I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had

By Tony Danza

Tony Danza is famous for his acting career. Not for his teaching ability. But it turns out that Danza had always had a yen for teaching, this despite the fact he himself was a rather indifferent student. So when A&E wanted to do a reality TV show about teaching, with Danza in the starring role, he was enthusiastic. That's how Danza came to teach English for a year at a large Philadelphia high school, Northeast High. Danza's goal was to highlight the importance of teachers and schools to the future success of America's students.
But what he found out was that no matter how dedicated and skillful and compassionate the teachers may be, if they are not backed up by the community and, especially by the parents, they are fighting a losing battle. It is up to the parents to stress the importance and benefits of education and to make sure their kids are at school every day and doing the required work. Which is not the case in some homes in America where it seems everything is more important that education.

I enjoyed this book, for the most part. I did find that Danza seems to center the conversation on himself a lot. Even his students quickly caught on to the fact that Danza loves to talk about himself, using this tendency to derail the lessons. Don't most students love it when the teacher starts gasbagging? You don't learn much but you don't have to pay attention either. But other than that, this was a pretty good read and quite informative on conditions in U.S. schools these days.

For another review see http://www.cleveland.com/books/index.ssf/2012/09/tony_danzas_id_like_to_apologi.html.

Spin

By Robert Charles Wilson

Tyler Dupree lives in a small house on the grounds of a mansion owned by E.D. Lawton, a mover and shaker in the world of aerospace.  Tyler's mom is Lawton's housekeeper and also serves as a kind of surrogate mother to Lawton's two kids, Jason and Diane since their mother is an alcoholic. The Jason and Diane are fraternal twins and about the same age as Tyler. The three are pretty good friends. Tyler has a serious crush on Diane, but she is not that responsive to his feelings. Both Jason and Diane are very intelligent and E.D. intends to bring Jason into the aerospace business.
One night when Tyler, Diane and Jason were outside playing, the stars vanished. A brief flare of starlight and then nothing but blackness. Data transmission that relied on satellites failed. Even the moon was gone. But the sun rose the next day like nothing had changed.
Before much longer, it was understood that the Earth was enclosed in a pocket of slow-time. Outside the black spin membrane, time passed normally. Inside it passed much, much slower. So slow, that outside the sun was aging rapidly, soon to go through its death throes, which would engulf the Earth in its expanding body, destroying all life. The Earth only had about fifty years of normal life left for its inhabitants.
So a plan was hatched, led by Jason Lawton, now an adult and working for his father, to seed Mars with life. Then, as conditions improved on Mars, relative to the slower time on Earth, humans would travel there, hopefully to survive and thrive. Amazingly the plan worked, the success made apparent by the arrival on Earth of a human being from Mars, Wun Ngo Wen. Martian civilization is hundreds of thousands of years old and highly advanced. Wun may have a solution to the crisis facing the people of Earth. But just as Wun arrives on Earth, another spin membrane appears, but now it is surrounding Mars.

This story is told in a series of flashbacks, interweaving the story of Diane and Tyler as they are trying to escape from their pursuers. Who exactly is chasing them and why isn't made clear until quite a bit later in the book. The enclosure of the Earth by the spin membrane sent Diane off on a spiritual quest that resulted in her marrying a religious fundamentalist. Jason becomes a brilliant scientist but becomes ill with a form of multiple sclerosis. Tyler goes off to medical school and becomes a doctor, ending up working at E.D. Lawton's aerospace firm and as personal physician to Jason and to the man from Mars, Wun. He never gets over his love for Diane and she refuses to leave her fanatic of a husband.
The story is frequently depressing, as society starts to break down and everyday life becomes more dangerous and precarious. None of the characters have happy lives, not even the man from Mars, who lost his wife and children in a terrible flood (back on Mars). Diane is married to a nut, Tyler can't shake his obsession with Diane, and Jason's MS doesn't respond well to treatment.  Plus, I felt the story was a little too long and a bit tedious. But I did really like the ending. So, given that, I rate it a fair read.

For another review, see: http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/book-reviews/spin/.

Naked

By David Sedaris

A collection of humorous essays recounting David's childhood and young adulthood.
To say David was an odd kid is an understatement. His mother, who comes off as sarcastic and cold, nevertheless let her quirky son be himself, despite the many visits from concerned teachers, worried about his tics and strange obsessions, like licking light switches.
You can't say David Sedaris was just your average kid. I don't know if his life has been as funny as he portrays, but I did enjoy these often amusing and frequently rather disturbing stories.
For a better review, see:  http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/16/reviews/970316.16seligmt.html.

Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot

By Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard

This very readable book looks at the life of John Kennedy, focusing mainly on his presidency and his assassination. The prose is bit over-heated at times, but gets its point across in a clear and easy to understand style. Many intimate details of John and Jackie's lives are included, including their sex lives.
The book also discusses Kennedy's presidency and his relationships with his brother Robert and his vice-president, Johnson.
So, even though it is a bit on the sensational side, it is still a very informative and well-laid out look at the life and death of one of America's most popular presidents, John Kennedy. It was a good read.

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

 By Elizabeth Stukey-French

When Marylou was a young woman and pregnant, she given a radioactive concoction to drink by her doctor, Wilson Spriggs. She was not told it was radioactive, she was told it was a vitamin supplement and she drank it. She and hundreds of other pregnant women were unknowingly dosed in a secret study. (This actually happened to real women in the USA.) Years later her daughter, with whom she pregnant when she was dosed by Spriggs, developed cancer and died. At that time Marylou still did not know about her exposure to radiation but she did find out about it much later when the secret study was revealed. Her anger at the callous young physician who dosed her with poison grew and festered.
Now an old lady in her seventies, Marylou has discovered that Dr. Spriggs is living in Tallahassee, Florida. So she moves into a house just a few blocks from where Spriggs is living with his daughter and her family. Marylou is out for blood: Dr. Spriggs must admit his guilt and accept his punishment. Dr. Spriggs must die.
But how to kill him? Marylou, going by the name Nancy Archer (the giant woman in the old movie, Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman),

can't quite figure out how. After all, she is a frail old woman. Then she hits on the idea of insinuating herself into her enemy's family, with the view to gaining access to the old man. But in the process, she comes to know Spriggs' family much better than she ever intended and nothing seems to turn out the way she envisioned, starting with the fact that Dr. Spriggs has Alzheimers and his memory is failing.

I enjoyed this novel very much and read it in one sitting. Dr. Spriggs lives with his daughter and her husband and three kids, all teenagers and the two oldest have Aspergers. So things are pretty tense, what with the mom coming unglued, and teenage angst aggravated by Aspergers, and the dad kind of checking out all together and the youngest daughter feeling lonely and neglected and also carrying all the responsibility of being the "normal" one. So when Marylou sticks her nose into this stressed out family's business, all hell pretty much breaks loose. Just a really fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable read.

