The Amulet of Samarkand

Some books are just better as audiobooks. If you get the right reader, the book can really come alive! A bad reader, however, can make even the best book be awful. In the case of The Amulet of Samarkand, you have a combination of a clever, well-written story by Jonathan Stroud and a wonderful reader, Simon Jones.

Nathaniel is eleven and a magician's apprentice in London. He knows he is a smarter and better magician than his master. To prove it, he secretly summons a 5,000 year-old djinn (demon), Bartimaeus, to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from Simon Lovelace, an evil and ruthless magician. Djinn and boy have soon bit off more than they can chew when the entire magical world is after them including a mysterious assassin who will never stop searching. . . .

Undead and Uneasy

Mary Janice Davidson's Undead and Uneasy is the 6th in the Undead series. I've liked reading this Vampire/chicklit/romance series but the last couple of books aren't up to the same high standard as the first and second (and even third) books. Don't get me wrong, I will keep reading them whenever Davidson publishes another but I miss the witty dialog and good plot of the first few books.

In this book, Betsy's wedding to Sinclair is just around the corner when he disappears, her father and stepmother are killed in a car accident, she becomes her half-brother's guardian, her personal assistant is stuck in France, the werewolf and the Fiend who live in the basement have disappeared, her best friend is in the hospital with a cancer relapse, the other roommate drops off the face of the earth and isn't returning any calls or emails, her mother is not around, her half-sister (who is literally the Spawn of Satan) is off at church, a werewolf pack is out for her blood (if she had any) and, oh, yeah, Betsy is the Queen of the Vampires. Let's just say it hasn't been the greatest of weeks.

If you do decide to read this series, reading them in order is important. Each story builds on the others. I would also recommend reading Davidson's other books, Dead and Loving it and Derik's Bane, in order to understand the minor characters around Betsy. If you've enjoyed any books by Laurell K. Hamilton or Charlaine Harris, you will probably like this series.

Way Off the Road

Anyone who has watched CBS’ Sunday Morning show knows and loves Bill Geist’s funny and irreverent segments. In Way Off the Road Geist recounts stories about some of the best small-town segments that he has done. Who wouldn’t want to read about the Land of Lost Luggage, sucking prairie dogs out of their holes with a sewer vacuum, the Museum of Towing, or even a town renowned for its cow chip exports? This book will have you laughing out loud with every chapter!

Tree of Smoke

The Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson is a book about a turbulent time in history, the Vietnam War. It follows Skip Sands through his espionage training, operations against the Vietcong and the disasters that befall him. It also follows the Houston brothers, two young men from Arizona, and their adjustment to war. This book is a gripping, dark epic that will change the way you think of human nature and what a person can be driven to do.

A Spy by Nature

Alec Milius has just been recruited to MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service. He is a natural spy, intelligent, adaptable, ambitious, and very adept at deceiving people. Soon Alec is working for both the CIA and MI6 as a double agent. The slightest mistake will cost him his life and he can’t trust anybody, least of all himself. This fast-paced story will make you read faster and faster just so you can find out what happens!

The author, Charles Cumming, was recruited to work for the British Secret Intelligence Service in 1995. But, as he says in the author's note, "Were the event of this story entirely true, they would inevitably breach clauses in The Official Secrets Act of the United Kingdom." It leaves one wondering how much is the truth and how much is fiction.

Murder Gets a Life

Sister and Mouse (Mary Alice and Patricia Anne) are back and meeting their match in Mary Alice's new daughter-in-law's family. The first introduction Mary Alice and Patricia Anne have to the new family is stumbling over a body in a trailer. Things just get better from there. When Sunshine (the daughter-in-law) disappears, the sisters have to find the solution to the puzzle before time runs out. Anne George's characters are a riot of fun and excitement. Sometimes the plot wanders but the characters make it well worth reading the books.

Sadly, the author, Anne George, passed away in 2001 from heart surgery complications. She was a celebrated poet as well as being a wonderful mystery writer.

Knots and Crosses

The streets of Edinburgh are being haunted by more than just ghosts. Girls are being kidnapped and murdered and the police have no suspects. Detective Sergeant John Rebus begins to receive notes from the killer which taunt and tease him with the same message and pieces of string tied into knots. Can he figure out who the killer is before his own daughter becomes a target?

As an interesting side-note, during the writing of Knots and Crosses, the author, Ian Rankin, briefly became a suspect in a murder case. The Edinburgh detectives had a real-life case on their hands which mirrored the plot of the story too closely for their liking. Once Rankin was able to prove that he had alibis for the relevant times, he was cleared of all suspicion.

