October 18, 2009

Boomer Bloomer-

"I like to consider myself a late bloomer, meaning someone who will eventually, however late, come into bloom. Although when and if I will bloom remains a mystery." So begins this delightful memoir, a sort of Running with Manicure Scissors. Former writer and producer for Caroline in the City and Spin City, and a"dating" columnist for The New York Observer, Amy Cohen lets us see her in her humble glory-her own sweet, smart, sassy, lovable, bumbling self.

Title-The Late Bloomer's Revolution
Author-Amy Cohen
Published-2007 by Hyperion

October 19, 2009

Caught In The Headlights-

Journalist Susan Seligson, "a person who happens to be stacked," has a mission: to figure out and document every possible attitude toward breasts and people have them(not all women, as she points out y evenhandedly interviewing cross-dressers.) The history of the brassiere, implant mania, the search for Maxi Mounds, analysis of past and current slang terms...It's all here, in bright, witty, intelligent social commentary, which the author has made both intimate and universal. Publishers Weekly starred review.

Title-Stacked:A 32DDD Reports From The Front
Author-Susan Seligson
Published-2007 by Bloomsbury, USA

October 20, 2009

A Critic-

"What allows genius to flower is not neurosis but its opposite...ordinary Sunday-school virtues such as tenacity and above all the ability to survive disappointment," Joan Acocella wrote in this exemplary book of criticism. We hope the quote may begin to show you the directness and quality of mind of a woman who has become one of the our essential cultural critics. Especially when it comes to writing and dance, Ms. Acocella is the first person we turn to. Most of these essays previously appeard in The New Yorker.

Title-Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays
Author-Joan Acocella
Published-2007 by Pantheon

October 21, 2009

Office Humor-

Australian Max Barry's third novel is a biting and hilarious satire of modern corporate culture: outsourcing, stolen doughnuts, downsizing, "human resources", office politics, and all the rest. It has a nice, twisty plot that revels in the absurd and the sinister. If your days are spent in the confines of an office cubicle, Company might be just the thing to maximize the potential of your water cooler-chat effectiveness.

Title-Company
Author-Max Barry
Published-2007 by Vintage Books

October 22, 2009

The Real Tinsel: The Sequel-

The author of Glengarry Glen Ross and Wag The Dog gives us his mordant, embittered take on Hollywood-a place where writers are victimized by greedy producers and tantrum-throwing actors. You may have heard it all before, but he's got lots of entertaining anecdotes to back it all up. Along the way, he provides sharp insight into what makes a good movie. For those who are interested in the insides of show business, Bambi vs. Godzilla provides a pretty good scalpel.

Title-Bambi vs. Godzilla: On The Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business

Author-David Mamet
Published 2007 by Pantheon

October 23, 2009

Beyond The Murder in the Rue Morgue-

The seventh in this series featuring computer-security investigator Aimee LeDuc involves her with a baby left on her doorstep, a murdered woman(the baby's mother?), environmental activists, and an oil company. It's a nicely plotted and page-turning read, but the real pleasure is in Cara Black's evocation of chic Ile Saint-Louis as well as the seamier side of the City of Light.

Title-Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis
Author-Cara Black
Published-2007 by Soho Crime

October 24, 2009

Manifest Destiny and All That-

Kit Carson, Manifest Destiny, and the destruction of the Navajo nation is the topic of this lyrical, gripping narrative of the history of the Southwest. "With Blood and Thunder, Hampton Sides has taken an implausibly broad canvas of time, people, and events and created a brilliantly realized portrait on a epic scale," wrote Jeffery Lent in The Washington Post.

Title- Blood and Thunder: An Epic Tale of the American West

Author- Hampton Sides
Published-2006 by Doubleday

October 25, 2009

Tanto Amore Segreto-

Andre` Aciman, author of a memoir, Out of Egypt, and a book of essays, False Papers, here pays homage to other poets of forbidden love and momentous yearning-Proust, Mann, Nabokov,Colette-and his writing is as good as theirs, too. In this coming-of-age love story set in a Mediterranean villa, the fairly simple narrative achieves its power through the beautifully rendered characters, the 17-year old Elio and the 24-year old grad student Olivia, and through the power of the novelist to evoke the terrible joys and pains of youth and love.