For a better review, see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/books/review/Willett-t.html?_r=0

Cycle of Fire

By Hal Clement

Dar was on a delivery mission when he ran into trouble and was forced to make a crash landing. He managed to land safely but his aircraft was defunct. He removed his cargo, a bag of books, and proceeded to continue his mission on foot.
Dar lived on a large planet with two suns. The two suns created a cycle of conditions in which the planet gradually became too hot. So Dar's people packed all their knowledge away in the coldest spot on their planet, under the glaciers, safe for when the cycle reversed and the planet began to cool off and became more moderate again. This cycle meant that almost everyone faced certain death, including Dar, except for a few individuals, the Teachers, who resided with the books of knowledge under the glaciers.
Dar was making his way across a brutal, uninhabited and increasing hot landscape when he came across something he had never seen before: a human being. Nils Kruger was just a cadet when he fell into the mudpot and sank from sight. His fellow explorers assumed he was dead so they returned to their spacecraft and left without him. But Nils wasn't dead, he managed to drag himself out of the mudpot only to find he had been abandoned, left alone to survived on a hostile world. Through trial and error he managed to find plants that were edible and get by. But he was all alone when his and Dar's paths crossed. Finding each other to be non-hostile and desirous of heading to the same place, Dar to place his precious books into safe storage and Nils to find a place where the temperatures were more moderate and bearable for a human, they traveled together, headed to the land of glaciers.

This was an OK story. It started out pretty good, with the two traveling together and getting to know and understand each other. The author doesn't go into much detail about the plants and animals they encountered, which was disappointing. Also I didn't find the circumstances of Nils being stranded very believable. Then in the last half of the book, the adventure part ends and the rest of the story was just not that interesting. And there was a lot of scientific stuff in the last half of the book about how the planet ended up with two suns that I didn't understand, it was just too technical. I just skimmed those parts.

Tuf Voyaging

By George R. R. Martin

Haviland Tuf was just a humble and none-too-successful trader when he and his spaceship were hired to haul a small group of adventurers out to where they were certain a huge treasure would be found. The treasure was a gigantic seedship, a remnant of Old Earth's once powerful Ecological Engineering Corps. Within its storage banks could be found tissues samples of beasts and plants from the four corners of space. Whoever grabbed this prize would be wealthy beyond imagining.
Of course, with such a huge prize in their grasp, it's not very surprising that the adventurers turned on themselves and even on Haviland Tuf. Dreams of wealth and power went to their heads and, after all the dust settled, so to speak, the only one left standing was Haviland Tuf and his two kitties, Chaos and Havoc. And with the might of the giant EEC seedship to back him up, Tuf was going to make a few changes, changes a lot of folks wouldn't much care for but that didn't bother Haviland Tuf or his kitties.

I really enjoyed the story of Haviland very much, so much that I read the book in one day. Haviland is a bit of an enigma, and I was left wondering. He is not a friendly guy, not convivial, but he is scrupulously honest and he dearly loves his cats. He is a strange duck but very interesting and I was sorry when I reached the end of the book. I would surely like to read more about Haviland Tuf. And his kitties.

The Whispering Land

By Gerald Durrell

The true story of Gerald Durrell's trip to Argentina in the late 1950s to gather animals for his zoo in England. It took him eight months to get the animals he wanted and along the way he made many new friends among the locals, encountered rare and interesting animals and had a pretty good time of it, all in all. The only thing he wasn't able to get done was capturing some vampire bats. He even went so far as to sleep outside one night with his bare foot uncovered, hoping to entice the bats with his own vulnerable toes. The bats were certainly in the area but were not interested in his toes. Later on he reflected that it was probably for the best because if he had been bitten he would have most likely had to undergo a series of injections to prevent the development of rabies!

This was an enjoyable story, lots of critters, some adventure, and descriptions of exotic landscapes and of the many friendly and helpful people without whom his expedition would have been much more difficult and much less successful. While reading it, some fifty plus years after it was written, I couldn't help but wonder if the wild and untamed landscapes he describes have changed much over the decades and if the sleepy little villages are still sleepy and quiet and the abundant wildlife still abundant . . .

The Mystery of Mercy Close

By Marian Keyes

Helen is a private investigator, but, due to the economic downturn, business had dropped way off. She has moved out of her apartment and back into her old bedroom in her parents' house. Which she can't help but feel is a revolting development for a woman in her 30s. Plus she suffers from depression, for which she has been hospitalized in the past.
A local boy band is getting back together for a reunion concert. But one of the band members has disappeared and Helen has been hired to track him down. The concert is in about a week, so she doesn't have much time to locate him. But as she investigates the missing man, she finds nothing that points her in the right direction. And on top of that, her depression is getting worse, to the point where she is thinking of killing herself.

This was an OK read. The mystery was kind of interesting, as was Helen's relationships with her current and her ex-boyfriend. What I didn't particularly care for was all the stuff about depression. I would have enjoyed the book more if it had focused more on the mystery and less on Helen's mental problems.

Angels

By Marian Keyes

Maggie Walsh's marriage falls apart when she discovers her husband has been seeing another woman. Looking for a change of scenery, she leaves Ireland and goes to stay with a friend in Los Angeles. She just wants to lay on the beach and veg out. But the friend, Emily, is in a bit of a crisis too. Emily is a writer and if she doesn't sell a screenplay soon, she is going to lose everything. So much of Maggie's vacation is spent helping Emily out. In the process Maggie gets to meet lots of Hollywood types and even runs across an old boyfriend who broke her heart when she was only seventeen.
Maggie has a lot of baggage, including an abortion as a teen and two miscarriages. The miscarriages certainly contributed to breakdown of her marriage. And since her old life wasn't working out too well for her, Maggie has decided to be a little more daring and a little more free and she also has something to say to that old boyfriend.

This was a pretty good book. A blurb on the front of the book describes it as hilarious, but it wasn't. I found it mildly amusing at the most. But I did think its depiction of Los Angeles and all the characters Maggie runs across very interesting. I am no judge, never having spent any time in LA,  but it all seemed to ring true to me. So I did enjoy the book a lot, even though it was not as funny as it was cracked up to be.
For a better review of the book, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/oct/19/featuresreviews.guardianreview10.

My Fair Lazy

By Jen Lancaster

Another memoir by Jen Lancaster, this time focusing on her lack of cultural attainments. As she explains in the book, after she lost her job she got into the habit of watching a lot of TV, especially reality TV. But once she became a successful author, she found herself at a disadvantage in social situations where folks were better informed about the arts. So she decided to have her own Renaissance, or as she calls it, Jenaissance, and improve her cultural awareness. So began trips to art museums, plays, ballets, poetry, great works of literature, and so on. By the end of the book, her understanding of liberal arts was greatly enhanced and she felt completely capable of holding her own at social functions filled with high-brow literary types.

This kind of sounds like it would be pretentious and boring, but Jen has such a wonderful sense of humor that the book is often laugh-out-loud funny. I have read several of her books and I think this one was actually the most amusing of them all. I really enjoyed it tremendously.

