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Reviews

Reviews

by Mike Greenberg - Fiction

Jonathan Sweetwater has been blessed with money, a fulfilling career and a beautiful family. But there’s one thing he never had: a relationship with his late father. On his quest for understanding --- about himself, about manhood, about marriage --- Jonathan decides to track down his father’s five ex-wives. His journey will take him from cosmopolitan cities to the mile-high mountains to a tropical island --- and ultimately back to confront the one thing Jonathan has that his father never did: home.

by Graeme Simsion - Fiction, Humor, Romance

The Wife Project is complete, and Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are happily married and living in New York. But they’re about to face a new challenge because Rosie is pregnant. Fortunately, Don’s best friend, Gene, is on hand to offer advice: he’s left Claudia and moved in with Don and Rosie. As Don tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, and getting Gene and Claudia to reconcile, he almost misses the biggest problem of all: he might lose Rosie when she needs him the most.

by Ha Jin - Fiction

When Lilian Shang, born and raised in America, discovers her father’s diary after the death of her parents, she is shocked by the secrets it contains. She knew that her father, Gary, convicted decades ago of being a mole in the CIA, was the most important Chinese spy ever caught. But his diary, an astonishing chronicle of his journey as a Communist intelligence agent, reveals the pain and longing that his double life entailed --- and point to a hidden second family that he’d left behind in China.

by Charlie Lovett - Fiction, Literary Mystery, Mystery

Book lover and Jane Austen enthusiast Sophie Collingwood has recently taken a job at an antiquarian bookshop in London when she is drawn into a mystery that will cast doubt on the true authorship of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE --- and ultimately threaten Sophie’s life. This dual narrative alternates between Sophie’s quest to uncover the truth and a young Jane Austen’s touching friendship with the aging cleric Richard Mansfield.

by Anne Lamott - Essays, Nonfiction

Anne Lamott writes about faith, family and community in essays that are both wise and irreverent. In SMALL VICTORIES, Lamott offers a new message of hope that celebrates the triumph of light over the darkness in our lives. Our victories over hardship and pain may seem small, but they change us. She writes of forgiveness, restoration and transformation, how we can turn toward love even in the most hopeless situations, how we find the joy in getting lost and our amazement in finally being found.

by Anjelica Huston - Entertainment, Memoir, Movies, Nonfiction

In A STORY LATELY TOLD, Anjelica Huston described her enchanted childhood in Ireland and her glamorous but troubled late teens in London. That memoir of her early years ended when she stepped into Hollywood. In WATCH ME, Huston tells the story of falling in love with Jack Nicholson and her adventurous, turbulent, high-profile, spirited 17-year relationship with him and his intoxicating circle of friends.

by Kaya McLaren - Fiction

THE FIRELIGHT GIRLS is a story of three generations of women and men whose lives are pieced back together when they return to the place that made them who they are: a summer camp on Lake Wenatchee in Washington State. When they learn that the camp’s future is in jeopardy, Ethel and Ruby send out the alarm, reuniting campers and staff to save the place that was so instrumental in all of their lives. 

by Colm Tóibín - Fiction

Widowed at 40, with four children and not enough money, Nora Webster has lost the love of her life, Maurice. Wounded, strong-willed, clinging to secrecy in a tiny community where everyone knows your business, Nora is drowning in her own sorrow and blind to the suffering of her young sons. Yet she has moments of stunning empathy and kindness, and when she begins to sing again, she finds solace, engagement, a haven --- herself.

by Walter Isaacson - History, Nonfiction, Technology

What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail? In THE INNOVATORS, Walter Isaacson begins with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Doug Engelbart, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Larry Page.

by Michael Pitre - Fiction

Dispatched to fill potholes on the highways of Iraq, the road repair platoon works to assure safe passage for citizens and military personnel. Lieutenant Donavan leads the platoon, painfully aware of his shortcomings and isolated by his rank. Doc Pleasant, the medic, joined for opportunity, but finds his pride undone as he watches friends die. And Kateb is an Iraqi interpreter whose love of American culture is matched only by his disdain for what Americans are doing to his country.