Maine Books

World vegetarian recipes? Yes, but with a definite preference for West Indian and North African. This is a superbly written source book for Ethnic vegetarian dishes. Items needed for each recipe are clearly cited. Directions are simple and directly stated. Brief information about what gives each Ethnic food its distinctive flavor makes for good reading. The results of even an inexperienced cook are scrumptious.

This cookbook is perfect for people who like
to cook vegetable preparations. The author
presents very detailed recipes for virtually
every kind of bean in creation; namely,
Azuki, Garbanzos, Fava, Mung, Soybeans,
and Urad.

Here is a sample recipe for Star Fried Azuki beans
with Green Pepper from Yunnan, China:
o Red Azuki beans
o Black Mushrooms
o Scallions
o Garlic Cloves
o Green Pepper
o Soy
o Sesame Oil
o sugar ( I prefer ground Anise for diabetics)

All-in-all , the book is an excellent choice.
There are areas where readers can improvise on the
recommended ingredients to customize meals to
individual needs.

World Vegetarian, by Madhur Jaffrey, is an excellent resource for vegetarians and their families. The recipes are very flavorful, and they don't require lots of extremely exotic ingredients. Our daughters use this book
constantly, and my husband and I (who are not vegetarians) have enjoyed all of the dishes they have made! I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to eat healthier, more interesting foods.

I am a meat-eater with a decent-sized collection of cookbooks (70+ books) and Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian has been my favorite since I cooked my first few recipes from it 8 years ago. The recipes are interesting, original and consistently delicious-- and there are so many recipes that eight years later it is still easy to find new ones I am excited to try.

I'm still learning from this book, which gives delightful small bits of new information with each section and with nearly every recipe. I'd never had a spelt berry or a curry leaf before this book -- a shame! I'd certainly never heard of a "Double," a delicious Trinidadian chickpea-based burger sandwich, and I doubt I would have ever been so adventurous as to try an egg curry (in fact, the idea of an egg curry used to seem quite unappealing to me). But the Doubles, the Goan Egg Curry, the Winter Squash Stuffed with Spelt Berries, and Figs with Mustard Seeds and Curry Leaves are some of my favorite recipes in the book.

Other favorites include: a Chinese "Bean Curd with Tomatoes and Cilantro," "Sri Lankan Eggplant Curry," a French inspired "Mushroom and Potato Stew" and "Israeli Couscous with Asparagus and Fresh Mushrooms" with fresh morel mushrooms--mmmm! I could go on and on, but I hope this list gives a sense of the wonderful variety in this book.

Some of the recipes are time-consuming but many are relatively quick, taking sensible short cuts that do not compromise quality. My husband and I have found recipes in other cookbooks for some of the Indian dishes in World Vegetarian, and those of the other books seem much more complicated and daunting.

This book is also a great one for entertaining. The recipes range from very elegant to casual, and Jaffrey often gives suggestions for what to serve with each dish. My husband and I have received a number of compliments at dinner parties (oh, I know one usually does, but these guests seemed sincere and went back for seconds and thirds) and we've just been really pleased.

The book is also consistent in quality. I'd say 92% of the recipes we've made in the book have been A or A+s. The rest are mainly B/B+ and the lowest score has been a B-. No duds! I don't have another cookbook that scores nearly that well-- usually I encounter at least one or two recipes that just don't work and feel like they were just thrown in as filler.

I own a few other Jaffrey cookbooks: Quick and Easy Indian, Indian Cooking and World of the East. They are very good, and I continue to cook from them, but if I could only have one Jaffrey book (or only one cookbook for that matter) it would be World Vegetarian. It is an absolute masterpiece. I highly recommend it.

Ok, so I'm in the minority here, but this book isn't great.
First the positives: she provides great information on the different ingredients and there are a ton of recipes using pretty much any ingredient you might have in the fridge.
The negatives: the food lacks flavor. My husband is an Indian vegetarian (who, sadly, is a terrible cook), so I thought it would be nice to have a bunch of interesting dishes explained for a western audience. While a westerner can definitely cook these dishes, they're pretty boring, even for me. I have mainly made the bean and lentil dishes, and while they were edible, they were not repeaters.

I'm not following the five star group, but I enjoyed the story and the way Donna Leon writes. There's enough personal information about each of the main characters to add the realness and enjoy the little fickle behaviors of each, without it becoming the main driving part of the story telling. And the story itself is good, but not excellent in my opinion, because certain things that happened are almost too bad and too cliche-ish. There's a bit of exaggeration here and there of how bad some of the living conditions are and how much certain people have suffered because of this evil genius. And yet, in the end, we have a reasonable explanation of what happened, a charitable act of forgiveness that makes us feel better about "the law", and there's a certain balance of good and evil that feels like real justice instead of "letter of the law."

I'll definitely read more of the series to get the larger view. This was my first.

A death at the opera, a matter for the police, and my, how quickly the action starts. In Venice the police arrive by boat. Guido Brunetti is the Commissario of the police and the hero of this series.

It is learned the dead man is Wellauer, a German conductor. It seems that the death is caused by the ingestion of cyanide. One of the newspapers pictures the deceased maestro with Maria Callas.

Brunetti's wife's parents live in a palazzo. He asks his wife to arrange for him to attend a party there so he can ask questions about the maestro. Brunetti feels that in Venice gossip is the real cult. After the party Guido Brunetti decides to interview some of the musicians.

I really don't like to give genre fiction five stars, but this is exceedingly good.

