I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris

Review From Booklist:

The actor, caterer, film star, comic, and sister of David Sedaris charms, seduces, entertains, instructs, amuses, and just plain invites readers into her somewhat eclectic life. Readers will revel in the more than 100 recipes with menus for dozens of occasions (or not), from blind date at home to table for one (an evening alone, that is, with steak and salad). Her recipes, by the way, are no rivals to the Culinary Institute of America; for instance, the directions for "carrot coins" call for slicing carrots so they look like coins and sauteing with butter, salt, and pepper. Readers can choose from any number of easy items to craft--a Greek dress, a calf stretcher, or a mini-pantyhose plant hanger. Among the various tips shared: "One possible origin of the term 'monkey dish' [is] originally a dish made from a monkey's skull." But everyone can simply enjoy her wisdom-filled one-liners, with at least one appearing on every page. (About entertaining the elderly, she says, "Keep them engaged or it's the express train to nappy-land.") This is hardly a Reader's Digest compendium, but David Letterman would be pleased with it. Media tours and promotions alone should drive demand. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Warner Books (October 16, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0446578843

Customer Review: 4.5/5
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New & Usedavailable from $14.49*

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For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Book Description:

This is the story of Charley, a child of divorce who is always forced to choose between his mother and his father. He grows into a man and starts a family of his own. But one fateful weekend, he leaves his mother to secretly be with his fatherand she dies while he is gone. This haunts him for years. It unravels his own young family. It leads him to depression and drunkenness. One night, he decides to take his life. But somewhere between this world and the next, he encounters his mother again, in their hometown, and gets to spend one last day with her the day he missed and always wished he'd had. He asks the questions many of us yearn to ask, the questions we never ask while our parents are alive. By the end of this magical day, Charley discovers how little he really knew about his mother, the secret of how her love saved their family, and how deeply he wants the second chance to save his own.

Hardcover: 197 pages
Publisher: Hyperion (September 26, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 1401303277

Customer Review: 4/5
This sounds like a great book. I'm going to have to add it to my reading list.
Have you read this book? Add your review by commenting to this post.
Reviews will be displayed in a future posting including linkbacks!

New & Usedavailable from $8.75*

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The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham

Editorial Review from Amazon.com:
John Grisham tackles nonfiction for the first time with The Innocent Man, a true tale about murder and injustice in a small town (that reads like one of his own bestselling novels). The Innocent Man chronicles the story of Ron Williamson, how he was arrested and charged with a crime he did not commit, how his case was (mis)handled and how an innocent man was sent to death row. Grisham's first work of nonfiction is shocking, disturbing, and enthralling--a must read for fiction and nonfiction fans.

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Doubleday (October 10, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0385517238

Customer Review: 3.5/5
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New & Usedavailable from $10.00*

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A Mini Book Meme

I came across this meme somewhere out in blogland. I don't know where it originated but thought it would be interesting to see the different answers that it might generate.

Total number of books owned:
Last book bought:
Last book read:
Five books that mean a lot to you:

The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) by Lemony Snicket

Book Description

Dear Reader,

You are presumably looking at the back of this book, or the end of the end. The end of the end is the best place to begin the end, because if you read the end from the beginning of the beginning of the end to the end of the end of the end, you will arrive at the end of the end of your rope.

This book is the last in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and even if you braved the previous twelve volumes, you probably can't stand such unpleasantries as a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents.

It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the Baudelaire orphans, and at last I am finished. You likely have some other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so the end does not finish you.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket

Reading level: All Ages
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins (October 13, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0064410161

My Review: While I haven't read this book yet, I did read several of the beginning books (and saw the movie) and I loved them! I would love to read the whole series at some point in the near future.
Have you read this book? Add your review by commenting to this post. Reviews will be displayed in a future posting including linkbacks!

