GREAT READS

Freshly prepared foods are often more delicious, more nutritious, and less expensive than their fast food counterparts, but take more advanced planning. If you're anything like me that planning ahead can be a challenge. I get tired just thinking ab...

Dr. Daniel G. Amen has many years' experience as one of America's top psychiatrists and has written several books on brain health. As part of his medical practice he has personally viewed thousands of SPECT brain scans. You may have seen Dr. Amen o...

I've wanted to read Barbara Kingsolver's work for some time and this audiobook practically fell in my lap, so I thought I'd give it a try. It turns out that this was a good one to start with as it was her first novel. In this story, a plucky young ...

"Homeland" starring Claire Danes ("My So Called Life") and Damien Lewis ("Band of Brothers") is another great series from the makers of "24". It has won high praise and awards such as 2 Golden Globes for Best Television Drama and Best Actress for Cl...

I'll admit it, when I do watch television I'm kind of an HGTV network junkie. I watch "House Hunters" and "House Hunters International" as well as "Love It or List It" and the occasional "Design Star." I am simply fascinated by what these professio...

Originally published in 1978, "The Road Less Travelled" by M. Scott Peck didn't become the bestseller that is until 1984. It is Peck's most popular work and now that I've finally read it I can see that it still holds a rightful place on the shelves ...

I have to admit that I hadn't heard any advance press about this stunner by Gillian Flynn before having read it. I had not read her previous works of fiction when I saw the book on the shelf, I liked the cover, read the jacket and took it home. How...

While trying to familiarize myself with different authors from different genres I gave "Sweetgrass" by Mary Alice Monroe a try as a CD Book. In this case the word sweetgrass refers to not only the indigenous grasses that grow along the coastal re...

This was my introduction to Luanne Rice, not to be confused with Anne Rice, the author that writes about vampires and such. Luanne instead focuses on typically more earthly things such as relationships with friends and family. Therefore, I was surp...

I was flailing around looking for something different to read or listen to when a fellow librarian suggested that I try "Bubbles: A Broad" by Sarah Strohmeyer. This is just one of a series of books about the crime-solving escapades of Bubbles Yablon...

Ok. So I'm not really a reality TV junkie or even a TV junkie for that matter, but I will admit to occasionally indulging in a guilty pleasure by watching one of the Real Housewives of wherever shows. This would include watching the gals from NYC, ...

From writer/director J.J. Abrams of the TV show "Lost" fame and producer Steven Spielberg - Super 8 is set in a small Ohio town in 1979 where a group of teenaged friends are working on a film about zombies using their Super 8 camera. While filming a...

I don't know about you, but I have a couple of teenagers and sometimes it's hard to find a movie that we can all watch together. I finally found one. Part live-action movie, part video game adventure, Scott Pilgrim vs The World chronicles a brief per...

"Dear Lemon Lima" is about a girl named Vanessa who writes in her journal to her imaginary friend Lemon Lima. Set in Alaska, Vanessa is half native Alaskan from the Yupik tribe, although she initially sees herself as more white than native. After ...

I'll admit that when this book hit the library shelves I was thinking that this was a book about the super-rich, based on the title. So I passed it by not feeling anything in common with their ilk. Then on a whim I took home the CDbook to listen ...

With Infinity: Chronicles of Nick, author Sherrilyn Kenyon makes her first foray into young adult literature with what appears to be a prequel series to her Dark Hunter Series for adults. I recently finished this book for a book discussion and the te...

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is a work of fiction, but it seemed so hauntingly real that it took my breath away.

Meet Lia, an 18-year-old high school senior, whose "former best friend" Cassie has just died from complications from bulimia. L...

Meet Fanboy. He's a smaller than average 15-year-old boy who hates just about everyone and everything except for comics and his best and only friend, Cal. His superior intellect seems to distance him even more from the student body at his high sch...

Climbing the Stairs is largely a story of before and after. Set in British-occupied India during World War II, fifteen-year-old Vidya lives a privileged life for a girl in Bombay in that time period. While all of her Indian female contemporaries ar...

Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott is an often funny, sometimes sad story about Hannah, an average teen girl with not-so-average parents. To say it would be embarrassing to have this particular pair of parents would be an understatement. Her fathe...

If you like Dystopian or Steampunk fiction, this book is for you!

As stated inside the book jacket: "Incarceron is a prison like no other." Simply put: the prison is ALIVE!

Incarceron, the prison, was started as a grand experiment to create a s...

I've never read (or in this case listened to) a book by Lisa Scottoline before, but have been told by many patrons and by my mother-in-law that her books are terrific. Scottoline is a Philadelphia based writer and her settings are familiar to me, ha...

Set in a sweltering hot, small Texas town during the second half of 1899 at the dawning of a new century, this is the story of Calpurnia Tate, or Callie Vee to most everyone who knows her. She is a girl aged 11¾, or she would say, 12 in all p...

I've never read or in this case listened to Nick Hornby's work before, but I've seen a couple of the critically acclaimed films based on his previous writing: High Fidelity and About a Boy. I found these films to be enjoyable and pretty right on in ...

Simply one of the best books I've ever read. Addie wants a normal life: normal meals and mealtimes and predictable family routines. She especially wants to belong to a regular family where she can be with her half sisters all the time and not just...

This is a book about two sisters, Emily and Jessamine Bach, during the heady days of the dot.com start-up blitz which heralded the beginnings of superstars like Yahoo and Google and the continued dominance of Microsoft. Emily, 28, is the CEO of just...

What would you do if the life you have been living in the ordinary day-to-day of it all was suddenly gone? What if your own actions or inactions could be blamed in 20/20 hindsight? How would you go on? Could you go on? These are some of the painf...