The Distance Between Us by Bart Yates eBook editions

Every once in a while you stumble across a true gem; and The Distance Between Us qualifies as one of those gems.  The book is classified by the Publisher as a GLBT title for reasons I do not understand.  Yes, one of the main characters happens to be gay, but it is hardly the point of the story. 

The story revolves mainly around Hester, a compelling old lady.  Although I am not altogether sure she would appreciate that description.  Because she uses anger to hold the world at bay, she is not exactly a likable character.  An extremely articulate and witty character; but not so likeable.  She is bitter; she drinks to much; she is acerbic and does not suffer fools.

Her children, particularly her daughter, are as hostile and verbally adept as she.  Her ex-husband is just flat out disgusted with her and the circumstances of their divorce.  This is one dysfunctional, unhappy family!

It is an interesting phenomena of life that if the message is right, the messenger hardly matters.  And Alex is a most unlikely messenger.  He is a a bright secretive and troubled young man.  A totally unlikely catalyst for acceptance and forgiveness.

While Heather and her family use words and booze as a way to run away from pain; Alex has actually physically run away from his.  Heather and Alex are two wounded souls who come together and somehow help each other heal.

Yates is a powerful writer.  His characters are finely nuanced and is use of language is exquisite.  But the real power is his writing comes from his ability to inject just the right amount of humor into an otherwise painful story.  The humor makes it readable and memorable long after the last words are read.

This is an amazing story!  Check it out for yourself!

Here is the publisher synopsis:

Hester Parker resides in an elegant Victorian house in the town of Bolton, Illinois. She spends her evenings listening to the lush tones of Mahler and Chopin, drinking sub-par Merlot, and reflecting on a life that has suddenly fallen apart. At seventy-one, Hester is as brilliant and sharp-tongued as ever, capable of inspiring her music students to soaring heights or reducing them to tears with a single comment. But her wit can't hide the bitterness that comes with losses:  the loss of her renowned violinist husband, Arthur Donovan, who left her for another woman, and the loss of her career as a concert pianist after injuring her wrist.

When Hester decides to rent out the attic apartment to Alex, a young college student, she has no idea of the impact he will have on her life and her family. Good-natured and awkward, with secrets of his own, Alex becomes an unlikely confidant and a means of reconnecting with the world outside Hester's window. But his presence also exposes old memories and grief that Hester has tried to bury. Over the course of one remarkable month, Hester will confront angry accusations, long-hidden jealousies, and the inescapable truth that tore her family apart and might, against all odds, help reconcile them again. And her brief friendship with Alex will leave each with a surprising legacy -- acceptance of the past, a seed of comfort in the present, and hope for the future, wherever it may lead.

"Absorbing. . .brims with quiet intensity."--Publishers Weekly

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Everyone She Loved: 'A Novel by Curran, Sheila eBook edition

It is always nice to see a writer improve their skills and abilities!  Sheila Curran  has done it with Everyone She Loved.  Her last book Diana Lively is Falling Down was a fun read and you could see that this was a writer with potential.

The part about Diana Lively is Falling Down that I really liked best was her ability to create fully dimensional, complex characters that practically walked off the page into my living room. These characters had complex and surprising inner (and outer) lives that somehow made sense even when they shouldn't have.

Everyone She Loved shows that Curran's skill at characterization is still in tact and that her ability to plot a story has markedly improved.  Her characters still make sense; even when they shouldn't.  She is beginning to live up to her full potential as an author. 

This is an intricately plotted novel with at least eight distinct story lines interwoven through out the book.  And happily, Curran actually resolves all of them by the end.  And if that is not enough, she manages to take a bunch of basically very unlikable people, in wildly unlikely circumstances and makes you care about them and what happens to them.  That in and of it's self is an amazing feat!

The premise that a rich, neurotic philanthropist would somehow arrange for all of her friends to either work for her foundation or move into the town her family "owns" is a little strange.  The idea that her husband would agree to having her friends could pick his next wife in the event of her demise is implausible.  The idea that her British cousins somehow gain unfettered access to the foundation is unlikely.  But somehow, against all odds, the story works. 

Mostly the characters are self involved and clueless.  A couple are downright despicable. But they are fully developed and much like watching a train wreck -- you can't stop watching; or in this case, reading.  The character's actually pulled me through the plot twists and turns. 

If you are looking for an engrossing read, start here.

A wise and triumphant novel about four women who've come of age together only to discover that -- when it comes to the essentials -- life's little instruction book will always need revising.

Penelope Cameron, loving mother, devoted wife and generous philanthropist, has convinced her husband and four closest friends to sign an outlandish pact. If Penelope should die before her two daughters are eighteen, her husband will not remarry without the permission of Penelope's sister and three college roommates. For years, this contract gathers dust until the unthinkable happens.

Suddenly, everyone she loved must find their way in a world without Penelope.For Lucy Vargas, Penelope's best friend, and a second mother to her daughters, nothing seems more natural than to welcome them into a home that had once belonged to their family, a lovely, sprawling bed-and-breakfast on the beach. This bequest was only one of the many ways in which Penelope had supported Lucy's career as a painter, declaring her talent too important to squander. But now, in the wake of a disaster that only lovable, worrisome Penelope could have predicted, Lucy has put her work on hold as she and Penelope's husband, Joey, blindly grasp at anything that will keep the girls from sinking under the weight of their grief.With the help of family and friends, the children slowly build new lives. But just when things start to come together, the fragile serenity they have gained is suddenly threatened from within, and the unbreakable bonds they share seem likely to dissolve after all.

In this entertaining and uplifting novel, Sheila Curran explores the faith one woman placed in her dearest friends, the care she took to protect her family and the many ways in which romantic entanglements will confound and confuse even the most determined of planners. A story about growing up and moving on, about the sacrifices people make for one another and the timeless legacy of love, Everyone She Loved is, above all, about the abiding strength of friendship.

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You or Someone Like You by Chandler Burr

This is a fascinating book that explores the limits of culture and identity. It is a book that I wanted to like. In fact, tried very hard to like. But whether or not I liked it is almost beside the point. Because in the end this is a book that (if you persist to the end) will stick with you. It is one that you will find yourself thinking about for a long time to come.

Chandler Burr is an intelligent and skilled writer. His books on perfumes are informative, well-researched and interesting. When I heard that he had a new fiction title, I was curious to see if he could bring those qualities to fiction and still make the book work.

You or Someone Like You is a truly literary novel; informative, well-researched and interesting. Since I had an excellent British education I am familiar with most of the authors and many of the works written about. Many of them quite obscure and a lot of them poetry.

