Interred with their Bones  by Jennifer Lee Carrell

The Old Man and the Sea  by Ernest Hemingway

Peace is a story of four men--three American soldiers and one aging Italian--as they tread through the outskirts of Italy near the end of World War II. The three men, led by Corporal Marson, were sent to survey a hill they discovered. Along the way, they forcefully enlisted the help of Angelo, a veteran of World War I, who later turned out to be someone trying to survive war at the expense of his principles. After bloodshed and brotherhood, Marson and Angelo, despite their obvious differences, discovered that their lives and conscience are in each other's hands.
The novel is beautifully vivid in words and setting. Richard Bausch introduced characters and stories of World War II that we rarely see. He formed his characters so carefully, yet so seemingly easy, you would almost believe he knew them. Highly recommended for summer reading.

Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously.  England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense.  All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature.  When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Bronte’s novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide. 

Hollandsworth’s Notes on the book: There are a number of ways to enjoy this book.  It is a great comedic mystery novel, where the comedy is surreal at times and simply absurd at others.  On another level, this novel can be enjoyed due to the references made to other great books, as well as the use of characters from those books.  It also helps that Thursday works as a literary detective, has a father that is a time detective (though he’s been erased from time by being killed at a young age, he manages to find time to visit and help his daughter), has a pet dodo named Pickwick, and an uncle who finds a way to enter into works of literature.  Sometimes it seems random, but by the end everything ends up tying together. 

Interred with their Bones  by Jennifer Lee Carrell                              According to Publisher’s Weekly, this book has, “plot twists worthy of The Da Vinci Code…from Shakespeare conferences to desert mines, from the present to the past, this spirited and action-packed novel delivers constant excitement.” 

Shakespeare was a mystery himself and all of the interesting points are brought out in this novel as the protagonist tries to solve the mystery with clues from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.

Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War by T. J. Stiles                 In this intriguing biography of the famous outlaw, Stiles makes it a point to examine the influences upon and motivations of a 16-year-old boy who quickly evolved into the notorious bandit and killer still remembered in American folklore and history.  In fact, the melding of the tall tales with the truth surrounding the outlaw Jesse James have created a fictional icon that is hard to separate from the real man; however, Stiles manages to dissect the fiction from the fact, creating a very human Jesse James, who is the awful manifestation of deep-seated hatred charged heavy with political extremism and ignited with a self-righteous self-promotion.  If you are interested in criminal profiling and the motivations behind acts of terrorism and outlawry, this book is hard to resist.

Walk On  by Alan Williams

This is an inspiring book by a Wake Forest basketball player who viewed life in Division I basketball from the end of the bench.  He makes profound observations about humility, hard work and team building that every high school athlete and their parents should read.  It contains some Christian testimony.

continues the novels of Recluce and Hamor.  The hero’s natural ability means

that he has to learn how to channel order (represented by the color black) by doing.  He cannot read the manual and learn theory the way most sages can in his homeland.  As a result, he is exiled to Hamor where the predominant ability is to channel chaos (represented by the color white, and, of course, the mentors that he meets do not have the rigid stereotypes represented by too close an adherence to rules (think Puritans).  The second novel in this new series is due out in July 2008.  I have read all of this writer’s novels and he is five stars on a four-star scale.  Other great writers of his ilk are Carol Berg and David Gemmell.

The Old Man and the Sea  by Ernest Hemingway

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

This novel is just as moving as Hosseini’s first, The Kite Runner.  While The Kite Runner depicts the lives of two boys growing up in Afghanistan, A Thousand Splendid Suns gives readers a personal look at the lives of two women, Miriam and Laila.  Because he was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, Hosseini brings experiential knowledge of the various situations there.  Although few (if any) of us in Brentwood can fully comprehend  the plight of women in Afghanistan, Hosseini writes in such a way that readers relate to and become attached to Miriam (and Laila) in the first few pages.  The themes of hope, love, and courage despite unimaginable circumstances makes this a page turner in every sense.  Read A Thousand Splendid Suns this summer; you’ll almost certainly be changed by it.  (Stop by my room and tell me what you think about it in August; I’d love to hear your thoughts!)