The Glass Castle

"Readers will marvel at the intelligence and resilience of the Walls kids"

-Entertainment weekly

From the Jacket
Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever. Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town -- and the family -- Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home. What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms. For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. Now she tells her own story.


I started this book Sunday afternoon and was finished late Sunday evening. It was a quick and easy read but also hard to put down. The author portrays a vivid and gripping story of her painful childhood. She experienced few usual childhood memories but so many more struggles that a child should never have to go through. It opened a window for me to poverty and homelessness. It hit home because my own grandfather died homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. I am left feeling happy for Jeannette's success but still wondering so many things about the future of the family. I would love to read a follow up book years from now.

Stiff

Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.


For 2,000 years, cadavers -- some willingly, some unwittingly -- have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem.
New York Times bestseller
Amazon.com 2003 Editor's Choice book
Barnes&Noble Discover Great New Writers book
A Borders Original Voices book
Winner of the Elle Reader's Prize

East of Eden

East of Eden is a novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, published in September 1952.
Often described as Steinbeck's most ambitious novel, East of Eden brings to life the intricate details of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories. The novel was originally addressed to Steinbeck's young sons, Thom and John (then 6½ and 4½ respectively). Steinbeck wanted to describe the Salinas Valley for them in detail: the sights, sounds, smells, and colors.
The Hamilton family in the novel is said to be based on the real-life family of Samuel Hamilton, Steinbeck's maternal grandfather.[1] A young John Steinbeck also appears briefly in the novel as a minor character.

According to his last wife Elaine, he considered this to be a requiem for himself—his greatest novel ever.[citation needed] Steinbeck stated about East of Eden: "It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years." He further claimed: "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this."

The Year of Living Biblically

The Year of Living Biblically is about my quest to live the ultimate biblical life. To follow every single rule in the Bible – as literally as possible. I obey the famous ones:
The Ten Commandments
Love thy neighbor
Be fruitful and multiply But also, the hundreds of oft-ignored ones.
Do not wear clothes of mixed fibers.
Do not shave your beard
Stone adulterers Why? Well, I grew up in a very secular home (I’m officially Jewish but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant). I’d always assumed religion would just wither away and we’d live in a neo-Enlightenment world. I was, of course, spectacularly wrong. So was I missing something essential to being a human? Or was half the world deluded?

The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth is a historical novel by Ken Follett published in 1989 about the building of a cathedral in Kingsbridge, England. It is set in the middle of the 12th century, primarily during the time known as The Anarchy, between the time of the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket. The book traces the development of Gothic Architecture out of the preceding Romanesque Architecture and the fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory against the backdrop of actual historical events of the time. Although Kingsbridge is the name of an actual English town, the Kingsbridge in the novel is actually a fictional location representative of a typical market town of the time.




Tom Builder is a poor but honourable stonemason who lost his job as a builder because the cruel, sadistic lord William Hamleigh was turned down by young Lady Aliena when he proposed marriage, as Tom Builder was building their new home. Starving and destitute, Tom's wife Agnes dies in the forest while giving birth to their third child; Tom cannot feed the baby boy, and in his grief he leaves the child on Agnes's grave, takes his remaining two children, shy Martha and cruel Alfred, and becomes companion of Ellen and her odd, red-haired son Jack, whom Tom meets accidentally when he thinks that he is going to die away in the forest himself. Alfred immediately despises Jack, a hatred which takes on a grave form later on. After many hardships the family settles down in Kingsbridge, where Prior Philip wants to build a cathedral. Jack also meets Aliena and falls in love with her.

Bordering on pornography, that's right I said porn. This book was full of graphic details I thought I would never read. It was recommended by another one or two ladies in book club so who would have thought! But the storyline was so intense and addictive. The characters were so full of realism and life and each person was somehow connected to the others. I just had to see how it all ended. Very well written even if it was too much info :-)! I was haunted for a few weeks by this one, but oh so captivated by Aliena (the heroine). Good read!

The Alchemist

The Alchemist is by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. It takes you on his adventurous journey full of life lessons, dreams, bizarre visions, myths and symbols. In the end we find we have read a very simple parable on life and our quest to reach our life's treasure.

The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle

Story of a young mute boy who loves his family and the family dogs. Not ordinary dogs but well breed and trained dogs. The story takes you through the lifestyle of a the farm family and the sudden death of the father. Mystery sets in when the uncle steps in and you wonder what his role is in the death.