After a while it dawned on me that to really appreciated this book you need either a better memory than I have or a PhD in English literature. Yes, it is beautifully written, but it is hard work. Highly intellectual and quite enigmatic. Frankly I was almost stiff with boredom about half way through.

Fortunately I persisted -- the advantage of being stubborn, I guess. When Burr finally gets to the issues of religion, culture and identity the story once again engaged my interest and not just my intellect.

Read the synopsis below and if you interest is peaked, read a short excerpt and decide for yourself.

Anne Rosenbaum leads a life of quiet Los Angeles privilege, the wife of Hollywood executive Howard Rosenbaum and mother of their seventeen-year-old son, Sam. Years ago Anne and Howard met studying literature at Columbia-she, the daughter of a British diplomat from London, he a boy from an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. Now on sleek blue California evenings, Anne attends halogen-lit movie premieres on the arm of her powerful husband. But her private life is lived in the world of her garden, reading books.

When one of Howard's friends, the head of a studio, asks Anne to make a reading list, she casually agrees-though, as a director reminds her, "no one reads in Hollywood." To her surprise, they begin calling: screen-writers; producers, from their bungalows; and agents, from their plush offices on Wilshire and Beverly. Soon Anne finds herself leading an exclusive book club for the industry elite. Emerging gradually from her seclusion, she guides her readers into the ideas and beauties of Donne, Yeats, Auden, and Mamet, with her brilliant and increasingly bold opinions.

But when a crisis of identity unexpectedly turns an anguished Howard back toward the Orthodoxy he left behind as a young man, Anne must set out to save what she values above all else: her husband's love. At once fiercely intelligent and emotionally gripping, You or Someone Like You confronts the fault lines between inherited faith and personal creed, and, through the surprising transformation of one exceptional, unforgettable woman, illuminates literature's power to change our lives.

House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street by William Cohan

Any book that has "wretched excess" in the title is sure to grab my attention! Although given the subject matter I would have probably picked up  House of Cards without this particular subtitle.  Books on Wall Street hold some dark fascination and I have read everything from The Predator's Ball by Connie Bruck to Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker. 

The first section of the book is a detailed a day by day account of the final Bear Stern's meltdown.  There was a lot going on, some of it quite technical.  Cohan struggles to explain a lot of complex and technical transactions and the people at the center of the action. 

There is a lot of technical detail to plow through.  And there are even more people people to keep tract of.  I found myself a little confused by roles, titles and events; never mind the technical parts of the transactions.  In this section, he gets an A for effort and a D for accomplishment.

In part two, he backs up tells the eighty-five year history of Bear Sterns and it's last four CEOs. He draws finely detailed portraits of the men and the corporate culture they fostered.  In part three he details more current history (2001-2008) of the Firm, Wall Street and the US government.  By the time you have read all these pages you really understand how the combination of the men, the government and the corporate cultures on Wall Street worked to bring down the entire firm.  Here he gets an A for effort and a B+ for accomplishment.

I have to say, I was rather disappointed overall.  The book has a thrown together quality about it.  It would have benefited greatly from decent editing.  Much of the material was restated over and over again.  Cohan relies on a lot of quoted statements pulled directly (and indiscriminately) from other sources.  The flow is often confusing and the sequence of the sections didn't work very well. 

Unfortunately, there are some glaring and inexcusable errors as well. The first one is on the very first page where he states that Orlando, Florida is 2,500 miles from New York City.  A simple Google search will tell you it is only 1,081. 

If, however, you are willing to plow through the errors and the extraneous material you will glean a pretty good understanding of what happened at Bear Sterns and why. 

If you do decide to read it, start with part two.

On March 5, 2008, at 10:15 A.M., a hedge fund manager in Florida wrote a post on his investing advice Web site that included a startling statement about Bear Stearns & Co., the nation’s fifth-largest investment bank: “In my book, they are insolvent.”

This seemed a bold and risky statement. Bear Stearns was about to announce profits of $115 million for the first quarter of 2008, had $17.3 billion in cash on hand, and, as the company incessantly boasted, had been a colossally profitable enterprise in the eighty-five years since its founding.

Ten days later, Bear Stearns no longer existed, and the calamitous financial meltdown of 2008 had begun.
How this happened – and why – is the subject of William D. Cohan’s superb and shocking narrative that chronicles the fall of Bear Stearns and the end of the Second Gilded Age on Wall Street. Bear Stearns serves as the Rosetta Stone to explain how a combination of risky bets, corporate political infighting, lax government regulations and truly bad decision-making wrought havoc on the world financial system.

Cohan’s minute-by-minute account of those ten days in March makes for breathless reading, as the bankers at Bear Stearns struggled to contain the cascading series of events that would doom the firm, and as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, New York Federal Reserve Bank President Tim Geithner, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke began to realize the dire consequences for the world economy should the company go bankrupt.

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Consequences by Penelope Lively eBook edition

As a part of my (very British) upbringing, we played parlor games.  On rainy days or during long quasi-social evenings a favorite was Consequences.

Consequences is a very simple sequence games.  The first person writes a man's name, folds the paper down and passes it to the next person who writes a woman's name.  Each person adds a scrap on information -- the place, what he said, what she said, the consequence and the outcome.  The results are always random and very often hilarious.

Consequences is a clever adaptation of this old parlor game.  Matt met Lorna in Saint James Park . . .

This simple statement begins a seventy year history of three women:  Lorna, Molly and Ruth.  The story weaves external history and internal stories and demonstrate how time and memory change perceptions of events.

The lives of these three women (grandmother, daughter and grand daughter) are held up for examination and exploration.  Lively deftly compares and contrasts their lives, their choices and the random events of the world around them.  She shows how the present is ever shadowed by the past; even when we are not aware of exactly what the past was. 

Both the interior and the exterior lives of these characters are finely drawn.  Even if you do not agree with the choices they make, Lively's narrative will pull you in and keep you reading.

I have been a Penelope Lively fan for close to thirty years; every since I happened upon a copy of the Road to Lichfied.  She always writes about time, perception and loss with great empathy and grace. Her eye for detail, vivid prose, meticulous plotting are a joy to read. And as an added bonus, I always feel a little smarter when I finish one of her books.