New & Usedavailable from $6.29*

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The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama

From Publishers Weekly
Ilinois's Democratic senator illuminates the constraints of mainstream politics all too well in this sonorous manifesto. Obama (Dreams from My Father) castigates divisive partisanship (especially the Republican brand) and calls for a centrist politics based on broad American values. His own cautious liberalism is a model: he's skeptical of big government and of Republican tax cuts for the rich and Social Security privatization; he's prochoice, but respectful of prolifers; supportive of religion, but not of imposing it. The policy result is a tepid Clintonism, featuring tax credits for the poor, a host of small-bore programs to address everything from worker retraining to teen pregnancy, and a health-care program that resembles Clinton's Hillary-care proposals. On Iraq, he floats a phased but open-ended troop withdrawal. His triangulated positions can seem conflicted: he supports free trade, while deploring its effects on American workers (he opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement), in the end hoping halfheartedly that more support for education, science and renewable energy will see the economy through the dilemmas of globalization. Obama writes insightfully, with vivid firsthand observations, about politics and the compromises forced on politicians by fund-raising, interest groups, the media and legislative horse-trading. Alas, his muddled, uninspiring proposals bear the stamp of those compromises. (Oct. 17)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Crown (October 17, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0307237699

Customer Review: 4/5
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Buy your copy today!

Dear John by Nicholas Sparks

From Publishers Weekly
Hot on the heels of True Believer and sequel At First Sight, Sparks returns with the story of ne'er-do-well-turned-army-enlistee John Tyree, 23, and well-to-do University of North Carolina special education major Savannah Lynn Curtis. John, who narrates, has been raised by a socially backward single postal-worker dad obsessed with coin collecting (he has Asperger's syndrome). John bypasses college for the overseas infantry; Savannah spends her college summers volunteering. When they meet, he's on leave, and she's working with Habitat for Humanity (he rescues her sinking purse at the beach). John has a history of one-night stands; Savannah's a virgin. He's an on-and-off drinker; she's a teetotaler. Attraction and values conflict the rest of the summer, but the deal does not close. Savannah longs for John to come home; her friend Tim longs to have a relationship with her. On the brink of John and Savannah's finally getting together, 9/11 happens, and John re-ups. Savannah's letters come less and less frequently, and before you know it, he receives the expected "Dear John" letter. Sparks's novel brims with longing. (Oct. 30)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Warner Books (October 30, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0446528056

Have you read this book? Post to comments to submit your review!

Get your copy today! New & Used Available starting at $10.39!*

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You: On A Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet C. Oz

Amazon.com Book Description:


For the first time in our history, scientists are uncovering astounding medical evidence about dieting--and why so many of us struggle with our weight and the size of our waists. Now researchers are unraveling biological secrets about such things as why you crave chocolate or gorge at buffets or store so much fat.

Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz, America's most trusted doctor team and authors of the bestselling YOU series, are now translating this cutting-edge information to help you shave inches off your waist. They're going to do it by giving you the best weapon against fat: knowledge. By understanding how your body's fat-storing and fat-burning systems work, you're going to learn how to crack the code on true and lifelong waist management.

Roizen and Oz will invigorate you with equal parts information, motivation, and change-your-life action to show you how your brain, stomach, hormones, muscles, heart, genetics, and stress levels all interact biologically to determine if your body is the size of a baseball bat or of a baseball stadium. In YOU: On a Diet, Roizen and Oz will redefine what a healthy figure is, then take you through an under-the skin tour of the organs that influence your body's size and its health. You'll even be convinced that the key number to fixate on is not your weight, but your waist size, which best indicates the medical risks of storing too much fat.

Because the world has almost as many diet plans as it has e-mail spammers, you'd think that just about all of us would know everything there is to know about dieting, about fat, and about the reasons why our bellies have grown so large. YOU: On a Diet is much more than a diet plan or a series of instructions and guidelines or a faddish berries-only eating plan. It's a complete manual for waist management. It will show you how to achieve and maintain an ideal and healthy body size by providing a lexicon according to which any weight-loss system can be explained. YOU: On a Diet will serve as the operating system that facilitates future evolution in our dieting software. After you learn about the biology of your body and the biology and psychology of fat, you'll be given the YOU Diet and YOU Workout. Both are easy to learn, follow, and maintain. Following a two-week rebooting program will help you lose up to two inches from your waist right from the start.

