Summary: In The Tipping Point, journalist Malcolm Gladwell sets out to identify the major elements that need to be in place for an epidemic to ensue. This could either be a health-related epidemic, such as the outbreak of syphilis in Baltimore in the mid-1990s, or it can be something far more innocuous, such as the [...]
Summary: In this memoir, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former North Carolina Senator and vice presidential nominee John Edwards, writes about the various adversities she has faced in her life and talks about some of the ways she’s found to cope with the adversities. Edwards begins by talking about her father, an ex-Marine and the strongest [...]
Summary (with spoilers): Author John Grisham, who initially made a name for himself as a writer of legal thrillers, explores the short story genre in Ford County. This book is a collection of seven stories that mostly take place in the fictional town of Clanton, Miss. Only the setting connects the stories — and the [...]
Here are some of the current New York Times Bestsellers in a handful of the more popular categories. Hardcover Fiction: 1. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson 2. TOUGH CUSTOMER, by Sandra Brown 3. THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett 4. STAR ISLAND, by Carl Hiaasen 5. VEIL OF NIGHT, by Linda [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): San Francisco detective Lindsay Boxer never seems to have a chance to catch her breath, as she’s forever tracking down killers and other criminals in the city by the Bay. This time, Lindsay has to work on three different cases simultaneously — and none of them are even connected. Must be [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Drood by Dan Simmons is a work of historical fiction that gives readers a look at what might have happened during the last few years of Charles Dickens’s life. Told from the point of view of fellow novelist and friend Wilkie Collins, the narrative opens in June of 1865, when Dickens [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): The Last Dickens is a work of historical fiction that seeks to recreate what might have happened in the immediate aftermath of Dickens’s death as publishers in America scrambled to get their hands on whatever was written of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the celebrated author’s final novel. Drood was to [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Little seven-year-old Sara Crewe is the only daughter of Captain Crewe, a widowed officer in the British army. The Captain had been stationed in India, which is where Sara was born and raised. But now that the girl is of school age, Captain Crewe thinks she should go back to England [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomqvist are back in The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second installment of the so-called Millennium Trilogy. It is about a year after the events of the first novel, and in that time there has been no contact between Lisbeth and Mikael. He has tried keeping [...]
As much as it saddens me to acknowledge that my mother is growing older, this is something I have to prepare for. One of the things I’ve been doing recently is trying to learn something about Medicare because I think Mom will have to apply for this kind of coverage soon. I’ve tried navigating some [...]