What am I Reading Now?
Check out my new blog - What's Sarah Reading Now?
What's Sarah Reading is being replaced by a new blog, What's Sarah Reading Now?, with all new, original book reviews for 2010.
I read other things besides books. Every day I read The Ithaca Journal, The New York Times, The Utica Observer Dispatch and the Herkimer Evening Telegram. I also subscribe to many magazines – Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Every Day Food, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Allure, Real Simple, British Country Living, Olive (a British cooking magazine), and Red (a British women’s magazine similar to Vogue). I am also addicted to British tabloids and read at least 2 or 3 a day online.
Office politics run amok in this brilliant novel by Danish author Jungersen. Iben and Malene have been best friends for years, and also happen to work together in the Danish Center for Information on Genocide. The two women are also friendly with their office secretary, Camilla, but none of the three women get along with the Center’s librarian, emotional and paranoid Anne-Lise. When Iben and Malene receive death threats by email that have distinctive Nazi overtones to them, the Center thinks that Serbian war criminal Mirko Zigic could be behind them. However, as the women question each other and work more closely together in an emotionally heated environment, the women slowly begin to believe Anne-Lise sent the threats. Tensions quickly escalate and soon the women who study and report on the world’s most evil crimes turn into paranoid, plotting bullies who will stop at nothing to find out who the email sender is.
Llewelyn Moss is out hunting antelope one morning when he stumbles across a drug deal gone bad. Several men are dead, and there is a stash of heroin and more than 2 million dollars in cash. Although he realizes that he will be hunted down if he takes the money, the temptation is too great for Llewelyn. Soon, a drug cartel hires an ex-Special Forces agent, Wells, to track him down, and the psychotic killer Anton Chigurh gets involved in the hunt. An aging sheriff, Sheriff Bell, may be Llewelyn’s only hope for survival in the bloody chase.
The past and the present collide in this beautiful novel by Norwegian author Petterson. 67-year-old Trond Sander is living in self-imposed exile in a small, rustic cabin near the Swedish border. After his wife and sister died three years ago, he has yearned for silence and solitude. When he meets his only nearby neighbor, he slowly realizes that he knew Lars from his boyhood summers spent in the area. Lars was the brother of Trond’s best friend during the summer of 1948 – a summer that changed many lives in that wooded area. Lars accidentally shot his twin brother to death when his brother Jon left his loaded gun out within reach. It was also during this fateful summer that Trond’s father abandons his family and ends up leaving with Jon’s mother after the death of her son.
On December 21, 1998, the author’s brother, David Dornstein, was killed during the Pan Am Flight 103 explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland. A college sophomore home for winter break during the time, Ken copes with his brother’s death by denial for years. It is only with gradually accepting his death that he begins to feel ready to tell David’s story and carry on his writing dreams. David was only 25 when he died, and was an impassioned aspiring writer. He left behind many journals and letters, which Dornstein uses in his memoir to show readers what his brother was like.
Richard Papen arrives at Hampden College in Vermont ready to reinvent himself. He is quickly drawn into a group of five eccentric students who are studying Greek with the influential Julian Morrow. Julian urges his students to become completely immersed in their Classics studies, and when the students take up his offer and take part in a wild bacchanalian frenzy and end up killing a local farmer, the group dynamics change. One of the group members can’t stop talking about the death, and the group must decide how far they will go to keep their secret safe.
Single mother Jo has decided to leave her abusive boyfriend and go back to her family's house in London. While on the train, with all of their belonging packed in plastic bags, Jo’s teenage daughter Ella jumps off the train and disappears. Instead of looking for her, Jo continues her journey on with her two other children, and lies to her grandparents and tells them Ella is staying with her father. In reality, Ella is wandering around Brighton by herself, squatting in an antique store that her mother works in and trying to connect with her father and his new family.
The Tallis family is gathering on a warm summer day in 1935 to have a dinner party celebrating the return of their son, Leon, for a family visit. When 13-year-old Briony opens a letter meant for her sister from a family friend, her overactive imagination causes a catastrophic chain of events that evening. Soon Robbie, the childhood friend and the son of the Tallis’s housemaid, is accused of raping a cousin who happens to be staying at the estate. Cecilia, Briony’s sister, cannot believe that he could have raped anyone, and leaves her family to become a nurse in London.