Here is the publisher's blurb:

A chance meeting in St. James's Park begins young Lorna and Matt's intense relationship. Wholly in love, they leave London for a cottage in a rural Somerset village. Their intimate life together--Matt's woodcarving, Lorna's self-discovery, their new baby, Molly--is shattered with the arrival of World War II. In 1960s London, Molly happens upon a forgotten newspaper--a seemingly small moment that leads to her first job and, eventually, a pregnancy by a wealthy man who wants to marry her but whom she does not love. Thirty years later, Ruth, who has always considered her existence a peculiar accident, questions her own marriage and begins a journey that takes her back to 1941--and a redefinition of herself and of love.

Told in Lively's incomparable prose, Consequences is a powerful story of growth, death, and rebirth and a study of the previous century--its major and minor events, its shaping of public consciousness, and its changing of lives.

 

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Lady Luck's Map of Vegas eBook edition by Samuel, Barbara

Barbara Samuel is an insightful and graceful author and  Lady Luck's Map of Vegas is an incredible story about love, loss, fear and a road trip.

This is not really a romance so much as it is a quiet family drama that starts slowly and grabs you by the throat.  The first few chapters are choppy as the narrative jumps between India and Eldora.  The styles are very different and the first couple of transitions are jarring.  But as the story builds, the transitions work to move you through the plot.

This novel explores family secrets and how they effect future generations.  What happens when a parent specifically obscures their past?  How important are genetics? What are the ramifications of choices made and roads not taken?  How do you live with the results of the choices made -- especially when they don't necessarily turn out well? 

I suppose I am going to overuse my allotment of cliches about families here, but somehow for this book they seem right.  So here goes:  Love is messy, complex and scary; nothing in life is certain;  relationships and families involve an incredible risk and much forgiveness. 

The synopsis below gives you the story line, but doesn't convey the emotional punch this book delivers. All I can say is grab your Kleenex and settle down to enjoy an incredible road trip.

And as side note (if you aren't up for the story)the book is worth reading just as a guidebook to New Mexico.  Samuel beautifully captures the landscape and the wildness of the west. 

Oh yeah, one more thing, look for Samuel's new book --The Lost Recipe for Happiness which is due out next week.

Here is the publisher synopsis:

A successful Web designer, forty-year-old India has a fabulously hip life in Denver and a sexy Irish lover in New York who jets out to see her on bi-weekly visits. The long-distance romance suits India just fine: Though Jack is the only man who has ever made India feel truly alive, she doesn’t want things to get too serious. But then her father passes away, and India must honor the promise she made to him: to look after her mother when he’s gone.

Suddenly India finds herself back in Colorado Springs with the woman who both intrigues and infuriates her. Eldora is sixty something and exquisitely gorgeous, but her larger-than-life personality can suck the air out of a room. True to form, Eldora throws India a curveball, insisting that they hit the road to look for India’s twin, Gypsy, a brilliant artist who lives a vagabond’s existence in the remote mountain towns of New Mexico. It looks like India can’t avoid her mother’s intensity any longer, especially after she discovers stunning secrets from Eldora’s past.

Thirty years ago, Eldora regaled her twin girls with glamorous stories about her days as a Las Vegas showgirl– stories of martinis and music at the Sahara, back when Frank and Sammy ruled the town. But the story of how she really ended up in Sin City, and the unsavory life she’d run from with her daughters in tow, is full of details she’s never seen fit to share–until now.
As mother and daughter sail down Route 66, the very road Eldora drove those many years ago, looking for Gypsy, while passing motels, diners, and souvenir shops, Eldora must relive a lifetime of memories that have tormented her before she can put them to rest once and for all. . . .

Award-winning author Barbara Samuel brings us a heartfelt story of second chances and unexpected detours. As two women come to terms with themselves and each other, the past unravels and the future spreads out before them like the open road.

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Speaking for Myself by Cherie Blair eBook edition

Do you ever play the game?  You know, the one where you sit around with a bunch of people and talk about which famous (or almost famous) person you would like to sit down and have dinner with?  We play it often.  And in the last few years I have often said, "Cherie Blair."  I just had a feeling . . .

I mean, here is a woman who is married to the Prime Minister of England, works as an attorney (and in this book I found out she is also a judge), has a family and still manages to show up for official functions. 

You can tell from her accent that she isn't exactly "upper crust" and the British Press have a field day reporting on her.  Most of the reporting less than flattering, but somehow managing to show her as a REAL flesh and blood person with a real inner life.

Often these conjectures about people are hilariously off base.  But in Cherie Blair's case they may not be. 

Speaking for Myself is her accounting of her life.  Her telling of her own history is frank, opinionated, unsentimental and humorous.  It is at times a painfully honest account of who she is (and not always to her benefit).

She is a study in contrasts and contradictions.  A high achieving professional and a devoted wife and mother.  A political operator who has a tin ear when it comes to handling people and personalities. A pugnacious defender of her husband who sees him warts and all.  She has tremendous insecurities about money and this drives her to make some very unwise choices.  She is in fact, very human.  I ended up liking her a lot! 

And even if you don't like her much, her "ringseat to history" make this compelling reading. Her recounting of the events, stories about the people and insights into government make it a fascinating read.

Sure, some of the intricacies of the British legal system and Parliamentary maneuverings are dense and to me as an American a little boring.  But her story and her voice will keep you reading.

Here is the publisher's notes:

Even if she hadn't married Tony Blair, Cherie's story would have been amazing. Abandoned by her actor father, she overcame obstacles to become one of the UK's most successful barristers. But when Labour took power in 1997, she faced new challenges: her husband was the first prime minister in recent history with a young family, and Cherie was the first PM's wife with a serious career. Now, she gives a complete account of her own life--an astonishing journey for a woman whose unconventional childhood was full of drama and who grew up with a fierce sense of justice.

In her autobiography she reveals for the first time what it was like to combine life as a working mother with life married to the prime minister. She writes about her encounters with scores of foreign leaders and her friendships with Presidents Clinton and Bush, as well as with Hillary and Laura. And she offers inside details of her relationships with the royals, including Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, and Princess Diana.

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Moon Shell Beach eBook Edition

I woke up the other morning with a summer cold.  Felt so lousy that I crawled back into bed with my eBook, a box of Kleenex and a bottle of Vitamin C.  I spent the day reading and dozing.  Dozing as much as reading.

I needed something light, diverting and entertaining.  Nancy Thayer's new book (Moon Shell Beach) seemed like the perfect thing.  After all I love her Hot Flash series. 

The good news is that the book carried me off to Nantucket and the beach.  Obviously, Thayer knows the town well and did a great job of capturing the ambience of the island.  And of course, I'm always a sucker for hope.

That is pretty much where the good news ends.

