October's Book of the Month

Hello Everyone! I chose the picture posted above because it reminds me of reading to my daughter Mareena when she was little. Every afternoon until she was about eight or nine years old, we would take one of her books that she wanted to read or that she was reading and we would curl up together on my big bed. 

We would spend an hour or so reading a chapter of her book, and then take a nap together. Her absolutely favorite author at that time was an English author named Enid Blyton. Ahh, nice memories...

My picks for 'Books of the Month' will be decidedly more adult these days, but they will be from almost any genre. October's Book of the Month is: 

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

Published as: Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever in September 2011

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Birth Name: William James O'Reilly

Born: 10 September 1949 in New York, New York

Canonical Name: Bill O'Reilly

Pseudonyms: None

Birth Name: Martin Dugard

Born: 1 June 1961 in Maine

Canonical Name: Martin Dugard

Pseudonyms: None

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard was the eighty-seventh book that I read in 2012. I had had this ebook on my virtual TBR bookshelf since December 6, 2011 although I didn't actually read it until October of 2012. It took me three days to read this book and I purged the ebook after I had finished reading it on October 16, 2012.

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Jane Hamilton - Disobedience

93. Disobedience by Jane Hamilton (2000)
Length: 273 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Started: 29 October 2012
Finished: 31 October 2012
Where did it come from? From Bookmooch
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 27 October 2012
Why do I have it? I like contemporary fiction and Jane Hamilton is a new author for me.

Henry Shaw is a high school senior who, at seventeen years old, is about as comfortable with his family as any teenager can be. His father, Kevin, teaches history with a decidedly socialist tinge at the Chicago private school Henry and his sister attend. His mother, Beth, who plays the piano in a group specializing in antique music, is a loving, attentive wife and parent. Henry even accepts the offbeat behavior of his thirteen-year-old sister, Elvira, who is obsessed with Civil War reenactments and insists on dressing in handmade Union uniforms at inopportune times.

When he stumbles on his mother's email account, however, Henry realizes that all is not as it seems. There, under the screen name Liza38, a name Henry innocently established for her, is undeniable evidence that his mother is having an affair with one Richard Polloco, a violin maker and unlikely paramour who nonetheless has a very appealing way with words and a romantic spirit that, in Henry's estimation, his father woefully lacks. 

Against his better judgement, Henry charts the progress of his mother's infatuation with Richard - her feelings of euphoria, of guilt, and of profound, touching confusion. His knowledge of Beth's secret life colors his own tentative explorations of love and sex with the ephemeral Lily, and casts a new light on the arguments - usually focused on Elvira - in which his parents routinely indulge. Over the course of his final year in high school, Henry observes each member of the family, trying to anticipate when they will find out about the infidelity and what that knowledge will mean to each of them. Henry's observations, set down a decade after that fateful year, are so much more than the "old story" that his mother deemed her affair to be.

I thought that this book was just okay - to my mind, the story could have been told more simply, without such intense focus being paid to Elvira's obsession about the Civil War. Disobedience by Jane Hamilton wasn't perhaps my favorite book of all time, but I am certainly still interested in reading more books by Jane Hamilton. I give Disobedience by Jane Hamilton an A!

A! - (90-95%)    

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Thomas T. Noguchi, M. D. and Joseph DiMona - Coroner

92. Coroner by Thomas T. Noguchi, M. D. and Joseph DiMona (1983)
Coroner Series Book 1
Length: 252 pages
Genre: True Crime
Started: 25 October 2012
Finished: 28 October 2012
Where did it come from? From Bookmooch
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 18 October 2012
Why do I have it? I like true crime and had read and enjoyed Coroner at Large by the same authors.

In Thomas T. Noguchi's memoir, Coroner, the former Chief Medical Examiner of Los Angeles County and the "coroner to the stars", reveals the full evidence behind the headline-making deaths of Robert F. Kennedy, Janis Joplin, Sharon Tate, Marilyn Monroe and others - the shocking and surprising facts can now be released in this stunning memoir.

I had wanted to read this book ever since reading the sequel back in September and was excited when I received this book in the mail last week. It was very interesting reading certainly, but I'm glad to have finished it when I did - I think that it was just a tad too long for me. Definitely not boring at all, just longer and a little more involved than I had expected the book would be when I first started it. I would certainly recommend Coroner to anyone who likes to read about true crime and give this book an A!

A! - (90-95%)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Pamela K. Kinney - Spectre Nightmares and Visitations

91. Spectre Nightmares and Visitations by Pamela K. Kinney (2010)
Length: 128 pages
Genre: Horror
Started: 23 October 2012
Finished: 25 October 2012
Where did it come from? Many thanks to Pamela for sending me a copy of this book to read.
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 19 October 2012
Why do I have it? I like horror and Pamela K. Kinney is a new author for me. 

We can be scared by many things. However, the most frightening things that we encounter are those that can infect our own nightmares and imaginations. Monsters from the closet or from another dimension, ghosts that haunt more than houses. Shapeshifters of every species and description, children can be stolen by more than the human kind of monster. Even the most normal circumstances can suddenly shift into times of the most heart-pounding terror.