Diary of a Provincial Lady

By E. M. Delafield

The lady is question is never named, but we do get to meet her husband and two children. The husband is an estate manager or something like that, the youngest child has a live-in governess and the other child attends private school. The lady is a "woman of leisure" but as she points out, she has almost no actual leisure time. Most of her time is taken up with social obligations and attempting to maintain a smooth-running household, helped by a couple of maids, a cook, and a gardener. She and her family are members of the upper middle class in England of the 1930s and it is of vital importance to keep up appearances. She and her husband are frequently called upon to attend various functions and a lot of her time and effort are taken up with coping with those demands, on top of which is their rather limited income. Her servants are discontent, her children often unruly, her husband at times unfeeling and demanding and her life is a constant balancing act between what is expected and what can be afforded. Keeping up appearances means having to pawn her jewelry at times in order to afford a new dress or to put money in the bank, as she is chronically overdrawn. It is a bit of a rat race, but throughout it all, her wry and sly comments about herself and those around her help her cope with all the demands and amuse and charm her readers.

Even though this book was written back in the 1930s, it is still very funny and revealing of a lifestyle that is probably still practiced by many. Delafield based the book on her own life and she quite a prolific author, and followed up Diary with several more books based on her life. I did enjoy the book a lot, after I got over the fact that she had all those servants but was continually grousing about the shortage of funds. I guess a woman of her class was required to maintain a certain lifestyle or lose the respect of her peers.
For a better review of the book, check out http://mmycomments.blogspot.com/2011/11/book-review-diary-of-provincial-lady.html.

Star Island

By Carl Hiaasen

Cherry Pye is a young pop star who has a serious drug and alcohol problem. Her favorite activity is getting trashed, so trashed that she often can't perform. Her excesses require frequent stints in rehab, which is not good for her image. So her handlers hired a lookalike as a stand in to cover up the seriousness of Cherry's addictions. The lookalike makes brief public appearances at parties and events while Cherry is confined to rehab.
Cherry is on the verge of releasing a new CD and is preparing for a concert in Miami. Once again, she overdoses on a crazy mixture of drugs, booze and birdseed, requiring a secret trip back to rehab. Her handlers smuggle her out of the back door of the hotel, while her double is taken out the front on a stretcher, posing as Cherry suffering from a violent attack of gastritis.
One of the score of photographers that chase after that winning celebrity candid shot is Claude Abbott. Abbott is a true fan of Cherry Pye's and, knowing her crash and burn lifestyle, he is pretty sure Cherry is about at the end of her road and he really wants to be there to cash in on her celebrity when she finally goes too far. He follows her to the rehab clinic and offers her a ride in his car when she sneaks away from the clinic. Together, they fly back to Florida and Cherry initiates sex with him (she is trashed and later doesn't remember the incident at all). But when they arrive in Florida, she drives off in a limo that has the bag containing Abbott's cameras and cell phone, leaving Abbott stranded.
Meanwhile, Cherry's double is having problems of her own. Since Cherry is supposed to be secured in rehab, the double, Ann, has been given some time off and has driven to the Florida Keys. But she crashes her rental car and finds herself captive of a strange loner called Skink. Skink used to be governor of Florida but the uncontrolled land development sent him off the deep end and he ran away, to live off the land in the swamps. He has grabbed Ann in an attempt to foil a development scheme and is using her as bait to lure the developer into his grasp. Ann eventually is released only to be captured by crazed photographer Abbott who thinks he is grabbing Cherry Pye. But when he finds out Ann is not who he thought,  he hits upon the idea of exchanging Ann for a one-day photo shoot with Cherry that he is sure will be the best work he has ever done and result in fame and acclaim and, of course, lots of money. But are Cherry's handlers all that worried about the fate of her double? Not so much, it turns out.

This was a pretty good story. Unlike some of his novels, this one does not have as many cruel and gruesome scenes, the gore limited to a shot-off finger, some ass-whipping with a weed-whacker, a spiny urchin applied to a man's testicles and one fatal shooting. That sounds like a lot, but compared to some of Hiaasen's books, it is quite toned down. It is also very entertaining and often amusing, although at times a bit chaotic. I enjoyed it and at the end of the novel he wraps up the lives of the main characters, letting you know how they ended up. That was fun and nice.

Bitten & Smitten

By Michelle Rowen

Sarah is having a bad night. First, her best friend set her up with a blind date. This guy was beyond creepy. . .he was actually a vampire who proceeded to attack Sarah. But before she could even grasp what was happening, the blind date was murdered by a gang of vampire hunters, who then turned their deadly attention toward Sarah. Now she is running for her life and she still hasn't even figured out what is going on!
So Sarah, newly turned and lost vampire, stumbles into the beginnings of an all out assault on the local vampire community and also into the arms of the local vampire lord and from him to a handsome and appealing vampire hunter.

This was an OK read. Like many authors these days, Rowen's vampires do not conform to the classic style. Her vampires are not undead, not sensitive to silver, holy water, crosses, garlic. They breathe, their hearts beat, they can eat regular food (in some cases), being out in the daytime only requires sunglasses. What they do have in common with old-timey vamps is fangs, drinking blood, immortality, and no reflection. These are pretty lightweight vampires, designed to be appealing and not scary monsters. And this is a pretty lightweight novel, often amusing and not too heavy with the romance. But it never really engaged me as much as I would like. Maybe the plot was a little too chaotic. The main character is like a tennis ball, back and forth, bouncing from situation to situation. The story never really grabbed me as much as I would like.

Honeymoon with My Brother

By Franz Wisner

Franz Wisner and Annie had been together for years. They did part at one point but got back together. But Annie kept having panic attacks brought on by her ambivalence about their relationship. Franz, perhaps sensing her unspoken ambivalence, decided he'd better marry her before she got away. So the date was set, wedding arranged, guests invited, reservations made and money spent. Annie finally listened to her gut and called off the wedding a few days before the event.
That sucked and Franz was heartbroken. Then, to make matters worse, he was demoted at work. So he decided to go ahead and make that honeymoon trip he'd planned to take with his new bride, but instead he asked his brother Kurt to come along. So they went off together to Costa Rica. It was a chance for the two brothers to reconnect. But while on the "honeymoon," they came up with a brilliant plan. They would quit their jobs, sell off most of their assets and continue their travels together, ultimately visiting fifty-three countries in two years time. And took about two years for Franz to finally get Annie out of his system.

This was an OK book. At times it got a little repetitive and somewhat dull. I put it down for a couple weeks when I was about two-thirds through it before I continued reading it again. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been a little less about Franz's emotional life and more about the travel.

The Map of Time

By Felix J. Palma

A young man's life is blighted when the woman he loves is murdered by Jack the Ripper. Years pass and still Andrew grieves, unable to bear his loss. His closest friend and cousin Charles has hit upon a way to help Andrew. What if Andrew could travel back in time and stop the Ripper and save his true love's life?
Recently a new attraction has opened in London: Murray's Time Travel. Gilliam Murray claims that he can take people to the year 2000 where they will witness the deciding battle between mankind and the automatons, who have taken over the world and are bent on destroying all mankind. But Murray is unable to help, explaining that his time travel expeditions can only go to the year 2000 and can't travel to the past at all. Murray suggests that Andrew and Charles pay a visit to H. G. Wells, author of The Time Machine. 
So Andrew and Charles do visit Wells and he agrees to let them use the time machine, which he keeps in his attic, to allow Andrew to travel eight years into the past and stop the Ripper. What Andrew doesn't know is that Charles had already had a meeting with Wells, who agreed to help Charles hoax his cousin into thinking he traveled into the past, using two actors to play the woman and the killer. Their ploy works, and Andrew comes back from the "past" a changed man, happy to have saved his beloved's life, even though, as explained by Wells, his actions caused a split in the time stream resulting in a parallel universe in which the woman is rescued, while Andrew has to stay in his reality where the woman was murdered. And after that it gets even more complicated, as this novel proceeds on its twisty way, nearing almost the end before the reader is introduced to any actual time travel. Most of the time travel in the book is as bogus as Andrew's rescue of his murdered lover.