With Roizen and Oz's signature accessibility, wit, and humor, YOU: On a Diet--The Owner's Manual for Waist Management will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the food you consume, so that you'll diet smart, not hard. Welcome to your body on a diet.

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Free Press (October 31, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0743292545

Have you read this book? Post to comments to submit your review!

Get your copy today! New & Used Available starting at $13.75!*

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Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin

New York Times Bestseller
By The Pulitizer Prize-Winning Author of No Ordinary Time
Reading Group Guide Inside

Back Cover:

Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950's, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin's touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. She re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant and Yankee fans.

We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin's early life: her mother who taught her the joy of books but whose dibilitating illness left her housebound; and her father, who taught her the joy of baseball and to root for the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges. Most important, Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers' leaving Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood.

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0684847957
Jun 1998
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
261 pages

Book Condition: Very Good

$2.99 Buy!

Osprey Island by Thisbe Nissen

Back cover:
As summer begins on Osprey Island, preparations at the Lodge--the island's one and only hotel--are under way for the busy season. On maintenance and housekeeping there's Lance and Lorna Squire, Osprey locals and raging drinkers, and their irrepressible son, Squee. There are college boys to wait tables and Irish girls to clean rooms. And a few unusual returnees, too: Suzy Chizek, single mom and daughter of the Lodge's owners, who's looking for a parentally funded vacation, and Roddy Jacobs, another former local, who has come back after a mysterious twenty-year absence.

But when tradegy strikes, dark secrets explode, dividing the island community over the fate of a young boy suddenly more vulnerable to his violent father than ever. In the uniquely ephemeral atmosphere of a summer resort, Thisbe Nissen unfolds, with characteristic warmth and charm, an ever-deepening story of lost loves and found romance, of loyalties and betrayal, and of lingering sadness and fleeting joy.

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0385720629
Jun 2005
Publisher: Random House Inc
304 pages
Reprint

My Review: 4/5
Thisbe Nissen is yet another great storyteller.

Book Condition: Like New

$3.99 Buy!

The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

Back Cover:

"Brilliant" -Chicago Tribune
Pat Conroy has created a huge, brash, thunderstorm of a novel, stinging with honesty and resounding with drama.
Spanning forty years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister Savannah, and the dark and violent past of the extraordinary family into which they were born.

"Powerful" -UPI
Filled with the vanishing beauty of the South Carolina lowcountry as well as the dusty glitter of New York City, The Prince of Tides is Pat Conroy's most magnificent novel yet.

"Compulsively Readable" -Glamour

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0553268880
Feb 1991
Publisher: Bantam Books
Reissue

My Review: 4/5
I really enjoyed reading this story. I may find myself reading it again someday.

Book Condition: Good, some wear.

$1.50 Buy!

Sale! Now through January 1, 2007!

Exclusive 15% off sale starting today through 1/1/2007 for books purchased through Laura's Book of the Day Blog!*

Discounts will be reimbursed through Paypal or Money Order, your choice! All books are listed in my half.com shop (ebay account required).

*Please note: Only a portion of the books available are listed on Laura's Book of the Day Blog.*

Rules:

• Buy one or more books
• Send me an email (la.law.211@gmail.com) letting me know which book(s) you purchased and by which method you want your discount reimbursed.
  
• If Paypal reimbursment is desired, specify the email address for receiving payment.

*Amazon book listings not included in this sale

The River Where Blood Is Born by Sandra Jackson-Opoku

Back cover:

The River Where Blood Is Born takes us on a journey along the river of one family's history, carving a course across two centuries and three continents, from ancient Africa into today's America. Here, through the lives of Mother Africa's many daughters, we come to understand the real meaning of roots: the captive Proud Mary, who has been savagely punished for refusing to relinquish her child to slavery; Earlene, who witnesses her father's murder at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan; Big Mamma, a modern-day matriarch who can make a woman of a girl; proud and sassy Cinnamon Brown, whose wild abandon hides a bitter loss; and smart, ambitious Alma, who is torn between the love of a man and the song of her soul. In this astonishing novel, at last a chosen daughter is summoned home. But what must she sacrifice to honor the River Mother's call?