Title-Call Me By Your Name
Author-Andre Aciman
Published-2007 by Farrar,Straus, and Giroux

October 26, 2009

Focus On James Dobson-

U.S. News and World Report journalist Dan Gilgoff traces the history of Christian Right politics from the Moral Majority to the present. He concludes that the real power in the movement hasn't been Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, but rather James Dobson, whos Focus on the Family organization has earned the trust of evangelicals more completely than has any other player in the Christian conservative movement. Gilgoff delivers a fascinating piece of in-depth reporting.

Title-The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning The Culture War

Author-Dan Gilgoff
Published-1007 by St. Martin's Press

October 27, 2009

Love In The Austor-Hungarian Empire-

This wonderfully over-the-top love story is based on actual historical events. In the waning days of the Hapsburgs, a princess falls in love with a scapegrace lieutenant who defeats her husband in a duel. The powers that be incarcerate the lieutenant and send the princess to an asylum. Then along comes a mariied lower-class nobody who is also in love with thelieutenant and wants to spring her would-be lover from jail. Melodramatic and funny at the same time, All For Love is not your usual romance.

Title-All For Love
Author-Dan Jacobson
Published-2006 by Metropolitan Books

October 28, 2009

Man of Steel-

Andrew Carnegie's is a classic rags-to-riches saga: the poor immigrant Scotsman becomes one of the richest men of all time. An enigmatic man of astounding contradictions, he was a ruthless employer yet one of the greatest philanthropists in American history. David Nasaw found new material to show us in detail the complications involved in being Andrew Carnegie, Nasaw captures especially well the personal side of the tycoon's life.

Title-Andrew Carnegie
Author-David Nasaw
Published-2006 by Penguin Press

October 29, 2009

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Girl-

The clever intermingling of themes works beautifully in this story of the last survivor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Esther Gottesfeld; her granddaughter, Rebecca; and the granddaughter's partner, George, a composer. A mystery behind Esther's memories of the fire unfolds as the novel progresses. Cynthia Ozick called it "a marvel of ingenuity, bridging history and imagination, astonishing musical inventiveness and genuine social tragedy."

Title-Triangle
Author-Katherine Weber
Published-2006 by Farrar,Straus,&Giroux

October 30, 2009

How To Marry A Golden Girl-

"People always ask me if I'm like Blanche. And I say, 'Well, Blanche was an oversexed, self-involved, man-crazy, vain Southern Belle from Atlanta- and I'm not from Atlanta!" says Golden Girl Rue McClanahan. Her book elaborates on that shy little confession and also tells of her show-business career, her years on the long-running Golden Girls, her battle with breast cancer, and her happy marriage with her sixth husband.

Title-My First Five Husbands...And The Ones Who Got Away

Author-Rue McClanahan
Published-2007 by Broadway Books

October 31, 2009 Happy Halloween!

No Witch's Brew-

This picaresque story of a girl who seeks to disprove scientifically the existence of witchcraft in the 17th century is a witty, good-natured, and exhilarating treat that defies easy deception. James Morrow, "like John Barth(whose Sot-Weed Factor this book recalls), does not wear his erudition lightly. But he wears it audaciously well," wrote Janet Maslin in her New York Times review. It's easily worth the price of the book to see for yourself.

Title-The Last Witch Finder
Author-James Morrow
Published-2007 by Harper Perennial

November 1, 2009

The Language of Invention-

"The history of English is a history of invention." writes Seth Lerer, humanities professor at Stanford University, in Inventing English. Starting with the Old English of Caedmon and ending with modern-day rappers, Lerer's enthusiastic account of our ever expanding and pliable language is fascinating and authoritative.

Title-Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language

Author-Seth Lerer
Published-2007 by Columbia University Press

November 2, 2009

Crime Most Victorian-

A horseman who falls from his mount and dies, a madwoman in Norfolk and the relative who is keeping her, and a great train robbery are a few of the intriguing elements of this richly imagined immersion into the Victorian era. D.J. Taylor does an excellent job that reminds us of his forebears, Victorian masters such as Dickens, Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, and Poe.

Title-Kep: A Victorian Mystery
Author-D.J. Taylor
Published-2007 by HarperCollins

November 3, 2009

Decline and Fall-

Thomas Reppetto was a Chicago commander of detectives and then president of New York City's Citizens Crime Commission for 20 years. This sequel to his acclaimed American Mafia: A History of Its Prise To Power follows the decline of the Mafia today from its peak in the 1920s and reports on the state of the Mafia today and the future prospects of organized crime. You might find this book, which features John Gotti, Sam Giancana, Robert Kennedy, and Rudolph Giuliani, hard to put down.

