The Book: Horns, by Joe Hill
The Story: Ig (as in Ignatius…huh?) is kind of going through a rough patch. Last year, his long-time girlfriend, Merrin, was murdered and while he was never formally charged, everyone in his small town assumes that he was responsible. His brother is a famous talk show host and everyone loves [...]
The Book: Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
The Story: Just like the original Freakonomics, this second book is pretty much story-less. They kind of just take these different ideas and combine bits of information that don’t seem like they go together to [...]
The Book: Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
A Note: I don’t usually fangirl and I don’t usually buy books the day they are released. I did both in this time around and I’m oh, so glad. Because I love the Hunger Games series and I want you to read it too, I want to give you this [...]
The Book: Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill
The Story: Judas Coyne (a stage name…. get it?) is kind of this aging “hardcore” rocker guy. He wears black clothes, has facial hair, has girlfriends that are 20, 30 years younger than him, and has this collection of gross/scary stuff, a used noose, a snuff film, a skull [...]
The Book: NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
The Story: Not to say that these two piggybacked, and maybe the two books have nothing to do with each other, but I think that the best way to summarize this book is to say that it is pretty much Freakonomics about kids.
The [...]
The Book: Blockade Billy, by Stephen King
The Story: This is just an old man telling a story from the earlier days of baseball, when he was the third base coach for the Tigers. Due to circumstances out of any one’s control, a new catcher had to be found asap just days before the first game. [...]
The Book: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clark
The Story: Summing up an 800 page book in a few paragraphs is maybe the hardest thing ever. Here is my attempt:
We’re looking at England in the early 1800’s. There are a handful of people that are studying old magic, but only one man, Mr Norrell, [...]
The Book: Looking for Alaska, by John Green
The Story: This is a pretty basic YA novel: Miles is kind of quirky. His particular quirk is that he loves to know people’s last words before they die. He has about a zillion that he’s memorized and he reads tons of biographies so that he can collect [...]
The Book: The Ice Queen, by Alice Hoffman
The Story: I know it’s strange, but I didn’t even realize until I went to write this review that during the whole course of the book, you never find out the name of the narrator. Hm. Weird.
Anyway, the narrator is a librarian in New Jersey and she’s [...]
The Book: The Savior, by Eugene Drucker
The Story: WWII is wrapping up and Gottfried Keller, a young German violinist, is kind of in a crappy situation. He was exempted from service in the war, so instead he’s been given the job of playing violin for all the wounded soldiers. They pretty much hate him and [...]