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 034542476X
Aug 1998
Publisher: Ballantine Books
401 pages
Reprint
Ballantine Reader's Circle

My Review: 5/5
Beautifully written, a powerful book filled with unforgettable characters.

Book Condition: Acceptable

$1.99 Buy!

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

Back cover:

"Animals dream about the things they do in the daytime, just like people do. If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life." So says Loyd Peregrina, a handsome Apache trainman and latter-day philosopher. But when Codi Noline returns to her hometown, Loyd's advice is painfully out of her reach. Dreamless and at the end of her rope, Codi comes back to Grace, Arizona, to confront her past and face her ailing, distant father. What she finds is a town threatened by a silent environmental catastrophe, some startling clues to her own identity, and a man whose view of the world could change the course of her life. Blending flashbacks, dreams, and Native American legends, Animal Dreams is a suspensful love story and a moving exploration of life's largest commitments. With this work, the acclaimed author of The Bean Trees and Homeland and Other Stories sustains her familiar voice while giving readers her most remarkable book yet.

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0060921145
Aug 1991
Publisher: Harpercollins
Reprint

My Review: 4/5
A very interesting and compelling story.

Book Condition: Very Good

$1.99 Buy!

West of Jesus: Surfing, Science and the Origins of Belief by Steven Kotler

Steven Kotler almost drowned when he got caught on the wrong side of a wave in Mexico. As he emerged from the water, battered and torn, a fellow surfer told him, "It looks like the Conductor had his way with you." This was the second time Kotler had heard of this "Conductor"--the mythical surfer who controls the weather and the waves. Strangely, it was nearly a decade earlier in Indonesia that he was introduced to this mysterious troublemaker for the first time. He almost drowned that time, too.

After suffering from Lyme disease for two years, Kotler loses the perfect job, the perfect girl and much of what had been the perfect life. With nothing of any meaning left to him, Kotler sets out to surf around the world in search of the Conductor. As he regains his strength, he begins to have mystical experiences, not unlike those hinted at in the Conductor's myth. In spite of being a committed skeptic, Kotler had out-of-body experiences, felt time stoppages, had moments of ecstasy. Could this be standard neurochemistry triggered by flashes of adrenaline and other brain chemicals? Was he achieving some kind of transcendence? Or was he just losing his mind?

In West of Jesus, Steven Kotler starts out on an admittedly mad quest and ends up at the peculiar intersection of neuroscience, spirituality and sport. The results are a startling mix of big waves and bigger ideas: a surfer's journey into the biology of belief.

Format:Hardcover
ISBN:1596910518
Jun 2006
Publisher:St Martins Pr
261 pages

No Review: I didn't read this book.

Book Condition: Like New

$15.65 Buy!

Free Book Communities

BookCrossing

The main idea at bookcrossing is to read your books and release them. This means that you label your book with an identifying number and then leave the book "in the wild" for someone else to find and read. With a little luck, the person who finds the book will log on and journal that they found the book, where they found it and if they plan to re-release it.

Bookcrossing also has a large community via the forum and a yahoo group. (There are also many yahoo sub-groups not listed on the website). Many of the members will share and/or trade their books. Some set up bookrings: they mail the book to you, you read it and then mail it to the next person on the list...it ends back with the original owner, bookrays: same as a bookring except the last person on the list releases the book into the wild, RABCK's: stands for random acts of bookcrossing kindness - this means they send you the book without expecting a trade or anything in return.

When you list your books on bookcrossing it creates a page called your bookshelf. You can place your books into different catagories: All Books, To Be Read, Available, Permanent Collection, Reserved and Traveling. You are also able to journal the books you list as well as rate them with their rating system.

