it was to wander down the road of our past...speaking of that, what ever happened to Klick-Klack balls and Chinese Jumprope?

Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops?: The Lost Toys, Tastes, and Trends of the 70s and 80s looks like such a fun read!

If you owe a couple cavities to Marathon candy bars, learned your adverbs from Schoolhouse Rock!, and can still imitate the slo-mo bionic running sound of The Six Million Dollar Man, this book is for you.

Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? takes you back in time to the tastes, smells, and sounds of childhood in the '70s and '80s, when the Mystery Date board game didn't seem sexist, and exploding Pop Rocks was the epitome of candy science.

But what happened to the toys, tastes, and trends of our youth? Some vanished totally, like Freakies cereal. Some stayed around, but faded from the spotlight, like Sea-Monkeys and Shrinky Dinks. Some were yanked from the market, revised, and reintroduced...but you'll have to read the book to find out which ones.

So flip up the collar of that polo shirt and revisit with us the glory and the shame of those goofy decades only a native could love.

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

I posed a question on Facebook as to what books people are reading; this book was given as a response. I'm a fan of history and I like to read about books dealing with WWII in particular. I know that I've already put it on my "books to read this summer" list.

Review
"By far his best and most enthralling work of novelistic history….There has been nothing quite like Mr. Larson’s story of the four Dodds….The Dodd’s story is rich with incident, populated by fascinating secondary characters, tinged with rising peril and pityingly persuasive about the futility of Dodd’s mission....powerful, poignant…a transportingly true story."--The New York Times



In the Garden of Beasts is a vivid portrait of Berlin during the first years of Hitler’s reign, brought to life through the stories of two people: William E. Dodd, who in 1933 became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s regime, and his scandalously carefree daughter, Martha. Ambassador Dodd, an unassuming and scholarly man, is an odd fit among the extravagance of the Nazi elite. His frugality annoys his fellow Americans in the State Department and Dodd’s growing misgivings about Hitler’s ambitions fall on deaf ears among his peers, who are content to “give Hitler everything he wants.” Martha, on the other hand, is mesmerized by the glamorous parties and the high-minded conversation of Berlin’s salon society—and flings herself headlong into numerous affairs with the city’s elite, most notably the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy. Both become players in the exhilarating (and terrifying) story of Hitler’s obsession for absolute power, which culminates in the events of one murderous night, later known as “the Night of Long Knives.” The rise of Nazi Germany is a well-chronicled time in history, which makes In the Garden of Beasts all the more remarkable. Erik Larson has crafted a gripping, deeply-intimate narrative with a climax that reads like the best political thriller, where we are stunned with each turn of the page, even though we already know the outcome.

The Lady and The Panda

Here is the astonishing true story of Ruth Harkness, the Manhattan bohemian socialite who, against all but impossible odds, trekked to Tibet in 1936 to capture the most mysterious animal of the day: a bear that had for countless centuries lived in secret in the labyrinth of lonely cold mountains. In The Lady and the Panda, Vicki Constantine Croke gives us the remarkable account of Ruth Harkness and her extraordinary journey, and restores Harkness to her rightful place along with Sacajawea, Nellie Bly, and Amelia Earhart as one of the great woman adventurers of all time.

Ruth was the toast of 1930s New York, a dress designer newly married to a wealthy adventurer, Bill Harkness. Just weeks after their wedding, however, Bill decamped for China in hopes of becoming the first Westerner to capture a giant panda–an expedition on which many had embarked and failed miserably. Bill was also to fail in his quest, dying horribly alone in China and leaving his widow heartbroken and adrift. And so Ruth made the fateful decision to adopt her husband’s dream as her own and set off on the adventure of a lifetime.

This book by Vicki Croke is on my 100 list. I saw that it was being discussed at The Buder Branch Library on Saturday, July 16, 2011 at
1:00 PM.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

I'm reading this now, and thought others might enjoy it. She is such a hilarious woman on Saturday Night Live and her book is just laugh out loud funny!!
Tina Fey’s new book Bossypants is short, messy, and impossibly funny (an apt description of the comedian herself). From her humble roots growing up in Pennsylvania to her days doing amateur improv in Chicago to her early sketches on Saturday Night Live, Fey gives us a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of modern comedy with equal doses of wit, candor, and self-deprecation. Some of the funniest chapters feature the differences between male and female comedy writers ("men urinate in cups"), her cruise ship honeymoon ("it’s very Poseidon Adventure"), and advice about breastfeeding ("I had an obligation to my child to pretend to try"). But the chaos of Fey’s life is best detailed when she’s dividing her efforts equally between rehearsing her Sarah Palin impression, trying to get Oprah to appear on 30 Rock, and planning her daughter’s Peter Pan-themed birthday. Bossypants gets to the heart of why Tina Fey remains universally adored: she embodies the hectic, too-many-things-to-juggle lifestyle we all have, but instead of complaining about it, she can just laugh it off.