Title- Bringing Down The Mob: The War Against The American Mafia
Author-Thomas Reppetto
Published-2006 by Henry Holt

November 4, 2009

A Cure for Dysthymics-

" 'Happiness is contained in the nose. Like a diamond, it only crystallizes under pressure. In so much space'-he took another swipe-'happiness cannot form. This is why Jews, as a people, are dysthymics. In those ample noses happiness moves around like a firefly in a jar.' " If you respond to this passage, you should seek out this Kafkaesque story of a Jewish son of a whore and his family in 1976 Buenos Aires, even if you don't know the meaning of dysthymic.

Title-The Ministry of Special Cases
Author-Nathan Englander
Published-2007 by Knopf

November 5, 2009

On The Road-

Have your weary tastebuds been battered into utter dysthymia by the never-ending, never-changing restaurants along our nation's highways? A couple of food heroes, Jane and Michael Stern, have arrived to show the way to the best lobster shacks, the best barbecue, the best hotdogs, and the just plain best local cuisine to be found from Maine to California. An absolute must for the epicurian traveler. This sixth edition has 175 new listings and revisions.

Title-RoadFood
Published-Jane and Michael Stern
Published-1977; rev. ed. 2005 by Broadway

November 6, 2009

Heroine-

The young Somali woman Ayaan Hirsi Ali escaped a forced marriageto a man in Canada by seeking asylum when her plane stopped over in the Netherlands. This incredible life story includes her collaborations with the film director Theo van Gogh on a documentary about the victimization of Muslim women. She writes of van Gogh's murder and the death threats directed against her; her political career in the Dutch Paliament; and how she was threatened with the loss of citizenship. Infidel is also a damning critique of Muslim treatment of women by one who has known it firsthand.

Title-Infidel
Author-Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Published-2007 by Free Press

November 7, 2009

Serious Crime-

This crime novel is about a lot more than solving the crime. The characters are convincingly drawn; Washington, D.C. of today and 20 years ago is a very real and unidealized place; and the crime isn't just about one evil deed but also about its impact on the world in which it takes place. A richly layered and engrossing novel by one of the writers of HBO's acclaimed series The Wire- "Heart-in-your-throat gripping from beginning to end," as Janet Maslin put it in The New York Times.

Title-The Night Gardener
Author-George Pelecanos
Published-2006 by Little, Brown

November 8, 2009

Rad Your Veggies-

The word vegetarian was first coined in the 1840's but the idea was around long before that, and not only in India. Frances Bacon, for instance, wrote about it in the 1600s. Tristram Stuart explores the social history of vegetarianism from every angle, including the literary(Mary Shelley and Jane Austen had vegetarian characters in their novels) and the fascistic(remember Hitler and Himmler?). He also lays out all the arguments that have been advanced against. A thorough and fascinating study.

Title-The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism From 1600 to Modern Times

Author-Tristram Stuart
Published-2007 by W.W. Norton

November 9, 2009

If the notion of clever talking cats that solve whodunits appeals to the goofy side in you, then the bestselling Mrs. Murphy Mystery series may be the diversion you're looking for on a cold autumn evening. Puss N' Cahoots, the 14th book in the series includes two cats and a corgi, a honeymooning couple, jewelry theft, and murder at a Kentucky horse show.

Title- Puss N' Cahoots
Author-Rita Mae Brown
Published-2007 by Bantam

November 10, 2009

A Game of Kings-

Journalist Michael Weinreb is best known for his sports writing. The game in The Kings of New York, however, isn't the usual baseball, football, or basketball that high-school kids go in for. These players are members of Brooklyn's Edward R. Murrow High School chess team. He follows these students for a year, from quick money games in Washington Square Park to the Supernationals in Nashville. The book is full of great characters, and what makes it such an enjoyable read is Weinreb's obvious fondness for these kids.

