Oral History by Lee Smith: Book Review

The Cantrell family has lived in Hoot Owl Holler in the mountains of Virginia for as long as anyone can remember. They love hard, play hard, and suffer deeply. There doesn’t seem to be any in-between for them. Oral History follows…let’s call it three…generations of Cantrells, starting with handsome Almarine and his run-in with a […]

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The Host by Stephenie Meyer: Book Review

In a future that strongly resembles Invasion of the Body Snatchers, humans are an endangered species. A militantly peaceful race of extraterrestrials known as “souls” has decided that the passionately violent humans don’t deserve to live on the Earth. So they have calmly taken over the vast majority of human bodies. Sometime after the aliens […]

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The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig: Book Review

Laura Grey is tired of her life as a governess, so she joins forces with The Pink Carnation. After the requisite training, she is sent to work as a governess for Andre Jaouen, a high-ranking official in the French Ministry of Police. She’s also tasked with finding out any information that might be of use […]

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Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas: Book Review

Eighty-six-year-old Hennie Comfort meets 17-year-old Nit Spindle when she sees the young woman standing outside one day, contemplating an old sign hanging on her fence advertising “Prayers for Sale.” Hennie takes the newly-arrived woman under her wing, showing her how to survive in a Colorado mining town in the ’30s and passing on her vast […]

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The Wild Trees by Richard Preston: Book Review

I find it hard to describe this book without making it sound dull and boring. I’ve tried to tell my husband and he just looks at me blankly. “It’s about trees?” “Well, yes, but it’s interesting and it’s about…trees.” Sometime in the late ’80’s, a few people who didn’t even know each other decided to […]

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The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew: Book Review

June Bentley “Jubie” Watts is 13 years old in 1954 when her mother decides to take all four of her children to visit her brother in Pensacola, Florida. As any affluent housewife of the time would do, she asks the maid to come along on the trip to help take care of them. Jubie does […]

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White Indian by Donald Clayton Porter: Book Review

The Great Sachem of the Seneca tribe has lost his infant son. In grief, he joins an alliance of tribes in making war on other tribes and an English settlement. In the settlement, he finds a baby boy, only a few days old, who looks at him fearlessly even though the mother has just been […]

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Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: Book Review

Unbroken by Lara Hillenbrand Book Cover

Louie Zamperini was a little bit of a punk as a young teen, staying in trouble all the time. But then he discovered running and pretty much turned his life around. People were taking notice of his times and the Olympics were in his future. He made it to the Berlin Olympics in a distance […]

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The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls: Book Review

This is the story of Jeannette Walls’s childhood growing up with a father who adored his children but who also neglected them shamefully and became downright scary when he drank. Her mother was a carefree spirit who couldn’t be bothered to take care of her children. She thought it was good for them to learn […]

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