Notice above, I spent a great deal of time dozing.  If I had felt any better I would have tossed the book and gone to find something entertaining to do. 

My experience with Thayer says that she is a good writer who has mostly delivered credible chick-lit with well developed characters.  The plots are usually pretty simple but she makes up for that by developing people you really like and want to know better. 

This book is evidence that Thayer has evidently reached the status of author where her publisher will pretty much take anything she writes and put it out there for the unsuspecting public.  Too bad!!  Trust me, no first time or lesser known author could get this particular manuscript published!

I have the particular good fortune of having a couple of long and close friendships with other women.  We have certainly had our petty disagreements, vicious arguments and periods of estrangement.  But there are some lines that friends do not cross.  And these two women not only cross them but seem to take delight in trampling on them.

It probably doesn't really matter since Lexi and Clare are cardboard women.  Thayer tries (and fails) to give them emotions and an inner life; but it (the inner life) is as unbelievable as they are.  These are basically immature and rather stupid young women who grow up to be rather stupid and immature older women. 

It is really sad to see a fine author put out such crap.  Based on her long history of great storytelling, I am will to give her next book a chance.  But if it is anything like Moon Shell Beach, she will lose me for once and all!

The publisher says:

Lexi Laney and Clare Hart grew up together swimming in the surf, riding remote bike trails, and having wondrous adventures across picturesque Nantucket. And when it was time to share intimate secrets and let their girlish imaginations run free, they escaped to their magical private hideaway: Moon Shell Beach. 

But nothing stays the same. With the complicated pressures of adulthood, their intense bond is frayed, hurtful words are exchanged, and Lexi flees Nantucket to a life of luxury while Clare stays behind.

Ten years later, a newly divorced Lexi returns to make amends with those she left in her wake. Living at home with her father and dating a gorgeous carpenter, Clare still simmers with resentment toward her glamorous friend. And when Lexi opens an upscale clothing boutique next door to Clare’s chocolate shop, their paths are fated to cross.

Their emotional reunion is beset with major challenges: Lexi’s return sets off a series of startling events that fracture the status quo and set the town gossips’ tongues wagging. And as Clare’s life takes an abrupt detour, Lexi wonders if the happiness and peace they once knew on Moon Shell Beach will, in the end, prove to be as fleeting as time and the tide. In the turbulent adult world, awash in failed loves and romantic disappointment, can childhood dreams still come true?

Irresistible reading, Moon Shell Beach explores the evolution of a tumultuous lifelong friendship, the power of forgiveness, and the rewards of believing in miracles.

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The Secret History of the American Empire eBook edition

This week Henri give us an analysis of his "light" weekend reading with a review of John Perkins' The Secret History of the American Empire.  He calls it

      John Perkins and Caesar

If you have ever wondered what it was like to live in the time of Christ you may have been interested enough to read a little of the history of the Roman Empire. Imperial might reached its longest lasting pinnacle in recorded human history starting around that time. The might of that empire has long faded but its works still are visible over much of the Continent where it was born. Is this Republic going the way of the Roman Republic which preceded the Empire? Are we becoming a modern version of Rome?

I think it is unlikely after reading several books promoting that point of view. Most of them were thoughtful and insightful but it is a false premise that defines their argument. In the power of the corporations that define our economic empire, if the word even fits this model, there is a whole new thing altering the face of this planet. Whether the corporate model should be used in building a human social and economic system, and whether it is good or evil, remains to be seen. What is clearly true is that it is not built on either the Roman model or even the colonial model of the British Empire. Imperial power is less the issue than raw economic force in this world.

John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" and his new book, The Secret History of the American Empire, comes down on the side of the argument that points out the evils in the system. While it would be impossible to argue about the evils of some of the actions he writes about it is also hard to swallow whole the imperial construct he sees operating here.

I give this latest book a good rating because it could wake up a few people who have not traveled extensively in the poorer nations. The argument that we as a nation are the author of much of the misery that is engendered there is even easy to follow. But that argument is erroneous in that it is ascribing the power to the USA to alter that piece of the world very much for the better or worse by manipulating corporations. Those corporations are manipulating every government on earth at this point in history. Ours is no exception. The difference here is that we can take back our power over our government if we are willing to pay the attention to politics that such an act requires.

The issue of Imperial power versus corporate power needs to be addressed in every nation on earth. The power of corporate interests transcends any nation state's power in the world we live in today. We started forming governments to protect us from the tribe down the block as much as any one thing. If there were any litanies being said today they might include the plea to God, "From the power of the corporate raiders oh Lord deliver us." Part of the financial mess in this country is due to the chaos engendered by diverse corporate interests hijacking our government and using it as a tool for increasing their power.

I do recommend this latest book and hope that it doesn't depress you too much. It has that capacity but it also makes some good points and has some honest statements about the perversion of power and the capacity to create wealth when it is not used for the benefit of humanity. Do read it if you have the stomach it requires.

The Publishers' analysis follows:

Riveting expose of international corruption-and what we can do about it, from the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list. In his stunning memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins detailed his former role as an "economic hit man" in the international corporate skullduggery of a de facto American Empire. This riveting, behind-the-scenes expose unfolded like a cinematic blockbuster told through the eyes of a man who once helped shape that empire.

Now, in The Secret History of the American Empire, Perkins zeroes in on hot spots around the world and, drawing on interviews with other hit men, jackals, reporters, and activists, examines the current geopolitical crisis. Instability is the norm: It's clear that the world we've created is dangerous and no longer sustainable. How did we get here? Who's responsible? What good have we done and at what cost? And what can we do to change things for the next generations? Addressing these questions and more, Perkins reveals the secret history behind the events that have created the American Empire, including: * The current Latin-American revolution and its lessons for democracy * How the "defeats" in Vietnam and Iraq benefited big business * The role of Israel as "Fortress America" in the Middle East * Tragic repercussions of the IMF's "Asian Economic Collapse" * U.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and Venezuela * Jackal (CIA operatives) forays to assassinate democratic presidents.

From the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe. Alarming yet hopeful, this book provides a compassionate plan to reimagine our world.

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Certain Girls (eBook Edition)

I loved Good in Bed. It is raw, funny, honest and wise. As a woman who has struggled with her body image, I certainly relate to Cannie Shaprio.  Most women can. 

Six months ago I read the advance review for the sequel, Certain Girls.  I could hardly wait to get my hands on it.  Usually that kind of anticipation is a set up for disappointment.  Happily, Certain Girls not only did not disappoint.  It actually surpassed my expectations.

