August Book Club Selecton

The correct title of the book selected for August is just The Pact by Sampson Davis. The other title I mentioned covers the same subject but seems to be geared toward the grade 7 to 10 reader.

What are the most popular words in the title of best sellers?

Who knew that the Top Five Words, most often found in the title of bestsellers, 1906-2006, were:

1. Men
2. Diet
3. House
4. Woman
5. Sex/Sexual

See Newsweek, July 9, 2007, page 70.

Book Club Selections

For the third Friday in July, we will discuss Karen's pick, Ice Bound: A doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole , by Jerri Nielsen. We have seen this on CNN. This is the true story of a Doctor who self administered a biopsy, found a cancerous lump in her breast and administered chemotherapy to herself while stuck in the south pole. Karen says there is more to the book. There a bit of family drama going on.

In August we will discuss Kathy's pick, We Beat The Street: How a Friendship Pact Led to Success by Sampson Davis et al. We have seen this on TV too. Oprah featured these three young men who had made a pact to leave the poverty of their New Jersey neighborhood to attend medical school and they succeeded.

Wow! I am just realizing we selected two non-fiction books about Doctors.

Richard Bachman

I had no idea, until I read a book review by Carol Memmott in USA Today, that prolific horror writer Stephen King had an alter ego. Read More about his new book Blaze.

We meet on Friday to discuss Digging to America by Anne Tyler at 5:15PM.

Oprah's Book Club Selection

In case you missed it, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is the book selected for discussion on Oprah's Book Club. It's a book about an hermaphrodite that promises to be a very interesting family drama.

What the Dead Know

Just finished reading What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. I highly recommend this book.
Here's the storyline:

Two sisters who go to a shopping mall and disappear, one almost 12 and the other 15. Thirty years later the police detain a female hit and run driver. She reveals that she is one of the missing girls, the younger one. The detective on the case is skeptical. She gives him some information to verify who she is but every lead turns into a dead end.

Lippman is an excellent storyteller. I loved how the twists to the story were very cleverly revealed one by one. I could not put the book down.

This story had some similarities to The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. In the two books, the main characters say they want to reveal the truth about themselves but they want to release bits and pieces of the truth on their own schedule. Also, both stories made reference to the classic fiction Jane Eyre. What I did not like about this story was the unnecessary crudeness in the language. The F word is frequently used.