Shakespeare's Counselor (2001)

This is another in the Lily Bard series by Charlaine Harris. I didn't enjoy it much but I have to admit that I may not have given it the best of circumstances. I read it on my plane ride home. I was jammed in the middle of two seats, annoyed by the flight attendant, disappointed that they were showing a Miley Cyrus movie, and I was achy and cranky, coming down with a little bug.

Lily finds a flyer inviting anyone to join a group of rape victims to try and live with the mental anguish of surviving an attack. She decides to give it a try and meets other women from the town of Shakespeare who are survivors and the counselor, herself a victim of a stalker.

When it becomes apparent that the stalker has followed the counselor, Lily helps discover who he is and why he is torturing her.

I love strong female roles and Lily is one of the strongest I've come across in a while. I may not be fair in my assessment of this book which failed to move me as much as it might have, but it may just have been my mood. I'll will try more of the other books in the series.

My rating for this book: ++ 1/2

My Summer Vacation (2010)

No, this is not a book cover and this is not a review.
Erin and I spent two weeks here in St. Thomas. It was a rough life, but I grew up here and we came down to visit my father. My family moved here in 1961.

Magen's Bay is 1 1/2 miles long, pure white sand. It is a public beach and is beautifully maintained.














This is the "view" from the front of Dad's house. The Royal Palms block the view of the harbor but they also block hurricane force winds. At his age, 79, the shelter is a little more important than being able to see which cruise ship is in. I'll have to give that to him. ;-)









This is me, in the beautiful, clear, warm water of Magen's Bay in St. Thomas. Aaaaaaaaaah!

The Magicians (2009)

I think Lev Grossman wrote this book for the adults who have read Harry Potter, Narnia, and other classic fantasies. Magic in those worlds was taken for granted and the question about where it comes from is not considered. The young people who find themselves in the Brakebills School take the training in stride but when they graduate they question what they can use their skills for. One of their instructors named Fogg asks them this question.

"Sometimes I wonder if man was really meant to discover magic," Fogg said expansively. "It doesn't really make sense. It's a little too perfect, don't you think? If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don't change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart - reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life."

The central character, a mathemathically brilliant young man named Quentin, has always been fascinated by a series of books called Fillory and Further about two brothers and their two sisters who discover a hidden world called Fillory (sound familiar?). Throughout his time in Brakebills he hopes to be able to access Fillory which, he is convinced, is real and where he feels he will find a home. After their graduation Quentin and his friends embark on a vacation to find adventure in Fillory.

The reader will enjoy nods to several fantasy classics. The venture of these young people is difficult and painful at times but the reader is carried on to see if they succeed in finding Fillory and their place in this or any other world.

Fun quote: The thick plottens.

My rating for this book: +++

The Ape Who Guards the Balance (1998)

This is the tenth book in the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters about a family of archaeologists at the turn of the 20th century. Amelia is the matriarch, Professor Emerson is her husband, Ramses is her son, Nefret her niece, and David, an Egyptian who is as close to Ramses as any brother could be. As I read this book I thought that all of them were always aware of each others' location and occupation like our body is aware of the location and occupation of each of its parts. The point of view alternates between Amelia's and "Manuscript H" which lets us see what is going on with the family members when she is not there to observe.

There was no warning, not even a knock. The door flew open, and he forgot his present aches and pains in anticipation of what lay in store. The figure that stood in the door was not that of an enemy. It was worse. It was his mother.

They are all very proper and very British in their actions and interactions with others. The Professor is given permission to dig in a location that does not hold any promise and he must use all of his best control to not interfere with another archeologist's more exciting dig especially since he knows that the other dig will not be correctly recorded in the rush to unearth new riches. They are all on guard for a master criminal known as Sethos who, despite his six foot height, is also a master of disguise. There is another villain, Bertha, who takes advantage of Amelia's crusade to educate Egyptian girls to better their circumstances.

