Here's my list:

1. Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels - all four books -- all four are worth reading
2. The Paris Architect - read for book club and loved it
3. Did You Ever Have A Family by Bill Clegg -- difficult subject but very well written
4. Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner -- do not recommend
5. The Good Girl by Mary Kubica -- recommend
6. Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave - predictable but a light read
7. The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan - some of the storylines were more interesting than others

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wizard of Earthsea trilogy

I seriously love those books.

+1

I read Florence and Giles by John Harding this summer, and I loved it. It is almost a retelling of The Turn of the Screw (Henry James story about a Victorian governess who arrives at her new post at a wealthy, absent man's country estate to care for/educate his weird wards, children Flora and Miles. There might be a haunting at the estate, OR there might be some degree of madness in the characters). John Harding tells the story from the point of view of the girl child, who he has renamed Florence. Harding's Florence has a distinctive voice, and if you love novels set in creepy, Victorian country house settings, with governesses and absent parents, you would love this. I did. I'm frustrated that I've read every book of this genre I know of, so I'm thrilled to find a new one.

But then, this past week I discovered Harding's newest novel, The Girl Who Couldn't Read, which continues the creepy Victorian orphan's story: now she's a ward in a Victorian mental asylum. This novel is narrated by a new doctor in the asylum, whose dilemma (not a spoiler: he lets us know this from the beginning) is that he isn't really a doctor, but is an escaped criminal who murdered the actual doctor on a stagecoach, and then assumed that doctor's identity and clothes so that he could take the doctor's place in the new job the murdered doctor had been traveling to take up: physician in a mental asylum. The new "doctor" takes a liking to mental patient Florence, who claims she can't read, and talks the leading physician into allowing him to treat Florence alone, putting her in improved quarters away from the other mental patients. Confusion and Victorian creepiness ensues. The ending is a nice twist. You don't need to have read Florence and Giles to love this one, but if you love creepy Victorian novels, you'll want to read that one too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Brief History of Seven Killings

How did you enjoy it? Considering reading it next, but it looks quite long.

+1 Please let us know what you thought. It just won the Man Booker.

Anonymous wrote:A Brief History of Seven Killings

How did you enjoy it? Considering reading it next, but it looks quite long.

Summer may be over, but I wanted to recommend "The Blue" by Lucy Clarke.

The Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins
The Silent Girls by Eric Rickstad
The Gone-Away World by Nick Haraway
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
Hunger Games Trilogy by Susan Collins
Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier

Girl on the Train
Station Eleven
Boys in the Boat
Thunderstruck

A Brief History of Seven Killings

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've always got multiples going, either in hard print or on electronic media:

Ted Cruz - "A Time For Truth"

Glenn Beck - "It is about Islam"

Gigi Anders - "Little Pink Raincoat"

Jaques Steinberg - "The Gatekeepers"

Tucker Max - " Sloppy Seconds"


I finished:

Jen Lancaster - "I Regret Nothing"

Really? A book about Islam by Glenn Beck?

He also has a book by pick up artist Tucker Max so.... really what more needs to be said?

Anonymous wrote:
My favorite for the summer was Holly Madison's memoir, "Down The Rabbit Hole." Not only was the cover in my favorite color pink, but the book was super juicy. She didn't hold back one detail and spills the beans on Hef and Kendra. I couldn't honestly put it down and went through it in a day.

+1. I wasn't expecting to like it so much, but I also read it in 2 days.