Death at La Fenice, written in 1992, is Donna Leon's first in her series of crime novels set in Venice, featuring Guido Brunetti, Commissario of Police. (The American author has lived in Venice for many years and has taught English literature at degree level.)

La Fenice (pronounced La Fen-ee-chay) is the city's opera house, and the death is that of a visiting German conductor. (On her own website, the author relates how the impetus behind the book was her dislike of a certain German conductor with a dubious past, presumably von Karajan.)

Over 25 chapters and 338 pages, my interest was maintained: although not an un-put-down-able book, it is nevertheless a willing pick-me-up-able one. The characterisation is good, the description of Venice is realistic, and the plot believable. I enjoyed it so much, I have ordered the second in the series, Death in a Strange Country.

I had never read a Donna Leon novel before, and it is my misfortune for her Death at La Fenice was brilliant! Venice comes alive in her flawless prose and although the murder could have occurred anywhere in the world, the setting and its unique sub-culture lent an aura of beauty and elegance to the narrative. This is a quiet, sometimes hilarious, but always sensitive whodunit. I don't have to include a synopsis here as many others have done a better job of it. Suffice it to say that I was very satisfied with it. The plot was imaginative, the ending touching, the protagonist a delight to know. Well done, Ms. Leon!

Not your typical mystery book. The ending is not only a surprise, but a unique one. Enjoy!

This is an excellent book for amateur astronomers who would like direction on exactly where and how to find 100 of the most interesting nighttime sky objects -- nebula, planets, galaxies, double-doubles, star clusters, etc. Be advised that this is not a coffee table book full of breathtaking color photos straight from Hubble or a NASA space probe. This is a book on how to star hop your way from one object to the next. The book is full of drawings that depict how to do this, and the accompanying text is clear and accurate. This book has made finding many of these objects much easier for me. It's well worth the money and I highly recommend it.

Great insight for the novice star gazer. Bought this for my son and he uses it evey time he star gazes Lots of easy to understand information Very helpful

Turn Left at Orion is a great buy, especially for the beginning sky gazer. It is written for both beginners and experts and doesn't contain language that requires a Harvard degree to understand. If you are looking for a book on astrology, then you should begin here. It's filled with information, maps and - most of all - easy to understand language about the heavens.

This is a good tool to go along with any new beginning telescope you buy. We did learn a bit about telescopes, the stars, and planets, etc, before actually trying to look at any without our telescope.

The use of astronomers' jargon can be confusing at times, but that's part of the learning I suppose.

A good purchase overall, although a bit pricey.

Not a bad book exactly.

But I found it to be a waste of money.

The masters could do it in 150 pages or less. Usually a 600 page first novel sounds a warning. But the pages turned quickly, even tho it took 200 pages to finish after the ending was deduced. Good enough for me to look for the next book.

Unplug the phone, pull up your favorite chair and settle in for the best mystery novel this year. This strong debut is an often hilarious head-scratcher, and features a smartly drawn cast of character, from the lead detectives down to the most innocent victims.

Familyland, the showpiece theme park of the Disney-esque conglomerate Lamaar Studios, is stunned when one of its own--the man dressed as the centerpiece cartoon character Rambunctious Rabbit--is murdered in a hidden corner of the park's vast underground work area. Park operatives swing into high gear, shielding the company and its reputation from a public who would be horrified by both the murder and by the fact that the victim was a convicted child molester. Enter author Marshall Karp's first of many great inventions: Detective duo Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs.

Lomax and Biggs continue a grand tradition of mismatched partners, but they never descend to the now-standard method in which partners are written with diametrically-opposed qualities for the sake of a few laughs and some loud discourse. These two differ in the ways the real people who work together often do: One is married with kids, one is widowed with none; Lomax is handsome, while Biggs is brutally ugly yet blessed with a hypnotic voice and great charm. Biggs also likens himself a comedian, and his sharp comments throughout the book provide many great laughs. Both excel at their jobs.

The supporting characters, including Lomax's doting Teamster dad who keeps playing matchmaker, Lamaar PR queen Amy Cheever, and the Machiavellian company chairman, Ike Rose, are all created with great care and cunning. The players in this amazing book never seem created merely for plot purposes, but instead breathe on the page, living their lives in the most spontaneous ways. Each is a treasure.

The book is often quite moving, especially when Lomax opens his monthly letter from his late wife. She penned a number of these while undergoing unsuccessful chemotherapy, and the time he spends reading each letter is touching, enlightening, humorous, and provides an eloquent exploration of married love. His wife, like all the characters in the book, has been created with both broad strokes and fine detail, ably assisted by the author's nearly 700-page canvas. Yes, the story could have been told in half as many pages, but the resulting book would have been merely another bestselling page-turner, instead of the rich and satisfying read that lies between these covers.
It is a page turner, despite its length, as the initial murder soon becomes one of a series, each targeting disparate individuals with loose connections to Familyland.
Can Detectives Lomax and Biggs solve the crimes with the help/hindrance of Lamaar security and PR? Who is responsible for these heinous crimes which seem intent on destroying the Lamaar legacy? Is Lomax's black-sheep brother somehow involved? Grab The Rabbit Factory, settle in, and find out over it many tantalizing pages.

I haven't really read much in the whodunnit genre since high school, and I do read comedy sometimes. This book was lent to me by a colleague, and it's a real page-turner. Someone should make this into a film, preferably with Tom Hanks and Hank Azariah. I wholly recommend this book, and suggest that you read the cop-banter as deadpan deliveries. The one line that had me laughing out loud for close to a minute is a side comment, as the two detectives discuss the murder of the man dressed as the theme park mascot: "Character Assasination". TDF! Buy this book and solicit the author/Hollywood to make a film of it!