Title-The Kings of New York: A Year Amon The Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top High School Chess Team

Author- Michael Weinreb
Published-2007 by Gotham Books

November 11, 2009

Derek Walcott won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992. This selection from his work of the last 50 years includes beautilful lyrical poems in first verse as well as experiments with rhyme and meter. There are also excerpts from longer works, including his wonderful Omeros, a Homer-inspired epic set on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Walcott's poetry is tough, bright, smart, and evocative. He has a talent for the arresting phrase and for keen observation of the warm Caribbean as well as colder places to the nortb.

Title-Selected Poems
Author-Derek Walcott;introduction by Edward Baugh
Published-2007 by Farrar, Straus, and Grioux

November 12, 2009

That Social Security Problem-

Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" has been updated and Americanized in this cheeky satire by the author of Thank You for Smoking. This time, a younger blogger wants to give Baby Boomers government incentives to commit suicide by age 75, thereby solving a lot of messy demographic problems heading our way. Her idea catches on and the Washington spin machine starts raddling it around, and a fun time is had by all, or at least by the reader.

Title-Boomsday
Author-Christopher Buckley
Published-2007 by Twelve

November 13, 2009

What, Me Worry?-

Brian Remy is a cop who shoots himself in the head, has a kind of selective memory, and gets involved in some type of fishy government plot. What makes this supsense tale worth going out of your way for is that it begins a week after 9/11 and is biting knowing about all the ways politicians and marketers could take advantage of that tragedy. Walters, an Edgar Award winner, takes us on a surreal and often humorous journey into a grotesque modern hell.

Title-The Zero
Author-Jess Walter
Published-2006 by Regan

November 14, 2009

The Road To Bali-

After a difficult and ugly divorce, Elizabeth Gilbert sets out on an odyssey in search of herself. She started in Italy to look for pleasure, mostly in the form of food, especially gelato. Next she was off to Mumbai, India to connect with her spiritual self. Finally she traveled on to Bali, Indonesia, looking to achieve balance. This might have been a dreary, self-centered travelogue, but Gilbert doesn't write that way. She meets some extraordinary people along the way, and she is funny and smart and her exuberance is utterly infectious.

Title-Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia

Author-Elizabeth Gilbert
Published-2007 by Penguin

November 15, 2009

The Weather In Turkey-

The Turkish poet Ka, who has been in Germany for the last twelve years, goes to the town of Kars(kar is the Turkish word for snow) to report on teenage girls who are committing suicide and to connect again with an old university classmate, a beautiful woman named Ipek. It begins snowing at the beginning of the book and doesn't stop until almost the end. Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk has written a novel that is political, mysterious, truly moving, and is intricate as a snowflake.

Title-Snow
Author-Orhan Pamuk; translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
Published-2005 by Vintage Books

November 16, 2009

Can You Hear Me Now? -

Alex Ross, the classical-music critic for The New Yorker, makes history clear through musical history. The many faces of "modernism," which reflect motives and aesthetics that range from minimalism to revolution to chance to nature, are discussed in this engaging and accessible study. Ross beings with Mahler and Richard Strauss and takes us to the end of the 20th century with Steve Reich and Philip Glass. An excellent tune-up for your ears and brain.

Title-The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentiet Century
Author-Alex Ross
Published-2007 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

November 17, 2009

A Reason To Be Thankful-

When Cynthia Fiske, a writer of historical fiction for girls, has to visit the Mark Twain home in Connecticut, she is persuaded to share Thanksgiving nearby with her sister, nieces, and 82-year-old father. The happy reunion with father doesn't quite have the warmth that sister Franceshad hoped for, which isn't surprising, since sister Cynthia believes that her father is responsible for their mother's death. The family drama, underscored by secrets of Mark Twain, comes alive with crackling dialogue. Publishers Weekly starred review.

Title-The Ghost At The Table
Author-Suzanne Berne
Published-2006 Algonquin Books

November 18, 2009

Femme Fatale-

Who was Mata Hari? She was Margaretha Zelle. She had a bleak childhood in the Netherlands. She was a young wife and mother in Java who had to escape her husband. She was a dancer, a courtesan, a spy. And above all, she was a mystery. As she awaits death by firing squad in 1917, this enigma whispers some of her secrets to us. Publishers Weekly starred review.

