A Reader's Place We read to know we are not alone.
~ C. S. Lewis~
A Reader's Place
We read to know we are not alone.
~ C. S. Lewis~
~~ Reading Ideas
from the
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~~Fiction~~ Bennett, Alan. The Uncommon Reader. When her corgis stray into a mobile library parked near Buckingham Palace, the Queen feels duty-bound to borrow a book. Discovering the joy of reading she finds that her view of the world changes dramatically. Bennett, Vanora. Figures in Silk. In 1471 England, two daughters of a silk merchant follow different paths. Jane Shore becomes connected with the king, and her sister Isabel, an innovator in the cloth industry. Many historical novels depict Wars of the Roses–era royal court life, but few describe late medieval trade and artisanship in such fascinating detail. Boyle, T. C. Tortilla Curtain. The lives of two different couples--wealthy Los Angeles liberals leading an ordered sushi-and-recycling existence in a newly gated hilltop community and a pair of Mexican illegals living in a makeshift camp deep in a ravine, fighting off starvation--suddenly collide… Cleave, Chris. Little Bee. Worlds collide in this remarkable performance when Little Bee, a Nigerian girl orphaned by violence, meets Sarah, a dissatisfied British professional away on holiday.. As the point of view shifts between Little Bee and Sarah, their respective pasts come to life, offering surprises and twists. Connelly, Michael. Scarecrow. Los Angeles Times crime reporter Jack McEvoy investigates the murder confession of a teen drug dealer and realizes that the youth may be innocent. Finney, Jack. From Time to Time. Prien is attempting to prevent World War I, but the man carrying papers to America that might avert the catastrophe is traveling aboard the Titanic.(time travel) Finney, Jack. Time and Again. Did illustrator Si Morley really step out of his twentieth-century apartment one night -- right into the winter of 1882? Follett, Ken. Pillars of the Earth. Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent church with the violence and treachery that often characterized the Middle Ages. Gabaldon, Diana. Outlander(series). In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war when suddenly she becomes —an "outlander"--in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year 1743. George, Margaret. Memoirs of Cleopatra. Told in the first person - from the young queen's earliest memories of her father's tenuous rule to her own reign over one of the most glittering kingdoms in the world - this is a mesmerizing saga of ambition and power. Gruen, Sara.Water for Elephants. Ninety-something-year-old Jacob Jankowski remembers his time in the circus as a young man during the Great Depression, and his friendship with Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, and Rosie, the elephant, who gave them hope. Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. A reunion of three childhood friends draws them into a dramatic confrontation with the truth about their years in an isolated private school and about their lives in the present. James, P.D. The Private Patient. When investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn turns up dead after seeing a renowned plastic surgeon for a routine surgical procedure, Commander Adam Dalgliesh is called in to investigate. Kellerman, Jonathan. Obsession. Haunted by her aunt's deathbed confession of murder, Tanya enlists the assistance of Dr. Alex Delaware and LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis to unravel the truth about a secret from the past that could have deadly repercussions in the present. Lamb, Wally. I Know This Much is True. Narrator Dominick Birdsey, once a high-school history teacher, now, at 40, a housepainter in upstate Connecticut, relates the process that led to his twin Thomas's schizophrenic paranoia and the resulting chaos in both their lives. Martel, Yann. The Life of Pi. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. Mills, Mark. Amagansett. When a first-generation Basque fisherman pulls in the body of a beautiful young woman, his close-knit post-World War II Long Island community will be irrevocably changed. Mitchard, Jacqueline. The Deep End of the Ocean. How the disappearance of a child affects all members of a family and their relationships with each other. Nemirovsky, Irene. Suite Francaise. A story of life in France under the Nazi occupation includes two parts--"Storm in June," set amid the chaotic 1940 exodus from Paris, and "Dolce," set in a German-occupied village, rife with resentment, resistance, and collaboration. Patterson, James. Beach House. Enjoying a near-scandalous retirement, a free-spirited widow rents out summer rooms in her beautiful Nantucket home and finds her circle surprisingly enriched by new friends, returned family members, and an unexpected visitor who turns everyone's lives upside-down. Picoult, Jodi. My Sister’s Keeper. Imagine that you were conceived to be the donor of bone marrow and platelets for your older sister, who has a rare form of cancer. Imagine what it would be like to grow up in a family where everyone is constantly aware of one child's deadly illness, so that all decisions must be filtered through what will work for her treatment or her most recent medical emergency. Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. Limited and persecuted by racial divides in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, three women, including an African-American maid, her sassy and chronically unemployed friend, and a recently graduated white woman team up for a clandestine project against a backdrop of the budding civil rights era. Umrigar, Thrity. The Space Between Us. The delicate balance of class and gender in contemporary India as witnessed through the lives of two compelling women--Sera Dubash, an upper middle-class parsi housewife, and Bhima, an illiterate domestic hardened by a life of loss and despair. Waugh, Evelyn. A Handful of Dust. A satire of a certain stratum of English life where all the characters have money, but lack practically every other credential. What will happen when a social parasite and professional luncheon-goer appears on the scene and changes the balance of a couple’s idyllic life in a Gothic Victorian manor house?