I'm not usually one to write reviews, but I tripped across this novel by accident and thought the first few pages looked promising. So now it's near 4am and I've just finished the whole book. Wow. That was one heckuva good read. As a novel-a-day guy, I read a lot of books. This was certainly made the top two percentile in terms of plot, characters and story. I'm glad to see that the next book, "Bloodthirsty" is out now.

Get a copy and read it. If you like mysteries, especially in the mode of
Pronzini/Mueller/Jance/Hillerman/etc, you'll probably like this one.

The Rabbit Factory is a great and very entertaining read and I can't wait to read the next of Karp's books Bloodthirsty.

On the cover of the version I have, a James Patterson quote promotes this novel as Carl Hiaasen of Los Angeles. I don't think Patterson has actually read this book (or maybe he hasn't read a Hiaasen novel) as although this is very funny in parts it certainly not written in the eccentric character surreal style that Hiaasen, Fitzhugh, Barry etc use. In fact this book is closer in style to most of Patterson's own books and to steal from his quote - only I think Karp's even better. With The Rabbit Factory at over 600 pages Karp also thankfully has not emulated the ridiculously low word count (average 180 pages large sized print) and short chapters of his friend (Karp tells us they're friends in his acknowledgements at the end) but to be honest I am surprised the editors didn't edit this book a bit. I mean there are whole sub plots that could been culled and left out for future books such as the gambling brother one which do interrupt the pace and flow of the main plot but their inclusion does make the book even better value for money for the purchaser.

The basic plot of this loyal partners LA homicide cop adventure starts off with the murder of a Warner Brothers/Disney type corporation's best known character Rambunctious Rabbit, at their Californian theme park Familyland. Immediately the PR machine of Lamaar and Familyland want to put solving the crime second and letting anyone including staff know that there has even been a murder a secret. This is not the usual procedure for a homicide as colleagues and the public may know vital information but Lamaar's CEO has friends in high places so detectives Lomax and Biggs are told to keep it quiet and if they had any doubt to the importance of Lamaar, to solve the murder yesterday! Unfortunately for Lamaar the actor in the rabbit suit is only the first in a series of victims associated with the company and Lomax and Biggs are going to be under more pressure then they've ever been before to solve and stop this campaign of terror. Fortunately for the readers though, this pressure does nothing to stop the wisecracks and hilarious one liners from these two great new characters in the detective thriller genre.

If you like the wise cracking while solving murder read also check out Killer Material and other mysteries starring Biff Kincaid by author Dan Barton. But do yourself a favour and order The Rabbit Factory today!

That Camden Summer contains a vicious rape scene. I will never buy another book by this author. I do not read romance novels for violence. And to think she writes Harlequin romances!

This was a "romp", which I thoroughly enjoyed and hated to see it come to an end.

Description from the back of book:

The year is 1916. The place is a tiny New England village called Camden - where a newly divorced woman learns that love can be more special the second time around...

When free thinking divorcee Roberta Jewett returns to her hometown of Camden, Maine, she discovers that small-town folk consider a divorced woman little more that a prostitute. Condemned by her mother and scorned by neighbors, she nonetheless perseveres in her struggle to forge a good life for her little girls and herself. Behaving like no "respectable" woman would, she gets a job as a county nurse, learns to drive, and buys her very own Model T. Embittered by her painful marriage to an unfaithful husband, she has no intention of being any man's victim again. So when widowed carpenter Gabriel Farley begins work renovating her house, Roberta's first response to him is blatant resentment. But Gabriel's quiet, vibrant masculinity soon finds a way to soothe Roberta's heart.

And in the ultimate test of will and devotion, she must depend on the man she has grown to love and summon the courage to stand up to the entire town.

* This book was so great. I can't tell you how many times it brought tears to my eyes. I couldn't put it down & it's a definite keeper. The story is wonderful & sad at times but Roberta doesn't let the bad things overrule the life she's worked so hard to keep exciting for her girls. I don't see how anybody wouldn't love this book. I HIGHLY recommend.

I can't exactly pinpoint why I didn't LOVE this book. I guess it took a long time for me to start to like Roberta. I thought she was too abrasive at first to Gabe, who was sweet, strong and understanding (a trademark of Spencer's men it seems), but it was still a good story.

This was one of the "newer" novels from Ms. Spencer I read and I was a little hesitant because it was newer..But so far I have read this book TWICE and would read it again in a heartbeat. I always like writers who can pull a reader into the book or novel to the point you see yourself there. That is what happens with this one. I traveled back in time and lived with Roberta and the kids and laughed and cried with them. I would have to say the most enjoyable parts of the book were when Roberta wanted to buy a car (how scandalous!!) and her first driving lesson. This is a love story, but it is also an adventure. Buy this, you will enjoy it.

I was excited to know that there was another X-files book make by Kevin Anderson because I love how well he writes his novels.

I was disappointed when I finished the book. Here are the positives and the negatives I found.

On the positive side it was detailed.

On the negative side I found that the main plot of the story seemed a long way away from what was happening. I felt lost and confused at the end.

I really wish that it had not been drawn out so much. I understand that it was meant to build suspense but I didn't understand anything until the last seventy pages.

If you are going to read Kevin J. Anderson's novels read: "The X-files Antibodies

I enjoyed this book but i thought i could have been better. While reading this book i felt like Mulder was left out alot. But the book kept my attention. Although i thought it could have been better i reccomend this book.

