Thirteen Reasons Why

This is a young adult (YA) novel by Jay Asher.

Here is the book description from Amazon.com:
"Clay Jenkins returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers 13 cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker his classmate and crush who committed suicide two weeks earlier. One tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list. Through Hannah and Clay's dual narratives, debut author Jay Asher weaves an intricate and heartrending story of confusion and desperation that will deeply affect teen readers."

WOW!!! Keep coming back to hear my comments as I read the book. I hope you will consider reading it as well.

An Acquaintance With Darkness

This book, which in the past has been a required summer reading, is an interesting storyline on the events of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln. As I read the book, I wondered how many of the events in the story were true historical facts. Was a woman really found guilty of aiding the assassins and was she hung in public? What about the practice of grave robbing. I wonder how prevalent the practice was during this time period.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society

This book that I read for my book club was very interesting. The book told the story (through letters) of the Nazi occupation of the island of Guernsey during World War II. It was a great story, it would have been better without the love story component at the end, but the author didn't ask me :) I need to find the time to do some historical research to see if the "facts" of the book are true facts or if the authors made them up for the storyline. IE: the landing of the Germans during the occupation, the sending of all the small children from the island to the English mainland for safety reasons, etc.

New Reading - A great book!

I am in a book club and we met on Tuesday to choose the books that we will read for the next year! Yes... the next year. We chose quite the ecclectic selection of fiction and nonfiction. Since I have the tendency to proacrastinate and then not even finish the book... I decided to get a jump start and came home and requested the first three books from our local library.

The book for September is The Guenery Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A bizarre title for a book, I agree...

I started the book last night and am loving it! It is the story of a journalist who is in need of inspiration for her next writing piece. She learns, through a letter, of a group of individuals who live on the island of Guernery (which is between England and France) who have a literary society.

What she learns is that they started the society as an excuse to get together, share food and talk without being harassed by the Nazis. As you see... the story takes place at the end of World War II. I never thought about the German occupation of the small islands between England and France...actually... until I started reading this book, I didn't even know there were islands there. (Guess I better study a little more geography :).