The book certainly has a lot to offer if you enjoy reading about Victorian times. As a time travel story, though, it was rather frustrating, as you wade through episode after episode of fake time travel. Murray's expeditions to the year 2000 and Well's time machine expeditions are all fakery. And when we do finally get to meet a real time traveler, he turns out to be a total nutter who kills without compunction just so he can be the only person in the history to own copies of The Time Machine, The Turn of the Screw and Dracula. Complicated, convoluted, frustrating, and way too wordy, The Map of Time was an engrossing read, but in the end, rather a disappointment to me.

When in Doubt, Add Butter

By Beth Harbison

Gemma Craig is a personal chef. She has five clients she cooks for every week. One of her most difficult clients is Angela Van Houghten, who claims to have a lot of food allergies. She requires foods with no diary, no onion, no soy, no nuts, no honey, no warm spices, no garlic, and so on. Plus she makes her husband and son adhere to her strict diet. Gemma cooks for the Van Houghtens on Mondays.
Tuesday is Paul McMann, a lawyer, who Gemma has never met in person, but who seems to appreciate her cooking judging by the kind and often humorous notes he leaves for her. Wednesdays in Lex Prather, who is also enjoyable to cook for, a pleasant man who enjoys fine cuisine. Thursdays are the Oleksei family, Russian immigrants who Gemma suspects of being gangsters. She is cooking recipes from their grandmother's cookbook and really enjoying learning about Russian foods. Friday is Marie Lemurra, who is almost as difficult to cook for as Angela, but not because she is so picky, she is just an unpleasant person to work for. Gemma soon loses Friday's client when she accidentally runs over Marie's pet peacock.
Money is tight so losing a client is bad news. So Gemma's friend takes her out drinking and Gemma hooks up with a man from the bar. They retire to her friend's place and have sex. He gives her his name and she promptly loses it. They run into each other at a store and he tries to give her his business card but hands her the wrong one and she doesn't realize it until he has left. Seems like they are fated to never connect again.
The weeks go by and Gemma comes to realize she is pregnant. The condoms they used were way past their use-by date. Now it is more important than ever that she locate Mr. Wonderful, if only to let him know he is going to be a daddy. But it turns out not to be that hard to find him, he has been right under her nose all the time.

I really enjoyed this story a lot, despite its rather contrived premise. It has a lot of humor, although it is not really a funny novel. Gemma has a lot of problems to deal with, including some unknown person trying to sabotage her career. Plus she has a lot of baggage from some poor decisions in her past. But I liked Gemma and liked this book. It was a good read. And the sex is not graphic, which I really appreciated. When they started to take each other's clothes off in the friend's apartment, I thought to myself, "OK, be prepared to skip ahead." But no skipping was required!

Savannah Blues

By Mary Kay Andrews

Weezie Foley doesn't have it so good. Recently divorced, the judge awarded her the carriage house located in back of the house in which she used to live with her now ex-husband. He got the main house and she got what was basically the garage. And to make matters worse, the other woman promptly moved in with the hubby. So not only did Weezie get gypped  in the divorce settlement, she also has to put up with the girl friend's constant complaints about Weezie and her dog.
Weezie earns her living as a "picker." Not of fruit or vegetables, but of antiques. She goes around to garage sales and estate sales and buys items to resell. It's not a great living, but she gets by. Her dream is to turn her carriage house into an antiques store but that requires cash she doesn't have. All she needs is one big antiques score and she thinks she has found it at an estate sale. An old cupboard could be worth many thousands if she can only beat all the other pickers and dealers to the item. She sneaks into the estate one night just to scope the place out but she finds her husband's girlfriend in an upstairs closet, shot to death. And of course the police think Weezie is the prime suspect.

This was an OK read, kind of a murder mystery slash romance. Weezie reconnects with a boy she knew in high school, but their relationship becomes rocky when he thinks she is carrying a torch for her ex. The on-again, off-again romance was kind of boring and repetitive. The killer turned out to be a very minor character. And the ex-husband who had been such a placid spouse through ten years of marriage suddenly and implausibly turned into a drunken wife-beater.  Those things rather spoiled it for me. Plus it was too long.

Angel with Attitude

By Michelle Rowen

Valerie Grace is a fallen angel, recently kicked out of heaven for the sin of pride and splashing down naked into the killer whale tank at MarineLand. Now she is alone in Niagara, New York and working at a run-down motel. Her task is to live a good life and hopefully, when she gets old and dies, she can get back into heaven. Of course, it isn't going to be all that easy, especially when  Nathaniel shows up, just in time to save Valerie from a brutal assault. Nathaniel is a Tempter Demon, his task is to tempt Valerie to join him in Hell. Nathaniel is very tempting to Valerie but she manages to resist his charms, to his dismay.
Then Valerie finds out that Lucifer had in his possession a key to heaven. And this key could be her ticket back to her former life in the clouds. But the key is now in the possession of a very nasty demon and this demon thinks using the key is just the thing that will finally win him his demon father's approval. Yes, he is a demon with daddy issues. Valerie gets a very talented witch, who works at a burger place, to summon Nathaniel. Now Nathaniel is under Valerie's control and they are going to the Underworld (along with the witch's ex-boyfriend whom she turned into a rat as punishment) to track down the stolen key and hopefully get Valerie back to her home. Or not.

Lots going on in this fun and lively read. It's pretty light reading but I found it quite enjoyable and amusing. And pretty innocent too, as the romance is understated and not at all X-rated, which I appreciated, not being a fan of detailed and implausible sex scenes.

How to Tame a Wild Bore & other Facts of Life with Lewis

By Kathy Grizzard Schmook

Kathy Schmook was Lewis Grizzard's third wife. Lewis was a humorist and author and was married four times. In this book, Kathy describes her life with Lewis and apparently it was not that great. She goes into great detail about Lewis's faults and shortcomings. I felt kind of sorry for Lewis, living under that critical eye of hers.
It's a pretty lopsided picture of their life together, as she completely leaves out any complicity she may have had in the failure of their marriage. (Although she does kind of hint that she had a fondness for expensive jewelry.) But even though the hate comes through loud and clear, this is still a funny read. I just hope that Lewis wasn't quite as disgusting as his ex-wife made him out to be.