Now having read 7 books either written or co-written by Kevin J. Anderson,(3 Star Wars, 3 X-Files and 1 Dune) I can say that the man has good ideas, I just don't think that his writing is all that absorbing. As with his Star Wars books, his X-Files books never quite ring true of the characters. As for the cases, they are pretty good, but it isn't Mulder and Scully who are chasing down the monsters. Of all the new X-Files books, Charles Grant's "Whirlwind" nails the characters of Mulder and Scully, but the case isn't particularly involving.

Of the three X-Files novelizations by Kevin J. Anderson, I think I like this one best. The plot is fast-paced and the story line is mysterious.

It's a shame that there are only a few X-Files novelizations by Anderson and other authors. I loved the show and am just discovering these books.

Now, it's too bad there aren't any "Millennium" novelizations!

This is a review of the audiobook version of Ground Zero by Kevin Anderson read by Gillian Anderson.
Set against the world of government sponsored nuclear weapons research , Ground Zero has agents Mulder and Scully investigating the death of a researcher who is blown to bits - but the rest of his office is intact. There is no known personal sized nuke- so what happened? The audiobook is read by Gillian Anderson , and the abridgement has the focus on Scully's part of the investigation and the unlikely supernatural conclusion that takes the agents to the south pacific and the site of a planned above ground test of a new super weapon.
Anderson's reading is great! I got a good chuckle out of her comments about how that Mulder's theories were bound to be way out there and not grounded in science. Well paced, the book moves along with action and theory and some cool supernatural mysticism concerning a lost tribe , wiped out by an above ground nuclear test in the 50s and their long journey to retribution and vengeance from beyond......

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. An excellent read for anyone interested in WW1. No point in saying more. Read it.

After reading A Storm in Flanders, I understand--for the first time--why it was called The Great War and The War to End All Wars. Though the book focuses almost exclusively on the Ypres Salient (other pertinent events are mentioned, from the impetus for the war to Verdun and the Somme), here was where the horrors of modern warfare were first unleashed: flamethrowers, machine guns, poison gas, the godawful trench. The carnage is almost unbelievable. But the book is such an important read--one must simply slog through the death and horror to try to begin to understand this conflict.

Winston Groom does a great job in writing for the layman like me; I don't read military history, as a rule. My only criticism is that all of the maps should have been grouped together for ease of reference. Instead, both endpapers are maps and there are also maps in the middle of the book. Confusing. Otherwise, a highly recommended resource to try to understand what on earth happened in Flanders fields.

Too often,I, as an American have tended to overlook the importance of WW1 and its relevance to todays world.I had often heard that WW2 was a war to determine who actually won won WW1,and also that had Woodrow wilson's 14 points been adopted as the peace settlement there might not have been a WW2 at all.The war reparations that Germany had to pay to Europe and the "War Guilt Clause" in the Treaty of Versailles,were a primary cause of Hitler coming to power.Grooms" book backs up my interpretation of WW1 and its aftermath.While not a technical book showing troop movements,supply convoys,etc.it conveys a really great overall picture of the battlefields of Flanders where millions perished and it is an impossible book to put down cause of the writers' style."You're pretty much right there in the trenches slogging through the mud,witnessing the gruesome sights,sounds, and smells and experiencing a deadly shell percussion sting or your first breath of mustard gas.if for some peculiar reason beyond human conception this war was necessary I'm awfully glad that these people, both allies and central powers ,took on their roles so generously,maybe it was their hope that another generation would not have to suffer something like this.I particularly liked the way the author strategically places WW1 poetry throughout the book,real visions of hell.Maps are simple and understandible,the pictures reinforce the writers dialogue,you're as close to Flanders as you'll ever want to be.

Technically, there were four major battles four in the four years of WWI in the area around Ypres...but in fact, except for short periods during the winter, the battle was almost continual from 1914 to 1918. Generals were constantly asking soldiers to fight for 'worthless' pieces of ground and to often fight in conditions that were remarkably like a cesspool. One of the soldiers quoted talks about the land having been 'destroyed' to such an extent that it had the consistency of quicksand and that to fall into a shellhole full of water (and whatever else) would be certain death from drowning.

Most appalling for many of the soldiers, was the visual landscape that was churned mud and body parts. Because of the constant shelling, bodies were never underground for long, and soldiers in the trenches would be subject to injuries from shrapnel, metal and flying body parts. Bones of soldiers killed earlier in the war became morbid missiles and soldiers described these as the 'revenge of the dead'.

The best estimates were that 700,000 were killed during the four years of fighting, and if you use the five or six to one ratio of injured to dead, the total casualties come to between 4 to 4.5 million. All this dead and destruction occurred in an area forty miles wide and five miles deep. Groom has included some picture from the battlefield that give a visual idea of the destruction and you have to ask yourself how anyone could be asked to fight under these conditions.

The most remarkable statistic of the battle area, was that the 'original' professional BEF (British Expeditionary Force) of 250,000, who were known as the "Old Contemptables" were wiped out by the second year of the war. The officers from England's Public (that is Private Schools for the Aristocracy) Schools that were recruited, from the British Isles "best and brightest" were also annihilated by the third year. By the fourth year of the war, conscription had emptied the cities and countryside of england and german POWs were being used to cultivate the fields; while woman and children worked round the clock making artillery shells.