In Certain Girls Jennifer Weiner beautifully captures the complexity, pain and joy of motherhood, daughterhood, sisterhood and marriage. 

At the heart of this story is the relationship between a teenage daughter and her mother.  This is arguably, the most difficult and intricate relationship on the planet.  It is exceedingly problematic even in the most "normal" family.  Cannie and Joy, however, most definitively do not have anything as bland as a normal family. 

Joy is a teenager who alternatively loves and hates her Mom.  Cannie is a Mom struggling to let her baby grow up.  The story line alternates between their points of view as they war over Cannie's (fictionalized) past, their daily interactions and Joy's upcoming Bat Mitzvah. 

Joy's Bat Mitzvah is the overarching and powerful symbol of Joy's entry into adulthood. As she makes the transition she is overcome with the need to make sense of her convoluted family tree.  She wants to know all about her Mom's and Dad's secrets, her biological Dad's new family and her very absent Grandfather.

Cannie is still working out the complicated relationships she has with her over the top lesbian Mom and ditzy but lovable little sister, Elle. And to complicate thing further, just as she is letting go of one child, her husband is lobbying for a baby. 

Weiner's ear for dialogue, her wit and compassion are all on display as she examines these complicated relationships and events.

Too often Weiner is categorized as just  a "chick-lit" writer.  The pink cover certainly reinforces that impression.   Don't be fooled.  This is not a fluffy, girly book. This is a nitty gritty account of coming to terms with the messy, complex web of family. 

The Publishers says:

Readers fell in love with Cannie Shapiro, the smart, sharp-tongued, bighearted heroine of Good in Bed who found her happy ending after her mother came out of the closet, her father fell out of her life, and her ex-boyfriend started chronicling their ex-sex life in the pages of a national magazine.

Now Cannie's back. After her debut novel -- a fictionalized (and highly sexualized) version of her life -- became an overnight bestseller, she dropped out of the public eye and turned to writing science fiction under a pseudonym. She's happily married to the tall, charming diet doctor Peter Krushelevansky and has settled into a life that she finds wonderfully predictable -- knitting in the front row of her daughter Joy's drama rehearsals, volunteering at the library, and taking over-forty yoga classes with her best friend Samantha.

As preparations for Joy's bat mitzvah begin, everything seems right in Cannie's world. Then Joy discovers the novel Cannie wrote years before and suddenly finds herself faced with what she thinks is the truth about her own conception -- the story her mother hid from her all her life. When Peter surprises his wife by saying he wants to have a baby, the family is forced to reconsider its history, its future, and what it means to be truly happy.

Radiantly funny and disarmingly tender, with Weiner's whip-smart dialogue and sharp observations of modern life, Certain Girls is an unforgettable story about love, loss, and the enduring bonds of family.

Highly recommended.

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Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA (eBook edition)

Last week my reading took me from Armageddon to Paradise.  That sentence comes close to encapsulating what I love about books!

After Armageddon in Retrospect I was ready for something light and fluffy.  You know, something without an ounce of reality that would take me to a land where everything was heavenly.  What better than Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA!

The good news is that this books is vintage Kris Radish.  It features  strong women, clueless guys and the requisite lesbian.  The bad news is that it is vintage Kris Radish.  It seems like I've read this all before.

I really wanted to love this book like I did Elegant Gathering of White Snows or Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral.  Unfortunately, I can't say I did. 

The relationship between Addy and her sister, Hell, didn't ring true, too saccharine sweet even when you include their fight midway through the book.  And why name a character Hell??

The clueless men in a space a very few months were transformed from numskulls to sensitive new age kind of guys.  But then I guess this is fiction.  

Addy's friends, the Sweat-hers (really!) are cartoon women with amazing empathy and almost magical powers of feminine insight.

And for the plot to come close to working, the town would need to have about fifty citizens.

About half way through I just wanted the book to end, already.  But since I am close to incapable of not finishing a book I start, I more or less sped read to the end. 

This is probably a great beach read for the uninitiated Kris Radish reader; but even then, I would recommend either Elegant Gathering or Annie Freeman, first.

I hate writing and posting negative reviews. . . I mean after all the whole point of this blog is to get you interested in reading something that is recently released and fabulous, entertaining, informative or otherwise noteworthy,  This particular book is none of those things. . .  Unfortunately, it was the only book I managed to slog through last week so it is all I have (that is current/new).

Maybe I am too jaded; so check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Here is the publisher's information:

After twenty-eight years of marriage to her husband Lucky, Addy Lipton feels anything but happily married. In fact, just thinking of their garage, filled to the brim with Lucky’s useless junk collection, drives Addy dangerously close to plowing her car through it. But when Lucky wins a trip to paradise—aka Costa Rica—Addy has a faint hope they may be able to turn things around. Or maybe they won’t. Either way, Addy never gets the chance to find out.

On the morning of their departure, Lucky fractures his back tossing their luggage into his truck. Now, with the man she feels she barely knows anymore parked indefinitely on her couch, Addy can’t see their already shaky relationship surviving much longer. It’s time to make some big changes—and some drastic choices.

With the love and support of her devoutly single sister Hell and her workout friends, the Sweat-hers, Addy begins a crusade to revive her dreams—and she takes the women of Parker along for the ride. Soon the men will realize they’ll have to step up to the plate to keep their wives and lovers happy. And Addy will have to decide if the paradise she’s creating in Parker is big enough for two....

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Armageddon in Retrospect (eBook edition)

When it comes to Kurt Vonnegut, I am not exactly a dispassionate reviewer.  I admit it, up front, I am a fan. 

Reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cats Cradle was a transformative literary experience in my young (15 years old) life. 

so even if Slaughterhouse Five  was his "break through" book, I have a special affinity for his earlier works:  Cats Cradle and Player Piano.  They will always be my favorites.

Last week, timed to the first anniversary of Kurt's death, Armageddon In Retrospect was released.  This is a collection of never before published Vonnegut stories loosely themed on the horrors of war, the importance of peace and the experience of being a prisoner of war..

The book starts with a wonderful piece by Mark Vonnegut talking about his Dad.  He reminds us of his father's incredible gift as a storyteller and his love and admiration come through in every line.  The introduction all by its self makes the book worth buying.

The book contains twelve pieces in all:  His last speech, a copy of a letter to his parents, three stories about POWs that explore the thin line between complicity and survival and more.  There is a wonderful story about hunger and food obsessed GIs along with a couple of dark of reflective pieces written about the aftermath of war in times of peace.  The rest of the book covers some familiar Vonnegut territory:  four stories about the bombing of Dresden which are the precursors of Slaughterhouse Five and a piece that is clearly the beginnings of what later because Mother Night.