Title- Signed, Mata Hari
Author-Yannick Murphy
Published-2007 by Little, Brown

November 19, 2009

It's All In Your Head-

Most of us think we know what's best for us. But, in fact, good research shows that over and over again, we make bad decisions, undercut our successes, fail to see opportunities, and hold ourselves back. In the realm of money, our cluelessness is especially sad. Wouldn't it be nice if someone authoritative, extremely interesting, well informed, and so likable that we don't mind having him point out all our foibles were to show us how to get rid of some of these bad habits? Publishers Weekly starred review.

Title-Your Money and Your Brain: How The New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rick

Author-Jason Zweig
Published-2007 by Simon&Schuster

November 20, 2009

Modern Fairy Tale-

Walt Disney is not the only one who has a soft spot in his heart for the idea that the Romanov princess Anastasia survived the massacre of the Russian royal family at Yekaterinburg in 1918. It's an enduring romantic fantasy that helps mitigate the utter horror of what really happened. The unmasking of Anna Anderson(1896-1984), the most famous of the Anastasia pretenders, is fascinating in its own right, tinged throughout with the romance of what hope can make us believe.

Title-A Roman Fantasy: Life At The Court of Anna Anderson

Author-Frances Welch
Published-2007 by W.W. Norton

November 21, 2009

Vampires and Versace-

Fancy a three-way satire? Vampire meets fashionista meets media mogul. Three worlds collide around young Kate McAlliston when she takes a job as a summer intern at Tasty magazine. Bloodsuckers are all around, and only a few of them are vampires.

Title- Blood is the New Black
Author-Valerie Stivers
Published-2007 by Three Rivers Press

November 22, 2009

Game Time-

From its beginning in 1903, when Elizabeth Magie created the Landlord's Game as an educational tool, through the Atlantic City Quakers' version with local street names, to the modern game, which has sold 200 million copies in 60 countries, the evolution of Monopoly can tell us a lot about the evolution of the country as well. A fascinating history of a game that became a national pastime.

Title-Monopoly: America's Game-And How It Got That Way
Author-Philip E. Orbanes
Published- 2007 by Da Capo Press

November 23, 2009

Is That All There Is?-

Rather like stories in Dubliners, these interlocking tales are atmospheric, intimate, beautifully wrought. All the stories are about women in a well-to-do London neighborhood called Arlington Park, feeling trapped, muted, struggling to get free like butterflies caught in a net. It's a them that may wear a bit thin at times, but the writing richly weaves over the bald spots. Publishers Weekly starred review.

Title- Arlington Park
Author-Rachel Cusk
Published-2007 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

November 24, 2009

For Chocolate Lovers-

Winemaker John Scharffenberger and physician Robert Steinberg first met in 1979; 15 years later they cofounded Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker. Now they have brought out a beautiful hymn to chocolate, accompanied by equally delicious photographs. The recipes, including some nondessert entries, are all within the grasp of most cooks. If you have only one chocolate cookbook, make it this one. Publishers Weekly starred review.


Title- The Essence of Chocolate: Recipes For Baking and Cooking With Fine Chocolate

Author-John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg
Published-2006 by Hyperion

November 25, 2009

Cozy Romance-

Janet Evanovich, ever the bestselling writer, brightens our favorite November holiday with this delectable romantic confection about a teapot maker in colonial Williamsburg who falls for a rabbit-owning pediactrician. It's light and easy, like the best Thanksgiving dessert.

Title-Thanksgiving
Author-Janet Evanovich
Published-2006 by Harper Torch

November 26, 2009 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

It's Thanksgiving("the time of year when things go wrong if they're going to") in the year 2000. Frank Bascombe(familiar from The Sportswriter and Independence Day)is enduring it with an angry son, a second wife who's left him, prostate cancer, and various other plights in this, the "Permanent Period" of his life-"when who you feel yourself to be is pretty much how people will remember you once you've croaked." The nuances and shadings of The Lay of the Land demonstrates Richard Ford's extraordinary talent for depicting the American landscape at the century's turn.

Title-Lay of the Land
Author-Richard Ford
Published-2006 by Knopf

November 27,2009

Today we celebrate James Agee's 100th birthday. Agee died before he could finish this poignant autobiographical novel about the unexpected death of a father and that terrible event's effects on his family. Particularly compelling is the portrait of the six-year-old son and his attempts to comprehend what happened. A Death in the Family won the Pulitzer Prize in 1958, three years after Agee's death.

