Summer is quickly slipping away, but there are still plenty of hours and days to be spent leisurely reading interesting books. Here are some of my favorites so far from 2018.
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Big Stone Gap - Adriana Trigiani
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Who could not like a story that begins with plans involving books and chocolate chip cookies? Based on her own childhood experiences and home, author Trigiani depicts life in Big Stone Gap, a very small community in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Ave Marie, the 35-year-old self-proclaimed spinster, looks forward to the arrival of the weekly bookmobile as a highlight of her life. That is, until some family scandals are uncovered, Italian relatives emerge, and Elizabeth Taylor (yes, the actress) comes to town (an event based on a true visit by Taylor to Big Stone Gap with disastrous results).
The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir - Ariel Levy
Ariel Levy did live out the life as an explorer, traveling the world as a writer for The New Yorker magazine, creating stories of strong women all over the world. But her world shatters when, pregnant, married, and living in a quiet house, she travels to one exotic location and returns to find she has lost all three.
How it Happened - Michael Koryta
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Is there a better first line to a book? Certainly that sentence is a touchstone for whether a reader will want to continue reading or not. Isn't that one of the primary reason for a great first sentence?
This statement comes from a recorded confession of Kimberly, a teenage girl accused along with another boy, Mathias, of killing a young couple and then sinking their bodies into a shallow pond. With Kimberly's confession, it is a cut-and-dried case. Unfortunately, when they search the pond, the police and FBI cannot find the bodies.
So what really happened? And why is everyone suspected in the case willing to confess to any charge against them? And what about Mathias, the town's local figure of kindness and hard work? He was present at the killings but the townspeople will not believe such a figure of goodness could possibly be responsible. It is up to FBI agent Rob Barrett to get to the bottom of this twisty-turny case.
Happy reading.
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First Sentences
December 2015
It's just me and my giant red suitcase on the platform in Penzance when my mother arrives to take me home.
Description:
Author Tyler Wetherall's father is wanted by Scotland Yard and lives apart from her family. Her mother does not want to assist the law in any way, so arranges late-night phone calls from obscure phone booths and secret weekends to keep in touch. And, of course, the family is constantly moving to new houses, taking only one box of possessions. What is his crime (as her mother would not discuss this with her children)? Can the family protect him from the FBI? How can the author and her family lead normal lives without giving away secrets about her father? And what will happen to them all should he be captured?
Mom kept a file for each of us kids in which she stored our birth certificates, our school grades, our vaccination records, and our passports -- but these pieces of paper that define our existence had all gone. [The law officers] had packed up our past lives and lies. Stolen our family history.A fascinating, true story of a lifestyle that defies description. but gains our sympathy as more and more details are uncovered for all people involved.
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I picked up a dozen of Vernie Crabgtree's killer chocolate chip cookies at the French Club bake sale yesterday.First SentencesThis will be a good weekend for reading
Description:
Who could not like a story that begins with plans involving books and chocolate chip cookies? Based on her own childhood experiences and home, author Trigiani depicts life in Big Stone Gap, a very small community in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Ave Marie, the 35-year-old self-proclaimed spinster, looks forward to the arrival of the weekly bookmobile as a highlight of her life. That is, until some family scandals are uncovered, Italian relatives emerge, and Elizabeth Taylor (yes, the actress) comes to town (an event based on a true visit by Taylor to Big Stone Gap with disastrous results).
Women love with their ears and men with their eyes.Just a fun, comfortable read about small town life, love, and interesting people.
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Description:First SentencesMy favorite game when I was a child was Mummy and Explorer.
My father and I would trade off roles. One of us had to lie very still with eyes closed and arms crossed over the chest, and the other had to complain, "I've been searching these pyramids for so many years--when will I ever find the tomb of Tutankhamen?"
Ariel Levy did live out the life as an explorer, traveling the world as a writer for The New Yorker magazine, creating stories of strong women all over the world. But her world shatters when, pregnant, married, and living in a quiet house, she travels to one exotic location and returns to find she has lost all three.
There is nothing I love more than traveling to a place where I know nobody, and where everything will be a surprise, and then writing about it. It's like having a new lover -- even the parts you aren't crazy about have the crackling fascination of the unfamiliar.A beautifully-written, emotional, true memoir of adventure, strength, loss, and recovery. Highly recommended
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First SentenceI'd never seen him before the day we killed him.
Description:
Is there a better first line to a book? Certainly that sentence is a touchstone for whether a reader will want to continue reading or not. Isn't that one of the primary reason for a great first sentence?
This statement comes from a recorded confession of Kimberly, a teenage girl accused along with another boy, Mathias, of killing a young couple and then sinking their bodies into a shallow pond. With Kimberly's confession, it is a cut-and-dried case. Unfortunately, when they search the pond, the police and FBI cannot find the bodies.
So what really happened? And why is everyone suspected in the case willing to confess to any charge against them? And what about Mathias, the town's local figure of kindness and hard work? He was present at the killings but the townspeople will not believe such a figure of goodness could possibly be responsible. It is up to FBI agent Rob Barrett to get to the bottom of this twisty-turny case.
Kimberly Crepeaux had described Mathias Burke's reaction to that unseasonably hot September day: As if the sun had come up hot that day looking only for him, like somebody picking a fight..Very unusual and compelling read that keeps one guessing to the very end.
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