My Wilderness Wildcats

By Mike Tomkies

I didn't really know anything about the wildcats of the England, Scotland and Wales. I didn't even know there were wildcats or what a wildcat was exactly. Turns out the wildcat is a small cat, about the same size as the domesticated house cat, but with a much different temperament. They truly are "wild cats" and cannot be tamed, unlike many large wild cats, such as tigers and lions. They are native to Europe but are rare.
Wildcats have pretty disappeared from England and Wales but can still be found in the more remote areas of Scotland. Tomkies was given two small wildcat kittens who had either lost their mother or been abandoned by her. Tomkies lived in such an isolated area of Scotland that there were no roads leading to his house, it could only be reached by boat. Being a naturalist, and not really knowing much about wildcats, Tomkies felt the two kittens would make interesting study subjects. He named them Cleo and Patra and built pens for them and raised them on meat and milk. In time he also acquired a rather elderly male wildcat, a refugee from a zoo, and was able to successfully breed him with one of the females who produced two kittens, Fred and Mia. Eventually, he released all the wildcats back into the wild, in the fullness of time.

This was quite an interesting read, although at one point it became a bit repetitious as he described his routine of giving the wildcats some freedom, while continuing to feed them, then capturing them and once again placing them in pens. He was worried that they couldn't make it on their own, but they proved him wrong. Even the elderly male who had spent most his life in a zoo eventually became a skilled and successful hunter. But besides the wildcats, this book is an interesting glimpse of a life lived in the back country, without electricity or central heating, just a man and his dog and a some wildcats.

Merrill Markoe's Guide to Love

Merrill Markoe goes on a journey of discovery to see if she can figure out how to improve one's love life. She goes to the places and takes the classes that others might be too fearful, embarrassed or frugal to do. She takes the weird classes,  including one where the attendees are given instruction on how to perform oral sex on men, visits psychics, attends meetings purporting to have the secrets that will assure success in the mating game. She meets some pretty iffy types but uses her friends for moral support as she talks them into attending many of these functions with her. She must be a pretty brave woman, in my opinion. She is also pretty funny and so is her book: not only funny but actually informative too.

The Husband Hunters

By Barbara Cartland

Andrina Maldon was the oldest of three sisters. They had been left without much to live on after their father died. They only really had three assets: the old house, a necklace that had belonged to their deceased mother, and their looks. All three girls were outstandingly good looking, but living in such an isolated, rural location meant that eligible bachelors were not abundant.
So Andrina hatched a plan to get her two sisters suitably established. She would take the necklace to London, and with the help of her godfather (a man she had never met) use the proceeds from the necklace to rent a home for a couple of months and introduce her lovely sisters to society. An excellent plan except Andrina really doesn't know what she is up against and has her first reality check when she is accosted by a man at an inn, a man who has the audacity to give Andrina her first kiss.
Things go even further downhill when, upon arriving at the godfather's house, she finds out that said godfather died years ago and that his son, the Duke, is the very man who accosted her at the inn.
But the Duke saves the day when he agrees to help Andrina with her quest of suitable husbands for the sisters. Chaperons are acquired, balls are given,  and the men start piling up, smitten by the girls' good looks and winning personalities. The only thing that can mess this up is the girls themselves, including the scheming, mercenary Andrina!

This was a pretty good read, with the Andrina character set on acquiring rich and respectable husbands for her two sisters. She is clearly impressed by wealth and privilege and thinks that those two criteria are the only ones that matter. Needless to say, she finds out  eventually that other things matter more and it all works out for the best. A light read but still fairly enjoyable.

Old Man's War

By John Scalzi

When human knowledge had increased to the point where immigration to other planets was possible, mankind quickly discovered that the galaxy is a very crowded place, full of other intelligent and advanced beings, who were in competition with humankind for habitable planets to colonize. So the Colonial Defense Force was founded.

The CDF has an odd approach to recruiting soldiers: they don't want young people, they want old people. Their promise to oldsters who join: they'll receive the best medical care and made young again and, after they have served, they will be given a homestead of their own.

So after his wife passed, John Perry joined the CDF. He thought he would receive some kind of rejuvenation treatments but what he got instead was way beyond what he had been expecting. As was the duty he was now required to perform. It was all a lot better and a whole lot worse than he had ever imagined.

This turned out to be an interesting read. After I got past the part where the oldsters found out what their new lives would really be like, I feared the story would  just turn out to be one of those sci-fi action novels with lots of battles and fighting. And it does have some battles and fighting, but that is not the main feature of the story. It is mainly a story about a man coping with the demands of his profession and trying to keep himself sane and human and alive. It turned out to be quite a good read. Looking forward to others in the series.

Hotel Paradise

By Martha Grimes

Emma is a girl alone, even though she lives in a hotel owned by her family and even though she has to help out in the kitchen and dining room every day. Only twelve years old, her work keeps her busy and she has no close companions, not her mother, not her father (who left years ago), not her brother, not the other girl who lives at the hotel and who Emma frankly hates. So it is not surprising that she latches onto a mysterious death that occurred forty years ago. Twelve-year-old Mary-Evelyn, wearing a lovely party dress, climbed into a leaky row boat at night, rowed out into the lake and drowned when the boat sank. Her family didn't report her missing until the next morning.
There are many unanswered questions about Mary-Evelyn Devereau and her strange family. And since Emma doesn't have much else to occupy her mind, she gets caught up in investigating this old death. The mystery deepens when a woman is found dead, possibly murdered, a woman who it seems has a connection to the long-gone Devereaus. Plus Emma is also intrigued by a brief glimpse of a young woman who bears a strong resemblance to one of the Devereau sisters. So Emma musters her resources and starts her investigation by interviewing the local oldsters, one of which lives at the hotel, Emma's own irascible, alcoholic great aunt Aurora.

This started out to be a very interesting read but, about half way through, I wanted it to be finished, as I was getting rather tired of it. I think my main problem with it was that I was thinking I was reading a murder mystery and I kept waiting for the crime to be solved and the mysteries cleared up. Some are cleared up, most are left pretty murky, including the mysteries surrounding Emma herself. So, even though I was disappointed by the book, I still think it was a worthy read, just for the chance to enter Emma's odd world. I think I would like to read more about Emma, see how she copes with the difficulties in her situation.

Hot Shot

By Charlotte Hughes

Detective Frankie Daniels finds herself in disgrace after her affair with a fellow officer and married man is made public. So when she is offered a position with a police force in a different town, she decides to accept it. So that's how she ends up in Purdyville, South Carolina, a small rural community with not much going on, at least compared to where she used to work, Atlanta.
One of the first things she does on her arrival in Purdyville is get in a brawl with one of the local punks and also, without knowing who he was, get into a spat with her new boss. Plus the house she had just rented burned down. She is feeling very disgruntled with everything and has quickly decided that Purdyville is not for her and that as soon as she can manage it, she is moving on. But her new boss, Sheriff Matt, is pretty sure that Frankie is just what his police force needs, not mention what he needs too.

I don't know, I just don't buy these tiny tough-guy female cops who are able to drop a man who probably outweighs them by 100 pounds. Plus I thought Frankie was unnecessarily belligerent. And I didn't care for the sex scenes (which I skipped) between her and the sheriff. And the plot wasn't a real attention grabber either. I'm not going to say it was a bad read, but it didn't appeal to me.

