Book Lovers

The Boy in the Suitcase
Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis

Nina Borg receives a phone call from her estranged friend Karin to meet her and then is left with a key to a train station locker.  She picks up a suitcase from the locker and is stunned to find a young boy in it.  At the same time in Lithuania, Sigrit awakens to find herself in the hospital and that her son, Mikas, is missing.  Sigrit is on a mission to find her son while Nina is trying to keep the young boy safe.  But two men are also on their paths.

Feb 13, 2012
Susan
Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry
David Orr

David Orr is not trying to make everyone a poetry lover. He is trying to help people who are interested in poetry or on the fringe to figure out what it is they like about this art form. Though Orr is the poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review, he graduated from college before he read his first book of poems, so his style is more Everyman than Academic. B&P is broken down into 7 chapters (or concepts) that he believes most modern poetry (and most discussions of modern poetry) survives around: "The Personal, The Political, Form, Ambition, The Fishbowl (which focuses on the sociology of poetry), and Why Bother?" The chapters include plenty of discussion, with a few, necessary samples from poems as well as gossip about the principle movers and skakers of the art (a discussion of the importance of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop sheds light on how the image of a poet can affect their work’s reception). This is a recommended read if you’re interested in the state of poetry, where it has come from and where it will go in the next 50 years.

Feb 11, 2012
Anonymous
Moonlight Mile
Dennis Lehane

It has been more than a decade since Dennis Lehane’s last mystery featuring detectives Angela Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie. They return in this sequel to Gone, Baby Gone, in which a young girl they’d found once disappears from home for a second time, though this time no one seems to be looking for her.  Kenzie and Gennarro (now Kenzie and Kenzie) must confront their past mistakes and revisit an old case that-though technically resolved-still haunts them.

Feb 1, 2012
Anonymous
Maisie Dobbs
Maisie Dobbs: A Novel
Jacqueline Winspear

After World War I, Maisie Dobbs becomes assistant to Maurice Blanche, a discrete investigator and Maisie’s former tutor. She eventually takes over his business, and while working on a case becomes aware of The Retreat, a place where injured WWI veterans can go to live without having to deal with the outside world. Maisie thinks The Retreat is suspicious and decides to investigate further. This, the first Maisie Dobbs story, is an intriguing tale that reveals much about life during and after World War I.

Jan 22, 2012
Tara
Agent 6
Tom Rob Smith

Smith continues his story of former KGB agent Leo Demidov, who we first met in the stellar Child 44 (one of my personal favorite books).  First we learn the backstory of how Leo met his wife Raisa intertwined with the story of Communist American singer Jesse Austin in 1950.  We move ahead to 1965 when a family tragedy occurs on a visit to the United States.  Leo is determined to find out the real truth of what happened during that visit--a journey that will take another 15 years and danger while he's working in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.

Jan 20, 2012
Susan
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
Revelation Space
Alastair Reynolds

This Space Opera takes place in a Universe where human civilization has colonized neighboring systems by the 26th century, but faster than light space travel is still not a possibility.  If somoene wants to travel from system to system, they must be put into a hybernation state because an interstellar journey takes years.  Ana Khouri gets blackmailed into joining the crew of the Nostalgia for Infiniti who are traveling to Resurgam, which is on the edge of human inhabited space to find a man named Sylveste who they believe will be able to cure their captain of the melding plague.  Sylveste meanwhile has been trying to solve the mystery of the Amaratin, a 900,000 year old alien civilization that once inhabited Resurgam but appeared to be wiped out by a mysterious cataclysm.  In fact the remnants of every civilization humanity has encountered so far has been wiped out in a similar manner, begging the question of what has happened to them all.

Jan 11, 2012
Kristy
Out of Oz
Gregory Maguire

With Out of Oz, the fourth and final installment of the Wicked Years series, Gregory Maguire ends the epic tale that he began in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Dorothy Gale has returned to Oz, this time in an elevator car displaced during an earthquake, to find it a very different land from her last visit. This time around, Munchkinlanders with a revisionist view of history put her on trial for the assassination of the Wicked Witch. Meanwhile, the Emperor is waging war against the Free State of Munchkinland, and the key to peace lies in an age-old book of magic, a motley crew of exiled Ozzians, including a quiet young girl named Rain and her traveling companion, Tip. Contrary to common lore, Oz will not be saved in its darkest hour, but the morning after.

Jan 10, 2012
Anonymous
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows
Alan Bradley

For those of us who like a good holiday read with a bit of mystery, Alan Bradley has released the newest of his Flavia de Luce stories just in time for the holidays. Christmas has coated Buckshaw in a wintry sheen and a film crew is in town, using the country estate as the location for an upcoming film. When one of the actors is found strangled after a community performance, Flavia is on the case! Her insatiable curiosity and precocious wit will keep readers entertained throughout this quick read.

Dec 16, 2011
Anonymous
Death in the City of Light
David King

In the aftermath of the second World War and the retreat of Nazi forces from Paris, police respond to reports of a curious smoke and foul odor coming from a townhouse on the rue Le Sueur and discover a most gruesome scene: a furnace room filled with body parts, a deep pit filled with quicklime and even more remains, and a sound-proof “kill room”-the specific purpose of which still remains a mystery. After an intensive manhunt the owner of the property is captured, a charismatic city doctor who claims to have worked in service of the French Resistance, and whose trial will become one of the most sensational press events of postwar France. King’s account will be a treat for fans of historical true crime such as Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City.

Dec 8, 2011
Anonymous
Y: The Last Man
Y: The Last Man
Brian K. Vaughan

This title is the first in a fascinating graphic novel series.  Yorick Brown has discovered that he is the last man on earth.  All of the mammal males on the planet died instantly in an unexplained plague.  The women of earth must step up to reestablish and reorganize society (image most of the goverment gone, few mechanics, pilots and machine operators).  Everyone has differnet intentions for Yorick.  Some want to study him and find a way to repopulate the human race while others blame men for everything that happened and want to kill him to remove the last Y chromosone in the human species.  It's a very interesting premise and this graphic novel series will definitely keep your attention.

Dec 3, 2011
Kristy

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