Plot summary (from the publisher): R. J. Ellory’s latest paperback is his most timely, menacing serial killer novel yet, and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.. As in his globally acclaimed A Quiet Belief in Angels, it is a stunning work of suspense guaranteed to keep the reader awake at night. Set in [...]
Plot summary (from the publisher): The last two years have been monstrously unpleasant for high-society journalist Gus Bailey. His propensity for gossip has finally gotten him into trouble — $11 million worth. His problems begin when he falls hook, line, and sinker for a fake story from an unreliable source and repeats it on a [...]
Synopsis (from the publisher): Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand’s greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex. Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the [...]
Waiter Rant was available via my local library as a free download, so I decided to check it out. The description from the publisher made it sound interesting and funny. I thought I’d be getting tons of anecdotes about how awful some customers could be and how good others were. But while there were a [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Lucy by Laurence Gonzales tells the story of a seemingly normal 14-year-old “girl” named Lucy. Born and raised in the Congolese jungle, she escapes first to London and then to America with anthropologist Jenny Lowe after both her parents are killed in the Congolese civil war. Jenny has brought David’s (Lucy’s [...]
I didn’t even know Ethan Hawke had written a book until I saw the audio version of Ash Wednesday available as a download through the public library. I decided to check it out and see if Hawke has anything good to offer as an author. He doesn’t. I only made it about 30 percent of [...]
This book sat atop the NY Times Bestseller list in the Nonfiction category for weeks and weeks and weeks, so I decided to pick it up and see what the fuss was all about. It turns out the book is a biography about Greg Mortenson, a climbing aficionado who was once rescued after a disastrous [...]
Summary: There was so much hype surround David McCullough’s 2001 biography John Adams that I couldn’t help but be curious about the book. Then once HBO turned the tome into a miniseries that won multiple Emmy awards, I knew I would end up reading it — or at least attempting to. So I tried to [...]
Plot summary: The Executioner’s Song is sometimes described as a “quasi-documentary” about the life and execution of Gary Gilmore, a “spree killer” who gained notoriety as the first person put to death after capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. Norman Mailer cobbled the book together out of extensive interviews with Gilmore’s family and friends, as [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Tassie Keltjin is a 20-year-old college student from a small, Midwestern farming community. During winter break, instead of wanting to travel new york or do anything exciting, Tassie applies for a nanny position and is hired by Sarah Brink, a forty-something woman who is getting ready to adopt a child with [...]