the Book Brothel

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 404 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I like to check out the occasional ‘aimed at teens but also for adults’ type of novel.

Synopsis: 16-year-old Aslaug’s mother has mysteriously passed away and she finds herself living between two worlds: the harsh yet ethereal place of her mother and her childhood; and the concrete sureness of the place she escapes to after her mother’s death. Sheltered but worldly, naive but full of secrets - Aslaug is struggling between contradictions while trying to discover both where she came from and where she is going. All of it may be in jeopardy, however - she’s been charged with a double murder, and the flashes between what happened and the courtroom are as much about Aslaug discovering what happened as the reader uncovering the tangle of mysteries…

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 295 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: The plot sounded intriguing.

Synopsis: Shanika Ann Jenkins is proudly African-American - and born fair, blonde and blue-eyed, thanks to what her grandmother calls ‘marrying well.’ When she’s turned down for a dream job in New York City because she’s not black enough, she decides to pass for white - it’s not her fault what people assume, is it? But soon enough everything spirals out of control, and she’s no longer sure who she is - or even who she wants to be.

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Hardcover, 631 pages, 2008

Rating: 10/10

Reason for Reading: I’ve never considered myself a ’sci-fi reader,’ but before Harry Potter, I never considered myself a reader who would be into children’s books about wizarding school, so I knew I had to take a chance when Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling were compared as success stories (though The Host is Meyer’s first adult novel).

Synopsis: They call her Wanderer, because of how many bodies and planets her spirit inhabited before she found herself on her current home of Earth. Her species has taken over the host bodies of most of the human race, except for a few incredibly strong people like that of Melodie, her current host body. In fact, Melodie is proving so strong that she’s not vanishing, and Wanderer can feel her strongest feelings taking over her own - namely, the love of her younger sibling and of her boyfriend, Jared. Torn between these odd feelings of love and the very nature of her species to take over all humans, Wanderer decides to set out to find Jared, unsure of which urge will prove stronger - and if it will even matter when she finds some of the planets’ few remaining humans, who would kill to retain their humanity…

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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Mass market, 277 pages, 2008

Rating: 8/10

Reason for Reading: New book in the Harry Bosch series! New book in the Harry Bosch series!

Synopsis: It’s the middle of the night when LAPD detective Harry Bosch receives a call about a murder - a doctor with access to radioactive substances was found shot in the back of the head. The entire city may be in trouble if Bosch can’t find out who killed him - all while dodging the FBI, who have their own agenda…

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The Gotta-Have-It Book of the Month: The Host by Stephenie Meyer

The Tease:

The electric bell rang, announcing another visitor to the convenience store. I started guiltily, and ducked my head behind the shelf of goods we were examining.
Stop acting like a criminal, Melanie advised.
I’m not acting, I replied tersely.

Available: May 6, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 321 pages, 2008

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I already read and enjoyed two of the three of Crane’s previous novels, Everyone Else’s Girl and Frenemies.

Synopsis: Courtney Cassel has just gotten engaged to the most wonderful, just-right-for-her man in the world - now if only she could force her family to be equally wonderful. Her mother lives in her own world, her sister Norah is a control freak who’s been in a rage since their middle sister, Raine, ruined her wedding and fled for California - six years ago - and hasn’t been in contact since. Courtney decides to confront the past in hopes of making her wedding truly about family, but to top off all of the sisterly trouble, there’s another issue with facing her first love…

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by Lisa Yanaky

At the beginning of March, a revolution in the world of books was launched - Titlepage, a literary show made just for the internet. Its engaging host and editorial producer, Daniel Menaker, is obviously quite comfortable around books and authors - he was a long-time editor for The New Yorker, worked as the Executive Editor at Harper Collins, and recently finished a stint as Editor-in-Chief at Random House…not to mention writing several books of his own while still managing to fit in some teaching.

Titlepage, which is halfway through its debut season, features groups of writers discussing their latest books, their ideas and inspirations, and their writing methods in a roundtable format. Recently, the host that keeps them all chatting about the world of books (not to mention the world that inspires the books), Daniel Menaker, was kind enough to take time away from the show and his own writing to answer some questions about the show, some favourite authors, and how the seemingly permanent world of books is changing and evolving.
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Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 441 pages, 2004

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I picked this up at the used bookstore because I figured anything about the 1960s tends to be interesting, and if a man could write entire (and popular) books on things like salt and cod fish, it was a good bet.

Synopsis: In 1968, everything changed - everywhere. Kurlansky examines how revolutions, both personal and political, occurred all over the world, in an odd mix of isolation and an explosion of media that made rebelling students in Germany feel a connection to protesting students in the U.S. or Czechoslovakia. While the 1960s may be better remembered for sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, all of this was born of the politics and the revolutions that Kurlansky expertly explores in this book.

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The Gotta-Have-It Book of the Month: Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane

The Tease:

It occurred to me in the taxi across the hilly, windy city that I hadn’t exactly planned what I wanted to say. I’d convinced myself that even though I couldn’t manage to string sentences together to make a decent letter, I would be inspired when Raine swung open her door. Seeing her would cause the perfect words to appear on my tongue like magic. My belief that this was so had carried me across the country, and it completely deserted me as I sat, terrified, in the back of that taxi.
I was an idiot.
Norah was right - this was a stupid thing to do, and Verena was right, I was going to get hurt.
What could I possibly have been thinking?

Available: April 11, 2008

Reviewed by L.D.Y.

Trade, 355 pages, 2007

Rating: 9/10

Reason for Reading: I hadn’t yet read Crane’s first novel, Stupid and Contagious, but that’s no reason to delay reading her second book, right?

Synopsis: Jordan Landau is a pushover, and her life seems to be full of people willing to take advantage of that fact: the boyfriend that cheats, the boss that steals her marketing ideas, even her own mother can’t believe she’d do anything worthwhile without her pushy ideas. So when Jordan is hit by a car when riding her bicycle, she does the only reasonable-seeming thing: she decides to fake amnesia. A do-over. Life on her terms, with a whole new attitude. But as Jordan will start to see, ‘fake it till you make it’ isn’t so simple, and despite her dedication to keeping up the act, she may hurt a lot of people while selling herself short…

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