You can find these titles located at a special endcap at the Barnes and Noble Booksellers located at 1560 Polaris Parkway in Columbus, Ohio. Be sure to check it out if you are in the neighborhood. These titles change regularly!

Updated 12/30/11

 

Title: 77 Shadow Street                                         Author: Dean Koontz       
Reviewer: Nancy                                                        Book Rating:

First built as a private home, the palace once called Belle Vista is now an elegant, exclusive condominium building where its sixty-thousand square feet houses lavish apartments and a variety of interesting people. Unfortunately, renaming the property the Pendleton hasn’t changed the fact that every thirty-eight years horrendous things happen there. Deaths, disappearances, madness--now it’s beginning again and all of the residents of the Pendleton are threatened by something only partly human but completely evil.

Not the best of the Koontz novels, but even at his worst (and this isn’t it), Koontz can out-write almost anybody.

 

 

Title: Mudbound                                                    Author: Hillary Jordan     
Reviewer: Nancy                                                        Book Rating:

Two sons, one black, one white, return to the rural South and form a forbidden, unlikely friendship in the midst of poverty and hatred. Sensitive Jamie, whose dream of flying turns ugly during the war, and smart, ambitious Ronsel, trying to fit in again after learning equality in the military, both misfits now in post-World War Two Mississippi, both learning too late that the war they can’t win is at home. Powerful and brutal, this stunning novel is a must-read.

 

Title: Lunatics                                                           Author: Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel       
Reviewer: Nancy                                                        Book Rating:
Calm, passive pet-shop owner Philip Horkman is refereeing a youth soccer game when he offends Forensic Plumber Jeffrey Peckerman with an offside call. It could all have ended there, except that Peckerman ends up kidnapping (primate-napping?) Horkman’s lemur which leads, of course, to the two of them being pursued by the US government as terrorists, being nearly eaten by black bears, bringing democracy to China, and establishing themselves as heroes. Along the way is an outlandish, offensive and side-splitting story by a couple of really funny guys. You’ll laugh out loud, although you may be embarrassed to admit it.

 

 

 

Title:  Taken                                                             Author: Robert Crais    
Reviewer: Nancy                                                        Book Rating:

Private detective Elvis Cole is hired by a successful businesswoman to find her daughter, Krista, who has gone missing. Caught in a turf war between gangs who bring illegal immigrants into the country and then hold them for ransom before killing them, Krista and her boyfriend may live long enough to be rescued, as long as they can keep the boyfriend’s identity secret. Nicely paced, with Elvis and Joe Pike working together with new addition Jon Stone. 

 

 

 

Title:  The Hunger Games                                          Author: Suzanne Collins 
Reviewer: Carol                                                             Book Rating:

In the ruins of what was once North America 16 year old Katniss is one of 23 youth participating in the annual "Hunger Games",  survival games that must be played until only one is left alive.

A complex gripping tale that explores timely topics with brilliant plotting and perfect pacing.

 

 

Title: The Paris Wife                                             Author: Paula McLain
 Reviewer: Carol                                                      Book Rating:

"The Paris Wife" is a poignant fictional account of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley. Young and much in love they sail to Paris where they are ill prepared to become part of the fast living world of Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, etc. Determined to become an important writer, Hemingway is intense and complex; Hadley is quiet and traditional - a mix that, for them, was doomed to fail.

 

 

 

 

Title: The Passion of Artemesia                           Author: Susan Vreeland
Reviewer: Carol                                                         Book Rating:

"The Passion of Artemesia" is based on the life of Baroque Italian painter Artemesia Gentileschi (1593-1653), the first major female artist to be recognized during her lifetime. Struggling always between family life and an intense passion to paint, Artemesia led a creative and varied life. Writer Vreeland provides a work that inspires imaginative images of Renaissance Italy and Renaissance art.

 

 

 

Title: A Trick of the Light                                        Author: Louise Penny
Reviewer: Carol                                                         Book Rating:

 In "A Trick of the Light" Montreal Chief Inspector Gamache  and his lieutenant Beauvoir, still healing physically and psychologically from their last case, take on another murder investigation. In a secluded village the solo exhibition of a local artist causes a sensation in the art world which creates jealousy, failed aspirations, unsure relationships and murder. Number 7 in the Armand Gamache series, this latest one shows good characterization, insight and sensitivity.

 

 

 
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