Good books

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, 2009. Very good book, the story told by our friend the grim reaper as he gathers many souls during WW II in Molching, Germany. Liesle is the main character and the thief. Characters you grow to love. Sad, but good.

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese, 1995. I liked Cutting for Stone so much I bought the other two books he wrote. Here he tells the story of his return in the fall 1985 with his wife and newborn son to Johnson City, Tennessee, where he had done his internship and residence. He is the doctor of infectious diseases dealing with AIDS as it infects the small town. This is a well written memoir that reads like a novel.

And a good mystery, Beyond Reach by Graham Hurley. Again we are left wondering where Winter will end up. The doubting detective is good - does police action do more harm than good? Set in Portsmoth UK, DI Faraday seems to be questioning his career.

books

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore, 2009. Good novel, but disturbing. Good writer, main character a 20 year old US mid-westerner who meets a troubling boy friend, an aggravating employer. Race and terrorism sneak in. One of the characters puts her kids library books in the oven to kill the germs. What a concept!

Started reading Curtains: Adventures of an Undertaker-in-Training by Tom Jokinen, 2010, and really like it. Had to take it back to the library so I have ordered my own copy. What really happens to our bodies when we die? I will be finding out. The crematorium was an education already.

Also started P.D. James' non-fiction book written this year Talking About Detective Fiction. It's very interesting.

Socks

not for me..

Good reads

I finished Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom, 2009 and really liked it. It was groups of short stories. Think I will check out a novel by her. Also finished the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larson and did so by listening to the whole thing, even though I had read The Girl with the Dragaon Tatoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire before. It really is one big book. So sad that he did not get to finish the series of 10 books that he had planned.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is the final act. Long but good.

Have almost finished A Pigeon and a Boy: A Novel by Meir Shalev, 2009. Two stories happening throughout the book, the tale of present day Yair Mendelsohn, a middle-aged Israeli tour guide who guides bird watchers. He recalls the story of a homing pigeon handler, nicknamed the Baby and how he was killed in the 1948 Israeli war of independence and, in his final moments, sent off one last pigeon. Good book. Interesting characters.