Hotel Babylon by an anonymous author with the help of Imogen Edwards Jones - A psuedo-fictional book that exposes the eccentric inner workings of the luxury hotel business. Set in a fictional hotel in London, the book unfolds over a 24 hour period in the life of the hotel. From overbooking to up-pricing, to celebrities to the help staff, every element of the hotel is examined in honest and often hilarious detail. The most famous underbelly of the hotel business, prostitution, offers some of the more humorous scenes in the book. An "extra pillow' requested from the concierge most assuredly is no reference to what it may seem, so be careful the next time you find yourself requsting one during your next vacation! (Thanks for the suggestion, Jessa!)


A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly - Mattie Gokey promised her dying mother that she would always take care of her father and younger siblings. She is stuck on a farm, living in near poverty, with no way of escaping, even though she has been accepted at Barnard College because she is a very talented writer. Against her true desires, she promises to marry Royal Loomis, the handsome neighbor, even though he doesn't seem to love her in the least. Now, Mattie has promised Grace Brown, a guest at the Adirondack summer resort where she works, to burn two bundles of letters. Then, before she can dispose of the letters, Grace's body is found in the lake, and the young man who was with her disappears, too. This is a thoughtful tale, complex and well-written, wrapped around a true story. The portryal of how women were regarded in the late 1800s was dead-on, and the dedication that Mattie feels for her family and for doing the "right thing" is a refreshing detour from many of today's young adult fiction books.

True Love and Other Lies by Wendy Gaskell - Claire Spencer is a travel writer (Sassy Seniors magazine, thankyouverymuch!) who has little use for those fairy tales about love at first sight. Claire doesn't fit the mold of a typcial beauty, tending more toward Amazon than Cover Girl. On a trip to London to gather fodder for a story, she meets Jack, the heart-breakingly handsome man in the next seat. Ulitmately Jack asks her to dinner, and Claire automatically starts looking for "the catch." Claire accepts, and finds herself head-over-heels for Jack.

On the flip-side, Claire is also in London to see Maddy, her best friend. Maddy is exactly the opposite of Claire...beautifully gorgeous. Cover Girl incarnate. Maddy's life, however, has been turned upside down by a man for the first time, too...one that she wants but doesn't want her. Whodoya think it is? Of course....Jack! How is Claire going to maintain her friendship with Maddy when for the first time she's beginning to believe in the fact that love actually might have found her?

This was a fun, light-hearted read that, honestly, confirmed many of my more covert suspicions about "love". Gaskell uses her wit to make sense of the absurdity of it all.


The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd - I waited for this book for ages and couldn't get it read quickly enough. Sue Monk Kidd is one of my most favorite authors, usually quite a feat to achieve, and usually never after only writing one book. However, The Secret Life of Bees was a piece of artful writing and so anything she writes, ever again, will be on my "to-read" list. This book, although a bit slow at the start, picks up with the wonderfully lyrical prose from her previous book.

Jessie Sullivan, a middle-aged Atlanta housewife and part-time artist, has been in a funk since her daughter Dee left for college. When the phone rings one night, she is sure it is Dee, but instead it is a call beckoning her to her mother's side. Her mother, who never recovered from tragically losing her husband years earlier, has purposefully cut off her finger with a cleaver. So Jesse returns to Egret Island, the site of her childhood, to care of her ailing mother and, hopefully in the process, find her lost artistic inspiration and a renewed love for her husband.

The story unfolds as Jessie attempts to care for a mother who doesn't want to be cared for, with the help of her mother's quirky but faithful cast of friends. To complicate matters, Jessie finds herself strangely relieved to be free of a husband she loves-and undeniably attracted to Brother Thomas, a monk at the island's Benedictine monastery. Jessie, who has never understood why her mother is still so affected by her father's death, begins to suspect that she's keeping a terrible secret, and the unfolding of that secret is where this book is at its best.

Generation Me by Jean M. Twenge - This was an incredibly insightful look into how today's generation (aka Generation Me) of teenagers and children differ from those before them. The idea of promoting self-esteem, self-love, and self-appreciation before they've earned it is central to the premise that today's parents are coddling this generation and, thus, handicapping them for their futures in the "real world." What really connected with me was the insistance that teaching SELF-CONTROL instead of SELF-ESTEEM is what must be done to stand this generation in good steed as they prepare to face an ever-changing, largely unforgiving world. From the vantage point of an educator, there were too many examples that rang true for me to dismiss this book as just another attempt to place blame for what is wrong with our youth today. In my opinion, this book hits the mark!


We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg - The latest book by one of my most favorite authors! (Corina, I have a copy to pass on to you!)

Berg got the idea for this book from one of her own readers who wrote to her suggesting that she write a fictional story based upon the real-life experiences of her and her mother. In the story, Paige Dunn is stricken by polio while she is pregnant. Usually a death sentence for the unborn child, Paige is able to carry the baby to term and is the first woman to give birth while inside an iron lung. As anticipated, Paige's husband leaves her to care for the child on her own. Left a quadraplegic and needing the assistance of an iron lung to live her life, Paige takes on the harrowing task of raising Diana on her own with the help of a caretaker and, as she grows, Diana herself. The story develops around Diana's struggle to come of age while being tied to her mother, and their quest to learn what loyalty and responsiblity means...not just to one another, but to the world around them.

