In a hotel in London, three stories play out over the years. The first is the story of a successful but jealous woman who covets her sister’s life, so much so that she sleeps with her fiance and must live with the repercussions of that act. The second is the story of the fiance’s mother [...]
Archive for the ‘Death and Dying’ Category
The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman
Posted in Book Reviews, Coming of Age, Death and Dying, families, tagged angels, dysfunction, England, faith, herons, love, rockstars, tragedy, travel on May 10, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Alison Clement’s Twenty Questions
Posted in Book Reviews, Death and Dying, families, tagged children, crime, Oregon, schools, small town, violence on April 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
June thinks of herself as lucky. She’s married to an attractive man, a chef at one of the more upscale restaurants in her small town. Every day she goes to work at the cafeteria at the elementary school, where she enjoys and understands the kids. She comes home to eat a meal her loving husband [...]
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
Posted in Book Reviews, Coming of Age, Death and Dying, families, tagged award winners, Coming of Age, isolation, Norway, WWII on April 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
To me, childhood is this vast shadowy land that only begins to make sense the further you move from it. And by then, if you have a memory like mine, you probably only remember bits and and pieces. It’s a problem if you believe that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Maybe that explains [...]
In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
Posted in Book Reviews, Death and Dying, tagged Ontario farming labor 1920s 1930s on April 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
What comes around goes around, and while I spend a lot of time at work trying to find good reads for people, on occasion they return the favor and suggest one that I might like. This book came highly recommended by one of my (or should I use the collective “our”) patrons; she raved about [...]
The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
Posted in Book Reviews, Coming of Age, Death and Dying, dysfunction, families, farms/ranches, tagged childhood, horses, peer pressure, teachers, wealth, working class on March 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Based on the books I’ve read and liked, Librarything suggested that I might like The God of Animals. I’ve just finished and I have to say, I really loathed this book.
It is a well-written, compelling story of a girl growing up on a barely-making-it horse farm in a desert valley. She has no friends and [...]
The Hearts of Horses
Posted in Book Reviews, Coming of Age, Death and Dying, westerns, tagged 1900s, coming_of_age, farm_life, horses, Oregon, westerns on February 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
When was the last time you read a book that kept you up late, though you knew you should get to sleep? The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss was such a book for me. Martha Lessen is a sturdy girl with a love for horses. In 1917, when many of the men in Eastern [...]
I’ve watched and read…
Posted in Book Reviews, Death and Dying, Fantasy on July 8, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Recently I saw the movie Pan’s Labyrinth. I’ve always been drawn to movies that look at the world from a child’s point of view. Combine this with a fantastical world that exists underneath a grim reality – in this case the Spanish Civil War – and you have Pan’s Labyrinth. Ofelia and her pregnant mother [...]
Back to it
Posted in Book Reviews, Death and Dying, Native Americans on July 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve spooned up the bloggy goodness of so many other authors and now I stand ashamed. “J’accuse!” I say to myself. Keeping up with this blogging thing isn’t so easy. And now to make ammends….I’ve been reading
Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison
The only way I would know this author is that his book Legends of [...]
I’m reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Death and Dying, England, supernatural on March 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Beyond Black, by Hilary Mantel
This is the story of Alison, a Sensitive, who survived an abusive childhood to become a somewhat successful Spiritualist/performer. The problem is that she can never truly forget her miserable childhood when those who abused her continue to haunt her – literally. She takes on a repressed, morally superior assistant named [...]
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