The cover of this cute, quirky autobiographical book sums it up: “I have not survived against all odds. I have not lived to tell. I have not witnessed the extraordinary. This is my story.” Rosenthal is a writer who at one time wrote for Might magazine and has contributed to NPR. She reflects back on her life, from small details of her favorite childhood foods, to what it has taken to get her latest book published. Her family is written about heavily, along with childhood memories.
Arriving at Tudor College, Cambridge, James Walker feels that he doesn’t fit in with the rest of the college students. He spends most of his time in his room, alone, until one night someone knocks on his window and wants to be let in. The college student outside is Michael and he is part of a secretive group at Cambridge called the Night Climbers. The Climbers are a small circle of wealthy students who climb college towers and gargoyles during the night for thrills. James soon becomes part of the Night Climbers and starts traveling in their luxurious circles. When the group’s leader, Francis, is cut off from his wealthy father, Francis makes the group commit a crime to obtain money so he can keep his wealthy lifestyle. This crime and its aftermath continues to haunt the group years after they commit it.
As a huge fan of short stories, I always anticipate the new addition to this wonderful series. I am not however a fan of Stephen King, so I was a little leery about his selections. On a whole, they are very strong, emotionally powerful stories. Writers such as T.C. Boyle, Mary Gordon, Richard Russo, and Alice Munro are included in this year’s edition. King writes a funny introduction about going to a big bookstore to find literary magazines and how they are always on the bottom shelf of the magazine racks, which is absolutely true.
David Anderton is a Catholic priest who although Scottish born, was educated at Oxford and is now viewed as more English than Scottish to his parishioners. With his mother aging, he requests a transfer to a Scottish parish and ends up in rural Dalgarnock. There he is seen as being different than the other priests they have had, and he freely admits that he enjoys the finer things in life such as wine and good food. He also befriends two young troublemakers, Mark and Lisa, who steal, drink, and do drugs. After a night of drinking and taking drugs with Mark, Father David leans over and kisses Mark, who then turns the priest in to authorities. As the town and the Catholic Church turns against David, he must decide if he should admit to falling in love with the young boy or retire and let the Church handle the matter in court.
A patient arrives at the office of Hildegard Wolff, a German psychoanalyst who lives and practices in Paris. He claims to be the missing Lord Lucan, who caused a scandal in Britain in 1974 when he killed his children’s nanny and attempted to kill his wife. The only problem is that Dr. Wolff already has a patient claiming to be the missing Lord Lucan. Wolff herself is running from a previous life – she used to be Beate Pappenheim, the famous stigmatic from Munich. She used her menstrual blood to fake the stigmata and had to flee when she was exposed as a fake. Which of her patients is the real Lord Lucan?
Edna Pontellier seems to have an idyllic life. She is the wife of a successful New Orleans businessman and is raising her two sons in a comfortable, carefree lifestyle. While on vacation to Grand Isle, Louisiana, Edna meets Robert Lebrun, a young bachelor who she soon falls in love with. Back in New Orleans, she feels she can not go on with her life as it has been, and moves out of her husband’s home and into a small cottage. When Robert Lebrun returns to Edna, it does not go as well as she hoped, and he does not understand her need for freedom.
Set in Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 1976, this mystery follows what happens when 12-year-old Steven Engel finds his mother stabbed to death in their apartment. Coming home from being with friends, Steven catches a glimpse of a man leaving their apartment through a window after murdering his mother, Gina Engel. The first section of the book is young Steven’s reaction to the murder, especially since now he has to make the decision if he should live with his father, who has not been in his life much. The second section of the book focuses on schoolteacher Lily Chin, who is engaged to be married to a rich Russian man. When a woman shows up and tells Lily that Nickolai may have been involved with Gina Engel, and he has Gina’s missing journal hidden, Lily is drawn into the mystery. The third section of the book tells the story of Louise Carpanetti, who received a phone call from the dying Gina. Dying of cancer, she is worried that her 55-year-old son, Michael, may have had something to do with the murder of Gina years ago.