A few of my favorite book/reading quotes for you to enjoy!

• "I read part of it all the way through." - Sam Goldwyn
• "Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind." -James Russell Lowell
• "I am looking for a new biography to live in." -from The Last Jew
• "The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose." - Margaret Atwood
• "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." - Harper Lee
• "The reading of all good books is like a conversation with all the finest men of past centuries." -Rene Descartes
• "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind." - Rudyard Kipling
• "There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know until he takes up a pen to write." -William Makepeace Thackery

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards - This story opens during a snowstorm in 1962, when David's wife, Norah, goes into early labor. There is a terrible snow storm that prevents her doctor from making it in time for the birth, so David and his nurse, Caroline, must handle it themselves. Caroline puts Norah to sleep (apparently what they did in the "olden days") and David unexpectedly delivers his own set of twins. The first baby, a boy, is healthy; the second child, a baby girl, has Down Syndrome. Thinking only of the memory of growing up with a very ill sister, David makes a split-second decision. He asks Caroline to take his infant daughter to an institution where she will be cared for, and when Norah awakes, he tells her that the second child was stillborn. Clearly not the right decision for David to make, yet he believes he's done the right thing for all concerned. However, his decision has a ripple effect, starting with the fact that Caroline doesn't leave the baby at the institution...opting instead to raiser her herself.

This is a rich and well-written page-turner that explores how mysterious ties can hold a family together even through the most dire circumstances, and how love can provide the greatest redemption.

Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster - A snappy, witty memoir about a dotcom princess who loses her job (and, seemingly, her sanity) when the market turned bad. The book is a hilarious and biting account of her transition back into a "normal" person from the self-absorbed, shopaholic, workaholic that she had become trying to make it to the top. From the scene where she steals a handbag from a homeless person to the one where she lives in squalor next to a building being built by Russian immigrants, this book if full of side-splitting laughter.

She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall by Misty Bernall - The tragedy of the Columbine shootings on April 20, 1999, is brought to life through the story of Cassie Bernall. Cassie was in the library studying on that fateful spring day when two young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, opened fire and killed 13 classmates. The is the inspiring story of a young woman who stood up for her beliefs in the face of danger, and ultimately paid the highest price by sacrificing her life because "she said yes," when asked if she believed in God.

--many of my junior high girls have read this book and loved it, too!


Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich - I love non-fiction of all sorts, and this book was no exception. I remembered hearing about all the welfare reform in the 90s, but never really thought about what happened to all those people who "got up off the couch and went to work." Well, this is a pretty acurate account of what happened to those people. The author was inspired by all the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform and decided to see if these low-wage, poverty-level workers are able to survive, let alone prosper, on these paltry wages. Ehrenreich took jobs in Florida, Maine, and Minnesotra, working as a waitress, a nursing home aide, a house-cleaner, and a Wal-Mart employee in hopes of affording the bare minimum in accomodations, food, and health care. During this harrowing social experiement, she soon discovered that these "bottom-of-the-ladder" jobs require exhausting mental and physical efforts. This book reveals how today's working poor get by, or don't, and really caused me to contemplate the way our country handles the issues they face.

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham - Did you know that Christmas with the Kranks was actually based on a book? And that it was written by award winning novelist John Grisham of all people? Well, it is, and the book is even funnier! The book pretty much outlines the movie as far as characters (Luther and Nora Krank) are concerned, but if you're like me, a funny book beats a funny movie any day. I know it's not December, but this book will still put you in the Christmas spirit. Read it now :)

Devil in the Details by Jennifer Traig - Hysterical account of the childhood of a Jewish girl with OCD. As if OCD isn't restrictive enough, with a multitude of rules and rituals for those afflicted, pair that with the rigid lifestyle of an Orthodox Jew and you have the formula for a knee-slapping memoir. Traig gives the reader a first-hand account of what it's like to be an obsessive-compulsive who is struggling with her religious identity (her mom is Catholic, her dad a wayward Jew). The book only gets funnier as she chooses Judaism and then proceeds (with help from her OCD) to take it MORE seriously than any "real" Jew does. If you are looking for a funny book and like non-fiction, this book is for you.

Mercy by Jodi Picoult - Jodi Picoult is by far one of my favorite authors (My Sister's Keeper, The Pact, et al). Cameron MacDonald has spent his life hemmed-in by duty. As the police chief of a small Massachusetts town that has been home to generations of his Scottish clan, he is bound to the town's residents by blood and honor...and finds that he no longer really wants to be. However, when his cousin Jamie confesses to killing his wife and expects Cam to help him, Cam's loyalties are torn. At the same time, Cam is struggling with his own marriage, and into this confusion comes Mia, a world-traveler stopping over as a florist with Allie, Cam's wife. The book revolves around a few critical questions: What would you do for someone you love? Would you lie? Would you leave? Would you kill? If you like Picoult, you'll like this book!