Library Loot! My Library Books for August~Going Back

Excerpt :

Playing for Time

 

He began to die when he was twenty-one, but tuberculosis is slow and sly and subtle. The disease took fifteen years to hollow out his lungs so completely they could no longer keep him alive. In all that time, he was allowed a single season of something like happiness.

When he arrived in Dodge City in 1878, Dr. John Henry Holliday was a frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who wanted nothing grander than to practice his profession in a prosperous Kansas cow town. Hope—cruelest of the evils that escaped Pandora’s box—smiled on him gently all that summer. While he lived in Dodge, the quiet life he yearned for seemed to lie within his grasp.

 

At thirty, he would be famous for his part in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. A year later, he would become infamous when he rode at Wyatt Earp’s side to avenge the murder of Wyatt’s younger brother Morgan. To sell newspapers, the journalists of his day embellished thin fact with... (continued)

This is a great read by Mary Doria Russell who is best known for her fantasy books of years ago.  I have always had an affinity for Doc and Wyatt Earp.  My mother's family is linked closely with the Earps!  Don't know if that makes me an outlaw or law-abiding... ;]

Nevertheless, "Doc" is a book that I enjoyed very much and recommend to all readers.

Editorial Review:

Hush is a timely book these days, when it seems as if hardly a day goes by without the news media reporting another child molestation by a religious leader. The main character, Gittel, is a sixteen-year-old girl who is harboring a devastating secret. Six years ago, when she was ten, she witnessed her best friend Devory being sexually abused. In their Chassidic Jewish community, reporting what she had seen would only lead to family shame and dishonor. Gittel's enforced silence is difficult for her to bear, and becomes even more so as she reaches the age at which she should be married off and become a mother. This taut tale alternates between ten-year-old Gittel and present day Gittel, never losing its momentum. It is not always a pleasant or easy read, but it is a powerful, gripping young adult novel that demonstrates that sexual abuse can happen anywhere, even in an insular, devoutly religious community. Reviewer: Jennifer Waldrop

I haven't read this one, but I'm anxious to get to it.  I think this book has a different slant on the problem of child sexual abuse and another child's feelings about "telling" to help another.  The fact that it's centered around a Chassidic Jewish community interests me, as well, because this is a specific one I haven't read of.

Just this week, a 10 yr. old twin boy died by his father and step-mother's hands...being punished for "swiping" his step-brother's guitar string. He was completely dehydrated by being made to stand in front of a sunny window in over 100 degree weather, without air conditioning in his room, for over a week without water.  His twin brother talked to a news reporter about his brother's tortured death saying that he wanted to help his brother, but he was afraid that he would get in trouble, too.  He wanted to help his brother but he was afraid.  This horror will follow the child for the rest of his life...

I think this is going to be a great book to read.

Overview :

Half-human, half-angel, Meridian Sozu has a dark responsibility.

Sixteen-year-old Meridian has been surrounded by death ever since she can remember. As a child, insects, mice, and salamanders would burrow into her bedclothes and die. At her elementary school, she was blamed for a classmate’s tragic accident. And on her sixteenth birthday, a car crashes in front of her family home—and Meridian’s body explodes in pain.
 
Before she can fully recover, Meridian is told that she’s a danger to her family and hustled off to her great-aunt’s house in Revelation, Colorado. It’s there that she learns that she is a Fenestra—the half-angel, half-human link between the living and the dead. But Meridian and her sworn protector and love, Tens, face great danger from the Aternocti, a band of dark forces who capture vulnerable souls on the brink of death and cause chaos.
From the Hardcover edition.

Oh, boy!  Another YA supernatural novel... But, this time the twist I liked was the fact that Meridian is a good angel/human.  I'm not a fan of the evil, dark angel, soul suckers; etc...   I'm going to try this one for any redeeming qualities and I'll get back to you.

Although insurance investigator DD McGil has always had her choice of lovers, she’s been spectacularly unlucky in love. Now one of DD’s former flames, Hemingway expert David Barnes, claims to have recovered the legendary stories and poems that Hemingway’s first wife lost while on a train to Switzerland in 1922. Barnes plans to auction them off for millions, but controversy rages. Are they truly the lost Hemingway works or are they forgeries? Found? Or stolen? DD’s quest to prove the manuscripts genuine puts her on the trail of a killer. The hunter quickly becomes the hunted when someone tries to stop her—dead.

How could a Hemingway fan such as I am pass over such a promising novel?  I have to read this one.  There are 227 pages...not bad. And, it's the first in a series of mystery novels with DD McGil as the investigator.



Synopsis:

"But what do we really know about other people?" In this international bestselling novel, a young unnamed Sardinian woman explores the life of her grandmother, a romantic, bewitching, eccentric figure, and a memorable literary creation. Her life has been characterized by honor and fierce passion, and above all by an abiding search for perfect love that has spanned much of the twentieth century. Ever in the background of this remarkable woman's story is the stunning Sardinian landscape-the deep blues of the Mediterranean, the rugged mountains of the Sardinian backcountry dotted with charming villages lost in time.

I absolutely adore this little book.  It's only about 100 pages translated from the Italian original and what a stunningly gorgeous book it is.  The descriptions of a grandmother who is slightly insane, but is "good," according to the local priest no matter if she does fall in love with every man who crosses her doorstep, to the husband who is devoted to her and the children and grandchildren who find her a cherished person of unique existance; this novel sings with amazing descriptions and the voice of a mystic author.  Milena Agus has a writer's voice that comes through her words; yes, and it's lyrical and hypnotic. 

I can't say enough good things about this book which I'm going to buy for my own personal library shelves. You have to read this one!  5 stars

What did you get in your Library Loot this past month?

Deborah/TheBookishDame