Pull Up a Chair & Grab a Book (June 27, 2011)

I love persuing the bookstore for new reads,but I also love reading book review magazines and talking books with friends for potential ones that I might never see or pick up in the bookstore.

Here a few that have lately made my potential list:

Pre-teen Mystery
I'm beginning with a young adult book because I love anything that gets children - of all ages - reading, especially when it's a book that may motivate them to read beyond the original book.

No Place Like Holmes
Jason Lethcoe
Can you imagine going to spend the summer with your uncle thinking he is THE Sherlock Holmes, only to discover that your uncle lives at 221A Baker Street while the great detective resides at 221B Baker Street? Promises to be a fun young adult read with allusions to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Hopefully, it will also encourage them to experience the joys of the original.

4 out of 5 stars

Historical Fiction

Private Life
Jane Smiley

Emerson once said, “To be great is to be misunderstood.” This isn’t so much the story of the great, misunderstood scientist, but the story of his wife. The year is 1905 and 27-year old Margaret Mayfield enters an arranged marriage with a scientist who is as certain of his genius as he is that Einstein’s immigration to the United States is solely to spy on him. Six decades of marriage entitles Margaret to her own story.

3.20 out of 5 stars

Nonfiction/Biography

White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Barbara Wineapple
Emily Dickinson is usually described as the reclusive and eccentric poet who lowered cookies in a basket from her upstairs bedroom window to the neighborhood children waiting below because she was too shy to deliver them in person. She is the poet who wrote, “I’m Nobody. Who are you? / Are you – Nobody – too? /  Then there’s a pair of us – don’t tell! / They’d banish us, you know. ” But she is also the poet who wrote, “Wild nights! Wild nights! / Were I with thee, / Wild nights should be / Our luxury!” White Heat uses historical research to escape the weak and retiring Emily Dickinson stereotype.

3.91 out of 5 stars

Nonfiction/How-to

The City Homesteader
Scott Meyer
I’m not exactly city, but I am citified. I rely on others for my fresh summer produce; I’ve never preserved a thing in my life (unless you count those pickles I made earlier this week), and foraging is something I think wild animals do. We have chickens, and I’ve been yearning for bees and fresh honey – except I have no idea how to start a hive (not counting the one I once thought was being formed in my son's bedroom wall). I’ve also recently developed a disdain for waste, and while the chickens eat most of our produce scraps, I’d like to compost what remains – except I have no idea what ratios to use. I call myself country, although my “country” is only ¾ acre; this I believe makes me a candidate for The City Homesteader.  I want to eliminate “citified” and replace it with “homesteader.” Maybe this book can help me do it.

4 out of 5 stars

Psychological Thriller

Tigerlily’s Orchids
Ruth Rendell
Two things caused me to look at this book a second time:  “drily humorous” and “by the reigning doyenne of British mystery.” I am enamored with dry humor and in my dreams, I regale listeners with it. Maybe if I immerse myself in it, I’ll become a master by osmosis. It also appears to be an interesting study of many character types, - male/female, typical/attypical, moral/immoral, composed/a total wreck. 

3.2 out of 5 stars

*If you love books and, like me, keep adding books to your to-be-read list even though it is humanly impossible to ever read them all (even if you live a hundred years), then join me at Goodreads.