Books I've Read

Legends & Lattes, #1. A retired, I guess, orc warrior/adventurer/mercenary opens a coffee shop in a town where no one has ever heard of coffee. A bonus story "Pages To Fill" is included. Both book and bonus story were very nice.

Biography of the the great bicycle champion Major Taylor.

Paul, recovering from an airplane accident, moves to the super business park of Eden-Olympus when his physician wife accepts a job there. She is replacing a, as it happens, former lover who killed several people there, and was in turn, shot to death. Paul is intrigued by the mystery of why this happened.

Two kids solves a mystery involving a missing Vermeer painting. Read 1/2005

Calder goes to England with his father, sees a Calder sculpture, which gets stolen, and Calder disappears! Did I mention the Calder exhibit in Chicago? Interesting, has puzzles, maps, pictures.

Zoomy comes into a mysterious notebook which seems to have something to do with Charles Darwin. Someone is trying to steal it. Zoomy and his friend try to figure out why. Excellent story!

Petra, Tommy, and Calder solve the mystery of a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Chicago. I still dont get pentaminos, but it is a pretty clever book. It did occur to me that living in the house, as a child, would possibly create unrealistic expectations about life. How about that?

Teen girl living on Mars, rough Western-type life, with weird sci-fiction and steam punk-type stuff going on. Kinda liked the Engine.

It was OK, not really my cup of tea. I thought it was going to be full of humor, but apparently this is not one of his funny books. There were a couple of good ones, though. Sadly, my bookmarks of those disappeared!

Teenage girl wakes up in the morning, finds her family is GONE! No trace of them to be found. Now she is an adult, and weird stuff is happening! Very absorbing, I stayed up WAY to late into the morning reading it. Read the Readers Digest Condensed version.

Thought this would look good on the book list. Wondered what Sonny has been up to since I read Hunter S. Thompson's book back in 1970 or so. So we got fifty rules here for living a full and succesful life, or even your own biker organization. Favorite: At booksigning telling kids not to smoke, using hole in his throat to illustrate why.

Candy Quackenbush, who hates her life in, get this, Chickentown, travels to the magical land of Abarat, which seems to suit her much more, except for all the beings trying to kill, maim, and/or overpower her. Vol. 1 of who knows how many? Not a bad story.

Candy Q. is still in Abarat, or is it THE Abarat, I'm not sure, getting into mischief, or rather, since she is the good guy, as it were, foiling the plans of the bad guys. There's another book coming? Yikes! I read the hardcover with the color illustrations, I would recommend YOU read that edition, too!

The awful Phelan family is moving up in the world. Good story.

Bettina is writing her memoirs about her life as young girl in rural Australia. A fairly calm story with a surprising, sad, ending.

Charlie Peace moves to a small town with his family (including Little Fetus) and father-in-law, who is installed in a bungalow NEAR, but not too near, Charlie's new house. I enjoy reading Mr. Barnard's books very much. His writing is very clear, although I never figure out who-done-it. On reading it again, I see that the plot is is not resolved, but we can see things have been set in motion and where they will lead. Perhaps this is a more "mature" device, rather than spelling everything out for the reader. Although THIS reader often needs things spelled out!

Woman writer who co-opts teen boys to manipulate their lives is murdered. Charlie Peace helps the investigateion. Pretty good, as usual.

Charlie Peace goes the inauguratory meeting of a literary society for an obscure writer who was killed in a murder/suicide back in the 1932. Lots of words I could have looked up if I had some Post-Its!

I must make note that on page 138 the dog Zoe enters and eyes a box of chocolates. It is implied that Mavis gave the dog a chocolate. Chocolate is toxic to dogs, so I hope not!

A new M.P. junior Minister of Education gets notes suggesting he is adopted. Very good.

An overbearing actress is murdered. A very good story with a surprise ending. .