Novels Now

Pam Jenoff
360 pages
Earlier this fall, I read The Kommandant’s Girl, which is the story of Emma Bau, a young newlywed who belongs to the Polish resistance during World War II. The Diplomat’s Wife is a companion book that is told from the perspective of Marta Nedermann who is friend and fellow resistance member to […]

Popularity: 54% [?]

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Atmospheric Disturbances
by Rivka Galchen
Starred Reviews: Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus
2008, 240 pp.

It’s rare that a book gets starred reviews from all four major review publications. Was this book that good; does it really deserve that much attention? Yes, absolutely. I really, really loved it; so much, in fact, that […]

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Breath by Tim Winton
2008, 218 pp.
Ugh. I thought this was about a teen boy surfing in Australia. I wanted it to be about a teen boy surfing in Australia. And it was, for about 150 pages, then it goes off into a weird and extreme area that I will not mention here. […]

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Newton and the Time Machine by Michael McGowan
Illustrated by Shelagh McNulty
Pages: 211
First Published: May 13, 2008
Genre: Children’s fantasy
Rating: 3/5
First sentence:
Newton was having serious, serious doubts that his latest invention - a time machine - was ready to be field-tested.
Comments: This is a sequel to Newton and the Giant, which I haven’t read. Newton needs someone […]

Popularity: 20% [?]

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At this moment, I suddenly want to change everything that is me, the observer part, and move from something else: the living-your-life part. When does that start exactly? And something else. I look into the mirror and someone else says: What are you doing here? You have no right to live. […]

Popularity: 19% [?]

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A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
In 1988, a plane carrying the President of Pakistan crashed, killing the President - military dictator General Zia, some generals, and the American Ambassador, Arnold Raphel. This book looks at what may have caused the crash and the death of the General Zia.
I had to look up at […]

Popularity: 22% [?]

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There was only one birthday that Gus was getting tired of organizing. Tired, really, of celebrating at all. Her own. Because in short order - March 25 - August Adelaide Simpson was turning fifty. -From Comfort Food, page 4-
Gus Simpson is a huge TV personality on the CookingChannel. After the unexpected death of her […]

Popularity: 23% [?]

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Like many of my generation I did not go to war gravely and soberly, as Lao-tzu tells us a wise man ought. But I returned from it that way. [pg 285]
Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield
Doubleday, 2008
Fiction; 295 pgs
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was one of the most respected generals of his time, not only by […]

Popularity: 20% [?]

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written by Steven Galloway
How do I remember so little about the war in Sarajevo? Yugoslavia broke apart after the Cold War, and I know there were lots of civil wars and the Canadian Peace Keepers were in Bosnia during the 1990s. I guess it’s the same sort of awareness in Darfur now; there is something […]

Popularity: 23% [?]

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Stone Creek by Victoria Lustbader
Contemporary Fiction
2008 HarperCollins
Finished on 5/18/08
Rating: 3.5 (Good)

Publisher’s Description:
In a small town in upstate New York, a random meeting will offer hope and the chance of love for two lonely people.
Though he still grieves for the young wife he loved and lost, Danny, a widower, knows he must move on for the […]

Popularity: 19% [?]

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