Welcome to the Booklog!Here you can find out what everyone's been reading. Read the reviews and make your own recommendations. Enjoy.
Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins
Review by: Hilary
Unlike most of my Greek Life counterparts, I really enjoyed this book. A lot of the stuff that happens in this book is true, especially at big colleges. I'm lucky enough to be at a small school where this stuff doesn't occur, but I still feel that it's important for me to know the other side of Greek Life. If you're looking into Greek Life, read this book AND check out the websites of the chapters at your school.
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Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson by Louise Rennison
Review by: heidikins
Holy crap, these books are the funniest things EVER!
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Stroke of Midnight by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Review by: Celtic-Lass
Sherrylin is an amazing writer, makes you infiltrate the story and live it like you were experiencing it.
Sherrylin is a writer of both Medieval Romance and Fantasy Romance and winter born is a fantasy story in a 4 story saga called Stroke of Midnight. Winter Born is an amazingly funny Story. It deals with a young Were-Pantheress ( a young woman that becomes a panther when mating.) she goes to a Convention in search of a special man who will protect her from herself ( because at her age she is In Heat and in need of help to control her instincts. ) and the young ** In heat** were-panthers seeking her out, but finds herself protected by her enemy, a not so young but quite ** In Heat ** were Panther who soon discovers is in love with her and she with him. a true fantasy romance that is worthy of reading many times.
I highly recomend each and every one to pick up one of Sherrylin Kenyon / Kinley MacGregor's books and enjoy yourself while traveling in your mind and heart to a wonderful new world where you will realize that Love is special and nothing else matters but being with the one you love.
WARNING: Sherrylin Kenyon's Dark Hunter romance books are very erotic so if you are under 18 or are easilly offended by erotica please do not read them.
Besides that warning i highly recommend ALL her books, she has made me forget the real world for a few precious hours and bask in the fantasy world full of love, peril and lots of fun.
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The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
Review by: Whitney222
This book tells the story of the downfall of the Russian Tsar and Tsaritsa. Its a story that really makes you feel their pain, but also makes your feel like you have a bit of insite into their last few days that no one else has.
Its a faboulous story told by an old man to his grand daughter. He tells every emotion and every detail and really makes you feel as if you are right there eating dinner with the entire Romanov family!
This is not a very big book, ( mere 229 pages) but it is one of the best books I have ever read!
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The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Review by: Trinity
The tragic story of a young girl who dies at 14 and who watches how her family copes from heaven.
I couldn't put this book down! The story is so compelling, so moving that you want to read every page in the first sitting. A very imaginative book that, despite a terrible tragedy, gives you a differing perspective that somehow transforms the whole situation into something more positive.
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Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World by Alan Weisman
Review by: Ambrosia
Gaviotas is a small village out in the middle of the Columbian llanos, almost literally the middle of nowhere. The llanos is a place where survival is scrapped from the land, and is made more difficult by the violence engulfing Columbia. And yet, in the middle of this war ravaged contry, in the middle of this hard land, is a village that has come to symoblize hope, not just for Columbia, but for the whole world.
Alan Weisman chronicles the journey of Gaviotas from its conception until about 1996 (when the book was written). He uses a descriptive language that evokes the land and the people beautifully and sucks the reader into the book. I found myself getting excited about their new invention, fearful about the paramilitaries and drug lords, outraged about the stupidities of bureaucracies, and sad when people left.
More than a book about sustainable communities, this is a book about hope in one of the most hopeless places on earth, and the amazing things that can happen when people work together on problems that are common to all of us.
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Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Review by: cwiddo
ender's game is a sci-fi story. but really, its a great book! its set after some war between humans and "buggers" and the earth is trying to figure out how to survive because they're getting their butts kicked. so they start recruiting the smartest children (very young ones) in the world to turn them into earths future generals. most of the book is set in "battle school" where all the smartest kids on the planet learn and practice battle command tactics. they're all smart, brutal, and under 12 years old.
this book won the hugo and nebula awards in the same year. only like 3 books have ever done that. its a real page turner. everyone i know loved this book and its scary simular to most peoples experience in school. so read it soon, before the movie comes out.
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Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth, Book 1) by Terry Goodkind
Review by: Kudra
This is a fantasy series of 8 books, known as the, Sword of Truth Series. I am currently waiting for book 9..... (due out in 2005). Its full of wizardy, magic, love, archery, swordwork. Though the best character, Jennsen, a redhead doesnt appear til book #7. Its a must read for all fantasy lovers.
