Review:My reaction to this novel is significantly more lukewarm than I ever imagined it would be. There were times when I considered giving up this novel, but something about it kept me reading and I am glad I finished the novel. Overall, I found it to be uneven, with parts I loved and parts I didn't.

Great House is structured much like a collection of connected short stories, with several different narrators. Three of the narrators we return to twice throughout the course of the novel and tw... Read more

Review:An investigative novel for the intellectual. Traces the West's search for the Holy Grail of Universal Truth via the post-modern exploits of a trio of editors in Italy searching for plot and narrative amongst the elusive histories of the alchemical and esoteric Templars. Secret societies whose absence proves their existence (or else they wouldn't be secret)! Secret knowledge, the inscrutability of which proves its depth! Unless you are an European intellectual yourself, you will need a dictionary... Read more

Review:The second in Neal Stephenson's trilogy The Baroque Cycle, "Confusion" is much faster paced and more action packed than it's predecessor Quicksilver (which I nevertheless enjoyed immensely).

Jack Shaftoe leads a band of vagabonds around the Middle East, and across the Pacific in search of Spanish Gold. Along the way he escapes from slavery, steals a shipload of "Solomons's gold", looses it all to a warrior queen and becomes King of an Indian province after a bizarre battle using phospho... Read more

Review:I read this with my fourth graders, and they loved it! Great book for children with siblings or friends with special needs or really just any kid who's ready to make the jump to more novel like chapter books. Read more

Review:Al Capone Shines My Shoes, by Gennifer Choldenko, is the second book in the series. The first book is called Al Capone Does My Shirts and was mostly for character development. My rating for Al Capone Shines My Shoes is 4 stars. The reason for this is that there is not as much action as I would like in a book like this. There are only short bursts of intense action and suspense. I really loved the book because of the characters that are very realistic and you can relate to. In addition, the book ... Read more

Review:Anne Rice turned from Atheism to Christianity around the time she wrote this book I believe (wiki it), and it's almost like she's infusing her own shift of belief into some of the vampires. Now, Armand was always depicted as religious, but there are some things revealed at the end of the book that just seem a little too far fetched. It's almost as if she's gonna end up having all her vampires turn into Christians, all in an extremely short amount of time (for the old vampires) that's taken plac... Read more

Review:While I did enjoy the character development in this book, the plot was unbelievably contrived. There were too many thoughts of "what are the chances of THIS happening in anyone's life?" that took away from what was a great story line. Read more

Review:I enjoyed everything about the book. It spoke to me and probably Everyman . A must read for our times where spirituality is lost in the face of every religion and where tolerance is a foreign concept . Read more

Review:I picked up the book because nothing could seem so Incongruous that erotica and punjabi widows. But as the story unfolded pulling back the veil between the community and this young women. The more I wanted to read. Then came the snippets of stories told by these women that if we were to meet. We’d be forced to called “Auntie” and how our own upbringing would cloud our visions of these older women still wishing to live full lives or just recalling a time when it was full. But the stories are... Read more

Review:My grandson, age 8, was so enthusiastic about the book that he loaned it to his teacher to read. Then he used his allowance to order the entire series. Their mom reads it to my six-year old granddaughter who thoroughly enjoys it also. Read more