Recent Readings

The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova; Back Bay/Little, Brown & Co.

**** A wonderfully paced horror novel marred only by the discovery that Dracula is a big nerd.

The Shadow Of The Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafo?n; Penguin Press

*** Boy finds more than he bargained for in a dusty old library (a book to be exact).

Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures As Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, And Apprentice To A Dante-Quoting Butcher In Tuscany, Bill Buford; Anchor Canada

**** Journalist perseveres through cooking lessons, Batali’s drunkenness.

Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic’s Guide To Life In The Grid, Stanley Newman, Mark Lasswell; Collins

*** A pun-filled glance at the crossword industry that can be completed in less time than the Monday puzzle.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini; Riverhead Hardcover

***** Exceeds industry standard woe quotient.

The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett; NAL Trade

** A good story about cathedrals, badly written.

A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel, Murakami, Haruki; Vintage

**** Surrealism reigns in this book about what, exactly?

The White Tiger: A Novel, Aravind Adiga; Free Press

*** Never visit India under any circumstances.

The Bounty: The True Story Of The Mutiny On The Bounty, Alexander, Caroline; Viking

*** Like Mutiny on the “Bounty”, but true. Maybe.

The Shack (Special Hardcover Edition), William P. Young; Windblown Media

* Man stumbles upon Christian dieties in the woods, and they make him pancakes.

Moby Dick: Level 2, Herman Melville ; PENGUIN LONGMAN PUBL

** (e-book) A fantastic, gripping novella about a whale hunt, embedded inside a long, boring treatise on the intricacies of whaling ca. 1847.