Book Talk

Looking for a book to enjoy over the holidays? Here are a few good ones I've read recently.

The New Girl was a great suspense novel about the abduction of a girl said to be the daughter of a wealthy business man from her highly secured school in Switzerland. There are a number of current event political references, and lots of twists and turns.

Talk Before Sleep is about the final stages of Ruth's battle with breast cancer, and the friends who were with her until the end. It's a powerful story about illness and how it impacts our relationships, feelings of hope and desperation, and the importance of friendship.

I finally read Crawdads! I had to bite the bullet and buy it for way too much, but it was worth it. The world through Kya's eyes was both fascinating and frustrating, and left me wondering how people lead lives like the ones described here. In many ways, this story reminded me of Educated, and the backwards livelihood described in that memoir. Everyone has heard about this book by now - if you haven't read it, you should

Going Underground is a YA novel about Del, who makes his living digging graves since, at just 17, some circumstances have made him a felon and he can't see any future beyond the cemetery. Heart-wrenching and redeeming, this was a powerful story about how our actions, however small they may see, can have lifelong impact. Especially timely for today's YA readers.

"So many books, so little time."

-Frank Zappa