To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:

At the age of eight, Scout Finch is an entrenched free-thinker. She can accept her father's warning that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, because mockingbirds harm no one and give great pleasure. The benefits said to be gained from going to school and keeping her temper elude her.

The place of this enchanting, intensely moving story is Maycomb, Alabama. The time is the Depression, but Scout and her brother, Jem, are seldom depressed. They have appalling gifts for entertaining themselves—appalling, that is, to almost everyone except their wise lawyer father, Atticus.

Atticus is a man of unfaltering good will and humor, and partly because of this, the children become involved in some disturbing adult mysteries: fascinating Boo Radley, who never leaves his house; the terrible temper of Mrs. Dubose down the street; the fine distinctions that make the Finch family "quality"; the forces that cause the people of Maycomb to show compassion in one crisis and unreasoning cruelty in another.

Also because Atticus is what he is, and because he lives where he does, he and his children are plunged into a conflict that indelibly marks their lives—and gives Scout some basis for thinking she knows just about as much about the world as she needs to.

My thoughts:
Perfect. Flawless. Supreme.
To Kill a Mockingbird is and will always remain my favorite book. I am confident of that! It's so moving to watch as Scout and Jem grow up in the space of a few years. Innocence is lost and lessons are learned. The stage that these lessons are played out on is in a very segregated Alabama. The reader gets to see racism from a child's perspective. Atticus Finch, the father of Scout and Jem, is one of the most human characters in literature. He's so honorable and genuinely good. To Kill a Mockingbird is full of characters that are not easily forgotten

Animals by John Skipp and Craig Spector

Rating: 4.5

What it's about:

Wild things.

They've been with us forever - prowling the smoky roadhouse dives that are their watering holes and hunting grounds. Predators, lurking amidst the human herd.

Changing shape at will. Lusting for blood and meat. They are gods in the wild. Gods in disguise. And they feed on the spark inside each of us.

Syd was just another lonely working-class guy singing the steel-town blues. Then he met Nora. She's sensual. Erotic. Amoral. A creature of the night. And she's luring Syd across the line that few can cross - and fewer survive: the line that separates man from beast.
-taken from back cover

My thoughts:
This book is ultimately about a man who learns to let go. He learns to let out his inner self that he suppressed his whole life. His animal nature is freed. This is more than just an average story about werewolves. It's erotic, raw, carnal and full of emotions! It's about relationships and how far people will go to hold on to them. But beware the high body count and seemingly endless gore. This book is very descriptive!

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Rating: 3.0

What it's about:
In one of the most entertaining and brilliant essays ever written on the importance of freedom for women, Woolf brings her literary imagination and defiant wit to bear on the relationship between gender, money, and the creation of works of genius. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
I can concede that the theme of this essay is noble...but...the content is a bit boring and dry. I will say that Virginia Woolf had some poetic ideas! There are two main ideas that I particularly liked in this essay. The first being Shakespeare's Sister.

Woolf points out that if Shakespeare would have had a sister who was born with the same genius that is Shakespeare, she would not have been remembered because her artistry would have been allowed no outlet.....because she was a female.

The other point I took away from this essay ties in with Shakespeare's Sister. Women need "a room of one's own" and freedom from the worry of everyday living in order to write fiction. Woolf illustrates how these needs were not met throughout history for women. That is why there is no Shakespeare's Sister.

This essay is not the most exciting book I've read lately. But taken for what it is, Virginia Woolf does make her point heard.

The Picture of Dorian Gray and other stories by Oscar Wilde

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Spellbound before his own portrait, Dorian Gray utters a fateful wish. In exchange for eternal youth he gives his soul, to be corrupted by the malign influence of his mentor, the aesthete and hedonist Lord Henry Wotton. The novel was met with moral outrage by contemporary critics who, dazzled perhaps by Wilde's brilliant style, may have confused the author with his creation, Lord Henry, to whom even Dorian protests, 'You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.'. Encouraged by Lord Henry to substitute pleasure for goodness and art for reality, Dorian tries to watch impassively as he brings misery and death to those who love him. But the picture is watching him, and, made hideous by the marks of sin, it confronts Dorian with the reflection of his fall from grace, the silent bearer of what is in effect a devastating moral judgment.
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
This book contains 5 stories, all fascinating! The Picture of Dorian Gray is a gripping tale about the evils of being superficial. It was intriguing to see how the portrait changed to reflect the heart and soul of Dorian. Dorian was able to remain young and beautiful while his sins were reflected on canvas for the whole world to see. Dorian locks the portrait away to try to hide his shame from the world which is a very human impulse! I wonder, if it hadn't all been to much for him to bear, would he have been immortal? Could he truly have stayed young forever? Dorian must never have heard the old adage, be careful what you wish for because it may come true!

This book also contains:
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime - A story about free will versus destiny.
The Canterville Ghost - A not-so-scary ghost story. Humorous with just enough depth!
The Sphinx Without a Secret - A story about the desire to seem mysterious.
The Model Millionaire - A short story with a lot of heart!

Nevermore by Harold Schechter

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Harold Schechter, the brilliant author of the true-crime books Deviant and Depraved, brings us Nevermore, a novel about the father of mystery and horror fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, on the trail of a killer. You remember what the raven said, but Schechter takes Poe on dark and disturbing byways as he investigates the murder of an elderly widow. Hooking up with Congressman Davy Crockett, Poe finds more evildoings as a puzzle of murder and darkness comes together in 19th-century Baltimore. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Nevermore is an enthralling mystery! I couldn't put it down. The story was great but it was the interaction between Edgar Allen Poe and Davy Crockett that made the story so fun. The chain of events and close calls that lead Poe and Crockett to the close of the case, are in the end, a source Eddie Poe uses to write his own stories. At the end of the novel, we find that Poe has used the incidents of the fire at the Asher house (Fall of the House of Usher), his suspension over a bottomless pit(The Pit and the Pendulum), finding a corpse under the floor boards(Tell-Tale Heart), and many more such adventures as material for short stories.

