friday june 30
The Great Outdoors
Categories Mystery & Suspense , Staff Picks
Millions of people will visit our country's national parks this summer, from the well-traveled Great Smoky Mountains to the more remote Big Bend National Park. If you want to visit a national park, but can't decide which one, then let Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon be your guide. Barr first introduced her tenacious National Park Ranger sleuth in Track of the Cat, in which Anna investigated a murder disguised as a mountain lion attack.
Once you read the first one, you'll want to read them all, but here are a few of my favorites and the parks they take place in:
- A Superior Death (Isle Royale National Park in Michigan)
- Firestorm (Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California)
- Endangered Species (Cumberland Island National Seashore off the Georgia coast)
- Blind Descent (Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico)
- Blood Lure (Glacier National Park in Montana)
- Flashback (Dry Tortugas National Park near Key West, Florida)
- Hard Truth (Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado)
Continue Reading…
Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field: My Favorite Austen Homage
Categories Rediscoveries , Staff Picks , Fiction
I recently recommended Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field to someone who had just watched the new screen version of Pride and Prejudice for the ninth time. But you don't have to be a fanatic to enjoy Melissa Nathan's 2001 tale of a newspaper columnist and an actor brought together by a stage production of that classic novel.
Trendy columnist Jazz Field is just enough of a celebrity to be asked, along with her actress sister, George, to audition for a charity fundraising production of P&P being directed by Harry Noble, beloved heir of Britain’s most famous family of actors. When she overhears him call her “the ugly sister,” she’s furious enough to ace the audition.
Of course, anyone who knows P&P knows what happens next.
Continue Reading…thursday june 29
Oceanside Reading
Categories Mystery & Suspense , Fiction
It is vacation time again, which means it is time for beach books. Here is some recommended summertime reading:
The Highest Tide (2005), by Jim Lynch, is a funny fascinating story set on the northwest US coast. We learn a lot about 13-year-old Miles' uncanny relationship with the sea and his friends, family, and the press.
John Banville's The Sea, the 2005 Man Booker Prize winner, is the intriguing story of a man who returns to a seaside town from his past following his wife's death.
For intriguing mystery by the sea, PD James' The Lighthouse (2005) will keep you riveted.
Island romance is always a wonderful getaway. Nora Roberts' Three Sisters Island Trilogy is great paperback reading -- a little witchcraft, a little romance, a little New England island scenery. Dance Upon the Air (2001), Heaven and Earth (2001), and Face the Fire (2002).
Jaws (1974) by Peter Benchley is a fun read by the sea. I also recommend the now classic 1975 movie based on the novel, directed by a fledgling Steven Spielberg at 26 years old.
Have a nice vacation...and don't forget the books!
Continue Reading…tuesday june 27
Bones and Kathy Reichs
Categories Mystery & Suspense
Kathy Reichs, a real live forensic anthropologist, writes wonderful mysteries surrounding a main character, Tempe Brennan, who is (guess what) a forensic anthropologist.
Tempe, like Kathy, works both in Charlotte, North Carolina, and in Montreal, Canada. Rather than self-aggrandizing and egocentric, her novels come across fresh and natural...well, at least as natural as a human being can be who is, for instance, digging teenage girls' bones out of a septic tank or trying to sort out whether this is a bag of bear bones or people bones.
In the latest novel, Cross Bones (2005), Tempe's investigation of a questionable death takes her to Israel and the world of biblical archaeology, along with the very attractive detective Andrew Ryan.
A new book is expected in July: Break No Bones. The pre-publication publicity promises that this will be the best one yet, a wonderful blend of good writing, a good story, and scientific expertise.
While the novels are written in series, the reader would not lose any enjoyment by reading them out of order.
Get to know Tempe Brennan and Kathy Reichs. You won't be sorry!
monday june 26
#1 Fan of eBooks
Categories Science Fiction & Fantasy , Fiction
That's me. The #1 fan of eBooks. The Ohio eBook Project was obviously put together with my needs in mind. OK, I had to buy the MP3 player and a PDA to download the material but sometimes I need to be pushed.
My new car has the built-in MP3 connection.
You only need your library card, your pin number, a home computer, and a couple of electronic toys, i.e., a PDA or MP3 player that's not an iPod.
You can get to the Ohio eBook Project on the Library's Home Page. Scroll down to find the yellow splotch that says Digital Books. All instructions and the software necessary are available on this site.
On my PDA, I read A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, The Birthday of the World and other stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, and a fascinating book by Ann Patchett, Truth and Beauty: a Friendship. My current selection is the most recent Amelia Peabody mystery, Tomb of the Golden Bird by Elizabeth Peters.
On my MP3 player, I listened to Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery, Borrower of the Night by Elizabeth Peters, and an interesting biography, Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinor Pruitt Steward.
Continue Reading…
sunday june 25
Gambler's Rose
Categories Rediscoveries , Fiction
With the World Series of Poker about to begin, pick up G. W. Hawkes’ engaging wild card of a novel about a family of card sharks and the son who wants out of the business, Gambler’s Rose.
Charlie Halloran is the youngest in a long line of gamblers and cheats. His father, Music, trained him to the peak of perfection in card counting and the practical psychology of gambling. But Charlie doesn’t like the calculating person he has become, and falling in love with a mathematician has given him reason to change his life. Can he really walk away from such a perfectly honed skill, though, or change the way his mind has been trained from infancy? As Music sets up a crucial poker game, Charlie has to decide whether he’s in or not.
This odd, fascinating little novel is both suspenseful and philosophical. The tension isn’t so much in the card games but in Charlie’s struggles over his decision, in the complex relationship between him and his father, and in the really big stakes—true love—he’s playing for. It’s a winner.