Paper Back Swap

The name is kind of self explanitory, you trade books with other people. They use a credit system to keep track. Beginners list at least nine books and receive 3 free credits. You can then request any book you like from other members (1 book=1 credit). Other people request books from you and you mail it to them. When they receive the book, they go to the website and click the "received" button and you get another credit.

Like BookCrossing, PaperBackSwap also offers catagories, rating system, journaling, forums and private messaging. Unlike BC, you don't have to label your books and they have an option of printing out your mailing wrapper with or without delivery confirmation already on it.

Book Relay

A spin-off from BookCrossing, this site was designed to put some fun into sharing books. Each topic is like a game. You can request the last book offered on the topic but you have to replace it with an appropriate book to the theme of the topic. Each topic will have it's own set of game 'rules'.

50 Book Challenge

This site is a LiveJournal community that book readers can join to challenge themselves to read at least 50 books in one year. Your year begins at the time you join (nobody keeps track of your reading, it's just for your own goals) and most members will post monthly which books they read and how many books they've read so far.

15000 Pages

This site is also a LiveJournal community that book readers can join to challenge themselves to read at least 15,000 pages in one year. Your year begins at the time you join (nobody keeps track of your reading, it's just for your own goals) and most members will post monthly which books they read and how many pages they've read so far.

Smaller book trading sites:

The Cheshire Kat Trading Post

SF-Books (Science Fiction)


Do you know of some great book sites? Feel free to post them in a reply and I'll put them into a post next time!

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Back cover:

San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder.

In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man's guilt. For on San Piedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries--memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched. Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense--but one that leaves us shaken and changed.

Format:Paperback
ISBN:067976402X
1995
Publisher:Harcourt
Vintage Contemporaries Series

My Review: 5/5
A great story told with immense talent.
This copy of the book has a handful of duplicate pages in the middle, but it's still
readable with a bit of navigational skill.

Book Condition: Very Good

$0.81 Buy!

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Back Cover:

Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi’s living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 081297106X
Feb 2003
Publisher: Random House Inc
356 pages
Reprint

No Review: I didn't read this book.

Book Condition: Like New

$1.99 Buy!

An Irresistible Impulse by Barbara Delinsky

Back cover:

Sitting in a Vermont jury room, Abby Barnes is happy to be empaneled. The trial is a sensational headline grabber, and the thought of being sequestered for a few weeks is appealing. The time away from a relationship that fails to excite her will give her a chance to think...and to make a long overdue decision.

Then she meets fellow juror Ben Wyeth, a witty and charming college professor who shows Abby just what she's been missing. But although they share grueling days of grisly testimony and long nights of passion, there is a part of Ben that he can never share with Abby, or any woman. Just as the fate of an accused man lies in the balance, so too does Abby's, as she decides whether what Ben can give is enough...enough to last her a lifetime.

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0061008761
Sep 1997
Publisher: Harpercollins
Reissue

My review: 3/5
I like Barbara Delinsky's books, but this one wasn't among her best.

Book Condition: Very Good

$0.75 Buy!

Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan

Back cover:

Get ready to cheer for Rose Lloyd, a woman of young middle age who proves that starting over doesn't have an age limit. After twenty-five years spent juggling husband, career, and kids with admirable success, Rose suddenly finds both her marriage and her job in unexpected ruin. Forced to begin a new life, she is at first terrified, then energized by her newfound freedom--it's amazing what prolonged reflection, a little weight loss, a new slant on independence, and some Parisian lingerie will do for the psyche! Insightful and full of a wonderful sense of the absurd, this triumphant novel will strike a chord with anyone who has ever wondered what Middle Age would look like from the other side of the looking glass (answer: much better than you could ever expect).

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0142003727
Feb 2003
Publisher: Penguin USA

My Review: 3/5
A quick and easy to read chick-lit book.

Book Condition: Very Good

$2.99 Buy!

