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  & 5 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: neutral

Author: Shirley Jackson

Tags: fiction, england horror, new psychological hill suspense, House,

Description: Eleanor Vance is an emotionally fragile woman who receives an invitation from a Dr. MontagueEleanor Vance is an emotionally fragile woman who receives an invitation from a Dr. Montague along with two other people Theodora and Luke. They are invited to conduct a ghost watch at Hill House, a notorious estate in New England.
This book was a bitter disappointment after watching both renditions of the movie. In the movies, the house and its evil were the focus, and Eleanor's emotional breakdown was secondary. In the book Jackson struggles to keep the focus of the story on Eleanor as she reacts to the implied evil of Hill House. The effect is aborted and Eleanor's breakdown seems solitary within herself and not a cause of the house....

2006-04-03

  & 25 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: on hold

Author: Neal Stephenson

Description: Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the MafiaNeal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible...

2006-03-06

  & 1 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: I recommend

Authors: Rachel Field Allen Lewis

Description: In 1743, thirteen-year-old Marguerite Ledoux travels to Maine as the indentured servant ofIn 1743, thirteen-year-old Marguerite Ledoux travels to Maine as the indentured servant of a family that regards her as little better than the Indians that threaten them, but her strength, quick thinking and courage surprise them all.
...

2006-03-06

  & 1 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: neutral

Author: Halldor Laxness

Description: Originally published in 1946 and out of print for decades, this book by the Nobel Prize-winningOriginally published in 1946 and out of print for decades, this book by the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author is a huge, skaldic treat filled with satire, humor, pathos, cold weather and sheep. Gudbjartur Jonsson becomes Bjartur of Summerhouses when, after 18 years of service to the Bailiff of Myri, he is able to buy his own croft. Summerhouses is probably haunted and is certainly unprepossessing, but Bjartur is a stubborn, leathery old (whatever his age) coot, and he soon has his new bride and few head of sheep installed in a sod house. When his wife dies cold and alone giving birth to the daughter of the Bailiff's son, Bjartur takes the child on almost as another test of his independence. Bjartur survives another wife, three sons that lived and several dead ones, all with his "armour of scepticism," which "endowed him with greater moral fortitude than that possessed by the other men."
His stubborness and sometimes downright cruelty and stupidity carries him through to near the end. The end seems cheated as after he loses everything and plans to take over the doughty mother in law's land he suddenly "discovers" what is truly important in life and he and his daughter dying of T.B. live hopefully and as happily as possible to the end. I don't see how anyone who could live as stubbornly and stupidly as he did fcould ever see the light. A good 90% of a book. There is enough material in this book that it could be assigned reading in an Icelandic literature class and not cover the same topics for a few years....

2006-03-03

  & 4 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: favorite

Author: katie macalister

Tags: mystery romance demons dragons guardians otherworld incubi virgins

Description: Frothy, sexy, romance populated with incubi, dragons, Guardians, and a demon in Newfie form.Frothy, sexy, romance populated with incubi, dragons, Guardians, and a demon in Newfie form.
...

2006-03-02

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: I recommend

Author: Lillian Beckwith

Description: Travelogue come memoir of Lillian's time in 1960's Hebrides

2006-02-20

  & 1 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: I recommend

Author: Tim Myers

Description: Second in a series. Harrison Black gets in an argument with the owner of the new Candle shopSecond in a series. Harrison Black gets in an argument with the owner of the new Candle shop in town. When Gretel gets shot at a fair with Harrison standing by. It's Up to Harrison to find the mruder to clear his name and save Wick's End...

2006-02-20

  & 1 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: favorite

Authors: Patricia A. McKillip McKillip

Description: Sylvia Lynn owns a thriving bookstore in Los Angeles, where she has spent most of her adultSylvia Lynn owns a thriving bookstore in Los Angeles, where she has spent most of her adult life avoiding her past and the grandmother who raised her. But when her beloved grandfather dies, she knows she must go to Lynn Hall, the huge, old house that has been the Lynn family's center for generations, and to the frightening, tantalizing wood behind it. Returning, she is surprised when Gram invites her to attend the Fiber Guild, a sewing circle that's been around forever, for Sylvia can't even thread a needle. True shock comes when she learns that the circle is a coven of witches working spells with their knitting and needlework that protect Lynn Hall and the town from the ancient powers of the forest and the evil Fay, and that the spells are unraveling faster than the witches can weave, and paths between worlds are reopening. The Fay kidnap Sylvia's 14-year-old cousin, Tyler, replacing him with a changeling. Sylvia finds a way into the wood's magical realm to look for him but hasn't a clue as to where he is or how to find the way back. ...

2006-02-20

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: favorite

Authors: McKillip Patricia

Description: Megan, a dreamy young artist, resides in a Pacific Northwest coastal village with her pragmaticMegan, a dreamy young artist, resides in a Pacific Northwest coastal village with her pragmatic lover, Jonah, who runs a curio shop. When Megan's drawings of the ocean and its tidal pools begin to take on a life of their own, acquiring such elements as a sea hare that she does not remember executing, she seeks to understand the meaning of these changes. As if in response, Adam Fin, a mysterious artist whose medium is jewelry, arrives in the community. Meagan is drawn to Fin, but Jonah mistrusts him and, for his part, begins to obsess about another mystery, that of a woman singer he hears in a local pub and later encounters as a mermaid in a sea cave. Though warned by a local eccentric, Megan and Jonah pursue their obsessions, with their distinct ties to the sea, until Jonah is lured away and Megan must pay a price to find him....

2006-02-20

  & 1 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: I recommend

Author: Lilian Jackson Braun

Tags: mystery cats

Description: This time the marvelously mustached Jim Qwilleran, more familiarly known as "Qwill,"This time the marvelously mustached Jim Qwilleran, more familiarly known as "Qwill," and his feline friends relax in their converted apple-barn home in Pickax City, Moose County, "400 miles north of everywhere." Frantic activity occurs around them, as Pickax prepares for its sesquicentennial with parades and other festivities. As the richest man around (thanks to an inheritance), Qwill is called upon to lead or partake in many events and write about others in his "Qwill Pen" newspaper column. Meanwhile, a terrible storm threatens the celebration, and the mysterious deaths of a wealthy couple lead to questions about murder. With its familiar characters, cozy plots, and happy endings, this series remains as comforting as a warm cat in your lap on a rainy day. ...

2006-01-16