Novels Now

Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson
I believe Anne fans have been somewhat leery of this book. To attempt to write the before story, based on the small tidbits of her past that Anne let slip, was a huge undertaking for Wilson. People who love Anne would want the story to be true to LM Montgomery’s […]

Popularity: 19% [?]

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The Bleeding Dusk by Colleen Gleason
The Gardella Vampire Chronicles, Book 3
Pages: 346
First Published: Feb. 2008
Genre: paranormal romance, historical fiction
Rating: 3.5/5
First sentence:
The lair of the Queen of the Vampires was tucked away in the snowy mountain range of Muntii Fagaras.
Comments: As the third book in the series it is difficult to summarize the plot without spoilers […]

Popularity: 14% [?]

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A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
I first heard of this big ole book when bookfool mentioned it, then kookiejar loved it. It’s big in size (531 pages) and ambition. Toltz covers a lot of material here, and I’ll try to summarize a bit.
Jasper Dean is writing his family’s colourful history in Australia, […]

Popularity: 15% [?]

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Losing It - And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time by Valerie Bertinelli
Pages: 273
First Published: Feb, 2008
Genre: autobiography, memoir
Rating: 2/5
Reason for Reading: I enjoyed watching One Day at a Time as a child and always though Valerie was beautiful. Needing to loose weight myself, I though her weight loss story might be […]

Popularity: 22% [?]

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“For years, people imagined they saw canals dug into the planet’s surface. They called these canals proof of life. They worried what intelligent life on Mars might mean to us earthlings, to our safety. But, it was nothing. An optical illusion a cosmic misprint. There’s no life. There’s nothing.” -From Springtime on Mars, page […]

Popularity: 26% [?]

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Resistance
By Owen Sheers
Completed June 27, 2008

I think poets make great novelists. Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, even Shel Silverstein all embrace a stunningly descriptive way of writing that makes their stories and characters just flow through your mind. Like his poetic counterparts, Owen Sheers used this lyrical style in his debut novel Resistance.
Resistance is an […]

Popularity: 27% [?]

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Looking For Salvation at the Dairy Queen
By Susan Gregg Gilmore
Completed May 24, 2008

Looking for a light but entertaining poolside read this summer? If so, then I would recommend Susan Gregg Gilmore’s debut novel, Looking For Salvation at the Dairy Queen.
It’s the story of Catherine Grace Cline, the preacher’s daughter, of Ringgold, Ga. Catherine Grace had […]

Popularity: 35% [?]

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The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Pages: 363
Finished: Mar. 18, 2008
First Published: Feb. 2008
Genre: fiction
Rating: 4/5
First Sentence:
The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass.
Reason for Reading: I received this book from the HarperCollins Canada “Reading Group”. It sounded interesting and Stephen King has written […]

Popularity: 31% [?]

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Valentines by Ted Kooser
Poetry
2008 University of Nebraska Press
Finished on 4/1/08
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)
For Valentine’s Day 1986, Ted Kooser wrote “Pocket Poem” and sent the tender, thoughtful composition to fifty women friends, starting an annual tradition that would persist for the next twenty-one years. Printed on postcards, the poems were mailed to a list of recipients that […]

Popularity: 33% [?]

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Israel as a whole was an archaeological mother lode, but the area around Jerusalem was particularly rich, and particularly complex. Home to some of the holiest sites in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it was rich with history and rife with conflict. -From The Secret Scroll, page 31-
Josh Cohan, an American archaeologist on sabbatical in […]

Popularity: 32% [?]

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