If you haven't heard of this book, you've probably have heard of it's sequel, "Divine Secrets of the Yia-Yia Sisterhood".
Altars was Well's first novel, covering the years of Sidda's childhood in the Walker house, then another period in her adulthood, with different chapters covering the same events from the different points of view (and personal priorities) of all the family members.
While I take one star off because Altars is not quite as much a gem as Yia-Yia, it's still a wonderfully entertaining story, with more insight into Life with Vivi.

summary from the back cover: "A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry, a dashing adventuresome librarian who involuntarily travels through time, and Clare, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course, Henry and Clare's passionate affair endures accross the sea of time and captures thim in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the stregth of fate and basks in the bonds of love."

It took me a little bit to get into the time-jumping and follow the format. But once I really got into it, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. A great, well written story, an interesting take on the questions of fate vs. free will that necessarily come with the ideo of time travel, and as an added bonus for me, a backdrop of Chicago and Evanston (my college home) in the 90's. It's always kind of neat to read about your own former favorite haunts (hurrah for Bookman's Alley and the Field museum!) in a good book.

from Amazon: "Stripped of everything after his parents' untimely death, twenty-three-year old Jacob Jankowski hops a train that by chance belongs to The Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, Jacob hires on to care for the menagerie, his veterinary training giving him an entre into this bizarre world; but as the novel begins, Jacob is an old man, restricted to an assisted living home, his memories sparked by a nearby visiting circus and a creeping helplessness that assaults his ageing body..."

This was a fascinating page turner, with a few twists and turns. It starts with a glimpse at the end... but how the story actually gets you there us sometimes surprising, and always entertaining. Gruen did a lot of research on the world of the train circuses in the despression, and it comes through in the book--not so much in facts and figures, but in the way she paints life on the train and under the bigtop as its own character. You really start to feel like another roustabout watching the story unfold.

Lately it's been taking me a few weeks to finish any book, but this was one I just couldn't put down. Well written, with just the right amount of twists and turns, showing both the worst and the best sides of humanity. And of elephants....?
My recommendation... Read it!

I meant to savor the last Potter book, but alas! I got into a good part last evening (as if the whole thing wasn't good parts...), and just kept going until it I was through the epilogue.

I hadn't put much effort into guessing what might happen, but much of what I had thought of turned out pretty close, though there were plenty of the usual twists down new roads noone was likely to have forseen... but that seemed to fit.

And now, as with any book or series I truly enjoy,  I'm just melancholy that it's over...

So, what did you think?

This is my "no spoilers" review. I have finished the book, but won't even hint at what happens here. Please don't spoil it for others in your replies.. (I'll throw up another post for discussion with spoilers...)

Book 7 is true to the amazing world and characters Rowling has created, and every bit as much of a page-turner as any of the last 6. It has all the plot twists in unexpected directions you've come to expect.
If you, like me, worried that the last installment might be trite or anticlamtic, it is no such thing.

And finally, my advice to you who haven't finished it yet - don't read it too fast. Savor it while you can. The realization that I've turned the last page on the Harry Potter saga is bittersweet indeed...

Subtitle: A Novel of the Taj Mahal

Since Clayton visited the Taj Mahal this weekend, a coworker lent me this book. It is a fictionalized account of the building of the Taj Mahal, centering around the daughter of the Emperor who built it, and the beloved wife he built it for.

The Taj was built by a emperor to honor the woman he loved, and that emperor was ultimately overthrown and betrayed by one of his sons.The story is seen through the eyes of their daughter--the betrayer's sister. The story itself is good enough, through perhaps not great.
What makes this novel stand out is its background - the history of a ruling family and a nation, and the building of this incredible monument, with no cost spared, from a man to his one true love.

As I look at the photos Clayton posted from his day at the Taj , I can see just how well the novel describes the details and craftsmanship that went into its construction.

Finally got back to this one... I started it over a year ago (shortly after reading Kayt's review on Multiply), but with the stress of the old job, then the move, I had trouble getting my brain into any serious books... But now that life is calmer, I finally picked it up again. It gave some very interesting insight into why people go along with some of these transitions into more restrictive governments that, if simply presented a straightforward choice, they wouldn't typically choose. That in itself was enlightening, and has made me look at the upcoming elections here with a more critical eye. While we're not early to the extremes of Sharia law that Iran achieved, there are certainly some alarming elements of the Christian Right moral codes trying to work their way into our government in many of the same ways.
But aside from the politics, it gave some interesting new perspectives on many of the novels I've read in the past, and has encouraged me to pick up some of the ones it dicusses that I haven't read (I just started Daisy Miller last week), and to start hunting up copies of those I have to re-read (I know I've got a copy of Gatsby around here somewhere...)

More Chick Lit by the author of "Confessions of a Shopaholic" (and sequels).

This book was mind candy. It was fun, slightly zany, and just a fun light read. The protagonist is a City Lawyer, billing every 6 minutes for 100+ hours per week, until events give her a chance to realize there's more to life than being a slave to your job, especially in this era where employers show no particular loyalty to their employess....
It did give me some sense of vindication that my own job change/600 mile move in the hopes of finding a better life/work balance is really a Good thing...

But really, it's just Mind Candy - somewhere on par with a couple of root beer DumDum pops.

Read it in a nice bubbly bath, or by the pool, or when you need to forget you're in a very heavy hunk of metal defying gravity thousands of miles above land....

If you liked the Shopaholic books, or the Bridget Jones books, or any other predictable fluffy chick-lit mind-candy (and I do), this lives up to expectations pretty nicely.