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What Was the Last Book You Read #10

Time for a new thread.

I just finished Firebirds Rising edited by Sharyn November. As with all anthologies, there were some stories I didn't like, but there were also some I loved. My favorites were by Sharon Shinn, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Charles de Lint, Diana Wynne Jones, Patricia A. McKillip, Ellen Klages, Tanith Lee, and Francesca Lia Block. I'll have to get the first Firebirds anthology from the library sometime.

The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards
From Publishers Weekly
Edwards's assured but schematic debut novel (after her collection, The Secrets of a Fire King) hinges on the birth of fraternal twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down syndrome, resulting in the father's disavowal of his newborn daughter. A snowstorm immobilizes Lexington, Ky., in 1964, and when young Norah Henry goes into labor, her husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Henry, must deliver their babies himself, aided only by a nurse. Seeing his daughter's handicap, he instructs the nurse, Caroline Gill, to take her to a home and later tells Norah, who was drugged during labor, that their son Paul's twin died at birth. Instead of institutionalizing Phoebe, Caroline absconds with her to Pittsburgh. David's deception becomes the defining moment of the main characters' lives, and Phoebe's absence corrodes her birth family's core over the course of the next 25 years. David's undetected lie warps his marriage; he grapples with guilt; Norah mourns her lost child; and Paul not only deals with his parents' icy relationship but with his own yearnings for his sister as well. Though the impact of Phoebe's loss makes sense, Edwards's redundant handling of the trope robs it of credibility. This neatly structured story is a little too moist with compassion.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama. A great read, he's led an amazing life.

Don't Die Dragonfly- Linda Joy Singleton

"Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging"

I finished The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys by Chris Fuhrman in about four hours because it was just so good. It's a page turner and Chris Fuhrman was a great writer. He passed away in 1991 at the age of 31 but I would have loved to see what he would have come out with later. If you like or are even interested in The Catcher in the Rye then read this book, hey, read it even if you aren't.

I just finished reading the book of Acts in the bible.

Catch 22 (at long last!) lol... took me ages to read though :embarrassment: :blush:

G x

Dragon Slayers' Academy 5: Knight for a Day, Kate McMullan

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom--great read, interesting view on life, death and heaven.

A couple weeks ago I finished reading Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Quote:

Publisher's Comments:
Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.

Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.

As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of — and, ultimately, a participant in — their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she’s a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered.

Ultimately, Lee’s experiences — complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant, coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

I found the book to be very insightful. Nothing was sugar-coated. It definitely was not your typical coming-of-age book. At times I wanted to yell at Lee and tell her to friggin' get her crap together. Then there were times when I understood her. Definitely a good read.

I've just read: The Tattooed Flower by Suzy Zail in one full day! Goooo me!! It was such a moving book! I'm so proud of myself cos it normally takes at least a week to finish a book, but this one I just couldn't put down!

Here's a synopsis:

In 1944, thirteen-year-old Emil Braun cheated death for the first time, when he escaped the clutches of Dr Mengele in a selection queue at Birkenau. In the next three years, and at other concentration camps, he did so time and again, often through the kindness of strangers.

Many years later, after making a new life for himself in Australia, Emil and his daughter Suzy face the greatest trial of all. Suzy and her father love each other in the way most fathers and daughters do: they are too lazy to ask questions, too busy to listen, and not curious enough about the people they call family. Now, though, Suzy's father is dying …

The Tattooed Flower is the tender and illuminating story of how a father and daughter choose to spend their last years together: Suzy discovering her father's past as a child of the Holocaust; and her father teaching his family, by example, how to live well, love fully, and die without fear or regret.

The Tattooed Flower finds hope, love, and beauty in the saddest of places. This is a remarkable, compelling book about life's lessons, and how one man can leave a mark and make a difference.

And the cover:

http://www.scribepub.com.au/Images/C...ed-Flower2.jpg

The Book Theif- Marcus Zusak

Skeen's Return by Jo Clayton. I liked it a lot better than the first book in the trilogy, so I'm glad I stuck with this series. I'm anxious now to read the third book.