The Ypres (pronounce E-pray) Salient was where the German's first tried out Chlorine, Phosgene and Mustard Gas; the use of grenades, as well as the use of flame-throwers. The first battle tanks were used in the area and the Battle of Cambrai is considered the first 'tank' battlefield with the use by the British of over 500 tanks at one time. Not only was a generation of men lost by the British at Ypres, but Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South Africa and India all contributed troops that were cut down like wheat when they went 'over the top'.

Reading down through the thoughts of the men who fought there, you wonder if the 'men in charge' really had any concern as to what the 'man in the trench' was experiencing; or even more callously, whether they cared. The discussions by the generals of 'bleeding the other side "white"' by attrition is the most startling epitaph of the battles.

I liked Groom's Civil War book, so I decided to read his book on Ypres. Groom writes well and the flow of his book is very good. This book progressed well and the four Ypres battles were covered in summary. This is more of a summary history of the battles in this region. However, this is not the authoritative book on the battle. As even Groom will admit, this book is for Americans, and not the British who fought this battle. It is a very readable, detailed book though.

Groom writes well and gives the low down on this huge battles for a tiny piece of Belgium. The flow of this book is as well as anything that Ambrose did. This is a nice read on something most Americans know little about.

Walker's novel is smart, insightful, frightening, exciting, and moving--particularly the last. I've read it three times now, and (not quite a spoiler), I sob my heart out at the end each time. I can't even describe the plot without tearing up. She has, in the character of the bus driver, created one of the most admirable heroes you'll ever get to know in a novel. One of my favorite ten mystery novels of all times.

Ok, like the title said, I don't read much. The last book I read....hmm....is "where's Waldo?" really considered a book? Anyways, I picked up this book at the library to show my daughter reading books is good. It sat on the kitchen table for weeks (had to renew it at the library!).

One day, I was home alone with the flu; decided to read this book to get my mind off my being so sick. Needless to say it sucked me in! I don't know what it was about the book. Molly Cates (the lead character) isn't a superhero with a cape, the idea of reading a book so DARK (really dark---11 children and a busdriver underground with a dying light bulb)doesn't sound EXTRAORDINARY, but I found myself engulfed in this novel.

Molly Cates--so ordinary. Because of that I found myself relating to her...a 40-something single mother of a 24 year old daughter...even though I'm only 25! A romance rekindled with her daughters dad. A wacked out psycho bible thumper holding 12 people in a buried school bus on his compound.

Chapters twisted between Molly's investigating the psycho's past, while working with Lover (a leiutenant) and his department to figure out where, why, how, etc. The kids and adult on the bus, -- telling stories, fighting, kids getting sick, passing time. Time....the book starts on day 46...the world is suppossed to end in 50. Although 46 days has passed, Mary Willis Walker fills you in on the events that lead to their captivity, up to their current situation.

Molly Cates is so NORMAL that I enjoyed reading ABOUT her---although I felt I was reading WITH heR.

Her love affair with her ex-husband is a nice side story too.
I wish I had more room to go into detail.......but then I'd end up giving up some of the thrill of the book, and THIS BOOK IS JUST TOO WONDERFUL TO SPOIL IT FOR YOU.

I LOVED THIS BOOK. Buy it here, get it from the library, borrow it from a friend...just get it and read it. You won't regret it.
I just LOVE this Molly Cates character so much, and I was thrilled find out that there are 3 books starring Molly Cates. The bad thing is UNDER THE BEETLES CELLAR is number 2...so I had to go and get the first one (THE RED SCREAM). It tied up some of the questions I had (like how did she start seeing the ex-husband again?) stuff. I just finished reading THE RED SCREAM and now I have the answers. The only bad thing about reading Under the Beetles Cellar first, was that I sort of knew a major detail about The Red Scream...Molly Cate's doesn't die at the end of the first book. But, still worth every second of both books. Where's number 3!!!!!

Anyways, the book was just fantastic! I couldn't turn the pages quick enough, let alone put it down. UNDER THE BEETLES CELLAR is a better reason to destroy trees for the pages than toilet paper! Read it and you'll be SOOOO happy you didn! Enjoy it!

Now, I must go review The Red Scream!

In the past seven days, I have been priviledged to read two of the best contemporary, yet believably realistic books, I have come across as of yet in many a moon. One was Bernice McFadden's sad and beautiful The Warmest December, and also this gripping saga by Mary Willis Walker. I expect she was heavily influenced by the Waco tragedy as this was published not long afterward. We don't know much about the victims of the real tragedy, but here Walker takes and breathes amazing life into her victims, a bus driver who served in Vietnam, and 11 children who are hidden underground beneath a barn for a 50-day "earth purification" before the world ends--at least according to religious fanatical cult leader Samuel Mordecai.

This is also the story of reporter Molly Cates, an incredibly brave and determined journalist who truly cares about the victims, and all the people tied to both the predator and his prey, beginning on day 46 of the 50-day torture.

Walker has the ability to take you into a nightmarish world that's hell on the cops and feds who know Mordecai is never going to let his hostages go, and she also shows you the resilience of young children in a hopeless and frightening situation. I was extraordinarily moved by their ability to keep up a sense of humor and sheer resolve alternately with low, hopeless moments of despair, and the reluctant heroism of bus driver Walter as he kept the kids calm with his soap operatic story of the turkey vulture named Jacksonville and the armadillo named Lopez that reflected his and a friend's time in captivity back in Vietnam.

