The Pilot's Wife

The Pilot’s Wife

by Anita Shreve

When Kathryn Lyon receives the dreaded late-night knock on her door, she realizes the "worst" has happened - the plane piloted by her husband, Jack, has exploded near the coast of Ireland.

As reporters gather outside her home and the airlines sends their investigators to question her about her husband's life, she begins to realize there is much she really never knew about him. This is the most exciting thing you will read within the first 150 pages.

Around page 150 Kathryn decides to call a number found in one of Jack's pockets, and at page 200, she decides to fly with Robert (the lead investigator) to London to find the person who answered the phone. While Robert seems overly interested in Kathryn while she's in the midst of her grief, he does not go with her to confront the person on the other end of the phone. Instead, after she's run from the apartment into the pouring rain without an umbrella and walked the streets for hours, he tries to rescue her. The final answers come the next morning at breakfast when she and Robert are joined by the woman she visited the day before (around page 253).

The story is sad, boring and unrealistic. This is the slowest book I've ever read and I have no idea how it ended up as an Oprah's Book Club book. I would give this book one star just for having a lot of words.

The Best of Me

The Best of Me

by Nicholas Sparks

Love stories usually aren't my favorite type of books, though I will occasionally read one now and then. There are a few authors I like and Nicholas Sparks is one.

The story is typical, it is about love and it has all the elements that make a good story: The girl, the boy, the forbidden love that they overcome. Amanda was more high society and Dawson was from across the tracks. Amanda was headed to college and Dawson was just trying to escape his family's violence and drug trade. Though they fell in love, Dawson and Amanda couldn't get past her mother's fears. So Amanda went on to college and Dawson spent four years in prison due to a car accident that really wasn't his fault.

Now it's twenty years later, Amanda is married and Dawson works on an oil rig out in the ocean. Unknown to the other, they both receive a letter from the home town lawyer requesting their presence at the reading of a will. Their mentor and friend, Tuck Hostetler, had died.

Once they meet again, they realize their love has never died and is only rekindled. Amanda has important decisions to make. Dawson wants her to run away with him. Should she leave her alcoholic husband?

Business in town finished, she's headed home to rethink her life when she gets a telephone call. Her son and husband have been in a terrible auto accident and the boy may not make it. Amanda races to the hospital.

Several subplots weave their way throughout the book, each affecting our two main characters. Jumping from scene to scene is a nice way to tell the whole story - until you realize that one subplot has stopped. It was then that I knew exactly where this book was headed and I was not happy.

I know that not everything goes exactly the way we hope, but sometimes it would be nice if it did.

Nicholas Sparks said this book was one of the hardest that he ever wrote. Well, Nicholas, it was one of the hardest that I ever read too!

A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods

Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Bryson

I'm not sure what I expected from this book, other than the back cover mentioned "bizarre assortment of hilarious characters" and "comic genius."

The book started out interesting enough; I enjoyed the trips to the Dartmouth Co-op picking out camping gear, and I enjoyed the meet-up with his overweight hiking buddy who seemed to think that tons of donuts would sustain them on their hike through the Appalachians. The characters they met along the way were interesting and fascinating; I especially liked the girl who debated every comment and seemed to think she was the only person who knew anything, eventually ending up debating her own comments.

While the beginning of the book was enjoyable, my interest began to wane. As I watched my bookmark's progression, my feelings about its placement seemed to coincide with Bryson's feelings about the walk - I was a bit tired of it. Much of the middle of the book consisted of informational entries about the mountains and history of the trail rather than Bryson's experiences on the trail. I then realized that when you're walking through the woods, it's difficult to describe the sameness of each day differently, especially when one might go days without seeing another person. Each tree, each trail looks the same as another.

I was hoping for at least a bear or bobcat encounter, but there was none. The buddy did have an exciting episode though.

There were points along the way for tents and short trails into the nearest town. It was at one of these stops when they realize they've moved only two inches on the map. Eventually, rather than being discouraged, all of a sudden they, along with the reader, experience freedom - it's okay if they don't walk the whole trail. Hence - A Walk in the Woods.

Last Days of Summer

Last Days of Summer

by Steve Kluger

This epistolary novel about 12-year-old Joey from Brooklyn who is looking for a father-figure was a joy to read. Joey is open about his disdain and at the same time his admiration for third baseman Charlie Banks of the New York Giants.

Through a series of determined and hilariously annoying letters to the baseball player, Charlie at first responds in kind, then to his surprise softens and eventually befriends Joey. Throughout, the road to their friendship is examined by Joey's psychologist.