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~~Nonfiction~~
Algeo, Matthew. Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure. In the summer of 1953, Harry Truman did something no former president had ever done before — and none has done since. He took a road trip. Unaccompanied by Secret Service agents, bodyguards, or attendants of any kind, Truman and his wife Bess drove 2,500 miles from their home in Missouri to the East Coast and back again. A recounting of this amazing journey and the former president’s amusing attempts to keep a low profile. Blunt, Judy. Breaking Clean. Born into a third generation of Montana homesteaders, Judy Blunt learned early how to "rope and ride and jockey a John Deere," but also to "bake bread and can vegetables and reserve my opinion when the men were talking." But though she strengthened her survival skills in what was - and is - essentially a man's world ,Blunt's story is ultimately that of a woman who must redefine herself in order to stay in the place she loves. Conway, Jill Ker. The Road from Coorain(and 2 sequels). A woman of intellect and ambition describes growing up on an Australian ranch,--the hard-scrabble life, coping with her father's death and her mother's depression, her intellectual awakening at the university, and her path to becoming the first woman president of Smith College. Davidson, Robyn. Desert Places. In this brave and moving journey, Robyn Davidson travels the last pathways of the Rabari tribe of northwest India by camel, sharing their harsh life, sleeping among sheep, drinking bad water, surviving on goats’ milk and roti. In so doing, she explores, with ruthless honesty, her own desert places. Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love. Traces the author's decision to quit her job and travel the world for a year after suffering a midlife crisis and divorce, a journey that took her to Italy, Indonesia and Bali in her quest to explore her own nature and learn the art of spiritual balance. Hirsi Ali, Ayaan. Infidel. Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West. Hirsi Ali, Ayaan. Nomad. Hirsi Ali recounts the many turns her life took after she broke with her family, and how she struggled to throw off misconceptions that initially hobbled her ability to assimilate into Western society. She writes movingly of her reconciliation, on his deathbed, with her devout father, who had disowned her when she renounced Islam after 9/11, as well as with her mother and cousins in Somalia and in Europe. McBride, James. The Color of Water: a black man’s tribute to his white mother. A young African-American man describes growing up in an all-black Brooklyn housing project, one of twelve children of a white mother and black father, and discusses his mother's contributions to his life and coming to terms with his confusion over his own identity. Millard, Candice.The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s darkest journey. This real-life adventure chronicles the 1914 expedition of Theodore Roosevelt into the unexplored heart of the Amazon basin to explore and map the little-known region surrounding a tributary called the River of Doubt. It is a vivid detailing of the dangerous conditions they faced--white-water rapids, starvation, illness, jungle menaces, and Indian attacks—in order to accomplish their goal. Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran. The author describes growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the group of young women who came together at her home in secret every Thursday to read and discuss great books of Western literature. A study of political and religious repression and exposure to new concepts which will ultimately affect the lives of these women. Schlissel, Lillian. Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey. Diaries, letters, and reminiscences of women who participated in this migration -- who kept campfires burning with buffalo chips and dried weeds, gave birth to and cared for children along primitive and dangerous roads, drove teams of oxen, picked berries, milked cows, and cooked meals in the middle of a wilderness that was a far cry from the homes they had left back east. Steinbeck, John. Travels with Charley. In 1960, at age 58, John Steinbeck set out with his French poodle, Charley, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years. Together they crossed America from the northernmost tip of Maine to California's Monterey peninsula, stopping to smell the grass, to see the lights, and to hear the speech of the real America.
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