Ethan Frome lives in Starkfield, Massachusetts, a bleak town in Western New England. Ethan himself is bleak and unapproachable and lives in a loveless marriage taking care of his sick wife. When his wife’s cousin, the young and beautiful Mattie comes to take care of sick Zeena, Ethan’s life changes. Life suddenly seems more fun and hopeful, until a tragic accident and a desperate decision changes the lives of all three family members.
Imagine waking up one morning and discovering your family has disappeared without a trace. That is exactly what happened to 14-year-old Cynthia Bigge when she wakes up to go to school one morning and finds her mother, father, and brother missing. Twenty-five years later, and now married and a mother herself, Cynthia has always wondered what happened to her family. She turns to the television show Deadline and agrees to do a reenactment of the disappearance, hoping someone will contact her with information. When her family starts receiving mysterious phone calls, emails, and apparent break-ins, Cynthia begins to believe her father is still alive. Or is Cynthia herself manipulating the mysterious clues?
Marrying a widower with three young children was not what Elizabeth Reegan thought she would do with her life. Working as a nurse in London after World War II, she thought she would live her life alone and without love. After marrying her husband, she moves to Ireland to live with her new family in the 1950’s. A frustrated policeman, her husband wants to turn to peat farming and seems emotionally removed from not only Elizabeth, but also his three children. When Elizabeth learns that she has breast cancer, the family’s life changes forever.
Prep school Seaton Hall has always been a special place for Beth Gunnar. She was a student there thirty years ago and jumped at the chance to teach at Seaton when an English teaching position opened. While she was a student at Seaton, her favorite English teacher, Theodore Dutton, mysteriously disappeared from the campus. Beth was part of a group that hung out with Mr. Dutton, and the students all saw him collapsed in his cabin after slitting his wrists. However, the school insisted that he had a heart attack and had to leave campus. Back at Seaton as an adult, the mystery of what happened to her favorite teacher continues to haunt Beth.
When sex education teacher Ruth Ramsay tells her high school class that some people enjoy oral sex, a local church called the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth launches a campaign against her teaching style. Stonewood Heights school district soon begins teaching an abstinence curriculum, much to the dismay of liberal minded Ruth. Her interactions with the church reach a boiling point when she catches her daughter’s soccer coach praying with the soccer team after a winning game. Tim Mason is a former drug addict and musician, and has turned his life over to the Tabernacle church. Although he admits guilt in leading the team in prayer, Tim begins to doubt his newly religious life, especially when he begins to talk to Ruth.
Billy Tyler is a low level police officer who has never wanted to advance his career. He leads a simple life with his wife Sue and their daughter, Emma, who has Down syndrome. When a famous murderer dies in prison, one that has gripped England for over thirty years, Billy is assigned the role of a lifetime. For twelve hours, he must guard the woman’s body before it is taken in the morning to the crematorium. During those twelve long hours, Billy reflects on his life, his marriage, his complicated role as a father to a special needs child, the murderer he is watching, and what constitutes evil.
Told by a nameless narrator, Hart’s debut novel from 1991 is a strong, haunting tale of obsessive love. The narrator is a 50-year old physician and member of Parliament who leads a quiet life with his wife Ingrid and their two children. When his son Martyn introduces him to his new girlfriend, Anna Barton, the chemistry is immediate. Knowing that this will ruin his family and career, he is overcome with desire for Anna and risks everything by having an affair with her. Anna has damaged men in the past – including having an incestuous relationship with her brother, Aston, who ended up killing himself. When the family finds out about the affair, many lives end up damaged beyond repair.
Waking up in the hospital, crime writer Drew Danner has no idea what has happened to him. When police inform him that he was found having a grand mal seizure over the body of his now-dead ex-fiancé, and that he had her blood on his hands and the murder weapon, Drew has no memory of that night. He is soon tried for Genevieve’s murder, but is found not guilty due to temporary insanity. Once home, Drew tries to find out who the real killer is, and when mysterious break-ins occur and people start following him, Drew is in a race to prove his innocence.