The Age of Will

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This was a wonderful mystery, with a bit of history thrown in for good measure. If you know nothing about Alaska, it will begin to give you a hint, and, unless you are a top-notch expert, it will likely tell you things you did not know.
The Iditarod is the dog sled race from Anchorage to Nome every March (unless there’s not enough snow, as in 2003, in which case they do the best they can!). The race celebrates a famous run of diphtheria serum from Anchorage to Nome to prevent an epidemic. It is a grueling race, on both humans and dogs, and would be much worse if the fictional events in this book ever happened.
In the book, accidents begin to happen to the mushers (that’s the human part of the dog sled team). First, one falls off his sled and dies, then one’s harness breaks, and so forth. The Alaskan investigators know it has to be one of the mushers or a conspiracy, as opportunities for non-mushers to cause this type of havoc are minimal. Since in each case, even if the results were not fatal the mushers would be out of the race, the investigators focus on the mushers. The race is over 1,150 miles long, most of it in the wilderness that is still Alaska. Stopping the race is unthinkable, but letting it continue may mean more deaths.
[Sue Henry][author] does a wonderful job of pulling the reader in and keeping the attention on not only the race for finding the murderer, but the race for the finish line. My only complaint was that I couldn’t keep all the mushers straight, because there were so many. But the “leaders” of both races became clear at the end.
Here?s a link to the Iditarod website, if you want more information: [http://www.iditarod.com/last_race.html](http://www.iditarod.com/last_race.html)
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/507
[author]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/browsebook/pagenum/1/author/Sue%20Henry

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Arabella Newberry was not only fleeing the life of the Shakers, she was leaving her father behind her. Her father had forced his wife and daughter, Bella, to join a shaker community when Bella was 14 years old. Bella’s mother died a couple of years later of a broken heart.
Though she loved God, Bella could not embrace the Shaker doctrine that forces families to be separated and live as though they were not family at all.
Bella went to work for a new textile factory in Lowell, MA. The year was 1831, and New England was becoming industrialized. Young ladies were leaving their farm homes to work in factories. They lived in boarding houses owned by the factories.
I am not sure if the author intended, but I see many similarities between the life Bella left at the Shaker community and her new life working for the factory. The men’s and women’s boarding houses were separate…just like the Shaker community. There was a bell that woke everyone at the same time to begin their day of labor…just like the Shaker community.
The story is interesting in that we get an insight into the early industrial age. However, there really is not much of a plot. There is a love story, of course, and we see Bella as she learns to trust God again…and even men. All in all I found the book a little tedious to read.
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/468
[author]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/browsebook/pagenum/1/author/Tracie%20Peterson,%20Judith%20Miller,%20Judith%20McCoy-Miller

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[Hit Man][bookdetail] was originally a series of short stories, and while it still reads that way, it is a wonderful book. And, yes, guys, if it seems familiar, I understand several of the Hit Man shorts were originally published in Playboy.
The stories are about Keller, who is actually a hit man. Although the concept is such that you would think the main character was unlikely, Keller is likable. Perhaps it’s his meticulous planning, or his slightly cynical view of life, but whatever it is, Keller is a wonderfully likable character.
Each of the stories has Keller facing a different dilemma, and handling them all with emotional maturity, although some might argue that it’s really a lack of maturity. These stories made me laugh, and think, and I was very sad when the book ended.
Rather than give away the plot of each of the short stories, and ruin it for someone else, let me just say that this is my favorite [Block][author] book. [Block][author] has written a ton of books, and they are all good, but this is his best.
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/488
[author]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/browsebook/pagenum/1/author/Lawrence%20Block

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Most everyone will agree that the love story between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning is truly romantic – a classic love story. It began when Robert wrote a letter to Elizabeth in which he praised her poetry. After more than a year of almost daily correspondence, they eloped and lived happily ever after.
K.C. and Wren share a love for classic literature and begin to correspond, not on paper like Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but through email. Wren?s friend tries to warn her about meeting someone in person that she met on the Internet…but of course, she would not listen. She was intrigued at the thought of meeting K.C. and allowed her heart to overrule caution.
[Echoes][bookdetail] by [Robin Jones Gunn][author] is the third book in *The Glenbrooke Series*. Each book in this series is outstanding, and [Echoes][bookdetail] is no exception. [Robin Jones Gunn][author] truly has a talent for spinning a web of romance until a true love is created.
If you enjoy reading love stories, you will enjoy [Echoes][bookdetail]. Indeed, you will enjoy any work by this author.
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/94
[author]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/browsebook/pagenum/1/author/Robin%20Jones%20Gunn

