Novels Now

221 pages
A couple of years ago(before I had a blog) I read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. While I learned a lot from that book and I enjoyed Ehrenreich’s sense of humor quite a bit, I was left feeling sad and a little irritated at the premise that […]

Popularity: 28% [?]

Read full story »

The Shadow of Malabron by Thomas Wharton
The Perilous Realm: Book 1
Pages: 385
Finished: Oct. 25, 2008
First Published: August 19, 2008 (Canada, Hardcover) Aug. 4, 2008 (UK & US, paperback)
Genre: YA, fantasy
Rating: 4/5
First sentence:
In a chamber high in a tower a young woman sits at a loom, weaving threads of many colours into a tapestry so large […]

Popularity: 26% [?]

Read full story »

It’s the last summer before college for 18 year-old Kim Larsen. She and her friends spend their time at the lake and working at their various summer jobs. Being from a small town in Ohio makes them all ready to get on with the big adventure into adulthood but at the same time they are […]

Popularity: 28% [?]

Read full story »

The Story of a Marriage
by Andrew Sean Greer
2008, 195 pp.
Rating: 1/5
It seems this story has polarized readers. Some love it, while others intensely dislike the book. I fall into the latter camp. I thought I was really going to like it initially, but then the story went way over the top into unbelievability for me. […]

Popularity: 29% [?]

Read full story »

The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry
2008, 300 pp.
Booker Prize Shortlist
I’d be happy if this book won the Booker Prize. Yeah, I would, and I haven’t read any of the other contenders yet! Sebastian Barry is a magnificent writer, and I will definitely be reading more of his work.
Roseanne McNulty is almost 100 years old, […]

Popularity: 28% [?]

Read full story »

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: 28% [?]

Read full story »

We must set our children free from our adult agendas and our frenetic, goal-oriented pace. The path that we have accepted for ourselves is the wrong path for children. Children do need a foundation upon which to grow and children do need their parents. They need to belong to a community, not an interest group. […]

Popularity: 21% [?]

Read full story »

So Long At The Fair
By Christina Schwartz
Completed September 9, 2008
Christina Schwartz’s latest book, So Long At The Fair, was a story about adultery and distrust in relationships. At the center, it’s the story of Jon and Ginny, high school sweethearts who have been married for many years, and Jon’s affair with his co-worker, Freddi. But […]

Popularity: 25% [?]

Read full story »

Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel
Third in the Airborn series
Pages: 356
First Published: Sept. 2, 2008 (Canada) / Feb. 24, 2009 (US)/ March, 2009 (UK)
Genre: YA, science fiction/fantasy
Rating: 4/5
First sentence:
Rising into the wind, I flew, Paris spread before me.
Comments: This time around Matt and Kate are on a special mission for the Canadian government. The space race […]

Popularity: 17% [?]

Read full story »

He believed he had already lived long enough. He thought he was over the age of thirty - Jacob Howard was thirty, and they had been born around the same time - and Cassius looked that and more. He now studied the land as if he would never see it again, and tried to memorize […]

Popularity: 14% [?]

Read full story »