Wednesday, August 20, 2014


 Asa Larsson is a Swedish crime writer who before becoming an author, was previously a tax attorney like her heroine Rebecka Martinsson.  The food, the cold, the landscape and the sometimes strange ways of the inhabitants are as much a part of these books as the mystery to be solved.  Her latest book is "The Second Deadly Sin" and is the fifth in the series.  Oprah Winfrey placed this series of books in her "Top Ten Mysteries Every Woman Should Read List".
From the first scene, where a bear is attacking a helpless dog which leads to the bones of a man found inside another bear and then to the murder of  a sleeping woman and the disappearance of her young grandson, the story is off and running.  Rebecka is pushed off the case by a rival, but this allows her the time to ponder some coincidences and investigate a pattern that she sees emerging.  The chapters alternate between the current murder investigation and a murder that took place a century ago with ties to the present day murders.  And of course her friend and policewoman Anna-Marie Mella is present to help solve the crimes.  You enjoy the characters in this series so much, you don't want to leave them. However if you are a dog lover, you should have a box of tissues right beside you.




Wednesday, August 13, 2014

The Bone Clocks

Wow. What a mesmerizing, mind-boggling, wild ride. Reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) takes a big commitment--of both time and brain cells. At nearly 600 pages, you have to REALLY want to read this because it will absorb you for a good long while. Thank goodness I read this on ereader, because I used the search feature frequently, as in "Who the heck is that person again?" and "What the heck does that mean, it seems vaguely familiar from about 200 pages ago?" But let me tell you this: it was oh so fun to read. It's surprising, clever, imaginative, complicated, scary, and, well, lovely. This book won't be for everyone, but it has made me look at the world a little differently. It starts out being one thing, and ends up being something entirely different. And Holly Sykes is one character I will carry with me for a long time. Read it. It will be available at the library on September 2.

Friday, August 08, 2014

Year of No Sugar by Eve O. Schaub

After viewing a lecture by obesity doctor, Robert Lustig, the author decided to experiment with taking a year of no added sugar.  The family's project did include exceptions to the no sugar rule but for the most part they hoped to eliminate sugar from their diet for one year. 
Schaub is a mother and writer who has a real interest in food and cooking.  She grew up equating sugary foods with love and enjoyed baking for her friends and family.  Lustig's lecture about the hazards of sugar convinced Schaub to make changes.
This is the record of their struggles and successes including anecdotes from the author, her husband, and their daughters.
The book is more story about their experiment year than data about the risks of sugar, but she does include some of that and recommends other authors for more information.  It is an interesting book about the Schaub family's year long food adventure.

Before Green Gables




     This book is clearly very well researched, giving Anne's background leading up to the beginning of "Anne of Green Gable".

     Suffering the devastating loss of parents at a tender age of 3 months, Anne is shuffled from one foster home to the next, ill-used and barely allow to escape, even to attend school.  Finally even the foster homes are no longer & she finds herself in what seem to her most deadful destination, the Hopewell Orphanage.   Through it all Anne bears her lot in life cheerfully, with the sort of curiosity and  imagination we have all come to expect of her.

    This book gives a realistic view of how Anne have grown up and how she became the girl who met Matthew Cuthbert on the train platform.