Debbie picked this up at the bookstore Saturday night, and I was intrigued. A woman who has completely isolated herself emotionally wishes to be struck by lightning. It happens. She was the Ice Queen, now she’s forced to open up to people because of the effects of being struck. It’s an incredibly interesting premise, and it was handled well. I liked the ending a lot.

I read the whole thing in 2 sittings this afternoon and evening, but partly that was because it has large print. Well, OK it was interesting, too. I may have to go dig out my copy of The River King by Hoffman and see how I feel about that one.

I would put up a picture of this one, but I can’t find an Amazon link. Oh well.

As the title indicates, this is a list of books everyone should have read. I’ve read 7 and half of them. Dismal results, I know, but a lot of the books were admittedly only read by experts in the fields they were in. Like the Greek mathematician or Einstein’s stuff.

I love reading books about books. Even books about books I never intend to read. Plus, each entry had a bit of a biography of the author. Quite interesting.

My major complaint: the typos! Oh, the typos. They were so distracting that I started counting them. I believe I counted 22 typos. In a book with 204 pages, that’s not great. One page had 3 printing errors. Drove me crazy.

I finally got to this one! It wasn’t really what I expected. I guess I thought it was more storied like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The title story has Jonathan Strange in it, but the rest of the stories are unrelated. The stories are all about fairies and magic. It sort of seems like a set of folk tales, including a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin.

I had to dole this book out to myself in pieces. It was so difficult to read, that I could only get in a chapter or two a day. I normally don’t like books that are that difficult, but I loved The Kite Runner so much, I felt like I had to give this one a fair shake.

The story is about 2 women in Afghanistan starting in the 70′s and going through to 2004 or 5, I think. These girls really had it rough. Living in a country that is constantly at war, either with other countries or itself, made life hard for many women.

Anyway, the last 150 pages made it all worth it. I raced through it.

I finished this one on Friday or Saturday, but I didn’t want to post about it until after book club last night, on the off chance that someone from book club comes by here.

This was a great book club book. Firstly, it was a good book. It was well-written and interesting and had a mystery. I figured out the mystery about half way through, but no one else in the group did, so I guess I got lucky. The story is told from the perspective of a 10 year old girl who has been left alone with her 9 year old sister while their mother goes into the hospital to have surgery and their step-father spends most of his time drunk and their older sister spends all her time with her boyfriend. The year is 1959 and it’s Milwaukee. Somebody is raping and murdering young girls every summer, and Sally appears to be his next intended victim.

Secondly, there just seemed to be lots to discuss. Like, how the neighborhood took care of the kids without them knowing. And how the author wrote from a child’s perspective but put in jokes only adults would understand.

One of our members said it felt a lot like Secret Life of Bees. If you liked that one, you might pick this one up.

This book has been critically acclaimed by a zillion important reviewers. Including Kirkus. It comes out on Tuesday. Go get it.

I got it early cause I work with the author. It’s an emotionally difficult book because it’s about the kidnap and murder of 12 year old girls in Victorian England. But it’s not so hard to read that I had to put it down. I almost didn’t put it down at all.

Being the 4th book in the series, there are some continuing storylines. For instance, the narrator, Thomas Llewellyn, is constantly on the search for pretty girls. He would probably be a bit of a skirt chaser if he weren’t in the employ of Cyrus Barker, who keeps him pretty busy.

Most of the incidental characters were real people. Will showed me pictures of them. Amy Levy is a bit of a shrew. I’m just saying.

I hope you enjoy it.

I stole this from Marie because her request came in before mine at the library.

It wasn’t as laugh-out-loud hysterical as some of the others, but the plot was great. Stephanie’s ex-husband turns up missing the day after she tries to choke him out in his office. Guess who’s a suspect. The good news is, Ranger’s on the case so he makes quite a showing in this book. That works for me.

As Marie says, “Two words: Squirrel Bomb.”