Singled Out

Bella DePaulo sets out to show that people do not have to be married in order to be happy. She explores the discrimination that singles face in the workplace, the federal tax structure, and the marketplace. This book is an interesting read for people in (or not in!) every sort of relationship, not just singles.

Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm

Welcome back to Bedlam Farm. It's another year and some old friends have been lost but new ones have been found. Jon Katz shares his observations of life on the farm and its characters both animal and human. This book is a wonderful tale of companionship and love. I highly recommend this and Katz's other Bedlam Farm Books.

The Blue Zone

Kate’s world has suddenly been turned upside-down. Her beloved father has been implicated in a money laundering scheme and is a witness against a Columbian drug cartel. He and his family are now in witness protection but Kate refuses to go. She can’t leave the life she has built so has to say goodbye to her family and make some drastic changes in her own life. A year later, the trial is over but strange people seem to be following Kate, her friends are being hurt and the Witness Protection Program has lost track of her father. Now Kate has to track down her family and find out the truth.

The Blue Zone is written by Andrew Gross. Gross has co-written many books with James Patterson.

The Double Agents

Who can you trust when everyone around you might be a double agent? Dick Canidy and the other OSS agents have to walk a fine line between trust and suspicion in the new Men at War book, The Double Agents. Their task is to convince the Axis powers that the Allies are not going to be landing at the beaches of Normandy. They have to depend on the informants around that who might really be spying for the enemy. Everything is suddenly thrown into turmoil when the body is found. . . .

W.E.B. Griffin and his son, William E. Butterworth, collaborate in the sixth book of the Men At War series. W.E.B Griffin is one of many pseudonyms used by William Edmund Butterworth III (his son is the IV).

The Lost Diary of Don Juan

How does a man training to become a priest end up as the world’s greatest lover? Don Juan reveals all in the pages of his diary, recounting his past and the present. Douglas Carlton Abrams adds new life to Don Juan’s story and the sixteenth century Spain, the time of the Inquision, in this new book.

Back on Blossom Street

Back on Blossom Street is the third in Debbie Macomber's Knitting series. These cozy romances are just on the border of being inspirational books. In this book, a new knitting class for a prayer shawl begins. A few new characters are introduced and old friends revisited. Each woman encounters and overcomes problems in her life and grows closer to the others in the class.

Route 66 A. D.

Route 66 A. D. traces the travel routes of ancient Roman tourists from the eastern Mediterranean to a trip down the Nile. The author (Tony Perrottet) and his girlfriend travelled the same route, experiencing many of the same difficulties as the Romans (i.e. bad hotels, bad food, sickness, etc.) The book is a delightful mix of the historical and the contemporary. I enjoyed learning what the ancient tourists had written about their travels as well as learning what those ancient sites looked like now. Historians, travellers, and people interested in the ancient Romans would definitely enjoy this book.

Discussion guide

Are you trying to come up with some discussion questions for your book club choice but there aren't any out there? These questions will help you create a generic list of questions for your book.

• How did your feelings change as you read through the book?
• Who did you care about?
• What made you laugh?
• Did the novel move you to tears or laughter
• if so, how did it do so?
• Who did you get angry with?
• What frightened you?
• Which relationship did you want to work out?
• Was there any section you wish the author had spent more or less time on?
• Did you get off to a slow start or were you straight in?
• What did you think of the ending?
• Was it what you expected?
• Who was:
• the most memorable character in the novel
• your favourite character
• the most horrible character
• the character who made you cry
• the character you’d most like to be on a desert island with and why?
• Did you like some characters more than others?
• Did you find some parts of the novel more readable than others?
• Did you feel emotionally involved with the characters?
• How did you feel when you finished the book?
• Is this a book you would recommend to others, and if so, why?
• Did you like the cover/look of the book? Would you have chosen to read it, and why (or why not)?
• If you gave up on the book, can you explain why it didn’t appeal?
• Were there any bits you would have written differently?
• Were there things you wanted to know that the author didn’t tell you?
• How should the book have ended?

Some additional questions for nonfiction books:

• What did you find surprising about the facts introduced in this book?
• How has reading this book changed your opinion of a certain person or topic?
• Does the author present information in a way that is interesting and insightful, and if so, how does he or she achieve this?
• If the author is writing on a debatable issue, does he or she give proper consideration to all sides the debate? Does he or she seem to have a bias?
• How has the book increased your interest in the subject matter?

Griffin and Sabine

The drawings in Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence are amazing. The format of the book is also very interesting and inventive. One side of the page would be the postcard face (or the front of an envelope). You then flip the page and it is the writing on the postcard. The envelopes actually contain letters which are a full 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper. So inventive!