The thing that struck me most was how serious these pieces are.  The publisher claims that they are written with "Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor."  I disagree.  These pieces are full of raw emotion.  They are certainly funny in places, but it is obvious that Vonnegut has not yet developed his more dispassionate ironic observer persona or rueful voice.

It would have been nice if there had more connective material in the book like information about when these pieces were written.  But that is a minor complaint.

They are, finally, incredibly disturbing, powerful and primitive. I have no idea how a "regular person" would view them but for a Vonnegut fan they are a fascinating study in how a writer develops this voice and his craft.  

Here's the official stuff:

To be published on the first anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's death in April 2007, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve new and unpublished writings on war and peace.

Written with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor, the pieces range from a visceral nonfiction recollection of the destruction of Dresden during World War II-a piece that is as timely today as it was then-to a painfully funny story about three privates and their fantasies of the perfect first meal upon returning home from war; to a darker and more poignant story about the impossibility of shielding our children from the temptations of violence.

This is a volume that says as much about the times in which we live as it does about the genius of the man who wrote it. Also included here is Vonnegut's last speech, as well as an assortment of his drawings, and an introduction by the author's son, Mark Vonnegut.

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Rowdy in Paris eBook Edition

Rowdy Talbot is an American Western tough-guy – think the the Marlboro Man.  After reading Tim Sandlin's latest book I came to the conclusion that it is all about the hat and a descent cup of coffee!

The plot is pretty simple -- a bull-riding cowboy goes to Paris to get his stolen belt buckle back.  Within hours he finds himself up to his neck (or maybe somewhere slightly loser) in a plot to destroy both McDonalds and Starbucks.  The execution is much more complex. 

This is a delightful romp in typical Sandlin style.  Offbeat characters, spicy dialogue and great satire.  I found my self laughing (out loud) every few pages. 

Sandlin takes great delight in poking fun at pretty much everyone -- the French, the Americans, cowboys, poets, spies, intellectuals and women.  And so what if it stretches credulity to the breaking point?  I'm more than willing to suspend belief for a good laugh!

This is a fun read.  And if you haven't read his earlier books this is an intro that will leave you wanting more.

The publishers says:

A rollicking comic romp by the author of Skipped Parts and Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty. Rowdy Talbot isn't the world's greatest bull rider. Not even close. But he lives by the cowboy code, and he never forgets to take off his cowboy hat during the national anthem. When Rowdy wins the rodeo in Crockett County, Colorado, he celebrates his triumph with two young Frenchwomen he meets in a local bar. The next morning, when he discovers that the two have left for Paris with the championship belt buckle he won, Rowdy does what any true cowboy would: He hops on a plane to the City of Light to retrieve it.

What follows is a comic collision of cultures and personalities. In Rowdy in Paris, Tim Sandlin has concocted an unlikely but engaging m¿lange of characters: disaffected French revolutionaries, a turquoise-peddling CIA operative, and a middle-aged courtesan, all caught in a plot to destroy an American fast-food chain.

At the center of the chaos is Rowdy himself, who finds as he searches for the belt buckle that there's another world beyond the back of a bull. By turns smart and satirical, biting and engaging, Rowdy in Paris is a surprisingly moving story about what it means to broaden one's horizons by opening one's heart.

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In Defense of Food (eBook edition)

It seems kinda silly to read a couple of hundred pages about something as simple as food.  But I did!  And Michael Pollan made it worthwhile. 

In Defense of Food is an engaging look at food and the food industry.  Pollan is a good writer and I was captivated within minutes.  For the record, I never intended to do anything more than skim, but I ended up engrossed and read every single word.  It was a journey that alternatively amused and enraged me. 

Pollan takes on the modern idea of diet with a full scale attack on what we call food and put in our mouths.  He exposes Agri-business, pseudo-science and "Big Food."   He doesn't spare anyone starting with the USDA and General Mills and ending with the consumer who would rather grab an attractive package of prepared "healthy" food than cook.

Pollan effectively argues that

• Over the last 25 years food as been gradually replaced by nutrients
• This emphasis on nutrients has actually promoted disease and obesity
• To be healthy we must return to common sense eating both in the quality of our food and in the quantity we consume

Believe it or not adding "nutrients" to sugary, processed (starchy) cereal will not magically make it healthy.  Additives are not food.  Who knew?

Seriously, before you decide to go on a diet, read this book.  It is not only informative but interesting.

Like many good ideas, it is pretty simple.  Your body is only going to be as healthy as the fuel you provide it.  Cut the sugar and white flour.  Pick fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grain.  Eat small meals. Eat often. Don't gorge yourself; stop when you feel 80% full. Take time to enjoy what you eat.

The writing is lively although the book could use some graphics.  Even if you don't learn anything new (which is doubtful), this is an entertaining reminder that food choices are more art than science.

Bon appetite!

The Publisher says:

What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times ""Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."" These simple words go to the heart of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, the well-considered answers he provides to the questions posed in the bestselling The Omnivore's Dilemma. Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not ""real."" These ""edible foodlike substances"" are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing from the marketplace, to be replaced by ""nutrients,"" and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Michael Pollan's sensible and decidedly counterintuitive advice is: ""Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food.""

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The Middle Place (eBook Edition)

The Middle Place is one of those books that will stay with me for a very long time.  I identified at  a deep level:  I  had a larger than life Father. I was  a "Daddy's girl". My Dad had a long and lingering illness.  During his last couple of years we got the chance to redefine our relationship.

Kelly Corrigan weaves together three compelling stories: her childhood, her fight with breast cancer, and her father's illness (cancer). 

This is not a "disease of the month" memoir. This is a vital and honest account of family with all of it's divisions, loyalties and alliances.  Over the course of the book you get to enjoy and know the entire family:  Father, Mother, siblings, husband and children. 

Kelly Corrigan is a graceful writer with a wonderful sense of the absurdity of life and family.  After all who else can make you that mad even while you depend on them?

Corrigan captures the joy of childhood and the angst of the teen years.  She expresses the frustration of watching your parent rely on the familiar and trusted when better medical help is available.  The pain of being told to butt out after all the hard work of finding a new therapy, medication or physician.  The anger at the "well spouse" (her Mother) as they try to hide how bad things really are.

Her story underlines the importance of family, friends and laughter in the process of acceptance and recovery. 

