Norwegian Wood

Fiction by Haruki Murakami.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was another book translated from the Japanese. It was good, but not as good as 1Q84.

According to the jacket, this is the Catcher in the Rye of Japan. Except Toru Watanabe was way more sympathetic a character than Holden Caufield, whom I kind of hated.

June Bug

Fiction by Chris Fabry.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is the book I chose for my book club this month. So, obviously, I recommend reading it.

Here's the premise: "June Bug believed everything her daddy told her. That is, until she walked into Wal-Mart and saw her face on a list of missing children. The discovery begins a quest for the truth about her father, the mother he rarely speaks about, and ultimately herself."

Sounds cool, doesn't it?

The Lady of the Rivers

Fiction by Philippa Gregory.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a good book.

I always enjoy Philippa Gregory.

The Senator's Wife

Fiction by Sue Miller.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

Now this was a very good book. It really caused me to think about the characters. But I am a big Sue Miller fan.

The only problem was I felt like this book had about the most boring cover I've ever seen.


Barnes and Noble had several other books with the same title and better covers; however, their insides are probably far inferior since Sue Miller didn't write them.

See how pretty?

So although it's true that you can't judge a book by its cover, it would behoove an author to get a good designer, since in fact most everyone DOES judge a book by its cover.

Also it's interesting to see the intense disaprity in the reviews about this book; people either loved it or hated it.

Just to recap: I loved it.

The Weight of Silence

Fiction by Heather Gudenkauf.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a great book!

My mom recommended it to me, so... Thanks, Mom!

The funny thing is, I remember when I was a kid I could never STAND to read anything my mom recommended. I thought if she liked it, I couldn't possibly like it.

I never did read Little Women or The Yearling as a result. So I probably missed out on a lot, just out of sheer stubborness.

Later she figured this out and stopped recommending books to me.

I'm glad she's started back now that I'm an adult, though.

Encyclopedia Brown

Children's fiction by Donald Sobol.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

I've been reading this to my nine-year-old daughter.

But it's not the "updated" version like the one above. It's the old 1960's one from the school library.

And she's actually interested!

I think it's cool I can read something to my kid that I read myself as a kid.

Perhaps even the same copy...

Zero Day

Fiction by David Baldacci.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

I just couldn't get into this book. I don't know why.

But it's a new book so the library only lets me have it for seven days...and its time is up.

Sorry.

Wonderland Creek

Fiction by Lynn Austin



http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was a good book.

It's about a girl who loves books more than real life, which was a sympathetic character to me.

Not that I'm anything like that....

The Night Circus

Fiction by Erin Morgenstern.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an interesting book. Weird but good.

First off, is this not a fabulous cover? I wish I'd designed that.

Also this is another sort-of-defying classification book. The library called it "Fantasy," as evidenced by the little blue unicorn sticker on the spine.

(I find the classification stickers amusing sometimes. I mean, there's no unicorns in this book. And the "Historical" sticker has a little blue covered wagon on it. Which looks ridiculous on the spine of a Phillipa Gregory novel. But I digress.)

In any case, this book is pretty darn original. And that's always cool.

The Buddha in The Attic

Fiction by Julie Otsuka.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

Well, I just said a few days ago I couldn't wait to read this follow-up to When the Emperor was Divine.

Unfortunately it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. Mostly I guess that's just because my expectations were too high.

But also this was too short. And too unspecific.

It was still worth reading though.