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

(No description on book) Synopsis on half.com:

J. D. Salinger's famous and enduring chronicle of Holden Caulfield's journey from innocence to experience is the quintessential coming-of-age novel--though it's an unusual one, in which the hero tries to cling to the simplicity of childhood, achieving a kind of maturity almost in spite of himself. As the novel begins, Holden runs away from his stifling prep school, which is full of "phonies" and where he has, in fact, flunked out. Holing up in a New York City hotel, he has a series of small adventures and missed opportunities, all of which emphasize his loneliness and alienation from the world. A visit to his kid sister Phoebe (in which he memorably articulates his confused notion of being a "catcher in the rye") provides a ray of hope for Holden, as do the ducks in Central Park that he worries about so compulsively: though they do indeed disappear in the winter, they return in the spring. The novel's final image, of Phoebe riding the carousel in the park while her brother looks on, in tears, holds out the idea that there may be a future for Holden as well. Salinger's 1951 novel was a bestseller and became an immediate cult favorite, but it has also, over the years, been subject to criticism and even censorship because of its liberal use of profanity, its frank conversations about sex (though no actual sex takes place), and its generally irreverent view of the adult world.

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0316769487
Apr 1991
Publisher: Little Brown & Co
Reissue

My review: 4/5
A classic book that is geared toward teenagers. Interesting and insightful.

Book Condition: Very Good

$1.57 Buy!

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Back cover:

Rich Dad, Poor Dad will...

• Explode the myth that you need to earn a high income to become rich
• Challenge the belief that your house is an asset
• Show parents why they can't rely on the school system to teach their kids about money
• Define once and for all an asset and a liability
• Teach you what to teach your kids about money for their future financial success.
  

Paperback: 207 pages
Publisher: Warner Business Books (April 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446677450
ISBN-13: 978-0446677455

Customer Review: 4/5

My Review: 3/5
This book was inspiring and motivational. His main idea for making lots of money is buying and selling properties.

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

Back cover:

The how of Pooh? The Tao of who? The Tao of Pooh!...in which it is revealed that one of the world's great Taoist masters isn't Chinese...or a venerable philosopher...but is in fact none other than that effortlessly calm, still, reflective bear, A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh!
While Eeyore frets...
...and Piglet hesitates
...and Rabbit calculates
...and Owl pontificates
...Pooh just is.
And that's a clue to the secret wisdom of the Taoists.

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0140067477
Jul 1983
Publisher: Penguin USA
158 pages
Illustrated

My review: 5/5
This book is not only cute, but it's filled with inspiring wisdom as well!

Book condition: Very Good

$2.99 Buy!

Wanted: Affiliates

Affilates: If anyone would like to have their link displayed in my sidebar, comment to this post and be sure to leave your link as well as the text you want hyperlinked.

The catch (because there always is one): Your site or blog link must have something to do with reading, writing, books, magazines or anything literary. I will accept the first fifteen comments asking to be added and they will be displayed for a minimum of six months with the exception of any links that become broken. This offer stands for as long as it takes for 15 sites to be included.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Back cover:

"This powerful first novel...tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir. Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces. But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in The Kite Runner, are only a part of this story. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence--forces that continue to threaten them even today." -The New York Times Book Review

Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Trade; Reprint edition (April 27, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594480001
ISBN-13: 978-1594480003

Customer Review: 4.5/5

My review: 5/5
An excellent book that I'll always remember!

The Second Silence by Eileen Goudge

Best Selling Author of One Last Dance

From book jacket:
When Noelle Van Doren's only child is stolen from her by her wealthy estranged husband, it is she who must battle, against an onslaught of false evidence, to prove she's a fit parent. Into the fray step Noelle's long-divorced parents, whose quest to discredit their socially prominent son-in-law raises questions about his dubious past...and disquieting realizations about their own. After all these years the passion that once consumed them as teenagers proves as inescapable as the mounting evidence against Noelle's husband Robert.

Only Charlie, Mary and Noelle know Robert, supposedly a paragon of civic virtue, is not who he seems. With a little help from Noelle's kid sister and her smoldering, street-smart boyfriend, they frantically peel away layers of mystery surrounding Robert and a thirty-year-old suicide. But they also find themselves on the path of a cold-blooded killer. It soon becomes plain that this battle is not just to regain custody, but to keep loved ones alive.

