Reviews

I suppose I should start by admitting that before I picked up this book I had no idea who Kathy Griffin is. And, having given a celebrity tell-all or two a try I am not usually drawn to them. In fact, I avoid them. Official Book Selection, however, is well worth making an exception for. I got hooked while reading the captions of the photos and belly-laughing in the relative quiet of the public library. I couldn’t put it down.

Imagine if you’ve spent your whole life seeing, but pretending not to see, an entire race of creatures no one else knows about. Well, that’s the predicament that faces a high school girl being raised by her grandmother. Aislinn, like her mother and grandmother possesses “the sight”.

This book of 12 short stories was written by Sallie Bingham. Many of the stories deal with interpersonal relationships between men and women. I found most of the stories did not hold my interest and all ended abruptly.

The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton

I chose to read this book after seeing the KC Star review last fall. Jane Smiley includes it in her “Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel”. The setting in rural Missouri had appeal since I grew up in rural Missouri and the time setting would make the four daughters in the story living at the same time as my mother’s generation, including the author. I thought it would give me insight into her life experience and was just interested in how their lives would be portrayed.

Brava Valentine by Adriana Trigiani

Sarah was 10 years old on July 16, 1942 when one of the most infamous events in French history occurred – the roundup of thousands of Jews by French Police under the direction of the Nazi’s. Desperate to protect her brother, Sarah locked him in a secret cupboard in their home. Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup.

In the 18th Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, Laurell K. Hamilton gets back to the basics of what made Anita so popular. Anita, also an animator of zombies, has to turn down a client who has unrealistic ideas about raising his deceased wife as a zombie and taking her home.

"Ladies in Lavender" (2004) is a British film about two spinster sisters in pre-WWII  England, and filmed in the beautiful area of Cornwall on the south western tip of Great Britain.  The sisters are played by two grande dames of the British theater: Judi Dench and Maggie Smith;  they play their parts as naturally as breathing.  The simple plot finds the sisters on their beach the morning after a heavy storm.   They discover a nearly drowned young man who was swept overboard from his ship.  The sisters nurse him to health, and learn in the meantime he is Polish and an accomplished violinist

Master of the DeltaIn the early 1950s, Jack Branch returns to his home town of Lakeland to teach at the the local high school as his father did before him.   The Branchs are the aristocracy of this southern community and Jack has attended some the finest private schools and universities.   The Branchs see teaching  as the "nob