The Next Book On My List

So let’s get back to Stephen! (I gave you a break now onward) I’ve read a lot of different authors over a number of years. When it’s an author that I enjoy I will definitely read more novels they’ve written. I have never seen anything like what Stephen King has done with his body of work. I can only describe it as threads in a blanket: the blanket being the complete body of work and the threads being the individual works. Almost everything ties into each other. That does not necessarily include the Bachman books but everything that King put his name on is OBVIOUSLY King. It’s the Stephen King Thread. It’s the DNA that runs through his novels. He mentioned with writing the Dark Tower Series that all of his books come from the same place. It’s true and reflective in all of his novels. I do though take issue with the fact that his books are largely categorized as horror books. He is not (I repeat is not) a horror writer. Yes, some of his novels are extremely terrifying but many of th...

What The Dead Know by Laura Lippman Laura Lippman is an author that you know is going to deliver, whose story is going to be interesting and best of all she is going to have an amazing twist at the end. What The Dead Know is the second novel by Laura Lippman that I have had the pleasure of reading. It is about the appearance of one of the Bethany girls, sisters who disappeared almost 30 years previously and were never seen again. Now one of them has returned and she has a story to tell but is reluctant to tell it, afraid of losing her current identity and being exposed to the media. But not everyone understands her logic. She claims her sister is dead, so why doesn’t she want justice? She was released by her captor decades ago, so why is she choosing now to come forward? Why did she wait so long to return home, if not to tell her story? What is the truth and is she even really a Bethany girl?           A lot o...

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford             Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet examines the lives of a Chinese boy, Henry and a Japanese girl, Keiko and the friendship that ensues between the two during World War II. Henry and Keiko’s friendship is a result of both of them being outsiders in their schools and very much so in their town. The all white school that they both attends looks at both of them as the enemy, even when Henry wears a nametag stating “I am American” people laugh and throw insults his way, it does though keep him from being labeled the true enemy which in his day and age was the Japanese. Keiko doesn’t apologize for her nationality nor does she accept responsibility for the actions of those who attacked Pearl Harbor . The unlikely pair’s friendship brings out both of their strengths and helps them both keep faith that one day things will change.     ...

(Yes, it’s not a Stephen King Post!)                 So I wanted to take a second to introduce everyone to another author that I absolutely adore, Jodi Picoult. I’ve been obsessed with her since college. I needed a book to read on a flight home to Los Angeles and stumbled across My Sister’s Keeper, the story of a young girl suing her parents for the rights to her own body. Yep, you read that right. Medical emancipation. It was great. One of those books you immediately start raving to your friends about. It was the book that made me a fan.             Since then I have read quite a few of her books and have never been disappointed. With every single book I’ve read by her so far I have been able to ask myself one simple question: What would I do if I were in their shoes? What would I do if my daughter wanted to be medically emancipated from me? How w...

I know it’s been a while. I'm reading like a madman, literally. Eight Stephen King books down...I give you Carrie, Salems Lot, The Shining, The Stand, The Long Walk, The Deadzone, Firestarter and Roadwork. It's been, to say the least, very interesting. I had never read Salem 's Lot , The Stand or any of The Bachman books which include The Long Walk and Roadwork. The last two were written under the penname Richard Bachman which King had used for quite some time before someone blew his cover. Honestly, the more books I read the more excited I become about finishing all of his novels. His style of writing has become so addicting to me. I usually start a book intending to only read a few chapters and end up half way through the book before I know it. So lets starts with a few old reads. Carrie Seriously. It's easy to see how King gained a following after releasing this as his first book .You could easily finish it in a day. Unfortunately in this day and age we know...

Stephen King The next book on my list is Stephen King. Literally. Every Stephen King novel is on my book list this year. All 56 (soon to be 58 since he is releasing 2 new books this year) are on my list. To say the least, I’m anxious.             My dad handed me Firestarter when I was 9 years old . I was really in to horror as a child. I loved Goosebumps by RL Stine and I had started reading Fear Street , also by RL Stine, until my dad gave me that first Stephen King book. I finished it in 4 days. I don’t know what came over me. I was consumed by the story. Looking back I don’t even k now if I completely understood what was going but his writing kept me going page after page. The next thing I knew I had finished Christine, Pet Sematary and The Shining. King became an essential part of my library. The only place I was truly lacking in my Stephen King journey was The Dark Tower series. I conquered that battle last yea...

If you read my last blog and had a chance to glance at my reading list of 2012, you undoubtedly noticed that the first seven books on my list were those of the Harry Potter series. I read the Harry Potter series every year. I feel compelled to do it because I love the story. There’s just something special about these books. There’s something amazing about the triumph of a little boy who grows into a man in this magical world, one that we are near but can’t touch. I began reading the Harry Potter series when I was 12 years old. The first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was released in the US in 1998. I was in the 7 th grade and a friend of mine handed me the book and told me to give it a chance. At the time I was not at all into fantasy so the idea of reading a book about a boy wizard was not at all interesting. I gave it a chance and obviously I’ve been obsessed ever since. Part of my affinity to the books has to do with the fact that as I aged, the characters ...