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[Jack Kerouac's][author] first published novel, [The Town and the City][bookdetail] is a story of monumental scope and great emotional depth. The book’s jacket cover talks about Kerouac’s idolization of Thomas Wolfe and this book reflects that interest. The story is about choices and regrets. It’s also about a generation robbed of choices and left wondering and apathetic and lost. The book tells the story of a family growing up in a small New Hampshire town pre-World War II and follows the family through war and loss.
The book is written in 3rd person. I realized soon after starting [The Town and the City][bookdetail] that most of what I’ve read recently is 1st person or some variation of 1st person. Which is fine; 1st person is very intimate. However, in Kerouac’s book, the choice of style really opens up the story. Instead of the reader having a close relationship with one or two people, the environment opens up and we form relationships with several people and feel part of the town. To say that in a different way, if the book were written 1st person, we would be looking through the eyes of the key character or characters. We would see the town and the rooms and the other characters, but more in a ‘Being John Malkovich’ way. Kerouac gives the reader room to appreciate the size and space of the story. We’re drawn in to the town, the sounds of the river, and late-night mournful calls of a passing freight train.
The following quote from the book reflects one of the son’s feelings while riding a troop train from one part of America to the other. He’s just finished a letter from his mother.
>This is the pitiful way it was: and all the eerie feelings that young men were having in some strange part of the country far away from the places that had always been familiar in their lives, which were become unreal and fantastic now as a dream, and maddening and sorrowful too; and all the night-dreams woven out of three thousand miles of continental traveling and ten thousand miles of earth-traveling that were so gray and strange and pitiably enacted upon some deranged little map of the mind that was supposed to represent the continent of America and the earth itself. Sailors dreaming of the sea as some poignant little lake, or of their movements north and south, east and west on the terrific seas, as on some gray little canal or river, with life teeming on the banks; soldiers dreaming of America as some packed little place with mysterious fields and roads leading directly within walking dream-distance from state to state, or of islands in the Pacific as little puddle-jumps in the sweet small lake of the mind-all the vast and oceanic and terrific distances compressed by human necessity into something no bigger than a field, and a lake, or the palm of a hand.
>And then the bugle blowing in some Dakota army camp, and the rawboned, windburnt boys waking up again to the clear cold mornings and great snow-distances and distant hills, to drafty barracks and rough khaki trousers and the heavy G.I. boots clomping, waking up to steaming breakfasts, hot coffee, a cigarette, and then the windswept range and the peppery chatter of rifles firing in the frozen air, the broken cry of a sergeant, a puff of smoke, and someone rubbing his raw chapped hands together and grinning steamily in the morning air.
>Or the Cost Guardsmen on some heaving little cutter off Labrador waking up to the violent squeak of the ship, the pitching and flopping on the waves, the wild dawn-light over the seething field of waters, and the cook’s slop bucket flying garbage into the sea, the acrid nauseous smell of cigarette smoke in the mess, the big red-faced gunner’s mate from Iowa slopping catsup all over his eggs, the little mascot-pups yapping broken cries in the North Atlantic wind, the rigging by the afterdeck squeaking and straining and the flag cracking in the wind, and the wide mournful spread of slow, smoking merchant ships crawling in formation around the horizon all dark and low-slung and cumbrous in the sea.
>It seemed as though a whole nation of men and women were beginning to wander with the war.
[The Town and the City][bookdetail] is a beautiful, large and expansive novel that carries great emotional depth. I highly recommend everyone read this book.
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/58
[author]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/browsebook/pagenum/1/author/Jack%20Kerouac

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Bright, witty, and absorbing. Yes, absorbing. I’ve read the reviews of this book which indicate that it’s much too long, and that Harry is a brat. Yes, it is true, Harry at 14 has a temper and sometimes does irrational things. He’s not perfect; he’s an adolescent!
The story picks up again with summer recess, and Harry trying to find out if You-Know-Who is making himself known to the muggles of the world. When there is no odd news, it worries Harry even more. And he knows that his friends are working with others against You-Know-Who, but can?t send him the information.
Things get very complex, but roll along quickly. These books are good because the world, Harry’s wizards’ world, has rules and stands on its own. One can visualize everything that happens, and know that it is all explainable in that world.
Even if Harry is a bit of a pain, I like this Harry better than the old Harry as he’s more real. 14-year-old boys are not supposed to be perfect.
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/337