Miss Julia Stands Her Ground

By Ann B. Ross

Miss Julia is an older woman who has had to deal with some tough issues in the past. After her husband died, leaving Julia a wealthy widow, she discovered he had a secret life, when his lover and their child showed up at Julia's door. Then another will appeared that would have left Julia without any money at all. But Julia managed to cope and triumph, and even to find new love with a new husband. And she even brought the dead husband's lover and her child into her home to live, despite the objections of many in the community.
So now Miss Julia can sit back and relax and enjoy life a little. Or not. Because trouble is knocking at her door again in the form of that pesky Vernon Puckett who is still conniving to get his hands on Julia's dead husband Springer's money. He claims he has proof that Little Lloyd is not Springer's child and he has also brought along a man who is a dead ringer for the dead Springer  and he says he is Little Lloyd's true father. But Miss Julia is no push-over and she will do whatever it takes to keep her new little family together.

I hadn't read a Miss Julia story before I read this one but despite that the story was fairly easy to follow and the author did take quite a bit of time to recap past history, which helped a lot.  Miss Julia seems to overreact a bit when problems arise, but she is still an interesting character and not above using her position as creditor to many of the town's prominent citizens to blackmail folks into doing what she wants. That's kind of despicable and unscrupulous, except she only seems to use her power for good, making her friends and neighbors treat her dead husband's lover and his child with the same courtesy and consideration that they give to Julia.  Anyway, it makes for a fairly interesting story, with a pretty predictable outcome in the end.

Prison Planet

By William C. Dietz

Jonathan Renn had a ruthless business competitor who framed him by planting illegal drugs in one of Renn's imported shipments, with the result of Renn being convicted and sentenced to life on Swamp. Swamp is one of the prison planets set up by the Empire. Convicts are dropped off with minimal supplies and left to survive as best they can. Swamp is infamous for its deadly wildlife and the convicts survive by hunting its monsters and exporting the skins and musk, both of which are highly valued for their unique properties.
Dropped off with Renn is Marla Mendez, who stole money from her employer because her employer was cheating Marla. Marla was a human woman, but is now just a brain in the body of a robot dog.
Marla and Renn get along well and like each other but they end up going their separate ways after they are jumped by a gang upon their arrival. Renn was seriously injured and in order to pay for his medical treatment, Marla had to accept a contract with Skunk for a year. Renn, after he healed, signed on with Boater to learn all the skills needed to survive on Swamp. He wasn't aware that Marla had signed her freedom away to pay his medical bills.
Off in the swamps with Boater, Renn learned all the skills required and became a very good hunter. One day, after going off on his own, he came back to find his boss had been murdered by the same gang that jumped him and Marla. So he set out to track them down and make them pay for what they had done.

This was an OK story. I didn't really like it or dislike it. I do wish it had been more of a survival story, with more about the actual planet and its wildlife. Renn gets his revenge, reconnects with Marla, and they manage to get off planet so Renn can track down the guy who framed him in the first place. That last part was the least interesting and least believable part of the story. Overall, not a good read but not a complete waste of time either.

The Coroner's Lunch

By Colin Cotterill

It's Laos, 1976. The communists have been in power for only a short while. Dr. Siri Paiboun, medical doctor and communist revolutionary (of a sort, he became a communist because he was enamored of a girl who was an ardent communist) has put in his years, and now in his seventies is expecting to retire and receive a pension for his long service to the party. But instead he is told he is to be the national coroner, even though he has never worked as or trained to be a coroner. But Laos has a shortage of medical personnel due to the revolution and so he is stuck with the job.
Most of his cases are routine deaths by illness or misadventure. Until Mrs. Nitnoy, wife of a senior government official, dies suddenly while eating lunch. Her husband is sure she died from eating raw pork, which he claimed she loved to eat, but Dr. Siri's assistant noticed the scent of almonds on her body during the autopsy and later tests confirmed she was actually poisoned. Laos at this time is terribly impoverished and the hoops Dr. Siri has to jump through just to get a simple diagnostic test performed are quite daunting. But he manages to get it done despite all the obstacles. Now he has to figure who wanted the woman dead. The culprit appears to be the husband's girlfriend, who is later found dead of a suicide. But in this case, nothing is as it appears to be.
Dr. Siri also has to handle the case of three Vietnamese officials found floating in a lake who were apparently tortured to death. Again, nothing is as it appears to be and answers must be found quickly as friendly relations with Vietnam are at risk.
Dr. Siri may be old and he may not be a trained forensic coroner but he does have an advantage that no other coroner in the world has, his deceased clients visit him in his sleep and leave clues as to the truth of their various endings.

I enjoyed this story quite a bit, although I did find the plot rather hard to follow. But, despite this, I liked reading about Dr. Siri and his friends and neighbors, such an exotic and interesting setting. I also enjoyed the touch of mysticism, especially the visit by Dr. Siri to the Hmong village to investigate the strange deaths of three military officers. Quite a fascinating book, even if I did find the plot rather thick.

Cabin Pressure

By Corylee Spiro and Elizabeth Harwell

Anecdotes by a couple of flight attendants about airline travel, most just a paragraph or two long:

Upon boarding, a male passenger noticed a female flight attendant crawling on all fours between two rows of seats. Wanting to be helpful, he said, "Miss, are you looking for something?" Tired and food stained, she replied, "Yes, sir. I guess I'm looking for all that glamour they promised me in training."

The book is full of amusing anecdotes like that and it also gives the inside story of what the working life of a flight attendant is like. It was a funny and informative read, even though it was written more than twenty years ago. I enjoyed it very much, it's very amusing.

Amanda's Wedding

By Jenny Colgan

Ever since she was a child, Amanda has been a thorn in Melanie's side. Manipulative and mean-spirited, the only thing that matters to Amanda is Amanda. But after they grew up, Amanda drifted off in pursuit of her goal of social status and Melanie only heard from her when she basically wanted something.
And now Amanda is getting married and she is marrying a man that Melanie has had a secret crush on for years. But after listening to some rather frank things Amanda has said about her prospective husband, Melanie is convinced that Amanda doesn't love this man and is only marrying him for his social status. So when the man's brother comes to Melanie asking for her help in convincing the groom that he is about to make a horrible mistake, she can't help but go along, even though she may be about to get herself in a whole heap of trouble.

This was an OK read. I didn't much care for the ending, which seemed unlikely. Also didn't care for the misleading romance between Melanie and the groom's brother, which turned out to be a red herring. I also couldn't understand why Melanie and her friend let themselves be dragged into Amanda's life when they have so many reasons to avoid any association with her. I also didn't care for the drinking binges that seem to be a way of life for Melanie and her companions. That was disturbing. All in all, not a bad story, but mainly it just didn't click with me.

Getting Rid of Matthew

By Jane Fallon

Helen wanted to be a publicist but ended up as an executive assistant.  She became involved with her boss Matthew and their affair lasted for several years, even after he was no longer her boss. She was convinced she was deeply in love with Matthew and asked him time and again to leave his wife. But when Matthew finally did, Helen discovered she was totally mistaken in her feelings for Matthew. Now all she wants to do is get him out of her apartment and out of her life. And she figures the best way to do so is to get Matthew back together with his wife and family.
But how to accomplish this? Helen decides to spy on Matthew's wife Sophie and in the process she accidentally becomes friends with her, all without revealing to Matthew what she has been doing or to Sophie that she is the "other woman." And as Helen comes to realize, this can only end in disaster.

