This book took modern science to ancient Jerusalem. I'm not a big believer and it really gave me a different view and knowledge of the days during the crucifixion. It should not offend any Christians. I would highly recommend anyone read this.

The star story in 'Leah, Newhampshire' a collection by Thomas Williams. After the death of his wife, Robert Hurley goes back to Leah where he was born. While hunting in the great forests of beech, juniper, maple and pine, he relives his wife's last months and at the same time confronts his own mortality and the dangers of the woods where he hunted as a boy. A sparsely evocative story with a brilliant final line.

A happy case of serendipity led me to this brilliant short novel about a murder on a south Texas farm in the l930s. Porter's prose is dry and understated but she wields a masterfully descriptive pen that says more in one sentence than most books in one chapter. I must have read it 50 times and will probably read it 50 more.

This book quickly grabs hold of you and engrosses you in the world of the narrator, a spinster schoolteacher in England. Despite the narrator's intention to detail the scandal involving her friend's affair with an underage student, she instead offers up a fascinating study of herself and her own obsessions. While I haven't yet seen the movie, the book is definitely worth a read, especially for those who enjoy devilishly creepy characters.