The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Just because I cried at the end doesn't mean I thought the book was good! It did become more engaging in the last 100 pages but for the first two thirds of the book, I kept tossing it down, saying, "She is too whiny", "no one would make THAT decision!", or just "No way!" The story is predictable.

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another good story

Where the river meets the sky by Kliener. A group of elderly residents decide they can live more fully on their own rather than under the governing eye of the nursing home. They efforts give the reader a funny-bone tickler of a story and thoughtful insight as well.

science fiction ice breaker

I am an eclectic reader. I read something of everything fictional ( I never do non-fiction, well, almost never.) Anyway, I do especially enjoy science fiction/fantasy so I am recommending the first book of this series donated by Sarah Prince, The Family Trade, by Charles Stross. Miriam Beckstein, the protagonist, is a journalist looking for the "next big investigative story" When she begins researching a money-laundering scheme, she is immediately fired and receives a death threat. The threads that she begins to unravel lead her to a parallel universe that maintains a symbiotic relationship with our universe. There is intrigue, high-level technology and a medieval feudal system. All in all an interesting combination.

Now don't just pass over this and say you don't like science fiction. Sometimes this genre strips away all we take for granted in a setting, takes away our comfort level and makes us pay attention to the deeper issues. In particular, this book is about trust and deception.

Now that we have broken the ice about science fiction/fantasy, watch for more recommendations in that genre.

A most remarkable insight into Japanese culture

Samurai’s garden by G. Tsukiyama. Stephen leave his home in China to recuperate from tuberculosis and spends the time in afamily home in Japan just as Japan has invaded China in the 1940s. While recovering he forms a friendship with the young samurai caretaker and a woman with leprosy. He learns about love, honor and loss.

a word from Jane Wylen

Property: A Novel, by Valerie Martin

Valerie Martin's absorbing new novel takes us to a plantation in Louisiana in the early 1800s. The story is told by a slave-holder's wife, Manon, who seems to have no warm feelings for anyone but her deceased father. She despises her husband, and in her chronicle only deigns to identify him as "he" or "my husband."

There are no heroes or heroines in this novel. The husband can be seen as a villain because of his brutality towards his slaves, but we may still feel pity for him because of his cold wife and admire his bravery in the face of danger.

This short book shows how the degradations and humiliations of slavery twist the lives and thoughts of both slave-owner and slave. Manon, a very intelligent but purposefully repressed woman, sees clearly that she, like the slaves, is the property of her husband. When she returns from a visit to her dying mother, she feels "the sight of him was like a door slamming in my face. I even heard the catch of the latch." Yet she does not translate this understanding to her treatment of slaves. She may not be brutal, but she feels no compassion for their fate. When a free mulatto who is in love with her personal slave, Sarah, offers to buy her for the huge sum of $2,000, twice what she would be worth in the open market, Manon refuses the offer. Sarah belongs to her and will always belong to her.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone who is interested in slavery and its human consequences.

think young

I'm getting ready for school and looking for books I can recommend to my students. This one is a winner! Here lies the librarian by Richard Peck takes place in Indiana in 1914. Peewee, a tomboy who helps her brother fix cars, comes of age as they say. The town library, closed when the librarian died, is being reopened. The new librarians are fresh out of library school and they inspire Peewee to find out who she is. The story combines auto racing, feminism, cross-town rivalries, orphaned children, a tornado, and libraries. The end puts everything in a wonderful historical perspective. Fun to read for all ages.