Christy's recent posts

Recent public discussion board posts (showing 1-20 of 35).

maybe it's Fallen by David Maine? I haven't read it, but I know it is a fairly recent novel based around Cain's story.

I read her other book, Housekeeping, and liked it all right (I think it would improve on a re-read), so I'll be sure to check this one out as well. Thanks!

What's coming to mind is Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's young adult York trilogy. In the third book, "Footprints at the Window," the main character who has pressing concerns in the present day goes back in time to the Black Death era.

I think you put this review with the wrong book.

I love well written nonfiction!

Two recommendations:

Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger -

You don't have to be a football fan to like this book. Bissinger goes into all the cultural context for a town that lives for its football team.

There Is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene -

This book was the best book I read last year. It's about an Ethiopian woman who provided a haven for AIDS orphans. Greene uses that as the main story but spins off chapters that provide context.

The Book of Genesis? ;)

Oh that has to be the True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi. One of my favorite books as a kid too.

I really enjoyed this book too. Thanks for getting the title.

Sounds very much like a story that a character tells in My Antonia by Willa Cather. The groom isn't the one to throw the bride out though. Someone tells the groom that they should lighten the sledge by throwing her out and of course he refuses. It ends up that both bride and groom are thrown out.

Go to books.google.com and find My Antonia, then type in "wolves" in the Search feature and you'll be able to view the pages that contain this story and confirm whether it's the one you remember.

I've read only 2 1/2 Dickens, but here are my thoughts anyway. I did not like David Copperfield, but I loved loved Bleak House.

I started Tale of Two Cities but then had to return it to the library before I finished as I was moving away.

I've read a surprising amount of the picks, though not any of them because they were Oprah books.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
-ok, not as good as Beloved, which is amazing.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
- terrible, with flat unsympathetic characters

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
- interesting to read at the time, but forgettable

Light in August by William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

- I quite like Faulkner's style of writing. I like Absalom! Absalom! best of the Faulkner I've read though.

Night by Elie Wiesel
- a modern classic, in my opinion

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- Ambitious and epic, though the last bit of it after the 'exodus' is not as engaging.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- Harrowing is a good word that someone else used for this.

Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
Midwives - Chris Bohjalian
Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
White Oleander by Janet Fitch

- These four above are what I think of when I think of an Oprah book. Three of the four could be classified as coming-of-age stories, not really the Letts book so much though. I didn't care for them that much.

I haven't read the book myself, but I think it was partially based on the true and horrifying story of Sylvia Likens, who was abused by her caretaker, her caretaker's kids and by the neighborhood children, if I remember right.

No particular order

1. A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan
- this book haunts me and it's just written so beautifully.

2. The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King
- I'm not much of a mystery reader, but the characterization just makes this book worth reading over and over.

3. My Life by Lyn Hejinian

4. Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
5. Bleak House by Charles Dickens

The TV movie was called "Echo of Thunder" with Judy Davis playing the stepmother.

Yes, it's Thunderwith - thanks Tara! Apparently, one of the sibling's names was Opal - all of the siblings were named after stones or gems.

I read a book in the 1990's about a girl whose mother dies and she goes to live with her father and stepmother (I think) and there are a lot of new, younger siblings. She also adopts a dog - I think a mean neighbor boy ends up shooting the dog in the end.

The girl - Opal? - is in her early teens I think, but doesn't have her license yet, though she ends up driving the car for an emergency near the end of the book.

It takes place in rural Australia, and it was made into a TV movie some years later.

Thanks for any help id'ing this one!

sounds like Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Glad to know I wasn't missing out then. :)

Thank you! this is exactly how I feel about the book as well. And when the foster-mother says that he didn't really mean to save her, the Redwall powers -that-be are like, okay, you're ready to be an abbess now. I loved this series, but this book was the beginning of the end of the love affair.

I loved the third book - stayed up all night to finish it. I was haunted by the resolution of Lyra and Will's story. It's been a few years since I've read them, but you can count me in as one of the ones hyping them up. :) They were a fantastic read.