In the midst of this heartrending crisis, the lives of each begin to change in unexpectedly wrenching ways. For Charlie and Mary, the years apart have made them realize that one's first love is often one's best love, but now new obstacles stand in their way. Noelle is astonished to discover a reservoir of strength in the midst of her struggle and, most surprising of all, the ability to open her heart to a new love.

Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0670891592
Jun 2000
Publisher: New Amer Library
365 pages

My review: 1/5
Not my style of reading.

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Evensong by Gail Godwin

New York Times Bestseller
Ballantine Reader's Circle

Back of book:
"A deeply considered, even dignified novel...
One stays engaged with the story for sheer narrative hook: As with story lines from Dikens...you simply want to find out who does what to whom...The final beauty of Evensong is its ability to address God--to address the mystery of faith by comprehending, then embracing, this premise of uncertainty itself." -The Boston Sunday Globe

"Evensong lingers in the mind...
Meticulousness and precision are, indeed, Godwin's greatest strengths. In matters liturgical and clerical, her command is impeccable." -The New York Times Book Review

"[A] Sensitive, perfectly paced novel...
A story full of fresh, spiritual wisdoom...Smashing one of the strangest taboos in American literature, Godwin may have finally brought religion back from the wilderness and made it a safe subject for literary fiction." -The Christian Science Monitor

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0345434773
Mar 2000
Publisher: Ballantine Books
405 pages

My review: 5/5
An excellent book that entices to the end!

Book condition: Very Good

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The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Awarded the John Newberry Medal
A Junior Library Guild Selection

From book jacket:
This is the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in darkness but covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl with a simple, impossible wish. These characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and ultimately, into each other's lives. And what happens then? Reader, it is your destiny to find out.

Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0-439-69220-2
2004
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Review: 4/5
Filled with action and excitement.

Book condition: Like new

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Up Island by Anne River Siddons

From back cover:
If there was ever one woman who knew what was important, that woman was Molly Bell Redwine. From childhood, Molly was taught by her difficult, charismatic mother that "family is everything." But in what seems like an instant, Molly discovers that family can change without warning. Her husband of more than twenty years leaves her for a younger woman, her domineering mother dies, and her Atlanta clan scatters to the four winds. In a heartbeat Molly is set adrift.

Devestated by her crumbling world, Molly takes refuge with a friend on Martha's Vineyard where she tries to come to terms with who she really is. After the summer season, Molly decides to stay on in this very different world, renting a small cottage on a remote up-island pond.

As Molly's stay up island widens the distance between her and her old life in Atlanta, she lets go of her outworn notions of family and begins to become part of a strange--and very real--new family. As the long Vineyard winter closes in, she braces herself for the search for renewal, identity, and strength, until the healing spring finally comes.

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 006109921X
Jun 1998
Publisher: Harpercollins
499 pages

My review: 3/5
A great story, but a little predictable at times.

Book condition: Good/Used

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Le Divorce by Diane Johnson

National Bestseller
National Book Award Finalist

From back of book:
"Stylish...refreshing...genunely wise." -The New York Times Book Review
Imagine the herione of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady sporting a stylish haircut, miniskirt, and sunglasses, and you have Isabel Walker, the irresistible herione of Diane Johnson's incandescent novel.

"A sparkly novel about the screwy collision of two cultures in the City of LIght...Alluring." -Boston Globe
Le Divorce follows this smart, sexy American abroad as she arrives in Paris to visit her stepsister Roxy, a poet whose marriage into an aristocratic French family has assured her of a coveted place in Parisian society. But all is not as it should be in the Persand household: Roxy's husband has just left her for the Czechoslovakian wife of an American lawyer. Could "le divorce" be far behind?

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0452284481
Jul 2003
Publisher: Harperaudio
309 pages

My review: 4/5
A highly entertaining chick lit book!

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