Karen's Book Nook

Started my new audiobook Pointing from the Grave: A True Story of Murder and DNA by Samantha Weinberg today while working around the house and going out and about.

About the book: Weaving together cutting-edge genetics and forensic criminology, courtroom drama and multiple perspectives, Weinberg’s book is an ambitious and riveting tale of crime and the science that has been developed to counter it. In 1984, Helena Greenwood, a chemical pathologist and successful executive in the burgeoning biotech industry, is sexually assaulted in her San Francisco home. Paul Frediani is eventually arrested as the primary suspect-after he is caught exposing himself to a 13-year-old girl. But following the initial arraignment, Greenwood is found viciously murdered in the front yard of her new home in Southern California. More here.

As part of my quest to keep up and read all of the Newbery Medal winners, I’m reading Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz. It’s a book of monologues of each of the characters in the village.

About the Book: From Publishers Weekly

Schlitz (The Hero Schliemann ) wrote these 22 brief monologues to be performed by students at the school where she is a librarian; here, bolstered by lively asides and unobtrusive notes, and illuminated by Byrd’s (Leonardo, Beautiful Dreamer) stunningly atmospheric watercolors, they bring to life a prototypical English village in 1255.

Reading a short one from Kate Jacobs, A Sister’s Wish.  I requested it from the library because  I’ve read all of her other books.

About the book: Things wouldn’t be so bad if I just had a sister!” A child’s longing for someone who understands her, for someone who is decidedly more feminine than her brothers, for someone who can help her miss her father less when she’s at her mother’s, or miss her mom less when she’s at her dad’s is all the six or seven-year-old heroine thinks she needs. In the end she realizes that sometimes “…just being a sister will do.”

My purse book (perfect size!) for this week is Diary of a Fairy Godmother by none other than Esme Raji Codell.

About the book: With humor and ingenuity, Codell weaves an unusual, intriguing, and enjoyable story. Hunky Dory is the top student in her charm school, but her inner conflict about the purpose of witchcraft plagues her. She wonders if it must always be focused on evil. Hunky becomes interested in the work of fairy godmothers, a group looked down upon by ordinary witches, and, after much soul searching, she concludes that she wants to become one. Characters from well-known fairy tales weave in and out of the story….

Starting a new audio book since I finished the paper one that I wanted to return to the library. Now that I’m back on my feet, I’ll be walking more as well. This one is This Side of Married by Rachel Pastan.

About the book:

From Publishers Weekly

Dr. Evelyn Rubin became a doctor at a time when women simply didn’t become doctors, but in her 60s, her only source of pleasure is getting her own daughters safely married off. She’s succeeded with the middle child, Isabel, who hasn’t been able to get her husband to impregnate her; but her bitter disappointments are goody-goody Alice, the eldest, 38, and woefully single, and wild-child Tina, the youngest, who subscribes to the blow-and-throw disposable-man school of dating…. More here.

Starting the final audio book in Debbie Macomber‘s Blossom Street Series, Summer on Blossom Street while I knit. This one is read by the famous Delilah.. I should really enjoy it since I love her voice and it focuses on Lydia from the first two books.

About the book: Knitting and life. They’re both about beginnings—and endings. That’s why it makes sense for Lydia Goetz, owner of A Good Yarn on Seattle’s Blossom Street, to offer a class called Knit to Quit. It’s for people who want to quit something—or someone!—and start a new phase of their lives….  More here.

Finally got the 3rd Barbara Holloway novel, Malice Prepense in  the series by Kate Wilhelm.  I read the first two in audio format but this third wasn’t available so I’m reading the paper version… it will likely take me awhile to finish but there are lots of books in the series that I want to get to.

About the book:  For the Defense: or, Malice Prepense
Teddy Wendover is a hulking twenty-eight-year-old with the mind of a child. An accident at eight left him severely retarded. But did it turn him into a cold-blooded killer? Someone has bludgeoned Congressman Harry Knecht to death. Knecht was the man who organized the field trip that led to Teddy’s injury.
Also started and finished Janet Evanovich’s Two for the Dough… the second in the Stephanie Plum series.