The book is a series of letters and notes to and from Joey and Charlie, Charlie's girlfriend, Charlie's baseball friends, Joey's teachers, his psychologist, and his best friend, etc. As Joey plans his angle of approach to Charlie, his persistence in the relationship is laugh-out-loud. He becomes even more lovable the harder he tries - even when he tries to join the Army at age 13 - just to be with Charlie.

Last Days of Summer will have you laughing, crying, and wishing for the glamorous and innocent age of the 1940s before the war.

The Silent Places

The Silent Places

by James Patrick Hunt

To be honest, I picked this book because of the front picture - the St. Louis Arch. Having lived in St. Louis for 10 years, I thought it’d be fun to read a story in which I recognized landmarks, etc.

The opening chapter takes place as a hunting trip in southwest Missouri in the Ozarks, near Branson - another very familiar area.

After a couple of chapters, I began to wonder if I would really like the book as I noticed what appeared to be typos - but I realized that disjointed sentences seemed to be the author’s style and I continued. I was glad I did. This was my first James Patrick Hunt novel, and I was not disappointed.

Aside from enjoying that I was familiar with most of the areas noted in the book, the story was gripping. I found myself wondering exactly how this story would play out.

John Reese, a former veteran and CIA agent, was prosecuted as a traitor by now Senator Alan Preston who is interested in running for President. Reese has escaped from prison and Preston fears that Reese wants retribution. St. Louis Police Lieutenant George Hastings is assigned to protect Preston. Hastings soon realizes that there is more to the story - much, much more. One begins to wonder just how the story will end - two fairly nice guys pitted against each other through circumstances beyond their control.

Hunt actually has a nice way with words and his scene descriptions leave one feeling as though they are actually there.

Out of five stars, I’d give this book a four.

Made in the U.S.A.

Made in the U.S.A.

by Billie Letts

I selected this book to read because the picture on the front reminded me of childhood evenings. To be honest, I didn’t even read the synopsis on the dust jacket flap.

The story starts out interesting enough, two children at Wal-Mart with their father’s girlfriend - the father long gone, the mother dead. The girlfriend dies at the checkout and now the kids are left on their own. Fearful that they will be sent to different foster homes, even though the oldest is only 15 with a learner’s permit, they take off in the girlfriend’s car to look for their dad.

After about three-four chapters I was close to giving up on this book. After all there are thousands of books out there waiting to be read, why waste time on one I’m not in love with. But I’m tenacious and by the time I got that far, I’d already read the front cover that said the book was by Billie Letts, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, so I thought I’d give it a chance.

About half-way through, I thought of putting it down again - the children's experiences were just a little out there and it was getting depressing. Then their “guardian angel” showed up.

Maybe someone else would enjoy this book more than I did. I found the girl’s attitude a little much and then the ending explanation just not quite enough.

And The Sea Will Tell

And the Sea Will Tell

by Vincent Bugliosi

In 1974 Vincent Bugliosi wrote one of the most fascinating true crime stories ever when he wrote Helter Skelter, the True Story of the Manson Murders.

In 1991, he created another masterpiece, And The Sea Will Tell - the recounting of the events in 1974 on the Palmyra Atoll in the south seas.

Wesley Walker (aka Buck) an ex-con and his hippy girlfriend Jennifer had sailed there from Hawaii on their sailing vessel the Iola, a deteriorating wooden sloop that lacked a reliable auxiliary engine. Hoping to find the island deserted, they were disappointed to find it already inhabited by two male scientists. They were happy to find that the scientists wouold be leaving in a few days. But before they left, another couple, Mac and Muff Graham, landed on the island and they intended to stay. The Grahams' ketch, the Sea Wind, was beautifully finished and impeccably outfitted with an onboard machine shop equipped with a lathe and acetylene welding torch. The Grahams also had plenty of food while Buck and Jennifer' store had already run out.

Buck and Jennifer were getting ready to sail south for more food when the Grahams disappeared, their dinghy overturned in the lagoon. The mystery was how could a couple disappear from an island that held only four people. Complicating the story was the fact that Buck and Jennifer returned to Hawaii in Mac and Muff's Sea Wind.

Bugliosi recounts the events from the ships' logs and interviews with Jennifer and others' relatives in the first half of the book. But the way he does it makes one feel as they are in the ship with Jennifer and Buck as they sail from Hawaii. Once on the island, one can almost feel the hunger and then the boredom of eating yet another coconut. Then there is the beautiful Sea Wind only yards away, full of food.

The second half of the book describes the trials of Buck and then Jennifer. By the end, we know the story, we know who went to prison and who didn't, but do we really know who did the killing?

Bugliosi lives up to his Helter Skelter fame with this book - every bit as interesting and exciting.