Will I Finish???

Yikes, book club is only days away and I haven't even started If You Could See Me Now. I'm hoping that it is a quick read and now that I am finished with the endless wallpaper stripping, bathroom painting project I think it is time to sit and read for awhile. (The triple digit temps are also pretty good motivation!)


I did finish Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich. A quick, light read for sure. While I do enjoy reading about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum I just wonder how much longer she (Evanovich) can keep it up. The stories are getting a bit tired and in case you were wondering after my last post...nope, no stunning ending! At least for once there was not really any grave bodily injury or damage to Stephanie.

A Good Ending?

I just finished Bille Letts' latest novel, Made in the USA. Although more serious and darker than her previous novels, it was still filled with her trademark humor and character development. She does such a wonderful job of creating characters that you care about them, feel you know them and wonder what happens to them after the book ends. Ms. Letts even confessed that these characters stay with her after she is done writing also and that she has been tempted at various times to write sequels to her previous books. I'm not sure if I feel this is a good idea or not. What if she gets it wrong...or at least doesn't end things the way I think they should end?



And speaking of ending, it seems that many authors have a difficult time ending things! I don't mind if everything isn't neatly tied up at the end, as a matter of fact sometimes that is the problem with the ending. I even enjoy a good twist at the end, even when I didn't see it coming as long as it makes sense with the rest of the story. The last book club book (The Art of Mending) had a very abrupt anticlimactic ending that didn't seem to go with the build up during the entire rest of the story. Then there is my other recent read, The Blood of Flowers (LOVED the book) that was wonderful up until the end. It almost seemed like an "and they lived happily ever after" ending which would seem to be the last thing you would expect. I got the same feeling from the end of Made in the USA. Then there are the authors that seem to hit their page limit and just suddenly wrap up the whole story in just a final page or two.



Of course now I am wondering how I am going to end this post so I guess I can see the problem!
Ending can be hard in novels and in life and beginnings aren't always a piece of cake either!
(Ending with cake seems like a good thing!)

Billie Letts

I have been a fan of Billie Letts since Where the Heart Is first came out. (In fact I even picked it for the book club long before Oprah picked it for hers but I don't think my choosing it is what made it a bestseller!) So I was excited to have the chance to hear her speak last night, even though I still don't understand her fascination with WalMart, which shows up once again in this latest novel. This small framed, very thin older woman stepped up to the microphone and had the crowd enthralled! What a wonderful storyteller with a great mix of humor and serious passion for writing and for children. Her newest book, Made In The USA, combines these two as she looks at the way that children are becoming disposable in our society. Although I haven't read the book yet I bet that she manages to have strongly developed characters and is able to combine humor along with a serious message. By the way, she has apologized for the language that some of her characters use. She assured us that those were her character's words, not her own and even though she did her best to control them it didn't always work!

Tallgrass

Seeing the pictures that were taken at the actual camp that Tallgrass was based on added to the wonderful discussion of the book and about the things that happened during WWII. Sometimes it seems that we do not learn from history and are doomed to continue to make many of the same mistakes. This book had it all...a coming of age story, some history and some suspense. The characters were very well developed and Rennie Stroud shines!

Our next book "If You Could See Me Now" by Cecilia Ahern is getting rave reviews by advanced readers! The reviews also came with the warning that if you decide to listen to the audio you might need to develop an ear for the Irish!

"The Blood of Flowers" is getting rave reviews from me! This novel by Iranian born Anita Amirrezvani is set in 17th century Persia and is a fasinating story that is being compared to former book club selection "The Kite Runner" although it seems more similiar to "A Thousand Spendid Suns" since the woman are the focus of the story. If you get finished with this month's book club selection early you might want to give this novel a try!

Too much time on the computer means...

not very much time reading! I am having so much fun messying around on the computer and feeling pretty behind the learning curve. Nothing can make a person feel dumb quicker than trying to do something with technology, or is it just me? I have found a new site called Good Reads and I even managed to use a "widget" to link it to my blog. Believe me I was pretty shocked when it actually worked. Now I just have to figure out how to add more books to my virtual shelf. Hey, give it a try and you can be my "Good Reads" friend! Now to try and figure out how to download books from the library to my ipod...where is a teenager when you need one?