I have to say that I really enjoyed this book. I believe Pamela K. Kinney has an incredible imagination - there was a huge variety of horrors that she wrote about, they were not just the 'run-of-the-mill' horror stories. In my opinion, she is an emerging author to keep an eye on. I give Spectre Nightmares and Visitations by Pamela K. Kinney an A! and am looking forward to reading the two other books by Pamela K. Kinney that I have on my TBR pile.

A! - (96-100%)
  
Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Anne Rivers Siddons - Islands

90. Islands by Anne Rivers Siddons (2004)
Length: 374 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Started: 21 October 2012
Finished: 23 October 2012
Where did it come from? From a Library Book Sale
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 20 July 2012
Why do I have it? I like contemporary fiction and have read and enjoyed several books by this author in the past.

Anny Butler has always been a caretaker, a nurturer, first for her own brothers and sisters, and then as the director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children. What she has never had is a family of her own to care for. That all changes when she meets and marries Lewis Aiken, an exuberant surgeon fifteen years Anny's senior.

When they marry, Anny finds her family - not a traditional one, but a group of childhood friends from Charleston who are inseparable; who are one another's surrogate family. They call themselves The Scrubs, and they all, in some way, are connected by the cord of family. Instantly upon meeting them at the old beach house on Sullivan's Island, which they co-own, Anny knows that she has ultimately found home and family. They vow that, when the time comes, they will find a place by the sea where they can live together.

Bad things begin to happen - a hurricane, a fire, deaths - but still the remaining Scrubs cling together. They are watched over and bolstered by Camilla Curry, the heart and core of the group, always the healer. For the first time in her life, Anny allows Camilla to enfold her and to care for her with a kind of love and support that Anny has never experienced.

I loved this book; it was one of those books that you can get lost in the storytelling of it. I'm really beginning to enjoy Anne Rivers Siddons as an author and look forward avidly to the next book of hers that I read. I have added three more books by Anne Rivers Siddons on to my Wish List and give Islands by Anne Rivers Siddons an A+!

A+! - (96-100%)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Felicity Cochrane - Margaret Trudeau: The Prime Minister's Runaway Wife

89. Margaret Trudeau: The Prime Minister's Runaway Wife by Felicity Cochrane (1978)
Length: 173 pages
Genre: Non-Fiction
Started: 19 October 2012
Finished: 20 October 2012
Where did it come from? From Bookmooch
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 19 October 2012
Why do I have it? I like biographies and autobiographies and Felicity Cochrane is a new author for me.

The whole world watched in spellbound fascination as beautiful, young Margaret Trudeau - wife of Canada's powerful Prime Minister, struck up an open friendship with the rock group, The Rolling Stones. Shortly afterward, the six-year long marriage between the handsome, debonair and elegant politician in his mid-fifties and the gorgeous twenty-something rebel was officially on the rocks. But this was only the latest chapter in the story of the fairy tale marriage between Pierre and Margaret Trudeau. 

The 'Rolling Stones' incident was only the latest one of many scandals that Margaret Trudeau was somehow linked with during her tumultuous marriage to Pierre Trudeau. From Margaret's own early involvement with radical politics to Pierre's ties to other women - including Barbra Streisand - this biography reveals all!

I did enjoy reading this book and started it immediately on the day that it arrived in the mail all the way from Israel. However, I found that I didn't really learn much more about Margaret Trudeau's life and marriage that I didn't already know from reading Margaret Trudeau's own autobiography, Beyond Reason, which I had read in September of 2012. I give this book an A!

A! - (90-95%)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Jane Smiley - At Paradise Gate

88. At Paradise Gate by Jane Smiley (1981)
Length: 224 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Started: 17 October 2012
Finished: 19 October 2012
Where did it come from? From Bookmooch
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 15 October 2012
Why do I have it? I like contemporary fiction and Jane Smiley as an author. I have also read and enjoyed several books by this author in the past.

While seventy-seven year old Ike Robison is dying in his bedroom upstairs, his wife Anna defends the citadel of their marriage from the ill-considered, albeit loving invasion, of their three middle-aged daughters and twenty-three year old granddaughter. Helen, Claire and Susanna claim they have come to help their mother, Anna, and to cheer their father towards recuperation. Although, it appears to their mother that her daughters have arrived only to raid her refrigerator and to gripe and snipe at each other about their recollections of old rivalries. 

Bright, fresh-faced Christine arrives and presents the family with a new set of problems - her impending pregnancy and forthcoming divorce. Anna, herself, is reflecting on her life. Her life has been difficult for Anna, her marriage to Ike harshly violent, uprooting and cold. Unburdened by sentiment, Anna acknowledges to herself that she is angry at her husband for abandoning her and that her daughters remain so dependent, even into their adulthood.

Despite the simmering anger and resentment which is directed at her husband, Anna has grown used to Ike and truly can't imagine her life without him. She is confronted by her own frailties, and the imminence of Ike's death has left her in a devastating conundrum about what she should do next. Anna ultimately achieves a quiet certainty about her right to what's left of her world.

I thought this was a very good book. It was an easy read for me, and even though nothing earth-shattering happened in the plot, At Paradise Gate by Jane Smiley was still a very pleasant read. This book was filled with moments of quiet introspection, rather than huge cliffhanger plot twists. The writing was beautiful and I give this book an A+! I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes contemporary fiction.

A+! - (96-100%)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight