the sun shines

I read the September issue of The Sun Magazine. I really liked all the Reader's Write writings on porches. 48 pages.

-Tamie

New England Excitement

America America by Ethan Cain

Interesting story about politics in New York State in the early 70s and how it affected one man's life. A little hard for me to keep track of the three different time periods in which it took place. 458 pages.

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

Almost finished with this one, takes place in modern-day Salem, Mass. I liked it...... (one thing I take away from it is how interesting it would be to live there today..) from Amazon:

In Barry's captivating debut, Towner Whitney, a dazed young woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune tellers, has survived numerous traumas and returned to her hometown of Salem, Mass., to recover. Any tranquility in her life is short-lived when her beloved great-aunt Eva drowns under circumstances suggesting foul play. Towner's suspicions are taken with a grain of salt given her history of hallucinatory visions and self-harm. The mystery enmeshes local cop John Rafferty, who had left the pressures of big city police work for a quieter life in Salem and now finds himself falling for the enigmatic Towner as he mourns Eva and delves into the history of the eccentric Whitney clan. Barry excels at capturing the feel of smalltown life, and balances action with close looks at the characters' inner worlds. Her pacing and use of different perspectives show tremendous skill and will keep readers captivated all the way through. 390 pages.


Buffy

So I haven't posted in a while, but I promise I've been reading :)

I really wanted to share this book with you all out there. I checked it out of the library Saturday afternoon and as of Sunday night am 4/5ths of the way done. Though not finished, I feel confident recommending it to you all.

The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace by M. Scott Peck

What I love about it: 1) gender pronoun equality 2) community as a tangible, realistic goal 3) makes me feel normally about my obsessive desire for community 4) even though it was published in 1987, it is completely relevant to today (maybe that is sad that we have the same problems 20 years later...)

So, that's not a very good summary. Here's what the dustcover says...In his profound and powerful new book, he challenges us to take another journey in self-awareness: to achieve, through the creative experience of community, a new "connectedness" and wholeness which, in turn, can be shared by all the peoples and nations of the world.

Has anyone read it? I would love to discuss! If you haven't, go get it now. Give it to your friends.

Reading Rocks!
-Michelle "Who knew such amazing stuff has been sitting on library shelves for my entire lifetime" McMillan

the hours

Last night I finished The Hours, by Michael Cunningham. I highly recommend this book. It follows three story lines, each one day of the life in a woman, and the more you read the more you realize how interwoven they are. The first woman is Virginia Woolf--the day she started writing Mrs. Dalloway. The second woman is a woman named Laura who lives in the 50s. The second woman is Clarissa, whom her best friend calls Mrs. Dalloway--she lives in New York in the 90s. It's a beautifully written book, such amazing observations about being human. 226 pages.

-tamie

North Carolina and Sherlock Holmes and Oxygen

Back to Wando Passo by David Payne
I really liked this one -- in fact, several of us said we wish we'd had more discussion of it at book club (maybe we should have a second meeting to actually discuss the book) This was a re-read for me and I wasn't sure if it would strike me the same way the second time -- but it did.
It's such a complex storyline in some ways, I'm going to c & p from Amazon...

In this ambitious novel, Payne ( Gravesend Light, 2000) intertwines two troubled marriages--one contemporary and one from the 1860s--for a blend of history and suspense that deals with racism, slavery, miscegenation, incest, and voodoolike practices, as foreboding builds until the two stories intersect. At 45, former rock star Ransom "Ran" Hill, bipolar and off his meds, returns to his wife, Claire Delay, who took their children and left him five months earlier for her family home of Wando Passo, a former plantation south of Charleston. Although Ran desperately loves his wife of 19 years, Claire is making a new life with a new love, a story mirrored by the account of her ancestors that resurfaces when two skeletons are found on her property. Alternating chapters tell of Harlan Delay, who married Adie Huger to save himself from the sorrow and pain that ensued after his father brought home a black Cuban woman whom he loved but kept enslaved. Despite an occasional inconsistency or unanswered question, Payne handles this novel of love, loss, and betrayal deftly.

435 pages

The Moor by Laurie R. King
Another in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. This one returns to the scene of an actual Holmes story -- The Hound of the Baskervilles. I keep enjoying them. 297 pages.

Oxygen by Carol Cassella
This was good stuff -- I kept stopping to say to DH "This is a really good book". part of it, for me, was just the fact that it centers on a career I (and I think many people) know little about -- anesthesiology. Main character is an anesthesiologist in Seattle when something goes wrong in a surgery. That is the main plot, but her relationships with her sister and aging father are also involved. Yep, really really interesting stuff -- heartbreaking at times-- and I feel like I know a bit more about what it would be like to be an anesthesiologist. 288 pages.

Buffy in Denver