Amazingly powerful and moving, this is a story that shows both the cruelty of the human animal that man can be, and also the tireless, selfless dedication of others as the opposing force. More than that, it shows that humans can be stronger than they ever thought themselves capable in a seemingly hopeless situation. This is a truly amazing book that had me winded by the time the climax arrived, and that's a very good thing!

Walker's riveting third novel features a bus driver and 11 elementary school children abducted by an apocalyptic religious cult, resulting in a 50-day stand-off between federal agents and armed cult members.

Protagonist Molly Cates, a crime writer for a Texas magazine and the only one to ever interview the cult's charismatic leader, Samuel Mordecai, is in a race against time to discover something about Mordecai that will give the hostage negotiators some leverage before the promised apocalypse on day 50.

The novel opens on the 46th day. Walter Demming, the bus driver, a psychologically scarred Vietnam vet who has spent the last 20 years guarding his life from involvement, keeps his charges' spirits up with the continuing adventures of a vulture named Jacksonville, counterbalancing the daily harangues from the cult's leader.

Demming and the children, ranging in age from 6 to 12, are imprisoned in a derelict bus buried underground in an old barn. Worms and bugs tunnel in the earth packed against the bus' windows. One of their two bare light bulbs has just burned out. The children play tic-tac-toe on the windows and pogs in the aisles between the seats.

Fed twice a day on cereal and milk, they fantasize about food. They argue, snap at one another, burst into tears. One of the children suffers from severe asthma. The cult refuses medication and his attacks terrify everyone.

Without melodrama or mush, Walker develops a group dynamic that relies on breathing life into the individual children and especially Demming, a reluctant hero who's scared and lost and determined to do his best.

Walker alternates between scenes in the bus and efforts on the outside. The police, the FBI and the hostage negotiator have gotten nowhere with Mordecai and don't know where the children are being held. Cates, herself viscerally intimidated by her one meeting with the cult leader, delves into the odd circumstances of his birth and his harsh childhood, which clearly loom large in his religious landscape.

Cates' detective work, which involves bending more than a few of her own personal and professional rules, is absorbing and ingenious without being unbelievable. As Mordecai's pathology unfolds, we also get a portrait of Demming from his home and his two close friends.

Cates herself is a prickly but appealing character. A loner with a grown daughter, she's in love with her ex-husband (one of the cops) and driven but ambivalent about her job.

The suspense is nail-biting, but what makes this novel a stand-out is Demming and the kids. Walker gets the atmosphere of timeless boredom and fear just right, the children's voices ring true and Demming's character, revealed in accumulating flashes throughout the narrative, is utterly believable.

A scary thriller with a smashing explosive finish.

I've enjoyed all of Ms. Walker's books, but this is my favorite. In fact, this is one of my all-time favorite suspense novels, period. I love the concept, and the characterization is superb. You also might want to try The Red Scream. It's almost as good.

Anyone know if/when she has a new book coming out?

Patricia Lewin, Author of BLIND RUN, OUT OF REACH, & OUT OF TIME

John Connolly's THE KILLING KIND is the third in his series of crime novels dealing with former NYPD detective-turned PI Charlie Parker. (First was EVERY DEAD THING and second was DARK HOLLOW.) These novels are first-person tough guy narratives told from Parker's perspective, in the tradition of such hardboiled crime writers as Ross Macdonald and James Lee Burke; however, the Parker novels definitely have their own distinct twist and flavor and are not at all clichéd. Parker is a man with an extremely troubled past that includes the brutal murder of his wife and children, as well as killings committed by Parker himself as he pursued and finally caught his family's killer (chronicled in EDT.) Along the way, he's found a new love interest, psychologist Rachel Wolfe, and he's gotten lots of help from friends named Angel and Louis (a gay, interracial couple of semi-retired criminals.)

In this third installment, Parker, stilling living in Maine, is hired by a wealthy, powerful man named Jack Mercier to look into the circumstances of the alleged suicide of the daughter of a former friend. As he delves deeper into the case, Parker finds connections to a shady evangelical group called `the Fellowship,' which may also be linked to violence against abortion providers; he also discovers links to a fringe religious group known as the Aroostook Baptists who had disappeared in northern Maine decades before and whose mass grave is accidentally uncovered at the beginning of the book. Along the way, Parker crosses swords with a spider-loving killer known as Elias Pudd, and faces competition from a Jewish assassin known as the Golem. It all ends messily, which is the norm for a Connolly novel.

A supernatural element, which mostly consists of Parker seeing dead victims, is once again in the foreground. The supernatural continues to play an increasingly large role in subsequent Parker tales, too. In doing so, Connolly blends elements of horror into the hardboiled crime genre, which no doubt turns off mystery genre purists, but delights people like me who enjoy crime, horror, and originality. What's really great about Connolly's usage of the supernatural in these books, though, is that he often employs it ambiguously - for example, we're never quite sure if these visions are real or if Parker's imagining them.

As always, Connolly writes superbly, painting settings, and nailing both dialogue and Parker's internal monologue - something that's doubly impressive when you take into account the fact that Connolly's an Irishman and most of his settings and characters are American. Connolly's main characters - protagonist Parker plus sidekicks Angel and Louis - are very intriguing and well-drawn. Connolly's `good guys' have an ambiguous morality - they're not clean-cut do-gooders, just a lighter shade of gray than the truly evil people they face. I find Rachel Wolfe much less interesting. She seems like a stereotypical academic/feminist pacifist, who nags Parker about his past violent acts even though most of them were justified, who feels guilty about killing someone herself back in the first novel even though it was totally justified, and who doesn't want armed protection even when she knows dangerous people may be after her. (This latter tendency often makes her a ready-made damsel-in-distress, predictably.) Fortunately, she's not as central of a character as Parker, Angel, and Louis.

