|
October 08
|
|
Mary
gave
 
to:
The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (Hardcover)
by Jennet Conant
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (Paperback)
by Haruki Murakami
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
August 27
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective (Hardcover)
by Kate Summerscale
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
Nixonland: America's Second Civil War and the Divisive Legacy of Richard Nixon, 1965-1972. (Hardcover)
by Rick Perlstein
bookshelves:
currently-reading
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
|
|
July 09
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
The dinner party (from the journal of a lady of today)
by Gretchen Damrosch Finletter
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
Mary said:
"The book was written in the 1950s, and clearly Helen Fielding was reading and taking notes. Our Lady of Today and Bridget Jones are not entirely dissimilar, though Our Lady is married, wealthy, and has three beautiful daughters.
This is all, she ...more
The book was written in the 1950s, and clearly Helen Fielding was reading and taking notes. Our Lady of Today and Bridget Jones are not entirely dissimilar, though Our Lady is married, wealthy, and has three beautiful daughters.
This is all, she realizes, exceptionally boring and unfulfilling, especially when your kids don't really need you and your husband thinks you're sort of an endearing fool and you spend all your days planning dinner parties, having your hair set, and writing witty observations in your journal.
A very funny book, in a depressing way....less
"
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS (Hardcover)
by Elizabeth Pisani (Goodreads author!)
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
read in July, 2008
|
|
June 25
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
Severance Package (Paperback)
by Duane Swierczynski
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
Mary said:
"Lurid, violent, cinematic, and big as day, it's kind of like a summer blockbuster in book form.
The book's premise is simple, yet inventive. One Saturday morning, David Murphy summons seven critical employees to the 36th floor of a blandly modern Ph...more
Lurid, violent, cinematic, and big as day, it's kind of like a summer blockbuster in book form.
The book's premise is simple, yet inventive. One Saturday morning, David Murphy summons seven critical employees to the 36th floor of a blandly modern Philadelphia office park. There, he reveals to them that their office is a front company for a government intelligence agency that is being deactivated, and as a precautionary measure, he has to kill all of them before offing himself.
Now, David has gone to the trouble of whipping up poisoned mimosas that will dispatch each of them quickly and painlessly, but to stifle any troublemakers, he's also set the elevator to bypass their floor and rigged the fire stair doors with sarin gas bombs.
And then, Swierczynski just goes nuts with that....less
"
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
Thirteen Reasons Why (Hardcover)
by Jay Asher
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
Mary said:
"Two weeks after Hannah Baker commits suicide, her classmate and one-time crush Clay Jensen receives a box of cassette tapes in the mail, tapes Hannah sent out the day she died. Clay puts in the first tape, and hears Hannah's voice:
"I hope yo...more
Two weeks after Hannah Baker commits suicide, her classmate and one-time crush Clay Jensen receives a box of cassette tapes in the mail, tapes Hannah sent out the day she died. Clay puts in the first tape, and hears Hannah's voice:
"I hope you're ready because I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why."
Hannah goes on to give two instructions: everyone has to listen, and everyone has to pass the tapes on to the next person on the list. "Hopefully," she adds, "neither one will be easy for you."
And it isn't....less
"
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
When You Are Engulfed in Flames (Hardcover)
by David Sedaris
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
Mary said:
"Even as people rush out by the thousands to purchase the new book by NPR darling and New Yorker enfant terrible, the needling has already begun: he's mined all of his material, Hugh isn't as funny as Lou, Lisa, and the Rooster, and what if he exagger...more
Even as people rush out by the thousands to purchase the new book by NPR darling and New Yorker enfant terrible, the needling has already begun: he's mined all of his material, Hugh isn't as funny as Lou, Lisa, and the Rooster, and what if he exaggerated his stories?
On the first point, yes, he has possibly run low on stories about his family, but this new collection certainly isn't short on new stories to tell about, you know, his life as a grown-up.
On the second, it's true that I experienced no moments where I truly embarrassed myself while reading the book in a public place.*
However, I smiled broadly on many occasions, in an airport, no less, and no one smiles broadly in an airport unless they are reuniting with a long lost friend or unless they are reading a David Sedaris book. And besides, I don't require Sedaris to be a nonstop hoot; in fact, I rather like his explorations of longterm monogamy and find the periodic one-liners and nice turns of phrase to be as satisfying as the story of Dinah the Christmas Whore.
As for the third, I truly couldn't give a shit....less
"
|
|
Mary
gave
to:
Wicked City (Hardcover)
by Ace Atkins
|
my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
|
| |
Mary said:
"A sleazy hive of bootlegging, illegal gambling halls, houses of prostitution, political corruption, and dirty cops who turned a blind eye, Look magazine called Phenix City, Alabama the "wickedest city in America." The town's innocent citize...more
A sleazy hive of bootlegging, illegal gambling halls, houses of prostitution, political corruption, and dirty cops who turned a blind eye, Look magazine called Phenix City, Alabama the "wickedest city in America." The town's innocent citizens were too afraid to challenge the status quo until 1954, when the Democratic candidate for attorney general, a reformer named Albert Patterson was gunned down in an alley by persons unknown.
Patterson's death marked the beginning of the end for that status quo. It was too egregious, too much of a finger in the eye to ignore, and it was undeniable proof that the good could not live alongside the wicked in Phenix City and do nothing.
Though Atkins's account is fictionalized, the major events are true and many of the principal characters are real. In a short note that prefaces the novel, Atkins writes, "No author could ever exaggerate the sin, sleaze, and moral decay of Phenix City, Alabama, in the fifties or the courage of the people who stood up to fight it."...less
"
|
