LOOK AGAIN - Lisa Scottoline

Starred Review. Bestseller Scottoline (Lady Killer) scores another bull's-eye with this terrifying thriller about an adoptive parent's worst fear—the threat of an undisclosed illegality overturning an adoption. The age-progressed picture of an abducted Florida boy, Timothy Braverman, on a have you seen this child? flyer looks alarmingly like Philadelphia journalist Ellen Gleeson's three-year-old son, Will, whom she adopted after working on a feature about a pediatric cardiac care unit. Ellen, who jeopardizes her newspaper job by secretly researching the Braverman case, becomes suspicious when she discovers the lawyer who handled her adoption of Will has committed suicide. Meanwhile, Will's supposed birth mother, Amy Martin, dies of a heroin overdose, and Amy's old boyfriend turns out to look like the man who kidnapped Timothy. Scottoline expertly ratchets up the tension as the desperate Ellen flies to Miami to get DNA samples from Timothy's biological parents. More shocks await her back home.

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Book Lists- If you are looking for something to read

Books we have proposed in the past for the club but did not get to read it

• Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin Nonfiction, Historical 
• My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk  
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) by Stieg Larsson 
• The monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin S Sharma
• Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
• Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
•  Life as we knew it  by Pfeffer, Susan Beth
•  A soft place to land by  White, Susan Rebecca

TIME magazine's Top 10 picks of 2009 in Fiction and Nonfiction:

Fiction:

• Wolf Hall
• The Financial Lives of Poets
• Swimming
• Catching Fire
• Everyting Ravaged, Everything Burned
• Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
• In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
• Beat the Reaper
• The Windup Girl
• The Kindly Ones

Nonfiction:

• The Age of Wonder
• D-day
• Lit
• Changing my Mind
• Lords of Finance
• Logicomix
• Manhood for Amateurs
• Strength in What Remains
• Cooking Dirty
• Cheever: A Life

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Henry DeTamble, the hero of Audrey Niffenegger’s novel, has a curious disorder that he shares with several other heroes of fantasy fiction - he has a tendency to zigzag between Past, Present, and Future. But the author, who has a nifty knack for words, has inventively come up with a scientific label for his condition – he’s a CDP (Chrono Displaced Person).

But the science(fiction)-averse reader has nothing to fear. We’re not going to be bogged down by terminology here. This is first and foremost a romance. Our hero, is by profession a librarian, who also happens to be a multilingual scholar, lover of books, and dishy-looking, to boot. Traffic in the NPLs would increase considerably, if we had some like him here.

Henry’s not a very good boy though; he’s also a larcenous, hard-drinking womanizer, given to the use of recreational drugs. But all he needs is the love of a good woman to make over his life, and Clare Abshire happens to fit the bill. She’s spent most of her life grooming herself for the job, since she was 6 and Henry was 36, and since she was 13 and he was 35, and since she was 16 and he was 32, and since…whatever.

Niffenegger puts her own spin on an oft-told theme, and livens it with her painterly prose. Her writing skills are superb. Her few flaws include rambling filler-like conversation, a tendency to bloviate on her pet topics, and rather naive interpolation of ethnic stereotypes. I found the book reminiscent of Danielle Steele’s style – beautiful people lisping French and German, wallowing in art and culture, and living with an insouciant disregard of financial constraints. I probably shouldn’t carp on that – the world of romantic fiction makes no allowance for petty concerns like high mortgage or low libido. The hero and heroine are required to have interesting problems. They don’t fail us there.

Ultimately, I enjoyed this book, because the love that’s talked about is the real thing; it endures. Past, Present, or Future – it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re with the love of your life. Recommendation? Three hankies /one box of Kleenex.

The Giver by Lois Lowry.

The Giver is a 1993 soft science fiction novel by Lois Lowry.

 A young adult fiction highly recommend by Gayatri K.  Its a simple and direct style, with a futuristic, scientific bent.  Jonas the twelve year old lives in a society where "sameness" is the basis of their existence, where differences in the form of color, sound, relative knowledge, choice, emotions and memories are eliminated.  People are "assigned" their role in society, their spouse, their children (limit 2 per family unit) a boy and a girl, by a group of elders who monitor every citizen, resulting a peaceful, law abiding, strife free yet mechanical world.
At twelve Jonas is "selected" to be the "Receiver" of memories from the "Giver", who keeps all the memories of the past going back several generations.  The Elders of this society seek the advise of the "Receiver" on matters beyond their experience, as the Receiver has memories and wisdom that comes from it to guide them.  Jonas realizes that memories of color, music, joy, warmth of the sun, breeze from the ocean, death, starvation, war and love all enrich a person even though some of them cause pain. 

Nice concept, makes you appreciate the little things that are taken for granted, to appreciate that differences and diversities is what makes life interesting!!Yet, I wonder if it can keep children's attention through out the book..

The books ends abruptly leaving you dissatisfied and a few questions hanging in the air....

Blood from a Stone

Blood from a Stone by Donna Leon(a Commissario Guido Brunnetti Mystery)

I was looking forward to blissfully soaking myself in a good old-fashioned cloak and dagger novel, but initially found this one a little tepid. More used to the rat-a-tat pace of the American crime caper, or the sinister undercurrents of the English countryside, it took me a while to get used to the well-read, genial hero of this Venetian mystery.

Guido Brunnetti, devoted family man and lover of good food, is a far cry from the stereotypical hard-boiled, macho cop hero. The story is well written, with a thought-provoking plot that takes time to unravel.

My main quibble is that our hero is reduced to being a frustrated witness when the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Neither he, nor the reader, has the satisfaction of declaring whole-heartedly, “Case closed!” Still, I think the series holds promise. Next time, I might try one of the better-reviewed books of Ms. Leon’s like, “Doctored Evidence” or “Uniform Justice”. Until then, Ciao Guido!

The Tao Of Warren Buffet- Mary Buffett & David Clark

This is a short book for those with interest in investing and business.  Warren Buffett the icon for investment success is looked up to as a good person who is immensely wealthy.  

His mantra for big returns from the stock market are:

• Invest in a good solid company, which you believe will be around for at least 15 years, whose management is solid and ethical, and whose products are of great quality and value.
• Buy large number of stocks in a few great companies when the prices are low.. Keep watching for market scenarios where you can accomplish this. Don't listen to wall street!
• Sit on the stocks for a long time.  Long term investment. See your wealth accrue!

Simple eh!