the Book Brothel

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Mass market, 482 pages, 1992

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: After having read Connelly’s Harry Bosch series for years I finally decided to start at the beginning of the series.

Synopsis: When Detective Harry Bosch is called to the scene of an apparent overdose, things just aren’t adding up for him. Sure, the deceased, a fellow ‘tunnel rat’ who fought alongside Bosch in Vietnam, had his share of problems after returning from the war, but things had been looking up. Someone wanted this man dead and they were prepared to kill him and do much more to hide their secret, and the renegade cop Bosch might be the only thing standing in their way…

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 245 pages, 2007

Rating: 10/10

Reason for Reading: The cover; the topic reminded me of The Rhythm of the Road by Albyn Leah Hall, an early favourite of 2007.

Synopsis: 13-year-old Luli can’t take her bleak home life any longer and bolts, gunning for Las Vegas and the unusual dream of finding a sugar daddy once she’s there. Coming across drifters, cheaters, schemers, perverts and the occasional glimpse of goodness, Luli fights to grow up,
while the reader roots for her not to grow up too fast.

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 327 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: While I never personally experienced having an over-the-top soccer mom, I witnessed a few through teammates when I was in grade school so this seemed like it could be a funny read.

Synopsis: Annie Fleming is out of a job - but not out of ambition. So what better way to channel it than into her twelve-year-old daughter’s soccer ‘career’? Between her daughter and her completely insane coach, her attempts to revive her corporate career, and the growing distance between her husband and herself, Annie is discovering that not having a steady job is somehow proving to be much harder to handle than her ‘real’ job…

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 278 pages, 2007

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I like books that are set in unusual locations, and Indonesia qualified.

Synopsis: Mata Hari sits in her Paris jail cell, accused of spying for Germany during World War I. While waiting for her trial, her life story pours out like an offering: her childhood, her marriage to an impossible man, tragedies, and a re-invention of herself into something more sensual and free - the self that will lead to her imprisonment and possible punishment…

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 377 pages, 2007

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: A fondness for both women in historical novels and books set in the Middle East.

Synopsis: In seventeenth century Persia, a young woman experiences a devastating loss that destroys her future prospects and finds her transplanted from a small village to a big city, learning to create stunning rugs and also attempting to weave a life of her own out of nothing.

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 260 pages, 2008

Rating: 10/10

Reason for Reading: I had my eye on Kidd’s debut novel since it first came out but it was a case of ‘too many books, too little time,’ so I was glad when this second novel fell into my hands.

Synopsis: When Happy finishes college in 1961, he decides he has to get a job at the same advertising agency where his favourite professor started his career in graphic design. He just didn’t realize he’d be working with such an odd (borderline crazy) crowd, or that he’d run into an outrageous old friend, or that he’d design a newspaper ad recruiting test subjects for an experiment at Yale - all of which will shake up his views on life, himself, and all of humanity..

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The Gotta-Have-It Book of the Month: The Learners by Chip Kidd

The Tease:

‘Yes sir.’ And I bolted to the steps, took them two at a time, careful not to slosh the coffee.
The art department. It all looked so different now - the two drawing tables scarred with countless X-Acto marks, the piles of scattered scrap artboard, wads of tape that were overshot to the trash can and dotted the wall behind it like measles. The magic of seeing it for the first time was gone, but replaced by something even more alluring - the promise of inclusion among its details. I saw a stage set that I was now invited to climb up into. I wasn’t in the audience anymore, I was a player. Maybe just a member of the chorus, but still.

Available: February 19, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 275 pages, 2007

Rating: 7/10

Reason for Reading: I liked the idea, but not the execution, of Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada, so I was hoping Clark would have better luck with the boss-from-hell story.

Synopsis: After years of ups and downs, Claire Truman has nailed it: she has the perfect job at a major publishing house, and a gorgeous, successful (and nice) guy that wants to marry her. But very quickly, she starts to wonder if her boss, the notorious publisher Vivian Grant, isn’t merely ‘ambitious’ and ‘creative’…Maybe she’s crazy, in a spirit-crushing, marriage-wrecking, flat-out vicious sort of way. With everything tumbling down on her, Claire is about to find out - the hard way - what really matters to her.

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 291 pages, 2007

Rating: 8/10

Reason for Reading: Chick-lit always comes through when I’m in a reading slump.

Synopsis: Harper Roberts is smart, attractive, successful - and so, so single. Convinced that her success (she’s the youngest attorney at her firm to be made lawyer, and she’s got an amazing salary to show for it) is what scares men away, she lets her friends talk her into a social experiment: are men just after the dumb blondes? She’ll try to play the part to see if happiness - and true love - are just a hair flip and a giggle away.

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 258 pages, 2006

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: Teleky was a creative writing professor (though, not mine) when I was at York University, which lead me to one of his previous novels, Pack Up the Moon.

Synopsis: Irene Dunne is a recent widow, still adjusting to her loss when more terrible news comes: her daughter has been killed in a car accident. She heads to Hollywood, where her daughter Holly worked as a film producer, intending to tie up loose ends, but instead finds herself haunted by the things she never knew about her daughter, working her way into the lives of her daughter’s friends and neighbours in an attempt to discover in death what her daughter wouldn’t let her know in life.

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