The Readin Roos

This is a tremendous book for understanding the late-2008 financial meltdown in the sub-prime mortgage bond market. I would rank this with other well-written popular Wall Street books like "Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco." Michael Lewis writes with great skill about financial matters, explaining some of the arcane financial instruments (credit-default swaps? credit-default options?) using simplified examples of transactions to illustrate how traders would buy and sell these instruments with the hope of getting a return on their investment.

Did you have an imaginary friend when you were young? Ivan is one such friend who comes to Luke's home in Ballinagree. Luke is 6 and is cared for by his aunt, Elizabeth. But is Ivan there for Luke or Elizabeth? I found this story charming and heartwarming. I cried a little toward the end but not for the reason you might think.

Think twice before you laugh at or scold your children when they have an imaginary friend -- this book explains why one might come around. I know I am hoping for one to visit me.

Southern belle LeeLee Satterfield, married to college sweetheart Baker and raising two little girls and an aging Yorkshire terrier, is perfectly content with life in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. When Baker decides the family is moving to Vermont to buy and manage an old B&B, LeeLee reluctantly agrees to leave her way of life and 4 best friends behind. Talk about culture shock! There is an awfully big difference between living in the South and life in Vermont. She's totally unprepared for the seemingly endless winters, mud season, nor'easters and black ice.

I love the Kay Scarpetta novels, and this one was better than some of the earlier ones. I didn't feel quite so locked out of Kay's personal life or quite as wound up in the relationship between she and her niece Lucy. This episode focused on a bizarre death in the Elizabeth River. Kay switches up jurisdiction a bit due to the absence of one of her medical examiners, which leads to even more trouble.

The characters feel a bit more real and a little less contrived this time out than in the last couple of stories.

Redwall Abbey is under siege. Cluny the Scourge and his evil horde have vowed to take the Abbey, and will show no mercy to its inhabitants. Redwall has become a haven for many residents of the surrounding countryside. An order of healers, the peaceful brothers of Redwall seem ill equipped to defend their beloved home.Young novice Matthias emerges as an early leader. Convinced that the lost sword of the Abbey's legendary hero Martin the Warrior is vital to their success, Matthias sets out on a quest that takes him to the far reaches of Mossflower Wood.

In Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake nine year old Rose Edelstein discovers that she can taste the emotions of whoever prepares the food she tastes. One day after returning home from school Rose's mother is preparing a lemon cake. However, when Rose tastes the cake she also tastes her mother's feelings of emptiness, sadness, and desperation.

Bender blends magical and surreal elements into mundane, everyday life.

First I want to warn everyone you may see more reviews of audiobook version of books by Mary Kay Andrews in the near future. My new approach to checking these out at the Lawrence Public Library is to just focus on one shelf and pull some books to listen to.
 
The book starts with our heroine, Keeley Murdock, at her pre-wedding dinner in a small town in Georgia.

William Mandella has issues, and he's going to deal with them frankly. A conscript for an interstellar war against the Taurans, he finds himself flung through collapsars to distant maybe-battles, engaged in automation-mediated combat that wipes out most of his unit. Finally making it back to Earth and out of the service, he finds it impossible to adjust to a civilian life that has changed markedly in the twenty-one Earth-years that he has been gone (aging only a couple years himself due to lots of near-relativistic-speed space travel).

This slim volume of poetry is written as a series of prayers by Noah and several other denizens of the Ark. Taken at face value, the poet has captured aspects of what we often perceive as the "personality" of the animals who offer the prayers. From the arrrogant rooster who makes the sun rise to the to the meek mouse who asks to be kept safe from cats, we are given glimpses into the thoughts of some of Noah's passengers. Yet these poems also give us a window into the human soul.

Critics fell in love with this book when it came out, so perhaps my expectations for it were somewhat inflated. I really shouldn't read very many reviews for books before I read them or movies before I see them. The exception is when I read reviews that say something is bad and I read or see it anyway. Then, it's not so bad as I expected it to be. By no means was The Coast of Good Intentions bad, maybe just a little bland for my taste. It's been a few days since I finished the book and the characters are already slipping my mind.