Read this book!  It doesn't matter if you are an Easterner from Philly, a Californian or an Irish Catholic.  You don't have to come from a large family.  You don't need to have cancer or have someone in your family who has cancer.  This is a story with the universal themes of hope, healing and letting go. 

The official book information:

"The thing you need to know about me is that I am George Corrigan's daughter, his only daughter." So begins this beautifully written memoir, in which Kelly Corrigan intertwines her own story with that of her larger-than-life, Irish-American, born-salesman father's, and illustrates both an unbelievably powerful and healing father/daughter relationship and the unbreakable bonds of family. Writing with candor and a surprising amount of graceful humor, Kelly alternates the tale of growing up Corrigan with her life and her father's today, as they each-successfully, for now-battle cancer. Throughout, she explores the framework of illness and what it means when the one person who has been your source of strength is in need of some himself. Uplifting without shying away from the realities of life with cancer, this highly personal story ultimately examines the universal theme of family, both those we create and those that created us. The Middle Place is about the bittersweet moment between childhood and adulthood-when you're a devoted wife and mother, but you'll always be daddy's girl. In fresh, insightful prose, Kelly explores and ultimately embraces that "middle place," bringing to light the wonderful opportunity of coming to know who you are and where you truly belong.

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Women's Stories: The Senator's Wife (eBook edition) and Mermaids in The Basement (eBook edition).

When it comes to books my daughter is a serial monogamist; she reads one book at a time from start to finish.  I on the other hand am a literary polygamist; in any given week I am in the process of reading four or five books.

Last weeks it went like this

• The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller
• Mermaid in the Basement by Michele Lee West
• Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
• The Girl Who Walked Home Alone by Charlotte Chandler
• The Art of Big Talk by Debra Fine. 

By the end of the week I had finished The Senator's Wife and Mermaids in the Basement. 

Both are fiction.  Both are written by well known authors.  Both feature two generations of women and their contrasting lives.  Both were told from alternating points of view.  Both portray the intimate details of marriage and betrayal. 

And yet, they could not be more different!

The Senator's Wife is beautifully written, the language rich, the characters complex, the plot compelling. 

Sue Miller takes us deep into the private lives of women with this mesmerizing portrait of two marriages exposed in all their shame and imperfection, and in their obdurate, unyielding love.

This is a book I wanted to love.  In the end I couldn't make myself do it.  No matter how hard I tried, I did not love this book.

It was very slow going.  OK, I recognize that this is wonderful writing; an intricate character study of two morally ambiguous characters.  The problem is that no matter how much I tried, I couldn't like these women or particularly identify with either of them or their choices.  And they weren't so strange or interesting that I ended up (even grudgingly) fascinated by them.  And worse, the denouement left me cold -- it seemed both contrived and predictable. 

And yet the book has stayed with me all week.  I've rolled it around in my brain, examined it and analyzed it.  My final answer?  It was ultimately unsatisfying.

Mermaids in the Basement was a quick read that pulled me in from the first sentence and never let go.  Nothing heavy about this.  But the characters are rich and complex and downright intriguing.

Ripe with Southern charm and sultry atmosphere, West's diverting and funny latest unravels the tangled gossamer web of an eccentric extended Southern family.

These women are certainly morally ambiguous.  But guess what?  They are likeable and their choices make oddball sense.  I didn't necessarily identify (it is hard to be less of a "southern belle" than I am) but these women are real characters who grabbed my emotions as well as my brain.

It hasn't really stayed with me in the same way as The Senator's Wife.  I haven't spent any time analyzing it.  And yet it  left me feeling warm and satisfied.

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The BEST eBooks about The Civil Rights Movement 1954-1968

Today is the United States national holiday celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday.

Of course, I woke up this morning thinking about Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement.  Most of what I know about this topic I learned from Taylor Branch and his amazing three part history .

Remember, I grew up outside of the US.  My main source of information on all things American was Time Magazine.  It is no surprise that I had a very vague idea of what the Civil Rights Movement really was or how it happened.  Sure, I knew the basic outlines but there were very few details.  

It doesn't seem possible, but it really was eeighteen years ago I picked up Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch.  History always intrigues me and I had often wondered (in a kind of lazy way)  about the Civil Rights Movement.  I saw the book and picked it up expecting to skim it for information.

A funny thing happened.  After just few pages, I found I couldn't put it down.  I bought it and headed home to read it carefully. 

I was transported to the deep South of 1954.  The characters are drawn so carefully and completely that they start to live and breath  The descriptions are so detailed and graphic that you can see and feel them.  Two days (and 900 pages) later I was still in the South, but now it was 1963. 

That was a book I hated to see end!  Those pages flew by and I could have read another 900 with ease. 

Over the intervening years I would think about the book and wonder what happened next.

It took ten years to find out. . .

 Pillar of Fire picks up the story and and takes you through 1965.  And then  I had another five year wait for the last volume At Caanan's Edge.

It is a testament to how powerful the books are that I never forgot characters in the intervening years. 

Fortunately, Simon and Schuster released all three books as eBooks last year and you won't have to wait for 15 years to get the whole story.

This is non-fiction, history and biographical writing at it's VERY best! 

As a teaser, I am adding the publisher's information about Parting the Waters:

Hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American civil rights movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations.

Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, here is a vivid tapestry of America, torn and finally transformed by a revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War.

Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of King's rise to greatness and illuminates the stunning courage and private conflict, the deals, maneuvers, betrayals, and rivalries that determined history behind closed doors, at boycotts and sit-ins, on bloody freedom rides, and through siege and murder.

Epic in scope and impact, Branch's chronicle definitively captures one of the nation's most crucial passages.

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A Version of the Truth eBook edition

Life has not been particularly kind to Cassie Shaw, the protagonist of "A Version of the Truth." Her father died when she was young.  Her Mom, while well-meaning and loving, has little understanding and patience for "real life," which means that money was always tight.

You have to love this gal; she's got moxie!  She is a dyslexic who didn't learn to read until she was twelve. Of course, she's a high school drop out who didn't even bother to take the SATs.  And to top it off, Cassie's no good husband of four years has just died leaving her a thirty year old widow.  And by the way she is not only broke, she's in debt. 

Cassie moves back home with her foul-mouthed parrot.  About the only thing she has going for her is her friend Tiffany and her native street smarts. 

What she really needs is a job. Problem is, no one wants to hire her.  Then one day it happens, in a desperate moment she invents a psychology degree from the University of Michigan.

Lying on her resume just happened. Lying really isn't her style.  Cassie is much more used to faking it.  That's something she's done it all her life:  memorizing menus at eight, dodging homework in high school and playing dumb.

