When you are engulfed in flames

By David Sedaris

If you’re already a David Sedaris fan, you’re sure to enjoy his latest book of essays on everything from grouchy neighbors to his successful attempt at quitting smoking.  If you’ve never encountered Sedaris, you’re in for a treat—just jump right in here and go back later to read his earlier works.  I listened to this in audio format with Sedaris as the reader and would definitely encourage people to go for this format.  Sedaris’s voice and inflection are, of course, perfect for his sardonic take on things, people, and events.

Life As We Knew It

And

the dead and the gone

by

Susan Beth Pfeffer

These two young adult books are companion books, so I thought I would do a review of both of them. Both books deal with teenagers who are faced with disaster when a meteor hits the moon, knocking it off its axis  and setting off horrific climate changes. I was reading “The Dead and the Gone” while the Iowa floods were going on and it was easy to imagine some of these same problems occurring there.

From Amazon.com

Life As We Knew It-

It's almost the end of Miranda's sophomore year in high school, and her journal reflects the busy life of a typical teenager: conversations with friends, fights with mom, and fervent hopes for a driver's license. When Miranda first begins hearing the reports of a meteor on a collision course with the moon, it hardly seems worth a mention in her diary. But after the meteor hits, pushing the moon off its axis and causing worldwide earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all the things Miranda used to take for granted begin to disappear. Food and gas shortages, along with extreme weather changes, come to her small Pennsylvania town; and Miranda's voice is by turns petulant, angry, and finally resigned, as her family is forced to make tough choices while they consider their increasingly limited options. Yet even as suspicious neighbors stockpile food in anticipation of a looming winter without heat or electricity, Miranda knows that that her future is still hers to decide even if life as she knew it is over.

the dead and the gone-

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event--an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex's parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves, he must care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and food and aid dwindle.
    

With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful new novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

If you liked the movie Beaches, this book is a must read for you. It is the perfect quick read about love and lasting friendships for the summertime months.

Synopsis (From the Barnes and Noble website)
From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable.

So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.

From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. 

Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she reallywants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . .

For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.

A Fatal Waltz By Tasha Alexander

From Publishers Weekly
In Alexander's charming third novel of romantic suspense set in late Victorian England (after The Poisoned Season), Lady Emily Ashton is at a country house party when someone shoots her noxious host, Lord Basil Fortescue, with a dueling pistol. After the husband of a good friend is accused of the murder, Emily determines to find the real killer. The only clue, a threatening letter promising a political assassination, drives Emily to Vienna, where she meets the painter Gustav Klimt and shares stolen moments with her fiancé, diplomat Colin Hargreaves. But Emily never forgets her urgent mission—in the service of which she must match wits with double agents and anarchists as well as ally herself temporarily with Colin's former lover, the sexually sophisticated Kristiana von Lange. The appealing Emily at times comes across as too modern for even the most unconventional Victorian character, and the plot sags in mid-story despite several clever subplots. Still, the book's entertaining voice and accurate period detail will seduce most readers. (June)

Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammet

I just finished Dashiel Hammet’s “The Maltese Falcon” this week. If you’re looking to get into reading mystery writers, here’s the place to start. The storyline follows Detective Sam Spade trying to find his partner’s killer and an old bauble for a beautiful woman. It’s a great book and a fast read.

The Friday Night Knitting Club By Kate Jacobs

I have been thinking and thinking of what book I would review for the month of July; I have read many great books lately but I don't think any of them spoke to me like the Friday Night Knitting Club.  As an avid knitter myself I have been staring at this book everytime it has come into the library and each time decided that I was not interested. I did not know what I was missing.   This novel weaves together five different individuals whose stories are quite different and shows that no matter what is going on in their lives they will always meet together of Friday evenings for the knitting club.  The knitting club started with people asking questions about knitting and then grew into a group that worked hard for each other to help everyone accomplish something.    This book made me realize that I am missing on a whole subculture of knitting!!  If anyone knows of a cool knitting club around town, let me know.