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Long After Midnight by Iris Johansen
Review by: Jaxita
A gifted scientist whose research is aimed at saving and improving lives finds herself being hunted by a killer, & the research she's spent her life on could get her - and her loved ones - killed. Her only hope is to make the medical breakthrough she's striving for before the killer finds her..
This is an excellent read! Chosen for me by my 11 year old son for Mother's Day (not something I'd usually pick on my own), I was very pleasantly enthralled by this book! Great suspense..grabs you & hangs on to you until you reach the last page!
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The Book of Eleanor: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Pamela Kaufman
Review by: FunkeyMonkey
The hardships of being a woman in the time of Kings and Queens is shown in this novel. For a woman or young girl of an royal family or a family with money, life was mapped out for you. You couln't marry for love, you married for prestige of your family. This story tells of Eleanor of Aquitaine and how she lived her life, as much as she could on how she wanted. It is not a biography but some points are fact. I really enjoyed this read and would suggest it to anyone else interested in this period of time.
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Scotland: A History, 8,000 B.C. to A.D. 2000, Fiona Watson
Review by: RuadhGaol.php
One of "The Scotsman" bestsellers, this book is great for anyone who is interested in Scotland and/or their Celtic roots. The book starts 10,000 yrs ago in the last stages of the Ice Age in Scotland. In detailed description, we learn about the formation of Scotland and the British Isles. It goes on to settlers, invaders and the ever changing status of politics and leadership. Illustrations are included of artifacts, antiques and famous people. Also included is a Chronology, a list of Monarchs, Genealogies, and a Map of Scotland. For you history buffs out there, this book would be a great addition to your collection.
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Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland
Review by: Ambrosia
The Girl in Hyacinth Blue is a wonderful novel about the impacts art can make in peoples' lives. The story follows an imaginary painting's history backward through time. It starts with an elderly man, Cornelius, whose father was a Nazi soldier during WWII and who stole a painting from a Jewish family that he sent to the trains. Cornelius is obsessed with the painting his father stole, convinced it is a Vermeer, yet unable to tell anyone of the painting for fear that it will be taken from him.
This book speaks of the way art, as trivial as it may seem, can change peoples' lives. To one little girl, the painting helps her to learn how to live in the moment; for a farm wife, it becomes an expression of hope; and for the sitter of the painting, it was a symbol of a life she could never have. The book supposedly talks about how the provenance of art is an ethical issue and the way art can stand in as a form of money, but the personal value of art seems to be the main theme of the book.
I highly recommend this book. It is not something I would normally read, I had to read it for a class, but it is a very insightful and moving book.
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The Skystone, Jack Whyte
Review by: FunkyMonkey
I really enjoyed this book, but it did get dry in spots... It is a series and it is about the beginning of the Arthurian legend. It starts during the Roman times, the beginning of the end of Roman times. Very interesting concepts in this book. I would give it a 4 out of a 5 star rating, just because of the dry spots.
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Derailed, James Siegel
Review by: RustyAnn
This book was hyped up as a suspenseful thriller that will have you gripping the edge of your seat waiting to find out what lies beyond the next plot twist. You might have seen the commercials; a couple in the midst of a hot lovemaking scene, with the sounds of a train in the background. At the end, the voiceover pleads with you not to reveal the ending of the book.
As soon as I saw the commercial, I was determined to get the book. So I did, and read it through in one sitting. And yes, it's got plot twists. And yes, it's got suspense, sex, murder, all that good stuff. But truthfully, I didn't find it much different than the multitude of other such books.
Don't get me wrong, this is a good read, despite some plot holes. After all, I did read it all in one day. But I was so excited that this book would somehow be drastically surprising in its twists, like the hype led me to believe. So I do recommend the book, but you could probably wait until it comes out in trade paper. :)
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The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
Review by: acaciaplum
This is a dystopian novel about a woman's life in Gilead, what used to be the United States -- until it was taken over by fundamentalists. When I first read the reviews, I thought the idea that this sort of thing is even remotely possible was very silly. As I read the book, I realized that something like this did happen and the Afghan women probably thought the same thing before they actually had to live through it. Atwood's point is not can this really happen, though; rather "do we still see the ideas used to oppress these women in the book still present in our society?"
There are a lot of other issues. Imagining a totalitarian regime here -- now, how women (or any oppressed group) can react to an abusive system in a way that makes them only hurt each other, and about the things we take for granted. An excellent book.
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