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[The Stand][bookdetail] is ultimately a tale of good versus evil. Like the best tales of good versus evil, there are people who personify good, people who personify evil, and the majority who are some of both, but must choose sides.
This all begins with a small virus, one with a death rate of around 99.9%. This leaves America (and the rest of the world, but the entire story takes place in the United States) with a much reduced population. A sociologist who is a character in the book suggests that people will begin with small settlements, basically resettling the world. But, at least in the United States, there emerge two polar opposites: Randall Flagg and Mother Abigail. Flagg is not human; Abigail is definitely human (and more than 100 years old).
After “the end of the world as we know it,” the two polar opposites begin gathering people to them, mostly through dreams. People begin forming groups, heading to Nebraska, where Mother Abigail is, or to Las Vegas, where Flagg is. The point is the journey, though, although the ultimate climax is satisfying, the journeys are the heart of the story: the journey from “civilization” to the polarization of the world, and the journey of people who are not sure if they are good or bad, and the journey resulting in the confrontation.
The central cast of characters includes a man from East Texas, a deaf and dumb man, and several others. (My only serious criticism of the book is the dearth of strong female characters, except for Mother Abigail.) The uncut version is richer, with more detail as to each character. The length is daunting to most people, but not, I am sure, to the avid readers who visit [Clubreading][clubreading].
[King's][author] strength here, as in all of his books, is in the characters. Because he follows these characters so closely, they come alive. Stu and Nick and Larry are friends of mine, and could be of yours as well.
[clubreading]: http://www.clubreading.com
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/292
[author]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/browsebook/pagenum/1/author/Stephen%20King

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I admit I love books of short stories. If you don’t like one story, the next is likely to be good. In this case, the next is always good, and there are no stories not to like!
[Alan Dean Foster][author] is “light science fiction.” There’s no hard science to grasp, and his stories are about people, even if they aren’t from earth. He introduces this collection by saying that a novelist often stretches the limits in a short story because the time investment is small and the family is unlikely to starve if the story doesn’t sell. Some of these stories were written for particular anthologies, and some were rejected. That’s the most interesting of all, to me. I like seeing what gets rejected when written by a man whose books fill a shelf at the local bookstore.
Each of the stories is engrossing, and, yes, some are gross, too. But almost all of them turn something on its head. The perspectives are different, and the twists are wonderful. If you enjoy odd twists, I would recommend “The Road.” Very, very funny when the twist is revealed, and exceedingly interesting up to there.
All in all, one of my favorite authors wrote a wonderful book of short stories. Highly recommended, if you like light science fiction.
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/231
[author]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/browsebook/pagenum/1/author/Alan%20Dean%20Foster

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I try to read the books I buy for children; it’s only fair. If I find them dull, the child is likely to find them dull as well.
I picked up The Pet-Sitting Peril, which is about 20 years old, ‘second hand.’ The story is a mystery, with a twelve-year-old boy as the hero. While our hero is taking care of other people’s pets for extra spending money, he encounters several very dangerous situations. While he is the hero, he does have help in solving the situation ‘from the pets he is sitting.’ And from friends, both male and female. I cannot reveal much more without ruining the book. Let me leave it at this: The book is an exciting tale, and likely to have youngsters reading under the covers with a flashlight!
Estimated Age Group: 10 to 13 (As a caveat, for a youngster who still has trouble telling fiction from non-fiction this book is not appropriate. It puts the hero and the pets he is sitting in danger of dying, and could be very upsetting to a child who doesn’t understand fiction. Additionally, children who imitate fiction shouldn’t be give this book either.)
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/326

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If this were a painting or a drawing instead of a book, I would classify it as a caricature. The author draws a picture with words of Paul the Apostle that over emphasizes his characteristics.
We get hints of the nature of Paul from the scripture–that he is zealous at whatever he did ‘whether killing Christians before his conversion, or winning people to Christ after his own conversion…that he was prone to be argumentative’ that he was demanding of others as well as himself.
The author takes those hints of Paul’s nature and greatly overemphasizes them?making Paul seem rather grotesque. He does the same for the other characters in the book: Priscilla and Aquila, Peter, James, Timothy, Luke, etc.
The chapter format was interesting, however. The author titled each of the 99 short chapters with the character’s name who was telling that portion of Paul’s story from their point of view. They were sometimes relating a totally fictional account—sometimes quite loosely paraphrasing a portion of scripture. I found I enjoyed the chapters written from Paul’s perspective most of all. He sounded intelligent, dedicated, loving–not at all like the caricature the author would have him be.
I will most likely not read anything else by this author. This book, at least, was not the type of romantic historical fiction I am fond of.
I did learn from ‘Paul’ though. The author did manage to give some logic and clarity to some of the ambiguous portions of Paul’s writings in scripture.
[bookdetail]: http://books.clubreading.com/book/bookdetail/book_id/325