I really wanted to like this book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I started with the beginning of this series. After all, it has an undeniably intriguing mix of mystery and Egyptology. I think I will try to find the earlier adventures to see if I like the series better.

My rating for this book: +++

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2007)

This book is the third of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson and brings us to the close of one part of Lizbeth Salander's life. At the end of the last book, she had just extricated herself from a grave where her father had left her with a bullet wound in the shoulder, her hip, and her head. She returns to the house where he is in hiding and manages to land an axe in his face. We start this book with the two of them in the hospital, two rooms away from each other, with Lizbeth being accused of his assault and two other murders.



Mr. Larsson does not let us miss the main point of these books. He introduces many new characters, many of them women, and intercorollary chapters which told us about women warriors. We certainly get the message that men are pigs and that women are at their mercy. It is only when women join their talents and abilities together that they are able to get out from under mens' thumbs. And do they ever come out in force in this book!

This trilogy has been quite a ride. The "Girl" has been an amazing character to get to know. The consummate underdog, she used her unique talents and abilities when the moment arrived, to clear herself and set herself up for a new life. We can only hope that she is still able to find peace and some semblance of normalcy. Or at least, pick up the crusade and help other women trapped in testosterone hell like she was.

This whole series has extreme violence and sexual abuse but not gratuitously. The intrigue and computer hacking seems, at times, to be a little too convenient and easy. The individual books are very large (the paperback version of this book had 746 pages) but they read fast since they are mostly comprised of conversations and emails. I am glad to have met the character, Lizbeth.

My rating for this book: ++++

Little Bee (2008)

This short but powerful book by Chris Cleave is about two women, one middle-aged, one young; one white, one black; one educated, one self-educated; one English, one Nigerian; one free, the other not. The chapters alternate between the two of them as their stories converge, separate, and converge again.

It is a short enough book that giving facts about the plot would give up too much of it. Here is an excerpt from the book:

Three weeks and five thousand miles on a tea ship - maybe if you scratched me you would still find that my skin smells of it. When they put me in the immigration detention center, they gave me a brown blanket and a white plastic cup of tea. And when I tasted it, all I wanted to do was to get back into the boat and go home again, to my country. Tea is the taste of my land: it is bitter and warm, strong, and sharp with memory. It tastes of longing. It tastes of the distance between where you are and where you come from. Also it vanishes - the taste of it vanishes from your tongue while your lips are still hot from the cup. It desappears, like plantations stretching up into the mist. I have heard that your country drinks more tea than any other. How sad that must make you - like children who long for absent mothers. I am sorry.

Two cultures come together and try to help each other as they are able, not enough for either in the end. I highly recommend this book.

My rating for this book: ++++

Let the Great World Spin

Most of us walk around all day unaware of the stories of others around us. We have no idea who they are or how their lives intersect with ours. Colum McCann wrote this book about a small group of people whose lives intersect on one auspicious day - the day Philippe Petit pulled an amazing stunt. He and a group of friends stretched a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center and tightwalked 140 ft., 1368 ft. above New York City. Most of the characters of this book were unaware of the feat but were involved in the momentous (or not) events of their own lives.

One of the people we meet is Claire, a mother who is suffering the death of her son in Viet Nam. She is hosting a meeting of other mothers who have lost their sons in Viet Nam that morning and they arrive with the news of Petit's escapade in progress.

But death by tightrope?
Death by performance?
That's what it amounted to. So flagrant with his body. Making it cheap. The puppetry of it all. His little Charlie Chaplin walk, coming in like a hack on her morning. How dare he do that with his own body? Throwing his life in everyone's face? Making her own son's so cheap? Yes, he has intruded on her coffee morning like a hack on her code. With his hijinks above the city. Coffee and cookies and a man out there walking in the sky, munching away what should have been.

(This excerpt follows one of those paragraphs that takes your breath away in its passion.)

Her husband, Judge Soderberg, sits in an arraignment court and gets the case of the tightrope walker to decide which charges he will face.