I am an enthusiastic re-reader of books and Nevermore is one I will visit forever more.

Insomnia by Stephen King

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Ralph Roberts has an incurable case of insomnia, but lack of sleep is the least of his worries. Each night he stays awake, Ralph witnesses more of the odd activity taking place in Derry after dark than he wants to know. The nice young chemist up the street beats his wife and has delusions about beings he calls "The Centurions." A madman with a knife is trying to kill him, he's sure. And on the night May Locher died, one of the two bald men coming out of her house had a pair of scissors in his hand. What does it all mean? Ralph doesn't quite know. But the bizarre visions he's been having keep getting more intense, the strange deaths in Derry have just begun, and Ralph knows he isn't hallucinating.

Returning to the town of Derry, Maine, the setting of one of his most critically acclaimed novels, It, Stephen King combines bone-chilling realism with supernatural terror to create yet another masterpiece of suspense. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Horror and suspense at it's best! It's hero and heroine are in their old age. King gives great insight into the pathos of the golden years. The book is very descriptive of what it might feel like to become old. Insomnia takes the reader on a roller coaster ride of emotions. This book has it all, from laughter to tears. And being a Stephen King novel, it also has thrills and horror aplenty. This is one King book you don't want to miss!

Everything's Eventual by Stephen King

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
From the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time, here are fourteen intense, eerie, and compelling stories, including one O. Henry Prize winner, stories from The New Yorker, and "Riding the Bullet" which, when published as an eBook, attracted over half a million online readers. -from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Stephen King is great at what he considers the (almost) lost art of the short story. In Everything's Eventual there are 14 examples of this art. Most of these stories are really good. And they are very diverse! The first story, Autopsy Room Four, is sort of a comic take on the fear of premature burial. Then there's the story (The Death of Jack Hamilton) about depression era gangsters which isn't really a horror story at all but a testament to friendship. There's a story in here, In the Deathroom, where the reader can almost feel the pain in this South American interrogation room. And of course there are the down right scary stories in this book like 1408 (haunted hotel room) and The Road Virus Heads North (picture that changes). King fans won't be disappointed!

Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
The first scream came from the snowbound railwayman who felt the fangs ripping at his throat. The next month there was a scream of ecstatic agony from the woman attacked in her snug bedroom.

Now scenes of unbelieving horror come each time the full moon shines on the isolated Maine town of Tarker Mills. No one knows who will be attacked next. But one thing is sure.

When the moon grows fat, a paralyzing fear sweeps through Tarker Mills. For snarls that sound like human words can be heard whining through the wind. And all around are the footprints of a monster whose hunger cannot be sated...
-taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
How cool! An illustrated short horror novel about werewolves. This is a good story (what Stephen King story isn't good though?) about what happens every night of the full moon in Tarker Mills, Maine. You can even see how it ends in one sitting. The book is so short you don't have to wait in suspense for too long. It's well written and jumps right into the story. This is one book that's short and not-so-sweet!

Lost by Gregory Maguire

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass–market astrology book, travels to London to jump–start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival, she finds that her stepcousin and old friend John Comestor has disappeared, and a ghostly presence seems to have taken over his home. Is the spirit Winnie's great–great–grandfather, who, family legend claims, was Charles Dickens's childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? Could it be the ghostly remains of Jack the Ripper? Or a phantasm derived from a more arcane and insidious origin? Winnie begins to investigate and finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of specters and shades –– some from her family's peculiar history and some from her own unvanquished past.

In the spirit of A. S. Byatt's Possession, with dark echoing overtones of A Christmas Carol, Lost presents a rich fictional world that will enrapture its readers. - from the editor

My thoughts:
I really enjoyed the mystery of this story. There are actually two mysteries evolving as we read. There is the mystery of the ghost in the chimney and also the mystery of what happened between Winnie and John. It was so much fun traveling to London with Winnie and seeing the mystifying events unfold. The parallel story of Winnie and John made Winnie seem more human. It reveals she's sort of a broken heroine with her internal problems as well as the external problem of the ghost in the chimney. The characters are unique and loveable in their own ways from the crazy old cat lady to the gay reader of tea leaves. I won't soon forget this book or it's colorful cast!

Attila's Treasure by Stephan Grundy

Rating: 3.5

What it's about:
From out of the icy steppes they came, the fiercest and most feared warriors the world had ever known. At their head was the wily and ferocious Attila of the Huns, and behind him lay a trail of pillage and carnage. To forge peace with the mighty Attila, a young Burgundian prince is sent as a foster son to the merciless warlord. Here young Hagan learns the fighting arts of the Huns as he develops an uneasy relationship with his unpredictable new foster father. But it is during his first battle that Hagan learns the most important - and most dangerous - lesson of all. A gasp away from death, he discovers the pathway to the otherworld - a knowledge he must guard carefully for it makes him a dangerous adversary of Attila himself. -from Barnes and Noble

My thoughts:
This book has many different elements. Forbidden love, war, magic and spells are just a few of those elements. As the reader follows Hagan to the war camp of the infamous Attila of the Huns we get a glimpse of what it may have been like to live there from the perspective of both males and females. Stephan Grundy is good at describing the environment and making the reader feel he/she is a part of it. The only downfall of the book that I can see is the author leaves some issues unresolved at the end. When I turned the last page I found myself asking a lot of questions. One being what happened to Hagan and his new bride? Did they find happiness together or just toleration? But questions aside, the book is a good one.