The postcards/letters are being sent between Griffin, a London postcard artist, and Sabine, a stamp designer in the South Pacific. The ending of the story leaves you hanging so you can't wait until you get your hands on Sabine's Notebook: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Continues.

Lying with Strangers

What do you do when no one believes that someone is trying to kill you? Peyton Shields, a young and ambitious doctor, is being stalked and threatened by a mysterious stranger but no one is listening to her. Peyton's husband seems to have become an entirely different person, suspicious and distant. Suddenly, they are both in court framed for murder but who is the real killer? James Grippando weaves another thrilling tale in Lying with Strangers.

Catch Me If You Can

You might have already seen the movie but I would recommend Frank Abagnale's memior, Catch Me If You Can, for a more in-depth story.

Frank Abagnale, before the age of 21, had imitated a pilot, a lawyer (he actually passed the bar exam!), a doctor, a college professor, an FBI agent and passed millions of dollars in bad checks, all without having graduated from high school! He bluffed and lied his way into people's confidence and never seemed to regret his actions.

This memoir is a gripping, fast read that everyone will appreciate. It is the story of a very intelligent, teenage criminal who thinks on his feet and his race against being caught. So catch it if you can . . . .

World War Z

Max Brooks' World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is an astounding book and I don't like zombie films/stories (well, except for Shaun of the Dead and that is because it is a spoof). After reading this book, I definitely understand why people are calling it one of the best new fiction books of 2006.

Brooks has masterfully created a story though personal accounts of survivors about the spread of the zombie virus and how the world fought back against the living dead. The plague or virus seems to have started in China and spread quickly across the world. Some areas were better prepared than others to defend themselves from the zombies while others were woefully unprepared. New York, for instance, wasn't able to defend itself but Buckingham Palace held its own for many months before it was rescued. At first, the war is a defensive one but then the survivors must go on the offensive to re-claim the Earth.

Brooks writes the story as if the reader already knows what happened during the war. This story is supposed to have been written 12 years after the end of the war with the world still recovering from its ordeal. We are left to discover the details as he interviews the survivors. Each of the stories are woven together, pulling the reader further and further into the events. The book makes you wonder what you would do in these people's situations.

I cannot possibily express how much I am impressed by this book and author. His imagination is amazing. He created a story which could be believable (well, except for the whole dead coming back to life thing) and whose characters are interesting and well-drawn.

Key Lime Pie Murder

Hannah Swensen, a wonderful baker and the owner of The Cookie Jar, has been asked to judge a baked goods contest. When one of the other judges is found murdered next to the remains of a key lime pie, Hannah must solve the crime before there is another murder. Sixteen wonderful recipes are scattered throughout the story. This book is the ninth in the Hannah Swensen series by Joanne Fluke.

Shopaholic and Baby

Sophie Kinsella's fifth Shopaholic book is called Shopaholic and Baby. Becky’s life is full of exciting new experiences. She has a new job, she and her husband Luke are looking for a house, and—the most important thing—Becky is pregnant! With all of these new things happening, Becky just has to get a new outfit (or ten) and that cute little stroller would be perfect for the baby. . . . But Luke seems to be more distant than usual and it turns out that one of his ex-girlfriends is Becky’s new obstetrician. Are Becky’s fears about an affair just in her head or something more?

Size 14 is Not Fat Either

Size 14 is Not Fat Either by Meg Cabot (the sequel to Size 12 is Not Fat), like the first book, takes place in a dorm at New York College. Heather Wells, a former pop star, returns as an assistant dorm, I mean residence hall, director and amateur sleuth when a girl's head is found in the dorm's kitchen. Heather is a likeable character because she is not perfect. She was a teen pop star who is now "washed up" and battling with her self-image.

Heather becomes involved in the investigation because it seems like the police are not following up on important clues. At the same time, she has to deal with the attentions of her ex-fiance, his brother's (who is also Heather's landlord) lack of attentions, her jail-bird father's return, and, oh yeah, a murderer who is getting a little too close for comfort.

Gatsby's Girl

Gatsby's Girl by Caroline Preston is a fictional portrayal of F. Scott Fitzgerald's muse, Ginevra. Ginevra is a sixteen year-old spoiled debutante who meets a nineteen year-old Fitzgerald at a party thrown by mutual friends. After this one meeting, the two correspond frequently, sending multiple page letters to each other.

Ginevra convinces herself that she is in love with Fitzgerald because she is in love with the idea of being in love. By the time Fitzgerald comes to visit her in the summer, Ginevra is ready to move on to the next romantic figure. She unceremoniously dumps Fitzgerald with "supreme boredom and indifference."