I really enjoyed this story a lot. It's not really a romance, it is more a coming-of-age story, even though the one who does the growing up is nearly forty years old. I liked Helen, even though she was a home-wrecker. I wanted to hate her, but I just couldn't. And I really liked the ending, which I thought was simply wonderful. Just an all-around enjoyable read.

The Marquis Takes a Bride

By Marion Chesney

Jennie Bemyss was young and inexperienced and sure she was in love with Guy Chalmers, whom she had known since childhood. But marrying Guy was out of the question because Jenny was already promised to another ... the Marquis of Charrington.
Their marriage had been arranged many years before. The Marquis really had no intention of following through on those arrangements, that is until he actually met Jenny. But it was also clear to him that Jenny's heart belonged to another. So the Marquis hatched a plan, to marry Jenny and to woo her away from Guy Chalmers.  He proposed a marriage of convenience with Miss Jenny. And Jenny agreed because marriage with the Marquis would mean finally getting away from her dreary rural life and getting to enjoy high society in London, plus getting to be close to Guy Chalmers too.
But the plan didn't work as the Marquis wanted. Jenny couldn't seem to see Guy for the low-down, lying, conniving creep that he really was. The Marquis began to think he made a terrible mistake in marrying Jenny and Jenny began to think her new husband was trying to kill her.

This was a pretty good read. One thing I liked about it was the lack of lasciviousness. So many more recent romances are more like reading porn, which doesn't appeal to me. However, with the plot to murder Jenny, the story was a little grim for my taste, I prefer a lighter fare, especially if I am reading a romance.  I expect it in a murder mystery, but don't really want it in a romance. But other than that, I enjoyed the story.

The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate

By Nancy Mitford

The Pursuit of Love: The story is narrated by Fanny, cousin of the main character Linda. Linda lives in the country and doesn't get to town much. Fortunately for Linda, Lord Merlin, a nearby neighbor, does get to town and he brings his town friends out to his estate, where Linda gets to meet the man who will be her first husband, Tony. Tony's family is in banking and are wealthy. Tony works in the family business and his parents want him to marry well, to a girl with good connections who will be a credit to Tony. Instead, he falls for Linda, mainly because she is young and beautiful and because she thinks Tony is swell. So they get married, to the disapproval of the parents on both sides. Tony's parents say Linda doesn't have the right connections and Linda's parents ( her father, mainly) don't like Tony's background (he is of German ancestry). It isn't too far into the marriage before Linda and Tony realize they have made a mistake. Tony is too stodgy to suit Linda and Linda is too flighty to suit Tony.
Linda meets another man, Christian, a Communist. Something about Christian strikes Linda's fancy and she is soon tagging after him like a lost puppy. She divorces hubby number one and marries hubby number too and toddles off with him to France to help war refugees. But her marriage begins to flounder with  Christian's growing attachment to another woman, a fellow aid worker.

I didn't really care for this story, mainly because the main character, Linda, did not appeal to me. Her behavior throughout the story is selfish, foolish, and disgusting. Nothing in her story made me like her, made me want her to have a happy ending, made me care about her.

Love in a Cold Climate: Set in the same time period as the first novel, this one centers on another aristocratic family living in the same area as Linda did before she grew up and left home. Once again the story is narrated by Fanny, the rather ordinary observer of her more beautiful relatives. The beautiful girl of this story is Polly, who is described as the leading beauty of her generation and also one of the richest, her father being one of the wealthiest men in England.
Polly came as a total surprise to her parents who had been married for twenty years without having children. But from early childhood, Polly was admired and acclaimed for her  beauty. As she grew into her teen years, though, her mother became increasingly dissatisfied with her daughter because Polly seemed to have no interest in boys.
By the time Polly was twenty, relations between the two were very strained, Polly confiding to Fanny that she absolutely hated her mother, she was so very tired of her mother's constant pressure on her to find a husband. But in the end Polly does find a husband, a husband that sets everyone on edge and causes a complete rift between Polly and her parents.

I like this story so much more than the first one. I thought it was quite a bit funnier and, even though Polly is not really a very sympathetic character, at least she is not doted on unreasonably like that horrible Linda. Although, oddly both books have very similar endings. There is a third book in the series, Don't Tell Alfred, I wonder who the author killed off at the end of it?

The Help

By Kathryn Stockett

It's 1962 and Skeeter is home in Jackson, Mississippi after graduating from college. She wants to be a writer and dreams of living in New York City, but her mother only wants to see her daughter happily married.
Skeeter lands a job with the local newspaper, writing a homemaking advice column. But she knows nothing about homemaking and turns to Aibileen, the maid of a close friend for help. In the course of time, Skeeter becomes more aware of the inequalities between the races in 1960s Jackson. Learning from  Aibileen, Skeeter decides to write a book about black women working as maids for the local white community. She conducts interviews, on the sly, with maids and gathers materials for her book, which she hopes will be her entree to a career in NYC. And the maids get to air their grievances. But since whites of that time and place are very intolerant, it all has to be done covertly, in order to protect the maids from violent retribution.
The book tells the story from the prospective of Skeeter, Aibilene and Minny, a maid who is more outspoken than is good for her. It follows Skeeter's rather pathetic love life and her mother's descent into chronic illness. As Skeeter's sympathies towards the civil rights struggle become more apparent, she finds herself cutoff from her closest friends, who do not understand or welcome the black struggle for equality.

This was an interesting book to read. It's always fun to read about people whose lives are so different from one's own. This book is well worth reading, but it is also entertaining, often amusing, and just a great read.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

By Jenny Lawson

A "mostly true memoir" of  the author's life. Her father was a bit of a character, the kind of fellow who thought it would amuse his two young daughters if he made a hand puppet from a dead squirrel. An avid hunter, he later opened his own taxidermy shop so Jenny and her sister grew up in the presence of various dismembered critters is various stages of processing.  It definitely affected her development, as she describes in this humorous and often vulgar memoir.

I did enjoy this memoir, although I was left wondering how much of it really happened, given the disclaimer that it is "mostly true." But whether it is true or not, it is definitely very amusing. 

Blackout

By Connie Willis

A time-travel novel set in London in 1940 during the Blitz.  Time-travel is apparently under the sole control of a group of British historians in Oxford in the 2060s. Several of these historians are focusing on  World War II and have gone back to study the events of that time.

But something is off at the time-travel lab. Historians are having their scheduled trips cancelled and are suddenly being sent off to locations for which they are barely prepared.  Michael, who was to go to Pearl Harbor is now supposed to head to Dover, and will pass himself off as an American reporter there to interview the heroes of the Dunkirk rescue.

Merope, also known as Eileen, has been studying a group of evacuated London children at a county manor, posing as a maid.  Polly is to be a shop girl in London so she can observe the behavior of ordinary people during the crisis.

Each historian gets much more than they expected. Merope finds it difficult to cope with the burden of work she is expected to perform and it only gets worse when the manor is quarantined because of an outbreak of disease among the evacuated children. Because of the quarantine, she is unable to leave the building and get to her drop site to return to the future. When she is finally able to get away, the drop site  is not working. So she decides to head to London to find Polly and use her drop site.

