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** Lucky, In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. After I was dragged into the same tunnel & raped, the police, said I was "lucky". Alice Sebold |
*** The Bell Jar, a story of the life of Sylvia Plath, a life of depression, sadness and eventually suicide. Interesting from a psychological point of view. But a very difficult read emotionally. Need to read some light stuff after this to get your attitude back in order. Sylvia Plath. |
**** Misconception, one couple's emotion-gripping journey from embryo mix-up to a miracle baby. Paul & Shannon Morell, with Angela Hunt. |
***** Mistaken Identity, the families of Laura Van Ryn and Whitney Cerak tell their true story. It is impossible to actually capture the roller coaster of emotion that these folks experienced, it is necessary to read the book. However; Spring 2006, a church van crashes on the way home from what had been a fun and exciting retreat. Only one of the several passengers in the van survived the accident, but horribly injured. The families were notified, the funerals held, one family nurses a child in intensive care, end of story. But it wasn't. The child in the hospital was eventually identified as one of the other girls in the van, one family had been nursing a child that wasn't theirs, one family had buried a child that wasn't theirs. It is an INCREDIBLE read. A must read. What two families can survive only by virtue of their faith in God is palpably evident. Did it affect me? I spent the entire time writing this synopsis in tears. Only one other book has affected me as this one did... you must read this book!!!!!!
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**** For Laci, a mother's story of Love, Loss and Justice. What one mother has to endure, in the loss of her daughter and the fact that her body is never found, takes us to the limits of human endurance. This book is her way of achieving closure, as she apparently will never be able to do a burial and the bringing of an end of a heart-rending experience, something no mother should ever have to endure. Sharon Rocha |
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** Through My Eyes. The past comes calling, a lady claims she was drugged, raped and that all her attempts to rectify this injustice through the American legal system have been futile. You decide. AJ |
* An Interrupted Life & Letters from Westerbork, a treatise by a Jewish lady that survives the rigors of life, only to end up in the German death camps. A difficult and not altogether exciting read, it took all the stamina I had to actually get to the end. Etty Hillesum |
Lynn Gilmore. |
**** Farewell my Subaru, a great book by Doug Fine, outlining his transition from city dweller to sustainable living guru in Mimbres, New Mexico. Doug has an engaging way with words, and a wonderful sense of humor. A great read! |
**** Too High to Fail, Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution. A very interesting, albiet long, read, that convinced this reader that there is WAAAAY more to this discussion than I or probably you have ever heard before. A must-read during these times of political upheavel. |
 ***** Then They Came for Me, an incredible insight into the evil that is Iran. A book of families affected by this brutal regime, and the torture that is yours for simply speaking out. Reads pretty much like all the other books I have read about this gruesome country. |
 **** Death to the Dictator. A young man speaks out regarding the bogus nature of the recent election in Iran, and pays a horrible price. A very good insight into Iranian so-called politics. |
 *** Blue Truth. A vietnam veteran, he ends up as a Ft. Lauderdale cop, who wanted to emulate the cops motto "protect & serve." But what he found was a war as devastating as he experienced in Vietnam. An interesting and gritty read. |
 *** Orange is the New Black. This lady in her young person's quest for excitement, ends up trapped in a life where she is doing things like carrying drug money into other countries. Ten years later, after having completely reformed her life, a snitch from her previous life implicates her in this operation, and she ends up with a sentence of 15 months in a Danbury, CT, federal penal facility. This is her story of how she navigated this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. Fun read. Piper Kerman. |
 * When You Are Engulfed in Flames. The only reason this book appears here is because I didn't have a category for 'Garbage that I Have Read'. If I did, this book would bloody well appear there. What the hell was it about? Who knows? I don't think I finished it. I'd rather have a root canal than to continue reading this drivel. David Sedaris. |
