Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Christmas, Present

I just finished Christmas, Present by Jacqueline Mitchard. This book was wonderful. It was such a beautiful story about a woman spending her last few hours surrounded by her family and her throughts about what she needs to get done before she leaves this earth. It had me in tears and I just could not put it down.

I also finished A Bend In The Road by Nicolas Sparks. This book is definately my very least favorite book by him. Although it was typical Nicholas Sparks (love, heartache, what is he going to do, twists and turns) it was slow and I had a hard time getting through it. Usually I can't put his books down and am in tears...but I was glad that this one was done and I could take it back.

2 comments:

  1. I just finished Ivan Doig's This House of Sky. It has taken just over two weeks to read so will have some catching up to do, but what a wonderfully written book, full of soul-satisfying stories and details of life in Montana. More importantly, the determination of families to make things work, come what may! I had forgotten how enriching literature of our West can be!

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  2. (It looks like Judy Ferro and I still don't have all the knowledge or skills we need to become contributors to this on-going discussion. Elaine, can you enlighten you, please? Also, I know,I am now two books behind but hope to catch up before the end of March!)

    Book 7 -
    One of my favorite authors is Geraldine Brooks.I had not read her first book before this week, so was glad to pick up Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague - and it did not disappoint at all! It is a dark and depressing era (1666-67 - middle of England) but Brooks develops her characters and story so well that the ending was truly a surprise for me.

    The story revolves around a young mother who loses her husband in a mining accident and is then asked by her parish rector to rent a room to a tailor from London. As the tailors business grows, bolts of fabric arrive from London in the small community along with rats and fleas bearing bubonic plague. The rector and his wife convince the town to close itself off from all other communities in an attempt to contain the disease. The ethical and moral questions posed by the situation, as well as the personal live of the community members, are woven into all facets of this story of caring and survival.

    I am of the mind that all the things that the heroine, Anna, achieved and survived in this book would have destroyed a real person, but it makes for a great read. Brooks' subsequent novels, March and People of the Book are just as well-written, well-researched, compelling and entertaining. She does include things in all her novels that seem somewhat implausible for ordinary lives.

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