supernatural - reading for march

any book you want to read about supernatural people, places, or things.

The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Idea:  Have a book club meeting and tea at the Panama Hotel in the ID.

What we read this month

The Garden of the Beasts by Jeffrey Deaver
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Blessed Are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Hunting Unicorn by Bella Pollen
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
The Tiger - A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant

The Great Good Thing

What do you think happens when you close the cover of a book?  Most of us are self-centered enough to think that nothing happens in the book while we are not reading it.  But according to Roderick Townley's The Great Good Thing when we close the book the stage lights go off, the back-up lights come on, and the characters go about their lives until the next time the book is opened.  When we open the book again the characters all scramble to get to their places and act out what we are reading.  Some characters don't do much between readers, after all they can only behave how they were written.  But our heroine Princess Sylvie has many adventures and begins by breaking the first rule:  Don't look up at the reader!  This was a fun, light-weight read with some complex life questions thrown in and reinforced my belief that well-behaved women rarely make history.
Enjoy!

Recommendations

A friend asked me the other day what books I would recommend. I don't think she understood that I could go on forever talking about which books I have enjoyed reading. I made a Top Ten list for her and then noticed that I would not have found most of these books if I had not been a member of our book club. These are not in any particular order so the last one on the list is just as dear to me as the first one. My recommendation is to read them all.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Rossetti Letter by Christi Phillips

Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (book 1 of the Millennium Trilogy)

At Risk by Stella Rimington (book 1 of 5 in the Liz Carlyle series)

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (book 1 of 3 in the Flavia de Luce series)

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King (book 1 of 10 in the Mary Russell series)

On Basilisk Station by David Weber (book 1 of 12 in the Honor Harrington series)

The Bone Collector by Jeffrey Deaver (book 1 of 9 in the Lincoln Rhyme series)

Murder on the Iditarod Trail by Sue Henry (book 1 of 13 in the Jessie Arnold series, and this one spins off into a second series)

Note: I can count just fine, I just can't limit myself when talking about books. Yes, when I recommend book 1 of a series I really mean that you should read the whole series.

Bonobo Handshake by Vanessa Woods

I almost never read non-fiction and I especially avoid memoirs, but this time I am really glad that I went outside my comfort zone. I won't give away the content of the book because I want people to read it for themselves. I loved reading this book because it flowed easily, the main character is likeable and just as flawed as the rest of us, and because I now know things I would not have learned otherwise. This book is so much more than the story of the author's life for a year. I will grant you that she had a very exciting year, but what I liked most about the book was the questions it raised in my mind while reading it. What makes humans different than animals? What makes us the same? How can we do research on animals that will benefit both animals and humans? How can we make a positive difference in countries in Africa that need outside help? Reading this book gave me both an escape from my own life and challenging things to think about.

Guilty Pleasures

These are my favorite light-weight reads. These are the books I reach for when I want to escape and laugh. (in alphabetical order by author)

The Meg Langslow series by Donna Andrews
The Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters
The Eve Dallas series by J.D. Robb
The Callahan series by Spider Robinson
The Hot Flash Club series by Nancy Thayer