Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

by Barbara Kingsolver

Novelist Kingsolver and her family commit to living off the farm in Virginia for one year. Raising their own crops, canning and freezing, shopping at local farmer's markets, even making their own cheese, everyone in the family gets involved in the project. Nine year old Lily sells chicken eggs and meat, her husband Steve compares industrial agriculture with ecology in useful sidebars, and daughter Camille contributes recipes and essays to the book. Of course the book discusses the implications of shipping food afar and how much healthier it is to eat organic foods than those grown with chemicals but Kingsolver infuses it with humor and veers off onto other topics like rural politics or turkey sex. Readers that might be drawn to this tome include "budding Martha Stewarts, green-leaning fans of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and kids outraged by Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.

The Watchmen

The Watchmen

By Alan Moor

The Watchmen, a now disbanded and aging group of superheroes are being hunted down and killed. A young woman searches for the identity of her father. And the ultimate superhero comes to terms with his identity. This critically acclaimed graphic novel has won awards and has spawned a movie. It has been said that this is the greatest of the genre. The Watchmen disproves the notion that graphic novels can't be great literature. The graphics are equally amazing. The reader is able to enjoy the many layers of meaning. The artwork gives clues and details which the text fleshes out in interspersed text sections. Moderately difficult

Truth About Forever

Truth About Forever

By Sarah Dessen

Macy is a teen who has witnessed her father's death and deals with it by becoming a perfectionist. She gets good grades, has a perfect boyfriend, and is always neat and tidy. Despite the facade, Macy is drowning in grief. Summer comes, her boyfriend leaves and eventually rejects her. Her carefully crafted life begins to unravel when she takes a job at Wish Catering. Her coworkers are a band of teens who live seemingly without a care though most of them have experienced some kind of loss. The author throws in a love interest as well. Ultimately Macy comes to terms with her grief and learns it's okay to be human. Readers will enjoy the interesting, well-crafted characters and the humor which is sprinkled in. Easy

Rough and Tumble

Rough and Tumble

by Mark Bavaro

This best-seller is a "must read" for any sports fan. The main character is an aging pro football player. In one week, his girlfiend rebuffs him, the team's star defensive player is severely beaten and left in the parking lot dashing his hopes to play in the Superbowl, and he discovers that he has a career-ending injury. Confronted with the reality of life without football, he must also deal with conflict between players, drugs, gambling, and the parasites that hang around the team. The author was former New York Giants tight end consequently writes a very realistic tale. Easy.

Death of a Red Heroine

Death of a Red Heroine

by Qiu Xialong

This is a remarkable crime drama, set in modern Communist China, because it is written by a Chinese author and breaks out of the conventions of the genre. Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police must find a murderer and then risk his own life and career to see that justice is done despite the political implications. The main character, Inspector Chen Cao, is a published poet and and translator of American and English mystery novels and his musings are in descriptive couplets which punctuate the action. "The novel reads like the translation of an ancient text imposed over a modern tale of intrigue." (Amazon). Moderate difficulty

Curse of the Blue Tatoo

Curse of the Blue Tattoo

By Louis A Meyer

This fast-paced historical fiction is the second in the Bloody Jack series. In 1803, after being exposed as a girl and forced to leave her her ship, Jacky Farber finds herself attending school in Boston, where, instead of learning to be a lady, she battles her snobbish classmates and roams the city where she has many misadventures. This heroine is rowdy and brash and bucks the Boston society in which women have very few rights. This book can stand alone but the ending is left open for another sequel and will leave readers yearning for more. Easy but long.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing

by M.T. Anderson

Set in pre-Revolutionary Boston, Octavian lives with his mother in pampered luxury. The reader slowly realizes that they are black and are part of an experiment to see if Africans have the same mental capacity as Caucasians. The Southern plantation owners who fund this research use it for their own ill-gotten gains; Octavian learns of his own chilling role. The novel is written from Octavian's point of view and in letters written by a soldier who befriends him. The issues of slavery and human rights, racism, free will, the causes of war, and one person's struggle to define himself are all examined in this book. Moderately difficult but worth the challenge.