Category: Fiction

by Barbara Kingsolver, 2012 Fictional account – Global warming causes the Monarch butterflies to migrate to Appalachia rather than Mexico. Dellarobia, young mother of two toddlers, living on a sheep farm with her husband and in-laws, hikes up the mountain behind her home to have a tryst but instead sees the millions of butterflies, so […]

by John Shors, 2008 Same author of Beneath a Marble Sky, his first novel. Mom liked this book but I thought it was terrible writing. The story is good but the writing, especially dialogue, was lame. Takes place during WWII on a tropical island. Survivors of Benevolence, a hospital ship blown up by Japanese, swim […]

by D. H. Lawrence, the unexpurgated text privately printed in Italy, 1928 The story of a young woman, Connie, married to an aristocrat, Clifford Chatterley, who is crippled from the war. He is prideful, selfish, fearful, small-minded, and wears her down. She seeks solace in the woods and falls in love with the gamekeeper, Mr. […]

by Fannie Flagg, 2004 (Fried Green Tomatoes) Sweet little book about life and love in a small town in southern Alabama called Lost River. Their mail comes by boat. A Redbird is shot by 2 boys and Roy, the Grocer, nurses it to health. It can’t fly so he keeps it in the grocery store. […]

by Wendell Berry, 2012 Twenty stories of the Port William membership. Beautiful stories of the love between farmers and their land; their hard, endless work; the way they help each other with their work and their grief; and the joy and love they share in their community. Days long gone now. Wayne’s favorite is Burley […]

by C.S. Forester (Hornblower author), 1935 Rose and Allnutt, 2 English people in Africa, decide to take the African Queen down a river, the Ulanga River, full of rapids, and blow up a German ship on the lake to help the war effort. They get down the rapids alive – Rose steers and Allnut mans […]

by J.K. Rowling, 2012 Harry Potter author’s 1st adult novel Barry Fairbrother dies of a brain anyeurism and leaves a “casual vacancy” on the Pagford Parish Council. The town members are pretty despicable and this was a pretty depressing book. Rowling “is the founder of Lumos, which works to transform the lives of disadvantaged children.” […]

by George RR Martin, Book 4, 2005 UGH – so many extraneous people and details – does he really expect us to keep track of who all these people are? Who cares – I just want to see Cersei die. In the end she is naked in a cell in the Holy Sept. Done in […]

by Wendell Berry, 2009; Illustrations by Davis TeSelle Short, little book with BEAUTIFUL illustrations about a little mouse who gets caught in a flood and floats to another world (downstream) on a log. Wayne says don’t judge Wendell Berry by this book. Juvenile fiction.

by George R.R. Martin, 2000 Book 3 of A Song of Ice and Fire, 924 pages! -Jon becomes Lord Commander of the Wall -Robb and Catelyn are murdered at a wedding at Lord Frey’s -Arya is traipsing around the country trying to get to Riverrun but eventually ends up with the Hound Sandor Clegone who […]

by Adam Johnson, 2012 Brand new novel (2012) about the nightmare of North Korea. Real hero is Pak Jun Do, an orphan who grows up to be a tunnel fighter, where he learns to be in the dark; then a kidnapper – which he hated – they take row boats ashore in Japan and kidnap […]

by George RR Martin, 1998 Book 2 of A Song of Fire and Ice 4 different kings are vying for the kingdom: Stannis, Lord Renly, Robb, Joffrey. Tyron the dwarf ends up saving King’s Landing but he’s badly wounded. Robb is winning battles against the Lannisters. Lady Catelyn is in the dungeon in Riverrun, about […]

by Kazuo Ishiguro, 1988 Winner of the Booker Prize in 1989 About Mr. Stevens, an English butler for “Darlington Hall. His whole adult life was spent (wasted?) on becoming and being the perfect butler. He misses being with his father (who was also a perfect butler) as he dies (in a small attic room like […]