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

Our book club loved Shanghai Girls, and now Lisa See has written its sequel! Readers around the world are applauding this new book. I cannot wait to open its pages and pick up where I left off...

Lisa See's Dreams of Joy picks up the story of sisters Pearl and May where Shanghai Girls left off: on the night in 1957 when Pearl’s daughter, Joy, discovers that May is her true mother. While Shanghai Girls followed the sisters from their time as models in the glittering "Paris of Asia" to their escape from the Japanese invasion and their new life in Los Angeles, its sequel sends Pearl back to Shanghai twenty years later in pursuit of Joy, whose flight to China is propelled by anger, idealism, and a desire to find her true father, Z.G., an artist who may be falling out of favor with the Party. Joy goes with him deep into the countryside to the Green Dragon commune, where they take part in the energetic inception of Mao's Great Leap Forward. But hunger overshadows their collective dream of a communist paradise as the government's bizarre agricultural mandates create a massive famine. Pearl, trapped in Shanghai as restrictions tighten, has little idea of the hardship Joy endures--until both women realize they must subvert a corrupt system in order to survive. The best estimates put the death toll from China's Great Leap Forward at 45 million, and See is unflinching in her portrayal of this horrific episode. In clean prose, she gives us a resounding story of human resilience, independent spirits, and the power of love between mothers and daughters.

Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo

This is a provacative book that is bound to raise some eyebrows. I'm not sure where I stand on this, but I do know that children, although do have active imaginations, couldn't tell a story quite like this. If it's true, then we all had better shape up; if it's not...well you can only guess what I think about those parents!

Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.

Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how "reaaally big" God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit "shoots down power" from heaven to help us.

Told by the father, but often in Colton's own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle.

About the author:
Todd Burpo is pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan, a wrestling coach, a volunteer fireman, and he operates a garage door company with his wife, Sonja, who is also a children’s minister, busy pastor’s wife, and mom. Colton, now an active 11-year-old, has an older sister Cassie and a younger brother Colby. The family lives in Imperial, Nebraska.

NIGHT

I have an unnatural interest in the Holocaust. I feel compelled to read the autobiographies of the survivors, because I cannot believe how horrible it all was! When I start reading a new one, I always think I will feel like I am re-reading, but that never seems to happen. Each book has it's own set of atrocities and each author tells their story in a horrified disbelief, much like how I feel when I am reading them!

Night is a terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of this family...the death of his innocence...and the death of his God. Penetrating and powerful, as personal as The Diary of Anne Frank, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again.

Although the Holocaust is a sickening reality, it is so terribly unbelievable it could be science fiction!

July Book Choices!

It's that time again...you can now vote for the July book!

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro | Paperback, 288 pages

As a child, Kathy—now thirty-one years old—lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed--even comforted--by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham's nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood—and about their lives now.

A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance-and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro's finest work.

Never Let Me Go has a 3.68 rating on Goodreads. It was recently made into a movie starring Keira Knightley.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann | Paperback, 375 pages

In the dawning light of the late summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. . . . It is August, 1974, and a tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter-mile in the sky. In the streets below, ordinary lives become extraordinary as award-winning novelist Colum McCann crafts this stunningly realized portrait of a city and its people.

Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among prostitutes in the Bronx. A group of mothers, gathered in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn the sons who died in Vietnam, discovers how much divides them even in their grief. Further uptown, Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenaged daughter, determined not only to take care of her “babies” but to prove her own worth.

Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful novel comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the tightrope walker’s “artistic crime of the century.”

McCann’s most ambitious work to date, Let the Great World Spin is an unmistakable and triumphantly American masterpiece.
 
Let the Great World Spin has a 3.93 rating on Goodreads. It won the 2009 National Book Award and was Amazon.com's book of the year. It's beginning is based on the real 1974 tightrope walk by Philippe Petit.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick | Paperback, 291 pages

Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt - a passionate man with his own dark secrets -has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.

With echoes of Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, Robert Goolrick's intoxicating debut novel delivers a classic tale of suspenseful seduction, set in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its axis.

A Reliable Wife has a 3.17 rating on Goodreads. It is Goolrick's first novel.
 
Mary is hosting the July meeting.