The Jane Austen Book Club

I stuggled with this one. I think it is because I enjoyed Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons so much, and this one was the same premise. It was still good, it just didn't have the same "what's coming?" feel.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In California's central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.

Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.

The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

I know Nathan has read this, but has anyone else? It was intense, not a light read at all, but I still recommend it.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable and beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan grow up in different worlds: Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant, is a Hazara — a shunned ethnic minority. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them. When Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him.
The Kite Runner is a novel about friendship and betrayal, and about the price of loyalty. It is about the bonds between fathers and sons, and the power of fathers over sons — their love, their sacrifices, and their lies. Written against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, The Kite Runner describes the rich culture and beauty of a land in the process of being destroyed. But through the devastation, Khaled Hosseini offers hope: through the novel's faith in the power of reading and storytelling, and in the possibilities he shows us for redemption.

Angels and Demons

I just finished this book last night. I read The Da Vinci Code first although it is the sequel to this book. The two books are very similar (obviously). I don't know which one I like better, if that even matters. It is quite possible that because I read DVC first that I spotted a clue pretty earily on that gave a way a bit of the end. I had a hard time putting the book down, definitely recommend!

Some cool book lists.

In my effort to become well read, I have stumbled across a few websites that I think you might find interesting:

http://als.lib.wi.us/Collegebound.html

http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/greatbks.html

http://chicklitbooks.com/

If you know of any other cool lists, post them!