The theater began shortly after lunch. His fellow judges and court officers and reporters and even the stenographers were already talking about it as if it were another of those things that just happened in the city. One of those out-of-the-ordinary days that made sense of the slew of ordinary days. New York had a way of doing that. Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrap your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief.

This book felt so intimate in the way it portrayed a handful of citizens in a city that can feel so impersonal. The character portrayals pulled me in so deeply I felt like I could hear the ambient city noise, smell the odors, and feel the pain of the characters. It was truly moving.

I highly recommend this book. My rating for this boo: +++++

Flight of Shadows (2010)

A walled-in city known as Lynchburg separating the Influentials and Invisibles from the Industrials and Illegals is the setting of this book by Sigmund Brouwer. Away from the city is Appalachia, rural and oppressive, and ruled by a religious leader. Caitlyn was brought to Appalachia by her father but wants to return to the city. She needs the assistance of a surgeon to correct a congenital deformity that was the result of genetic engineering.

As the story opens we find Caitlyn and friends escaping to Lynchburg in the hope of contacting the surgeon. Along the way she meets a shadowy character named Razor who can get her into the city. The problem is that they are being chased by a bounty hunter and others eventually join the chase. It appears there is more to her genetic makeup than meets the eye.

The story was very dark, being a dystopia, and even our glimpses to life inside Lynchburg are not that rosy. The action is non-stop. Chapters vary in length and switch locales so the rhythm is choppy. I have not read them but this books makes me think of the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson in that some of the characters have wings.

Some fantasy readers might enjoy the book, but I really did not.

My rating for this book: ++ 1/2

The Double Comfort Safari Club (2010)

This is the eleventh book in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. We return to Botswana, the home of the recently married Mma Ramotswe and her secretary, Mma Makutsi who is engaged to Phuti Radiphuti.

Mma Ramotswe helps a lawyer in the U.S. find the recipient of a legacy, a friend who suspects her husband of infidelity and her husband who suspects her of infidelity, and Mma Makutsi. Phuti suffers a terrible accident and his doting aunt refuses her to visit and care for him.

One of the charms of this series is the slow, quiet dignity of Mma Ramotswe and life in Botswana. However, this book seemed to start off slower than previous books. It seemed that the first half of the book gives us Mma Ramotswe pondering things over a cup of her favorite red bush tea. Patience is rewarded, however, as events unfold and her assignments are resolved to almost everyone's satisfaction.

This series should be read to give the reader an idea of life in modern Africa. The traditional greetings when people meet, and the respect shown to family and friends is genuine and touching. While we enjoy modern conveniences, I wonder if we are truly better off. Without the assistance of television, radio, computers, libraries, etc. Mma Ramotswe is able to find solutions and settle even the touchiest of matters.

My recommendation for this book: +++1/2

The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009)

Another thrilling masterpiece by the late Stieg Larsson, we are again treated to amazing characters and non-stop action. Having transferred a fortune from the offshore accounts ofWennerstrom, an industrial billionaire who sued her friend Blomkvist, Lizbeth Salander took time to travel, recuperate, and stay out of sight. Lizbeth is a terrific heroine in that she is smart and fearless and sexy. "Salander was the woman who hated men who hate women."

During her absence, the magazine publisher, Mikael Blomkvist tries to publish information about sex trafficking both in his magazine and as a book. The authors of the article and the book are killed as is Salander's guardian, an odious man who raped her and would have continued to abuse her if she didn't tape the abuse and threaten him with it. Found at the scene was the guardian's gun which Salander handled and left her fingerprints. A man hunt was out for her.

Blomkvist, sure of her innocence, and Salander both launch their own investigations. Knowing her ability with computers and hacking, Blomkvist finds an ingenious way to communicate with Salander. They discover the identities of the murderers, clear her name, and discover more about her history in the meantime.

The action is high for the whole book and the reader will fly through the 724 pages and by thirsty for the third and last installment.

My rating for this book: +++++