read of the week - Page 4 of 5

Twelve-year-old Jaden was adopted from Russia when he was eight years old. He feels abandoned by his biological mother and blames his adoptive parents. Although his parents have shown nothing but unconditional love, Jaden doesn’t believe them. He steals, lights fires, hoards food, has anger issues and feels nothing toward those who love and want… Read More

If I had to make a list of the most influential movies of my childhood, The Princess Bride would be at least top three, if not number one. It had everything – to quote the posters: “Heroes. Giants. Villains. Wizards. True Love. Not just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum fairy tale.” My sister… Read More

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage is the latest novel by Haruki Murakami. In Japan, when his books are released, fans wait for hours in line to get a copy. I had not read any of Murakami’s novels before, and as soon as I started to read it I understood why he is… Read More

I started reading Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven right at the height of the Ebola scare, which given its premise, probably wasn’t the best timing, but I quickly became immersed in this wonderful, multi-layered novel. Hollywood actor Arthur Leander is performing in King Lear one snowy night when he suddenly has a heart attack… Read More

The Map to Everywhere is the fantastic first book in a new middle grade fantasy series by husband and wife team, Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis. Fin lives in the magical Khaznot Quay where he suffers from being forgettable. It’s not just that he doesn’t stand out; people truly forget him seconds after talking… Read More

When was the last time you were on a plane that was hijacked?  Luckily, most of us can answer “never”.  The airline industry has instituted security standards that make it almost impossible for hijackers to be successful.  What many people may not realize is that hijacking planes in the late 1960s and 1970s was a… Read More

Lady Emily Ashton has been a widow for longer than she had known her husband Philip - and she has only been in mourning for a year.  We begin the story from Emily’s point of view and know Phillip only from her account.  Emily freely admits she made no effort to know her husband before… Read More

Lucy Knisley, author, illustrator, and adventure seeker, is now in her late twenties and has a lot to write about. Her memoir, Relish: My Life in the Kitchen, focuses on her adolescent years when all she wanted was to find a way to mix her two passions, drawing and cooking, to create something that would… Read More

I’ve never read anything quite like it. – Michael Chabon The above quote, in regards to David Mitchell’s epic saga Cloud Atlas, is really the best way to sum it up. It is a journey that is nothing like anything else you will ever read -- the story crosses time and space everywhere from a… Read More

Georgie McCool is a successful sitcom writer.  She has a great husband (Neal) and two children (Alice and Noomi) who are both precocious and adorable. From the outside, Georgie’s got everything all together.  Behind the scenes, she’s living something that every working parent faces: work conflicting with home life.  Over the holiday season, Georgie abandons… Read More