The next half of the book traces Ginevra's loveless marriage to the man for whom she dumped Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, the author's career has taken off. He suddenly is well-known and widely published. Ginevra secretly reads all of his stories looking for portrayals of herself in the female characters like Daisy Buchanan, Isabelle Borge and Josephine Perry.

This book is a good complement (or alternative) to The Great Gatsby. It captured the spirit of the times and gives you insight into why Fitzgerald's characters were written the way they were.

Presidential Candidates Books

Ricklibrarian has compiled a list of books published by the 2008 presidential candidates. This list was compiled in January 2007 so some candidates may have been added to the list and others may have dropped out of the race. There are some very interesting titles on the list.

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The Bookman's Promise

Cliff Janeway, former homicide detective and current bookman, returns in the third book written by John Dunning of the Cliff Janeway series, The Bookman's Promise. Since he quit the police and opened his own book shop, Janeway has become the “book cop,” the guy people go to when they need book mysteries solved. In this novel, Janeway is embroiled in a mystery about Richard Francis Burton, a nineteenth century explorer, Burton’s journal, the American Civil War, and a modern murder. He must find books stolen from Josephine Gallant more than eighty years ago. This book is a wealth of information about the book world and the pre-Civil War American South.

The Professor and the Madman

The Professor and the Madman focused on two men who were strongly involved in the editing of the OED: James Murray (the professor) and Dr. William Chester Minor (the madman). The vast undertaking of creating the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) simply amazed me. Before 1857 (when the idea was first suggested), there was no all-encompassing English dictionary. Or at least, not a dictionary like we think of today. The OED editors set out to catalog, define, provide illustrative quotations, and track the word's history through written history from its first use until the current day. Every. Single. Word. Wow.

They had thousands of volunteers read through books, write down words (any words), illustrative quotations, where the quotation was found, page number, and send in the slip of paper to the Scriptorium that Murray had set up in Oxford. The Scriptorium might sound impressive but really it was just a corrugated metal structure full of paper. Can you even imagine the scraps of paper everywhere? How would anything ever get done or even found?

Dr. Minor is introduced as a madman from the very beginning of the book. A madman but also an intellectual. He was an American doctor who served in the Civil War. Apparently, his paranoia was sparked and/or became more pronounced after an experience during the Wilderness where he had to brand an Irish soldier as punishment for desertion. After that, he felt that the Irish everywhere were after him in revenge. He also complained of being followed and being forced to perform "lewd acts" every night by persons unknown. A while after the end of the war, Minor left America for England. He was imprisoned in Broadmore, a lunatic asylum there, when he murdered a man in London. (Minor thought the man was going to attack him.)

While in Broadmore, Minor had an extraordinary amount of special privileges. He had a pention from the U.S. Army and was a doctor like those taking care of him so Minor was housed in the nice part of Broadmore. He had the use of two rooms, one of which served as a library and the other which was his bedroom, where he painted and played his flute. The library was quite impressive because he collected rare works and anything else that caught his interest. Minor hired one of the other inmates to clean his rooms and perform small tasks. Sounds pretty nice, huh? He still had the slight problem of thinking people were breaking into his room at night and poisoning him or forcing him to perform those lewd acts.

Ten years after he was first imprisoned, Minor came across Murray's plea for volunteer readers. He wrote to Murray offering his services and got down to reading. Minor's approach to the task was completely different than that of the other volunteers. He would read a book through writing down each word that caught his attention and page number where it was found. He wrote the words down so that they would be in alphabetical order, leaving space for words he would find as he read. Once he finished one book, Minor would go on to the next. Because he wasn't sending in submissions to the editors in Oxford, they thought he had gotten bored with the project.

Once Minor thought he had come up with enough words, he wrote to Murray asking him if they were having any difficulty with any word. When Murray responded that "art" was vexing them, Minor immediately responded with quotation, volume number, and page number. After that, Murray and his workers would send any word "problems" to Minor and he would immediately respond with a correct response. Because Minor had his word lists minutely indexed, it took him no time at all to find a correct quotation. As the author says, other volunteers might have sent in more quotations but Minor's were worth their weight in gold. The editors knew they didn't need to double-check his work.

It was very interesting to watch the friendship between Minor and Murray develop. They corresponded for years and Murray visited Minor frequently in Broadmore. I also found it fascinating to learn more about the editing of the massive dictionary.

The only problem I had with the book was that the author, Simon Winchester, did not have a bibliography in the back of the book. True, he mentioned other books people could read to learn more and talked about some of the books he read. But, to a historian like me, that is not good enough. I want to see all of the documents he used. The letters, the journals, the books, the interviews. Everything. Still, I greatly enjoyed the work and would recommend it.

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