The Thirteenth Tale

This incredible story called "The Thirteenth Tale." It's a great story for people who love books, who love to read, and who love a "ghost story" of sorts. Not a scary ghost story, but think beyond the idea of a ghost and what that might mean outside of the supernatural, and that's what this story is. I LOVED this book, I pretty much devoured it in a week. It's about a woman who works in her father's antique book store and she gets the opportunity to write the biography of "the most beloved and famous author" in England. This author is an elderly woman who has been known to "tell lies" when asked about herself and her past. Now she feels she is ready to tell the whole truth. She gets the biographer's attention by saying..."Let me tell you a ghost story..." no interest from Margaret, the biographer, then "Let me tell you a story about twins..." and that hooks Margaret. Read this great book and see why....

The Road

Over the weekend (yes I read it almost non-stop, it was that good) I read the latest book by Cormac McCarthy called "The Road." I've been a fan of his since "All the Pretty Horses" back in the 1980's, but this is one of his best I say. It's a story about a man and the boy (father and son) who are survivors in a post-apocalyptic world. We aren't really told what exactly has done all the destruction of living trees, grass, wildlife and most of human life. Whether it be nuclear disaster or ultimately the devastation of the earth by global warming, we just know that all these things no longer exist. As the man and the boy (they don't have names, making this even more real like it could happen to me) fight starvation, cold and "the bad guys" (cannibalistic thugs) this is ultimately a story of a father's love for his son and what all we would do to keep him alive. This is a great read, a haunting novel about civilization's slow death after the lights go out.

The Woman in White

I first read a Wilke Collins book in college. I was taking a summer correspondence course in Mystery Fiction and one of the required readings was "The Moonstone." So I recently decided to try another of his books, and chose "The Woman in White." I am thoroughly enjoying this novel. It has that mid 1800's feel to it, similar to writings of the Brontes, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, but it doesn't have as much "fluff" as some of these other writers put into their books. "The Woman in White" is part romance, and part mystery. It concerns two half-sisters, and the rather bad marriage of one, Laura Fairlie. She marries a man whom who her father arranged to have her marry before he died, and it is a loveless marriage, surrounded by a mysterious woman in white that seems to have some past with Laura's new husband. Lots of mysterious circumstances and deception, this is a good read. If you enjoy classics, especially, give this one a try.