Last, Connolly knows how to make a good villain. His villains tend to be almost like comic book or James Bond bad guys (Connolly himself cites the latter as a big influence on his baddies) in that they sport physical deformities or abnormalities which mirror their internal evil - however, Connolly succeeds in avoiding the `campiness' often associated with Bond and comic villains. KILLING KIND's Pudd is a great example - he loves spiders and often uses them to kill, but he also looks and acts a bit like them, with long, hairy fingers and such. The Golem too, though less of a clear-cut `bad guy' (I often found myself rooting for him,) is also a weird-looking, disfigured character. In future Parker novels, Connolly continues to devise the types of bad guys who stand out from the herd of fictional killers.

If you like hardboiled crime novels and you're not a mystery genre purist who's going to be bothered by having some horror elements mixed in, you'll love this series - though I recommend reading them in order from EVERY DEAD THING for maximum enjoyment and understanding. I just finished reading this book for the third or fourth time, if that tells you anything about how much I like the Parker series. I'm eagerly awaiting my pre-ordered copy of Connolly's latest, THE REAPERS, which is coming out later this month, and to kill time I'm rereading all the preceding books in the series.

Don't get me wrong, I love John Connolly as an author and have purchased almost all his other books, but I guess I just don't get to excited about spiders.

I am a lover of horror films and thrilling novels, none of which have EVER given me nightmares. This book, however, honestly haunted my dreams. The incredible detail that Connolly uses puts vivid pictures in your head that last hours after putting the book down.

This was my first Connolly book, and I absolutely loved it. Although I realized after a few chapters that I was coming into the middle of an ongoing chain of books, I was easily able to grasp what was happening and didn't feel left out at all. I will certainly go back and read the stories before this one as well as the ones after!

I enjoyed this one as much as Every Dead Thing and The Book of Lost Things. There were some very powerfully graphic scenes that offered the most suspense in this Charlie Parker series. What made my copy even more exciting was that it turned out to be an autographed copy!
Since spiders do completely frighten me, this book certainly had its moments of giving me that creeping feeling and turning up the lights to make sure that spiders hadn't crawled out of fiction and into reality in my room! This one was certainly the most horrifying, at least in conjunction with my particular phobias.
I am quite anxious to read his other books!

This is the third book in Connolly's Charlie "Bird" Parker series, and it's a great read. So great, in fact, that I literally ran all over town on a stiflingly hot and humid day, trying to find another copy of it (I had given my first copy away a few years ago) so that I could immediately start it after finishing Dark Hollow.

I disagree completely with the reviewers who say it's not as good as the first two. I think it's just as good, and even better in some parts.

It picks up after the events of the second novel in the series, starting the action approximately 2 years after the murder of Parker's first wife and child. In this one, Parker is (as usual) trying to solve multiple mysteries at once. He is trying to find out what happened to Grace Peltier, a young woman who was researching a religious group that mysteriously disappeared into thin air decades earlier. He takes this job on in spite of the fact that his life has finally begun to take on some of the trappings of normalcy. He has been working cases that don't demand he find true justice for victims of violent crime, and as a result, he's pretty stable, very much removed (at least it seems so) from all the horror and blood he previously found himself mired in. He may not like some of the jobs he takes on (he feels a bit slimed by what he's asked to do, but none of it is life-threatening or illegal, and none of it involves finding justice for dead people), but he is relatively clear of horrible dreams and ghostly visitations, and he is trying to start his life over without the haunting memories of his dead wife and child foremost in his mind. Normalcy. He seems to want that more than anything.

Normalcy, at least the kind you and I might experience, is not in the cards for Parker, however. He might resist taking on the cases that bring out who he really is, but ultimately he can not refuse them.

Here, as he tries to build a relationship with Rachel Wolf AND do the job his soul craves for him, he finds himself dealing with Mr. Pudd, whose fascination with spiders is creepy at best and downright horrifying at worst. The violence in this one is particularly difficult to stomach, and at many points throughout the novel, I found myself feeling a tiny bit of the revulsion, soul-sickness, and almost-paralyzing fear that Parker was feeling in the course of his investigation.

As always, Louis and Angel are there to both cover him and provide comic relief at moments of great tension. But this time, for the first time that I can recall, part of the horror involves them directly, and Parker must not only solve the mysteries he finds but also try to save the life of one of these friends. This novel also sets up the tension that drives much of the fourth novel, The White Road, in the series when Parker, confronted with possible damage to his own spirit and sense of morality, makes a decision that creates distance between himself and the people he most trusts to help him stay alive.

While this book is funny throughout (with Parker's wit and the influence of his two "sidekicks" making even the toughest moments opportunities for humor), it is also bleak and almost unrelentingly dark.

All in all, this book is worth more than one read. I know that I like it even more the second time around.

