A Book Blogger's Diary

Creature ABC Ages 4-8, 120 p, Chronicle Books, Isbn-0811869784 An elegant addition to any library, this deluxe alphabet book features 120 pages of Andrew Zuckerman's breathtaking wildlife photography. From alligator to zebra, each featured animal boasts two striking studio portraits against a clean white background, offering a unique up-close view of the animal kingdom. Readers can flip to a helpful glossary in the back for extra information. From the sleek beauty of a smiling hippo to the powerful majesty of a roaring lion, this gorgeous new book is both a stunning work of art and a ferociously fun way for young animal-lovers to learn their ABCs. The book is good. The glossy photos - the details in them as if the creatures were about to leap off the pages - were just perfect! I just wish all the letters were represented by the appropriate creature. Don't get me wrong - most of them are, but some aren't. Like N is for nocturnal creatures (which is more the category than an ...

CONGRATS TO LUCKY WINNER - EMILY! "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy. I was in a hurry when I opened this audiobook and didn't realize at first it was the author herself reading it out loud! It certainly made for a unique reading experience, and that made it all the more fulfilling somehow. I hadn't read the paper version of the novel and was unprepared for the gamut of emotions the story takes a listener through. I was quite...

CONGRATS TO LUCKY WINNER - FREDA! Mason "Mace" Perry was a firebrand cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything-her badge, her career, her freedom-and spent two years in prison. Now she's back on the outside and focused on one mission: to be a cop once more. Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major case on her own, and prove she has the right to wear the uniform. But even with her police chief sister on her side, she has to work in the shadows: A vindictive U.S. attorney is looking for any reason to send Mace back behind bars. Then Roy Kingman enters her life. Roy is a young lawyer who aided the poor until he took a high-paying job at a law firm in Washington. Mace and Roy meet after he discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm. As they investigate the death, they start uncovering surprising secrets from both the private and public world of the nation's capital. Soon, what began as a ...

Once in a Blue Moon by Eileen Goudge 336 p, Vanguard Press, ISBN: 1593155344 Synopsis - Sisters Lindsay and Kerrie Ann have known hardship from an early age. Without guidance from their neglectful mother, their only aid came from an unlikely source, a retired exotic dancer by the name of Miss Honi Love. When the girls’ mother was sent to prison, Miss Honi tried unsuccessfully to save them from being separated and sent into foster care. Thirty years later, Lindsay is still trying to reconnect with her sister. The owner of a bookstore in the sleepy California seaside town of Blue Moon Bay, she was lucky enough to have been adopted by a loving couple. Unbeknownst to her, Kerrie Ann has suffered a very different life. Bounced from one foster home to the next, she ran away as a teenager before becoming a drug-addicted single mother. Now, newly sober, Kerrie Ann is fighting to regain custody of the little girl who was taken from her. Neither sister’s expectations are met when they’re finall...

Synopsis : Bran Hambric was found locked in a bank vault at six years old in the City of Dunce where Magic is outlawed, with no memory of his past. For years, he has lived with one of the bankers (whose family can only be described as ludicrously strange), wondering why he was left behind -- until one night, when he is fourteen, he is suddenly confronted by a maddened creature, speaking of Bran’s true past and trying to kidnap him. Bran finds that he is at the center of a plot that started years before he was even born: the plot of a deadly curse his mother created…and one that her former masters are hunting for him to complete. Haunted by the spirit of his mother’s master and living in a city where magic is illegal, Bran must undo the crimes of his past...before it is too late. Who could possibly have put a six-year-old into a locked bank vault if not mages or gnomes? The answer is larger than Bran. In fact, it is larger than Dunce. It just might be larger than magic itself. It might ...

How Perfect Is That ~ Sarah Bird 336 pages, Publisher: Pocket, Reprint edition Before becoming Mrs. Henry "Trey" Biggs-Dix III, Austin socialite Blythe Young owned the exclusive catering company Wretched Xcess. Post divorce and having lost what money and status she'd briefly gained, Blythe is desperate to hold on and for the second time she's determined to fake it 'til she makes it -- passing off warehouse club taquitos as Petites Tournedos Béarnaise à la Mexicaine and relying on her own private concoction of Stoli and pharmaceuticals as a substitute for sleep at a do-or-die catering event for the crème de la crème of Austin's society dames. But then a blabber-mouthed accountant puts the IRS on Blythe's trail at a most unfortunate moment. There's no option except to cut and run. Blythe's been ducking calls from her friend Millie for over a decade, but now Millie is the only person with a heart big enough to take her in. So, just one step ahead of ...

  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet Jamie Ford Ballantine  I had the pleasure of meeting author Jamie Ford on his recent book tour through the Pacific Northwest and wanted to spread the word about his fantastic first novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Last week, Hotel reached the New York Times list and is currently in a fifth printing. This book is a classic love story against a much larger story (the removal of the Japanese from Seattle during World War II) and this simple, lyrical, haunting, and beautiful story will stick with you. I don’t give away endings, but it’s something worth reading the book for. In the flashbacks, the protagonist, Henry Lee, twelve years old, is Chinese, but it’s 1942 and the folks living on the West Coast of the United States are feeling just a bit vulnerable. When Henry’s staunchly nationalistic father pins an “I am Chinese” button to his son’s shirt and enrolls him in an all-white prep school, Henry finds himself friendl...

Mostly Monty Johanna Hurwitz (Author) Anik Mcgrory (Illustrator) Candlewick Press ISBN-10: 076362831X About the Book Six-year-old Monty doesn’t have a brother, a sister, or a pet. What he does have is asthma, which sometimes makes it hard to breathe and often makes him feel like he’d rather be somebody else. And now that he’s starting first grade, he’s very nervous about being with all those kids he won’t know. Luckily, he loves to read -- even really hard books -- and has a talent for finding things, from a cocooning caterpillar to classmates who want to be in his very own club. With familiar situations and gentle humor, Johanna Hurwitz follows an endearing character as he discovers that being himself can be pretty great after all. My Thoughts Anyone who's ever had or known someone with this condition, will easily associate with Monty. It's no fun living with Asthma. And author Johanna Hurwitz writes of this with compassion and with a voice that's endearing. It's also...

Mr. Cavendish, I Presume Julia Quinn Avon ISBN-10: 0060876115 Synopsis Amelia Willoughby has been engaged to the Duke of Wyndham for as long as she can remember. Literally. A mere six months old when the contracts were signed, she has spent the rest of her life waiting. And waiting. And waiting . . . for Thomas Cavendish, the oh-so-lofty duke, to finally get around to marrying her. But as she watches him from afar, she has a sneaking suspicion that he never thinks about her at all . . . It's true. He doesn't. Thomas rather likes having a fiancée—all the better to keep the husband-hunters at bay—and he does intend to marry her . . . eventually. But just when he begins to realize that his bride might be something more than convenient, Thomas's world is rocked by the arrival of his long-lost cousin, who may or may not be the true Duke of Wyndham. And if Thomas is not the duke, then he's not engaged to Amelia. Which is the cruelest joke of all, because this arrogant and il...