Michael is to be dropped in near Dover where a lot of the returning boats stopped to unload the rescued soldiers.  But when he arrives at the past, he is miles from where he was supposed to be. He tries to find a ride to Dover, even going so far as to get a ride on a small boat. But he is unable to find a ride. Tired, he returns to the decrepit boat but no one is there. He falls asleep on a bunk in the boat only to wake up to find himself in the middle of the evacuation. He even saves the life of a soldier and is wounded himself and wakes up in a British hospital, knowing he may have altered history by saving the soldier’s life.  He is stuck for several weeks in the hospital, too ill to leave and attempt to find a drop site.  He also is left wondering why no one from the future has come to extract him.

Meanwhile, Polly is trying to cope with life during the Blitz and it is turning out to be much more dangerous than she expected, especially when her drop zone is ruined by a bomb.  And when Michael and Merope show up hoping to use her now-defunct drop zone, it becomes clear something has gone very wrong back in 2060.

This was a very interesting and often exciting story, quite a vivid picture of life during the blitz, frequently very moving and touching. Lots of suspense, especially at the end when I discovered the story is continued in another book.  

The Graveyard Book

By Neil Gaiman

Nobody Owens is just a normal kid. Except he lives in a graveyard and his foster parents are ghosts, as are most of his friends and companions.
As a toddler, Bod's whole family was killed by the man Jack, who missed little Bod because Bod had wandered outside. But Jack is still determined to destroy the whole family and so is trying to track down Bod. But Bod has found refuge in the graveyard where the ghosts take him in and where an undead man agrees to be his guardian.
Life outside the graveyard is dangerous, especially for Bod with Jack continuing to look for him. But life inside the graveyard isn't exactly safe either as Bod discovers when he encounters the Sleer in an ancient barrow or when Bod is snatched by ghouls intending to eat him for supper. But throughout it all, Bod comes out on top and learns to cope not only with the world of the grave but with the world outside also, dangers and all.

This was a fun and interesting read, as Bod lives with a foot in either world. It isn't really a novel, but more a series of short stories about the life of Bod. I enjoyed it tremendously.

The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell

Harry Harrison

Jim diGriz may be facing one of his most devilish opponents yet when his wife Angelina goes missing after paying a visit to a local temple. Jim attempts to track down his missing wife, only to find himself transported to "Hell."
Not being familiar with the lore of the Christian religion, Jim doesn't really make the "Hell" connection. He only knows it is brutally hot, volcanic place inhabited by deranged, red people who want to eat him.
After being rescued, Jim and his cohorts figure out that the temple and others like it are used to lure rich people to finance a madman's plan to gain eternal life for himself. The man, Professor Slakey, has managed not only to create a transporter that connects to other universes, but has also duplicated himself multiple times in order to create an army of Slakeys dedicated to obtaining unnildecnovum, an element that reverses entropy, thereby granting the possessor the key to eternal life. Jim and the rest will have to move heaven and hell if they are going to rein in the mad professor.

This was a pretty good read. Jim and company find themselves in all kinds of strange situations as they try to deal with the wily professor. Lots of adventure and intriguing challenges as they unravel the trail of their adversary.

California Demon

By Julie Kenner

Katie Connor was a retired demon hunter, trying to raise her two kids like any normal person. But circumstances kind of forced her back into her old profession, tracking and killing demons, all without anyone in her family knowing.
Her oldest child is fourteen and starting to be very interested in boys. While attending an event at her daughter's school, Kate stumbles across a demon who is looking for a book hidden in the school. Kate finds the book and takes it to the Catholic church to keep it out of the hands of any other demons who may come looking for it. Unfortunately, this draws the attention of other demons who are determined to regain possession of the book. And one of the demons just might be a boy that Kate's daughter likes. How to protect her family and keep the demons from completing  their hellish rituals keeps Kate hopping.

I didn't like this book. I found too violent, with Kate in frequent clashes with the local demons. I really got tired of the frequent battle scenes. I also didn't like the author's idea that the demons take over the bodies of people who have suffered near-death events. That was just plain mean-spirited. Here this Kate character is slaughtering these poor unfortunates instead of getting them the help they need, namely an exorcism. She kills these possessed people then hides their bodies in the crypt of the Catholic church, leaving their loved ones to grieve, not ever knowing what happened.  Also, the book is billed as funny, but it's just not. It's just not.

Staggerford

By Jon Hassler

Miles Pruitt teaches high school English in the town of Staggerford, Minnesota. He was born and raised in Staggerford and pretty much knows everyone there. He is single and rents a room from Agnes McGee, who is an elderly grade school teacher. Agnes is a devout Catholic and Miles is a lapsed Catholic which worries Agnes and so she prays for him. Miles, who is in his mid-thirties, is her only boarder.
Set in the early 1970s, Miles finds himself often at odds with the principal of the high school, Wayne Workman. Workman thinks Miles is a slacker and thinks it is his job to try to bring him up to snuff, or possible ride Miles hard enough to get him to quit his job. Workman married the only woman Miles ever loved, Anna Thea, whom Miles calls Thanatopsis, because he didn't quite catch her name when they first met.
The Staggerford area is also the home to the Sandhill Reservation and the reservation kids attend school in Staggerford. A Staggerford boy is dating a reservation girl and gets into a confrontation with the girl's brother and beats the native boy up. A deputation of Sandhill people stage a gathering at the high school, demanding justice for the beaten up boy. This sends the whole Staggerford community into an uproar, this being the days of AIM (the American Indian Movement) and the governor sends in troopers and troops to quell any possible trouble. Somehow Miles ends up in the thick of it all, including getting involved with a troubled female student and her unstable mother, who is known as the Bonewoman because she travels from house to house asking for any waste bones. Anyways, it all comes to a head and turns out badly for Miles but OK for most everyone else.

I really was enjoying this book quite a lot until the end, which made me feel like I had just been shit on. So although it was quite an enjoyable story up to that point, I am rating it "bad" because I just totally hated the ending.

Hellhole

By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Hellhole is a planet that suffered a devastating asteroid strike resulting in massive destruction to its ecosystem and death of its intelligent indigenous population.  Its weather is violent and extremely dangerous, but it is still being used as a settlement planet, mainly for disaffected and/or dangerous people. One of the people sentenced to life on Hellhole is General Adolphus, leader of an unsuccessful rebellion against the current ruler of human interstellar government, Diadem Michella Duchenet. Along with several of his fellow rebels, Adolphus and company are given a second chance at life, landed with minimal supplies and sabotaged equipment. No one thought they would manage to survive. But they did, with the help of an underground of sympathizers. And now General Adolphus is putting together a new force, planning once again to wrest control from a ruthless and corrupt regime.

This was an OK read. It is very long and I didn't know it was just the first in a new series so the end of the book is just the beginning of the series, which I didn't like. If I had known that's what it was, I would not have purchased the book. Looking at the cover and the blurbs inside, nowhere does it say it is book 1 of a triology or series or whatever it is. Anyways, I found it kind of boring and I will not be reading any more of this series.