I greatly enjoyed this book, which gave a truly unique and rare perspective into female life in early Colonial New England. Thoroughly absorbing the chapters is truly co-dependent on simultaneously reading through the footnotes at the back, so know in advance that there will be a lot of flipping back and forth, but that this will enrich and enhance the interpretation and absorbability of the diary. I love firsthand historical accounts, and now have a renewed appreciation for early colonial life, particularly that of the female voice in this era, and even moreso women in childbirth in rural Maine in the winter (!). It almost seems voyeuristic to read Martha's diary, knowing that she likely never intended for it to be read by anyone else, let alone 220+ years later, but her voice is fluid, peaceful, humble, and dutiful to her family and her society. If you enjoyed this, also rent or buy the PBS documentary video of it by the same name, which has period re-enactments, and live narration by the author as she explains the journey of putting this work together. A fabulous read, ripe for discussion particularly in examining the parallels between this life so long ago, and our own today.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwifes' Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 demonstrates that an ordinary person's life can shed light and produce a more rich historiographical picture of a time period than solely focusing on prominent figures and events of history. The main thrust of this work is to debunk previous opinions of the diary that found the work not very useful in presenting important matters of historical interest of colonial times such as historian James W. North's comment "brief and with some exceptions not of general interest" or Charles Elventon Nash's comment ""trivial and unimportant...being but a repetition of what has been recited many times" and concluded "Like many diaries of farm women, it is filled with trivia about domestic chores and pastimes." (pp. 8,9) Ulrich debunks these previous interpretations of Martha Ballard's diary by showing that the diary exposes the social history of not only women in rural colonial times but addresses the bigger picture of colonial life in general through the daily activities of herself, her family, and neighbors in the community. Ulrich compares Martha Ballard's diary with three other documents from the community and time period Martha Ballard lived in. These documents were specifically from Daniel Cony who was a medical doctor, William Howard a wealthy businessman, and Henry Sewall who was the town clerk. She uses these documents to fill in information not mentioned in Martha Ballard's diary and also as a counterbalance of the men's perspective of events in Hallowell and what they felt was important to document verses a women's perspective of what Martha Ballard thought was worth documenting in her diary. Ulrich then extrapolates from these sources an interpretive picture of colonial life. On the one hand the heavy interpretive nature of this book forces the reader to wonder if this interpretation is close to the mark of accuracy or flawed in someway. On the other hand Ulrich heavily used other documented evidence to support her interpretation which lends credibility to her interpretation. An amateur historian would have a difficult time painting this picture of colonial life; however, Ulrich seems to do this with great expertise and eloquence. The expertise and eloquence is obviously derived from her academic career which has focused on the social history of women during the United States colonial era.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's academic life has consisted of previously being a professor of American history at the University of New Hampshire and is currently a Phillips Professor of Early American history at Harvard University. Ulrich's main research area has been in the fields of early American social history, women's history, and material culture. Some of Ulrich's work in this area include Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Early New England, 1650-1750 (1982), A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (1990), In The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Making of an American Myth (2001), and Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History (2007). Ulrich certainly has over twenty years of research in the area of social history in the colonial era to make her an authoritative author on the subject and this is demonstrated in her work A Midwife's Tale in which she not only used evidence from documents from that particular community in the time period, but also used her historical imagination, (sometimes used to heavily), to interpret the diary entries to give a vivid depiction of both Martha Ballard's life and colonial rural life in general.

Ulrich formatted each chapter by presenting excerpts from Martha Ballard's diary and then spent the remainder of each chapter comparing these entries with the other written accounts from that time and using an interpretive approach to decipher what the significance of Martha Ballard's entries meant with regards to the life of Martha Ballard and the community she lived in. Ulrich didn't include the entire diary of Martha Ballard in her book and selectively pulled excerpts from different parts to illustrate the different social factors playing out in the daily life of Martha and the Hallowell community, but did include other entries from the dairy within her evaluation to support her interpretation. Obviously Ulrich could not have included all the entries of Martha Ballard's diary and analyzed all sections due to the constraints a book length imposes, however, some interpretations were based on an entire reading of the diary and the reader is not privy to this broader context of information. Ulrich acknowledges this fact when she stated, "Someday the dairy may be published. What follows in no sense is a substitute for it; it is an interpretation, a kind of exegesis." (p. 34) Ulrich admittedly states this is only an interpretation in which Ulrich seems to read in between the lines and/or provides an interpretation based on what was not said verses what was explicitly said due to the fact the entries were brief, mostly lacked an opinionated tone, and were mostly matter of fact daily details. Even though the other sources of evidence backing her interpretations were thorough there is no true way to know if Ulrich's interpretations are mostly correct, somewhat correct, or completely flawed unless the reader had read the entire dairy and other documents she consulted herself. This leaves the reader to just take Ulrich's word for it that her interpretation of the diary entries are as accurate as they can be. Ulrich in some cases may have used her historical imagination a bit excessively, but overall she presents enough evidence from other sources to make her interpretation for the most part as credible as it can be and never the less very enjoyable to read.

I know this is a well respected book but in all honesty I found it to be very repetitious and boring. There are only so many times you can listen to complaints about colic and very similar sounding births before you get bored to tears. While writing the history of ordinary people is important, Ballard lived a boring and uneventful life. Unless you want to hear about the stories of dozens of births steer clear. And i'm a phd student used to dry books.

Please disregard the 2 stars in the rating. It is a 5 star book. The system automaticaly put 2 stars and would not let me change it.

I can't say enough about how wonderful this book is and how much I enjoyed reading it. This book would be a wonderful gift for anyone in the medical profession. It is a fascinating account of an amazing woman facing the challenges of life in early Maine as well as the every day facts of life necessary for survival. She contributed immensely to life itself as she was the midwife to hundreds of, if not more, women and the birth of their children.

For myself, I used it as a genealogical tool because that is the area of the country where all of my ancestors came from. It is facinating to know the trials and tribulations as well as the joys of our ancestors.

Priscilla Paul
Memphis

Interesting diary of a Maine midwife. Not the easiest read but enjoyable.