 **** The Invisible Girls. A wonderful and engaging story. This lady, after nearly dying in her twenties of breast cancer, and flailing around from that and a failed relationship, relocates to Portland, OR. On a bus ride in Portland, she encounters a Somali woman and her children. Her subsequent attempts to help this struggling family survive in a culture they don't understand, becomes a lifeline for Sarah herself. Beautiful read, and God makes an appearance all though the book. Sarah Thebarge. |
 *** Devil in the White City. Without reading the book, the title is a HUH? The 'White City' is the buildings and grounds that housed the World's Fair in 1893. At that time, Chicago was called the black city, as burning coal had covered everything with black soot. An excellent historical treatise of how the 1893 World's Fair came to be, and a parallel exposition of what could possibly have been the worst serial killer of all time. After all, who goes to the trouble to build a creamatorium in their basement, except a mortuary. But one of the characters in this read did exactly that. A long, but good read. Erik Larson |
 * Angela's Ashes. So how do you describe this book? Incidentally, a pulitzer prize winner (FYI: I wouldn't have voted for it!) A long, rambling read of run-on sentences and a description of Irish life, along with a lot of the seamier side of life in Ireland. I got through it with a lot of discipline, but I have read a lot of stuff I liked better. Frank McCourt. |
 **** Missing 411, Eastern US. An examination of missing folks, more or less 1900 to present. Sometimes they, or their remains, are found. But for the most part, they are gone forever, seemingly snatched off the earth. Interesting how many folks have simply disappeared from plain sight. |
 **** Missing 411, Western US & Canada. An examination of missing folks, more or less 1900 to present. Sometimes they, or their remains, are found. But for the most part, they are gone forever, seemingly snatched off the earth. Interesting how many folks have simply disappeared from plain sight. |
 **** Like Judgment Day. An incredible story of a town literally wiped off the map by bloodthirsty whites, and the final attempt of the survivors to get justice. A great read. And if what is related here is actually what the blacks endured, you don't know nutin' about what it was like. Michael D'Orso. |
*** Anatomy of Injustice, the incredible railroading of a black individual into jail and onto death row on virtually no evidence except his knowledge of the victim, and the attempt by a few to right what was without question an incredible wrong. |
**** The Happening, a gripping story of the murder of several Amish school children by an angry and demented indivual with his own axe to grind, who chose to grind it on female, Amish children. The most notable part of the book is the way the Amish practiced their value-system in complete forgiveness. A wonderful read. |
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**** East of the Mountains. A novel, read by accident as I normally only read non-fiction, but a thoroughly engaging read, and especially so since it takes place where I grew up. |
**** Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. A wonderful insight into what it meant to be female during the years we practiced slavery. Unwilling to accept her position, she runs away, and ends up as a spokeswoman against slavery and all that it meant in the culture at that time. |
 **** Karla Faye Tucker, Set Free. A beyond incredible tale of a woman who murders, is sentenced to death, and her coversion to christianity as well as others she touches. It is both a beautiful story and a sad story. Karla eventually pays the ultimate price for her crimes, but leaves behind a legacy of Christian faith. Linda Strom. |
 **** Gifted Hands. The story of Ben Carson and how he came to be a preeminent surgeon. Beautiful reading. Ben Carson. |
 **** A Long Way Gone. An incredible story of a very young boy that is forced into a sick and stupid war in a third-world country, and what it does to his mind and perspective. A must read. Ishmael Beah. |
 **** Rescuing Riley, Saving Myself. A canyon hiker in Utah stumbles on a dog deep in a slot canyon, about one breath short of death. He rescues the dog by rappelling him out of the slot, and takes him to a vet in Page. He ends up taking the animal home, and the dog plays an important part in a very positive impact on the hiker's emotional health. A wonderful read. Zachary Anderegg with Pete Nelson. |
 **** A Street Cat Named Bob. A young man, bouncing off the bottom rungs of life in Great Britian, drugs and other negative life styles, finds and rescues a street cat that was bouncing on the bottom rungs in his own right. Having to care for the cat puts him on the road to health, and out of a life in the gutter. James Bowen. |
 **** Following Atticus. A fun story of an