a collection of tried and true
Biographical Fiction (is that a genre?) of the story of Christina in Andrew Wyeth’s iconic painting “Christina’s World”. Going back and forth from the time Wyeth painted the painting to the back story of Christina’s family. Original, intriguing and hard to put down.
PJH rating: ****1/2
Our ten your old protagonist’s mother dies while sleepwalking/sleep swimming. Her teenaged sister copes by breaking the Guiness record for baking the most rabbit cakes. Quirky and fun read.
PJH Rating: ****
The story of Eva Thorvald – a world famous uber chef – told from the point of view of different people throughout her life. Fun, different read with some recipes thrown in. I liked it.
PJH rating: ****
A teenaged boy goes to his father’s boyhood home in Seattle and learns of his father’s and father’s family’s history going back several generations. Big old house, family secrets, ghosts and trees. A good read but not as good as Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain.
PJH Rating: ****
The story of Lotto and Mathilde, two beautiful 22 years olds who get married two weeks after meeting each other. The story of their decades long marriage told from their two vastly different perspectives. A finalist for this years National Book Award it has received rave reviews. An interesting story and charachters, well written, but a little difficult to read at times I thought.
PJH Rating: ****
Recently fired from his NYC reporting job, Gavin returns to his town where he grew up in Florida becoming embroiled in an investigation involving his friends he grew up. Well written, interesting story embedded with the numbing dangers of suburbia and the pythons living under all of us.
PJH rating: ****1/2
Down on her luck London woman becomes involved in a murder mystery involving her ex husband and invented couple she views from the window of her commuter train. Chick-lit-mystery-thriller… yet readable,
PJH rating: ****
1959 classic set in East coast boarding school in the early 1940’s. Phinneas and his fourth year pals deal with entering adulthood, WW2 and all that come along with them.
PJH Rating: ****
A manned space craft on Mars runs into trouble and needs to evacuate the planet. The crew leaves behind one of the astronauts that they believe was killed and were unable to reach him. The astronaut ends up being alive and stranded on Mars. Told mostly from the point of view of the astronaut it chronicles the years long efforts to rescue him. Very techy novel filled with many geeky details… but it is tough to put down. An unexpected fun page turner. Highly reccomend.
I just read the novelist first published the story on the internet, one of his hobbies but it eventually got published. It’s now a huge best seller and the movie is coming out in two weeks. It just premiered this weekend in Canada and got excellent reviews. I’m excited to see it. Read the book first!!
PJH Rating: ****1/2
A huge loch ness type monster washes up on shore of a small upstate New York town as a woman returns to the town from living in California. The woman investigates her past history going back many generations and the novel goes back and forth between present and the past during her ancestors. Interesting story, but it took me forever to read bouncing back and forth between other books I’ve been reading. Unfortuantely not as good as Groff’s Arcadia that I really liked.
PJH Rating: ***1/2
Eat On Edgecliff 