This particular lie works like a charm.  Suddenly she is employed in an administrative position at an elite university and the the faking it starts in earnest.  She slowly begins to reinventing herself from the outside in.  Hair, clothes, a little Thoreau, a University of Michigan coffee mug and a college class or two.  What she doesn't count on is how exposure to new people and new ideas will change her. 

It is all too good to last and in one afternoon everything changes.  She learns that it is not the lie, but the cover up that is her final undoing.

Once I got into the book (it has a slow start), I thoroughly enjoyed every word.  Cassie is an engaging anti-hero with a slightly skewed point of view. Her forays into culture (art exhibits and the symphony) are laugh out loud funny.

It might not be great literature but it is the perfect book for a rainy weekend.  Funny, whimsical and heartening.

Here's the publisher's book description:

Authors Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack  introduce a character with a unique voice you’ll never forget: Cassie Shaw, an irrepressible young woman who reinvents herself—with unexpected consequences—in a funny, wise, and utterly original novel about friendship, love, wildlife, and other forces of nature.

In the wilds of Topanga Canyon, Cassie is right at home—with the call of birds, the sound of wind in the trees, the harmony of a world without people. But everywhere else, life is a little harder for Cassie. Her mother believes in Big Foot. Her wisecracking pet parrot is a drama queen. And at the age of thirty, newly single and without a college degree, Cassie desperately needs a decent paycheck. Which is why, against all her principles, she lies on her résumé for an office job at an elite university—and then finds herself employed in academia by two professors who are as rare as the birds she covets.

One of her new bosses is Professor William Conner, a sexy, handsome, cheerfully aristocratic expert in animal behavior. Soon, under Conner’s charismatic tutelage, Cassie carefully begins her personal transformation while meeting the kind of people who don’t flock to wildlife preserves—from impossibly brilliant academics to adorably spoiled college boys. But her future—and unlikely new career—is teetering on one unbearable untruth. And Cassie’s masquerade is about to come undone…in a chain of events that will transform her life—and the lives of those around her—forever.
A novel for late bloomers of every exotic shade and stripe, A Version of the Truth is pure entertainment—at once hilarious and wry, lyrical and uplifting.

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The Good Father eBook edition

The Good Father delivers a punch that left me breathless (and speechless).

I am not sure that the title or the synopsis would have pulled me in if I were not already a Marion Husband fan.  She always creates vibrant characters and solid plot lines.  The Good Father is the latest example of her writing skill.

The book has stayed with me over the last few days. And I have struggled with how to explain it -- both the emotional affect and the actual book. 

The story is VERY British -- placid exterior facades and seething interior lives, quiet suffering and explosive emotions.  All very restrained and mostly proper, at least on the surface. 

The year is 1959 and Ms. Husband returns to the small English town of Thorp.  The story centers on Peter and Jack but with strong side stories about Harry (the lawyer) and Val (the girlfriend).  There are several cameo appearances by characters from other books just to spice things up.  These are multidimensional characters and each one is an integral in telling the whole story.

I have to admit that I didn't figure out the main plot twist -- unusual for me.  The ending actually astonished me.  I kept shaking my head in disbelief.  And yet, upon reflection, I can see that it was really the only ending that made sense.  I am actually thinking about rereading the book to figure out how the author so successfully pulled me through the story without giving herself away.

This is a great "literary fiction" piece that I highly recommend.

Here's the "official stuff":

When Peter Wright's father dies he leaves his entire fortune to Peter's best friend Jack. Over a few weeks in the summer of 1959 the consequences of the old man's legacy seriously affect three men's lives, Jack, who has brought up his three children alone since his wife was killed, Wright's solicitor Harry, who is trying to rebuild his relationship with his estranged son Guy, and Peter himself, whose friendship with Jack is threatened by his father's death and the terrible secrets he has kept since his return from the Japanese POW camps.

The Good Father explores the nature of fatherhood and the bonds between fathers and their children in a gripping story of love, betrayal and adultery.

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Wife for Hire eBook edition

Stephanie Plum and I go back a long way; every since One for the Money, as a matter of fact.  Now, female bounty hunters are not exactly my thing, but Evanovich is an engaging and funny writer and Stephanie is a great companion for a rainy afternoon.

This at least helps to explain why I bought and read Wife for Hire.  To be fair (and accurate), I had several excuses for buying it.  I bought it because:

• I have enjoyed Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series over the years.
• It was raining in the desert (something we haven't seen in a VERY long time) and I wanted to sit by the fire and read.
• You can't always tell how good (or bad) a book will be by reading the synopsis.
• It is on the New York Times Best Seller list -- how bad could it be?

I am going to very carefully avoid the last question and try to to tell you the good things about this book.  It is  a very easy read.  Evanovich's sense of humor is alive and well. It is short -- about 2 hours worth.

Unfortunately, I can't help my self; I have keep going.  Basically I wonder why I wasted the time since this is an especially stupid and silly excuse for a novel.

The whole plot revolves around a man hiring a schoolteacher (who wants to be a novelist) to pose as his wife.  Within three pages he is in love and she's in heat; or maybe it is the other way around.  At any rate there is a lots of heavy breathing, a few kisses but no explicit sex.

I'll save you a couple of hours and tell you that I should have been warned by reading the publishers synopsis:

Hank Mallone knows he's in trouble when Maggie Toone agrees to pretend to be his wife in order to improve his rogue's reputation. Will his harebrained scheme to get a bank loan for his business backfire once Maggie arrives in his small Vermont town and lets the gossips take a look?

Maggie never expected her employer to be drop-dead handsome, but she's too intrigued by his offer to say no . . . and too eager to escape a life that made her feel trapped. The deal is strictly business, both agree, until Hank turns out to be every fantasy she ever had.

Call me old fashioned, but if I am going to read a "bodice ripper'" I want a few costumes, a castle or manor house and an occasional Lord or Lady thrown in.

Not everyone will agree with me, however, and if you are looking for a no-brainier or a cheap stocking stuffer this will do (barely). 

This is definitely not one of her better works!  If it had been my intro to Evanovich, I promise it would be my last attempt to read anything she has ever written. Fortunately she has grown as an author.

Wife for Hire is one of her early books that has been re-released for the holidays.  It is striking how much better Evanovich has gotten at her craft. The writing in the Stephanie Plum series is light years better than this!

If I were less of a cynic I would wonder why Harper Collins resurrected this early 90s Loveswept romance.  But then -- I bought it,  didn't I?