Home > Family Reviews CHRISTY'S PICK FOR APRIL CHANGE OF HEART by Jodi Picoult A spellbinding tale of a mother's tragic loss and one man's last chance at gaining salvation. Can we save ourselves, or do we rely on others to do it? Is what we believe always the truth? One moment June Nealon was happily looking forward to years full of laughter and adventure with her family, and the next, she was staring into a future that was as empty as her heart. Now her life is a waiting game. Waiting for time to heal her wounds, waiting for justice. In short, waiting for a miracle to happen. For Shay Bourne, life holds no more surprises. The world has given him nothing, and he has nothing to offer the world. In a heartbeat, though, something happens that changes everything for him. Now, he has one last chance for salvation, and it lies with June's eleven-year-old daughter, Claire. But between Shay and Claire stretches an ocean of bitter regrets, past crimes, and the rage of a mother who has lost her child. Would you give up your vengeance against someone you hate if it meant saving someone you love? Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant granting your enemy's dying wish? Once again, Jodi Picoult mesmerizes and enthralls readers with this story of redemption, justice, and love. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ MARCY'S PICK FOR FEBRUARY GARDENS OF WATER by Alan Drew Powerful, emotional, and beautifully written, Alan Drew's stunning first novel brings to life two unforgettable families-one Kurdish, one American-and the sacrifice and love that bind them together. In a small town outside Istanbul, Sinan Basioglu, a devout Muslim, and his wife, Nilufer, are preparing for their nine-year-old son's coming-of-age ceremony. Their headstrong fifteen-year-old daughter, Irem, resents the attention her brother, Ismail, receives from their parents. For her, there was no such festive observance-only the wrapping of her head in a dark scarf and strict rules that keep her hidden away from boys and her friends. But even before the night of the celebration, Irem has started to change, to the dismay of her Kurdish father. What Sinan doesn't know is that much of her transformation is due to her secret relationship with their neighbor, Dylan, the seventeen-year-old American son of expatriate teachers. Irem sees Dylan as the gateway to a new life, one that will free her from the confines of conservative Islam. Yet the young man's presence and Sinan's growing awareness of their relationship affirms Sinan's wish to move his family to the safety of his old village, a place where his children would be sheltered from the cosmopolitan temptations of Istanbul, and where, as the civil war in the south wanes, he hopes to raise his children in the Kurdish tradition. But when a massive earthquake hits in the middle of the night, the Basioglu family is faced with greater challenges. Losing everything, they are forced to forage for themselves, living as refugees in their own country. And their survival becomes dependent on their American neighbors, to whom they are unnervingly indebted. As love develops between Irem and Dylan, Sinan makes a series of increasingly dangerous decisions that push him toward a betrayal that will change everyone's lives forever. The deep bonds among father, son, and daughter; the tension between honoring tradition and embracing personal freedom; the conflict between cultures and faiths; the regrets of age and the passions of youth-these are the timeless themes Alan Drew weaves into a brilliant fiction debut. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ JOEL'S PICK FOR OCTOBER LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry Not just a western, an American Classic. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Lonesome Dove is an epic novel of the American West as it really was. Set in the late nineteenth century, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana -- and much more. It is a drive that represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even a foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream -- the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life. Augustus McCrae and W. F. Call are former Texas Rangers, partners and friends who have shared hardship and danger together. Gus is the romantic, a reluctant rancher who has a way with women and the sense to leave well enough alone. Call is a driven, demanding man, a natural authority figure with no patience for weaknesses, and not many of his own. The two men could hardly be more different, but both are tough, redoubtable fighters who have learned to count on each other, if nothing else. Lonesome Dove sweeps from the Rio Grande (where Gus and Call acquire the cattle for their long drive by raiding the Mexicans) to the Montana highlands (where they find themselves besieged by the last, defiant remnants of an older West). It is an epic of love, heroism, loyalty, honor, and betrayal. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ CHRISTY'S PICK FOR SEPTEMBER THE YEAR OF LIVING BIBLICALLY One Man's Humble Quest to Follow The Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers. The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes. Jacobs's quest transforms his life radically... his beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin. Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain. Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, "The Year of Living Biblically" is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ JOEL'S PICK FOR JULY The Road by Cormac McCarthy A father and son travel an empty road in a dead, post-apocalyptic world. If you are fascinated by near-future catastrophe survival stories such as Earth Abides, you will not be able to put this one down. Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and the first Oprah book I've ever read. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ JOEL'S PICK FOR MAY River God by Ken Follett The River God is a fast paced, richly detailed adventure novel of ancient egypt. Set in the time of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, circa 1780 B.C., Smith's adventurous tale of ancient love, intrigue, avarice and war is extremely entertaining and satisfying. Although not part of a series, two "sequels" have followed the River God, with a third to be released later this year. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ JOEL'S PICK FOR MARCH The Pillars on Earth by Ken Follett "The epic story of the building of a cathedral in 12th century England and the lives of the people entwined with it and each other is a sensuous, enduring narrative, and a gripping tale of faith, ambition, bloodshed and betrayal". A prior, his master builder, and their community struggle to build a cathedral and protect themselves during the tumultuous 12th century, when the empress Maud and King Stephen are fighting for the crown of England after the death of Henry I. Beginning with a mystery that casts its shadow on ensuing events, the narrative is a seesaw of tension in which circumstances change with shocking but true-to-life unpredictability. Follett's impeccable pacing builds suspense in a balanced narrative that offers action, intrigue, violence and passion as well as the step-by-step description of an edifice rising in slow stages, its progress tied to the vicissitudes of fortune and the permutations of evolving architectural style. Follett's depiction of the precarious balance of power between monarchy and religion in the Middle Ages, and of the effects of social upheavals and the forces of nature (storms, famines) on political events; his ability to convey the fine points of architecture so that the cathedral becomes clearly visualized in the reader's mind; and above all, his portrayals of the enduring human emotions of ambition, greed, bravery, dedication, revenge and love, result in a highly engrossing narrative. This is a novel that entertains, instructs and satisfies on a grand scale. One of the few books I have read twice! Address: 5433 Clayton Road, Suite D, Clayton, CA 94517 Phone: (925) 673-3325 Email: joelharris@aol.com