Spring Break Reading
Daylight Savings Time has come, the days are warmer, it must be spring. We hope you can relax and enjoy some leisurely reading over break. Some very entertaining titles have just been released in paperback and may make the perfect choice for you or a family member.
Alexander McCall Smith’s Blue Shoes and Happiness is the next installment in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. This book involves a rather too brusque advice columnist, fear among the workers on the Mokolodi Game Reserve, concern that a doctor might be falsifying blood pressure readings, and the possibility that Grace Makutsi may have scared off her own fiancé.
Eldest by Christopher Paolini is the long-awaited paperback sequel to Eragon. Eragon must travel with his dragon Saphira to Ellesmera, land of the elves, for further training in magic and swordsmanship. Chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn. If you have any bored young readers at home for school break they will love this book.
Isabel Allende has described Debra Dean’s novel The Madonnas of Leningrad as “an unforgettable tale of love, survival, and the power of the imagination.” Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. And while the elderly Russian woman cannot hold on to fresh memories, her distant past is preserved: vivid images that rise unbidden of her youth in war-torn Leningrad.
The Trouble With Poetry displays the playfulness, spare elegance, and wit that epitomize the poetry of Billy Collins. Through simple language, Collins shows that good poetry doesn't have to be obscure or incomprehensible. His careful observations still lead us to the profound.
A good mystery is a great spring break read. Martha Grimes The Old Wine Shades certainly fills the bill. Over three successive nights, stranger Harry Johnson sits in the London Pub "The Old Wine Shades" and tells a story to Richard Jury about a good friend of his whose wife and son (and dog) disappeared one day in Surrey. They've been missing for nine months —no trace, no clue, no lead as to what happened. The dog came back—but how? When Jury investigates, all seems to be just as Harry described it. Until they find the body.