Title-A Death in the Family
Author-James Agee
Published-1957; 2006 by Penguin

November 28, 2009

This masterpiece from Chilean-born novelist Roberto Bolano(1953-2003) follows two idealists-philospher-poets, Arturo(who stands for the author) and Ulises, from 1975 to the 1990's. The two start off in Mexico City and travel far and wide, poking fun at ideas and people everywhere they go, having love affairs, talking philosophy, engaging in quests, and making enemies. Points of view continually shift in a chorus of many voices. Try this oratorio of a novel.

Title-The Savage Detectives
Author-Roberto Bolano; translated by Natasha Wimmer
Published-2007 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

November 29, 2009

Art and Heart-

At once art book, pictorial history, and documentary, this stunning culmination of 17 years' research captures the genesis, outbreak, and development of Los Angeles graffiti. Page after page is filled with eye-popping tags, murals, and collective efforts, and it's accompanied by a CD. A gorgeous coffee table book and engrossing history.

Title-Graffit L.A.: Street Styles and Art
Author-Steve Grody
Published-2007 by Harry N. Abrams

November 30, 2009

Off The Coast Of Loneliness-

This thought-provoking and heartbreakingly beautiful novel tells the story of Thomas Cave in 1616, who takes on a bet with his fellow whalers of the ship Heartsease that he can survive a winter on the uninhabited Svalbard coast of Greenland. Left with provisions and an extra burden of grief and loss, Cave struggles through, but not unscathed.Publishers Weekly starred review.

Title-The Solitude of Thomas Cave
Author-Georgina Harding
Published-2007 by Bloomsbury, USA

December 1, 2009

Ming and Qing-

In 17th-century China a young girl lives, dies, and becomes a ghost. Caught up in this seemingly improbable story, the reader becomes immersed in the world of the Ming and Qing dynasties-its operas(such as The Peony Pavillion) its customs(arranged marriages,foot bindings), its celebrations, gardens, and beliefs. This is the kind of book that absolutely carries you away.

Title-Peony in Love
Author- Lisa See
Published-2007 by Random House

December 2, 2009

Maps: Lots and Lots of Maps-

Five hundred years of maps are gathered together in this historical atlas, showing not only how the United States grew and evolved, but also how perceptions of it changed. Informative captions accompany the maps. A beautiful and detailed volume that would make a great gift for history buffs.

Title-Historical Atlas of the Unitded States
Author-Derek Hayes
Published-2006 by University of California Press

December 3, 2009

Tinsel Town-

Jane Smiley has set her new novel in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, where a group of friends and family, all connected to Hollywood, have gathered on the night of the Academy Awards in March 2003 to escape news of the war in Iraq. Modeled on the Decameron, it is an extended conversion about sex, politcs, sex, religion, sex, food,sex, Hollywood...you get the idea. Up-to-date and on the money.

Title-Ten Days In The Hills
Author-Jane Smiley
Published-2007 by Knopf

December 4, 2009

World Traveloguer-

Burton Holmes invented the term travelogue back in 1904. In thos days, when transalantic flights were unheard of, Holmes traveled the world in the summer, then presented photos, hand-painted glass slides, and even some moving pictures of his travels to American audiences in the winter. To look at these materials now is to step back into the world of 100 years ago. A good gift for armchair time-travelers.

Title-Burton Holmes Travelogues: The Greatest Traveler of His Time, 1892-1952

Author-edited by Genoa Caldwell
Published-2006 by Taschen

December 5, 2009

The Ever-Popular Love and Death-

Lisey's Story is very much about Lisey's deceased, famous-author husband, Scott. And, as usual, in this supernatural thriller Stephen King does not disappoint when it comes to the wierd, the frightening,and the suspenseful. However, it is ultimately the love between Lisey and Scott that moves and impresses us the most.

Title-Lisey's Story
Author- Stephen King
Published-2007 by Pocket Books

December 6, 2009

Take Me To The Movies-

This wonderful guide for family movie-watching will help you pick movies that the whole family will love, but it's also fun to read for itself. Written by Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr, it reminds us of the really good movies and why we liked them, and it sparkles with its own life-loving style. Peter Bogdanovich says it is "carried out with integrity, intelligence, sensitivity, and totally without condescension. Ty Burr's book cand lead to a lot of pleasure-of the life-long kind."

Title-The Best Old Movies For Families: A Guide To Watching Together
Author-Ty Burr
Published-2007 by Anchor