Novels Now

Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay, 404 pages
I love a good suspenseful thriller. I started this one yesterday, and since I had today off, I read all day. It was a real page turner, with twists and turns, some I could somewhat see or at least suspect, but still satisfying.
The prologue starts with […]

Popularity: 47% [?]

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I just love Neil Gaiman (not to mention that his looks remind me of a close friend I had in college). Well, I love his books, too, and this one was no exception. It’s my third Gaiman, and although I still think I liked Coraline a tiny bit better, I loved The Graveyard […]

Popularity: 49% [?]

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An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination
By Elizabeth McCracken
Completed November 5, 2008
I think there’s an old saying that you should never have to bury your child. Outliving my kids ranks number one in things “I don’t want to happen,” but sadly, there are parents who face this reality every day.
While some parents lose […]

Popularity: 55% [?]

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Imaginary Friends edited by John Marco & Martin H. Greenberg
DAW, 2008
Fiction/Fantasy (SS); 304 pgs
The title was what first captured my eye. I pulled the book off the shelf, and it did not take me long to add it to my purchases that day. My curiosity got the better of me and I began […]

Popularity: 30% [?]

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A child dies in this book: a baby. A baby is stillborn. You don’t have to tell me how sad that is: it happened to me and my husband, our baby, a son. -From An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, page 6-
Author Elizabeth McCracken lived briefly in France, with her husband, […]

Popularity: 24% [?]

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My Name is Number 4: A True Story from the Cultural Revolution by Ting-Xing Ye
Pages: 230
Finished: Oct. 26, 2008
First Published: September 2008
Genre: YA, memoir
Rating: 4/5
Reason for Reading: Received a Review Copy from the publisher. Also qualifies for the Canadian Challenge.
First sentence:
The morning of my exile to the prison farm arrived, a characteristic November day in […]

Popularity: 27% [?]

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Resistance: A Woman’s Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France by Agnes Humbert
Translated by Barbara Mellor
Pages: 270 + 100pgs of extraneous material (Afterward, index, etc.)
First Published: 1946, 1st English translation Sept. 2, 2008
Genre: memoir, WWII
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
Rumours are flying, all flatly contradictory, but it seems clear that the Germans are advancing on all fronts.
Comments: […]

Popularity: 25% [?]

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson
2008, 465 pp.

The original Swedish title of this book means Men Who Hated Women, and that title is an excellent forewarning about what the book is about. If you like gritty crime novels or shows like CSI, you’ll probably love the book. My eyes and […]

Popularity: 23% [?]

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The Activist: John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, and the Myth of Judicial Review by Lawrence Goldstone
American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Aphrodisiac by Allyson Roy
Beside a Burning Sea by John Shors
Blood Memory […]

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Victorian Divorce — a National Scandal
In 1864 a scandal of huge proportions shook Great Briton. That scandal was due to a divorce case, which was quite new at the time. The Sealed Letter is based on this true scandal.
Miss Emily “Fido” Faithful was a businesswoman and feminist active in the British women’s movement. She was […]

Popularity: 27% [?]

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