About the book:

It’s Stephanie Plum, New Jersey’s “fugitive apprehension” agent (aka bounty hunter), introduced to the world by Janet Evanovich in the award-winning novel One for the Money.

Now Stephanie’s back, armed with attitude — not to mention stun guns, defense sprays, killer flashlights, and her trusty .38. Stephanie is after a new bail jumper, Kenny Mancuso, a boy from Trenton’s burg. He’s fresh out of the army, suspiciously wealthy, and he’s just shot his best friend….  More Here.

Reading another one by one of my favorite educators, Esme Raji Codell.  It’s a booklist of sorts with lots of suggestions of children’s literature throughout the ages.

About the book:

Are children reading enough? Not according to most parents and teachers, who know that reading aloud with children fosters a lifelong love of books, ensures better standardized test scores, promotes greater success in school, and helps instill the values we most want to pass on.

Esmé Codell-an inspiring children’s literature specialist and an energetic teacher-has the solution. She’s turned her years of experience with children, parents, librarians, and fellow educators into a great big indispensable volume designed to help parents get their kids excited about reading.

Here are hundreds of easy and inventive ideas, innovative projects, creative activities, and inspiring suggestions that have been shared, tried, and proven with children from birth through eighth grade.

Starting audio book 4 in the Blossom Street series, Twenty Wishes,  by Debbie Macomber. Hoping that the reader is decent. I really liked the woman for the first two books but not the 3rd so much.  It would be nice if they kept the same one for all if possible. Changing voices ruins my schema for the characters.

About the book: Anne Marie Roche wants to find happiness again. At thirty-eight, her life’s not what she’d expected – she’s childless, a recent widow, alone. She owns a successful bookstore on Seattle’s Blossom Street, but despite her accomplishments, there’s a feeling of emptiness.

On Valentine’s Day, Anne Marie and several other widows get together to celebrate . . . what? Hope, possibility, the future. They each begin a list of twenty wishes, things they always wanted to do but never did….. (more on Debbie’s website)

Starting book 3 in the Blossom Street series: Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber.

About the book: There’s a new shop on Seattle’s Blossom Street—a flower store called Susannah’s Garden, right next door to A Good Yarn. Susannah Nelson, the owner, has just hired a young widow named Colette Blake. A couple of months earlier, Colette had abruptly quit her previous job—after a brief affair with her boss. To her dismay, he’s suddenly begun placing weekly orders for flower arrangements!

Like everyone else in Lydia’s knitting class, Alix knows there’s a solution to every problem…and that another woman can usually help you find it!

Starting book 2 in the Blossom Street series by Debbie Macomber, A Good Yarn via  audiobook.

About the book: Lydia Hoffman owns the shop on Blossom Street. In the year since it opened, A Good Yarn has thrived — and so has Lydia.

A lot of that is due to Brad Goetz. But when Brad’s ex-wife reappears, Lydia is suddenly afraid to trust her newfound happiness. Three women join Lydia’s newest class. Elise Beaumont, retired and bitterly divorced, learns that her onetime husband is reentering her life. Bethanne Hamlin is facing the fallout from a much more recent divorce. And Courtney Pulanski is a depressed and overweight teenager, whose grandmother’s idea of helping her is to drag her to seniors’ swim sessions — and to the knitting class at A Good Yarn.

I’m starting the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich so I’m beginning with the first book, One for the Money.  I really like her style and this is one of her most popular series.

About the book: Watch out, world. Here comes Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter with attitude. In Stephanie’s opinion, toxic waste, rabid drivers, armed schizophrenics, and August heat, humidity, and hydrocarbons are all part of the great adventure of living in Jersey.

She’s a product of the “burg,” a blue-collar pocket of Trenton where houses are attached and narrow, cars are American, windows are clean, and (God forbid you should be late) dinner is served at six.

Now Stephanie’s all grown up and out on her own, living five miles from Mom and Dad’s, doing her best to sever the world’s longest umbilical cord. Her mother is a meddler, and her grandmother is a few cans short of a case.….

I love Children’s Literature and I still plan on reading as many Newbery Medal and Newbery Honor books as I can until I’m up to date. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes is a 2004 honor book and I’m listening to it from the shores of beautiful Lake Winnipesaukee while I knit away and relax this weekend.