Here are some of Don's favorite books:
Rat Rule 79 is the story of a girl on the day before her 13th birthday who must search for her mother in a strange, comical, and worrisome land. She meets many dear and dangerous characters in her search and must find ways through the obstacles of a world that at first make little sense. Rat Rule 79 is a coming of age story and a story about feeling the weight of change.
Koh embarks on the magical journey of language through telling her story by juxtaposing it with, and gaining inspiration from, her mother’s letters. Koh includes an image of each letter and provides her own translation from Korean into English. This relationship to the letters adds to the intimacy of the memoir.
Cases the Paris police have given up on are handed over to a newly created squad of officers that have been given up on. Nothing is expected of this team, and sifting through an assortment of unsolved cases seems to be an exercise in futility. But as the squad digs deeper, they might have uncovered a crime that, for their sake, might have been better left hidden.
After attending the dying Queen Elizabeth I, Frances returns home to her family home, content with the management of the estate and, especially, collecting herbs and creating healing remedies. Against her wishes she is summoned to the court of James I where she will be an attendant of the King’s daughter. Frances’s reputation for healing proceeds her, and she soon finds herself under suspicion in the King’s campaign to rid the kingdom of witches.
Historian Tracy Borman is a natural storyteller, creating historical fiction that is both believable and compelling.
This novel is about the pull of the Alps and the relationship of a family and two friends to their Italian landscape. The heart of the novel is the interplay and contrast of the narrator, Pietro, coming to the mountains from the city of Milan in summertime, and Bruno, a resident not just of a mountain town but of the mountains themselves. - Don
Reading with Patick is a true story of compassion, of giving the best part of oneself, and finding out the heartbreaking truth that it might not be enough.
What a terrific historical novel. The Women in the Castle brings fully to life the end of WWII and the attempt to live in the aftermath. The three women, who are brought together in a formerly great manor house, are compellingly portrayed, and their stories make the novel entertaining and rewarding.
Each two page spread features a postcard written by Adele to her mother. In her note she mentions an item Simon has lost on their trip around China with their uncle. McClintock's illustrations combine storytelling details with beautiful representations of important historical sites as the brother and sister experience them in the early 20th century.
This is a book for anyone who loves logic puzzles and philosophy. Sorenson explains logic concepts and has fun giving the reader plenty of riddles and stories that illustrate what he is talking about. Every sentence of the book is packed with food for thought and plenty of levity.
Smith's amazing novel describes a collision of lives over two paintings, one a masterpiece by an overlooked female Dutch master and the other a master forgery by an overlooked female art student. This is the kind of deftly writtne book that will make you want to track down everything written by the author and should propel Smith to the top of many reading lists.
Van Booy’s delicate touch is turned to the relationship between orphaned Harvey and her uncle, Jason, a man no one could expect to be the right choice as guardian. Van Booy uses the plot structure of a series of Father’s Day gifts given to Jason from the now adult Harvey to reveal more than either of them realized about the life they have shared as adoptive father and daughter, as well as the heartbreaking truth of how they came to be a part of each other’s lives. Father’s Day is Van Booy at his most poignant, showing how redemption can arise from heartbreaking circumstances.
Lucia is determined to live the broken life she has inherited with integrity and without breaking her own rules. The upside is that we get to see how smart and funny she is. The down side is that she is trying to create and maintain this personal code while shouldering heartbreaking loss and the disillusionment of adolescence. She is at a critical point, and author Jesse Ball is not giving her any free passes.