individual who gives up the newspaper business and begins climing America's eastern peaks along with an adopted miniture schnauzer, 450 before all is said and done. A fun and engaging read. Tom Ryan. |
 *** Miracle in the Mine. One man's story of strength and survival in a collapsed Chilean mine. A story of endurance. Jose Henriquez. |
 **** I am Malala. A one in a million story of a young girl that refuses to accept the normally enforced role for her in Pakistan, and is shot by the Taliban for her bravery. She becomes an agent for change in a world where change almost never happens to the role proscribed for women. Malala Yousafzai. |
*** It's Always Something. The sad tale of one of America's funniest comedians. It recounts her life as she was diagnosed with cancer, and her fight against it until death took her. |
 **** The Missing Piece. A tale of a lady who had an incredibly tough beginning in her childhood and adult life, which involved giving up her first child due to her inability to support a child at that time. Much later in her life, that child, now grown, as many do, came looking for her biological mom. It is a common tale, but the beauty of their reestablishing thier relationship is gratiflying and a delightful read. Lee Ezell |
**** am I old yet? A delightful tale of a lady questioning the aimlessness of her life, and who decides to reach out to an individual in a assisted living facility. The relationship that develops takes over her life and teaches her more about herself than she would have ever known otherwise. |
**** Out on Foot. Nightly Patrols and tales from the experiences of a US Border Patrol agent. No other book of its kind anywhere. Guaranteed to rattle your thinking about ghosts and the paranormal. |
**** God Grew Tired of Us. A very misleading title for a very rewarding read. John Bul Dau was separated from his family at a very young age by the incessant rebel wars in the Sudan, forced to live off the land and by his wits for a long time, highly valued education and when he got the chance began to absorb knowledge like a sponge. A futher blessing came his way and he was allowed to immigrate to the US and subsequently set about to make a success of himself. A wonderful book you will be glad you read. |
**** At Any Price. The story of how America betrayed this lady and her kidnapped daughters because of inane politics and the politics of oil. Any woman who marries into the Arab culture is at risk of losing her children if things go bad. You government WILL NOT HELP YOU! |
**** Brain on Fire. An almost completely unbelieveable tale of a lady who one day began to go completely nuts that in the final analysis traced back to an out of control immune response. She is normal today due to a series of fortuitius occurrences, doctors in the right place, and emerging technology to diagnose her problem. A you-can't-put-it-down book. Susannah Cahalan |
**** Miles to Go Before I Sleep. The amazing story of Jackie Pflug, one of many victims of the hijacking of Egyptair Flight 648, who was shot in the head at point-blank range, and pushed out of the airplane onto the ground to die. But she didn't, and this book is the incredible story of how she put her life back together. Jackie Nink Pflug |
*** A Mother's Story. The tale of Mary Beth Whitehead, who agreed to surrogate a child, then couldn't bear to give him up, and who eventually had him torn from her arms. This is the recounting of the 'Baby M' case, a story that was sensationalized by the media completely distorting the facts surrounding this event. If you haven't read this book, you have no idea what happened to this lady. |
**** Ghost Boy. A story like none other. A normal child, as a result of what appeared to be a benign sickness, loses in all and becomes nearly comotose. Eventually a caregiver sees a spark in this man's eyes, and helps him begin to come out of his shell with technology/computers. A gripping read. |
**** To Sleep with the Angels. The story of the fire in December of 1958, in a Catholic elementary school on Chicago's west side. It killed 92 children and 3 nuns. It is a story of manfesance, corruption and a single-minded concern for money above all else, including human life. David Cowan & John Kuenster |
**** Touching Haiti. A short but worthwhile read to understand the constant ongoing turmoil in this country that chews up and spits out its leaders. The reason for that is they are, to a man, corrupt and evil, any money that is sent to this poverty-stricken country is sucked up by them like a vacuum cleaner. The people continue to be grindingly poor and diseased. A good insight into the country. |
**** There Are No Children Here. A gripping read of the struggle of scraping out of a life in the inner city by those who are in an economic prison of sorts. It will tug at your heart strings. |
