We only get one weekend with this New York City couple, and it just isn't enough. On the morning of their open house, their dachsund takes ill, and a man takes a taxi hostage in the middle of rush hour traffic. They rush off to the vet, listening to the radio all the while, trying to beat the traffic back to their apartment in time for the showing. Needless to say, things get chaotic. The writing is charming and you find yourself rooting for the couple to get a good bid on their apartment, or to get their dog back in good health, or to wind up happily ever after. I can't tell you if they do, but I can tell you it's a great journey. And no, the dog doesn't die.

Do not read the jacket description about this book! (It makes it sound sappy and goofy. Well, maybe it is a little bit sappy, but it is too well written to be described that way.) It is a story about decisions that change lives, but it is also heartbreakingly romantic in places. Hoffman’s novels almost always have a supernatural element to them, and this one did too, but it surprised me this time. She remains a favorite.

The imagery in this novel is fantastic. I re-read several passages. Learning the history of the drum is a story within the story. It was like reading an old legend, and it was my favorite part of the book. Interesting how some horrific experiences can be so softly explained.

Remember “She sells sea shells down by the seashore?” This novel is the story of the woman behind that tongue twister, Mary Anning. In the seaside town of Lyme, just outside of London, fossils and friendships are uncovered. At a time when Jane Austin is in her heyday and the bible is seen as historical fact, fossils don’t exactly fit into fashionable society. The discovery of skeletons from extinct animals, are the cause of scientific furvor and controversy. Mary is right in the middle of it. Mary Anning’s lifelong journey with fossils began as a common way to make ends meet for her family, and gradually developed into a scientific exploration unlike anything the world had seen.

Every time I opened Final Exits, I learned something new and I wanted others to share in the "fun." I became particularly fond of annoying those around me by blurting out things like "Did you know that bees and wasps cause 6,000 deaths a year?" or "Look, here's a guy who specialized in killing landladies!" and "Ewww! Listen to what it says about cockroaches!" Am I the only one who finds these things fascinating?

A fast-paced story of integration, that tugs at the heart strings. Let’s say you have to drive a bleeding white man to the doors of a hospital in 1960, in the south, and you are a 10 year old black boy. Should you deliver him to the “white side” or the “black side” of the hospital? Such are the everyday dilemmas for the people of Revere, Mississippi where race is the ultimate decision maker. With fully realized characters and a wonderful sense of place, Johnson captures the spirit of the small southern town.

After reading Tomato Girl, the most accurate phrase I can think of to describe it is heart-wrenching. To watch the ugliness of a mother's mental illness unfold, through the eyes of her 11 year old daughter, is both enlightening and terrifying. When you come out on the other side of this novel, you feel as though you have an understanding of how light can come out of a horribly dark situation. I found Ellie to be an insightful narrator, struggling to understand an adult world that is far from normal. Good for those who liked Southern gothic authors Carson McCullers and Kaye Gibbons.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a completely engrossing novel set on the plains of Northern Wisconsin. Edgar Sawtelle is a little boy who comes into the world without a voice. But he doesn't need a voice to communicate with his dogs. The Sawtelles raise dogs, not for their withers height or by any other AKC point system. The Sawtelles are looking for something else; character, heart, and a compatibility with people. They find all of this and more in Almondine, Edgar's dog. It is epic. It is heartbreaking. It is wonderful.

George Pemberton is the ruler of his Appalachian timber empire. In 1929 he returns from a trip with a wife. The dark and lovely Serena. The mystique surrounding Serena grows around the lumberjack camp with each of her accomplishments. This is a woman who looks at a tree and accurately quotes the amount of timber it will yield; a woman who saves her husband from being mauled by a bear; a woman who hunts rattlesnakes with her trained hawk. Amazing narrative, wicked characters, thrilling plot. It is the perfect fall book.

Enzo is the charismatic narrator of The Art of Racing in the Rain. He has struggled since his puppyhood with the fact that monkeys got opposable thumbs and dogs did not. It just isn't fair. Why does the canine have a wonderful, imaginative, innovative mind, and not have the physical means to open a refrigerator door? He stays home and watches television while his owner (a down-on-his-luck racecar driver) and family are away. The Weather Channel, we learn, is not about the weather, but about the world. Unfortunately, things get very rough for the family and Enzo is there through the pains of that real world. Just the way a good dog ought to be. The best ending I've read in quite some time.

“When they spoke to each other, they sounded like birds.” Almost identical, three stunningly beautiful sisters share an imaginary secret world and a secret language. It sounds like a charming and whimsical tale on the surface. Unfortunately, the eldest sister has created an imaginary world for her sisters, in order to escape the traumatic events of this world. Alice Hoffman delivers a coming-of-age story that drifts to the reader through a haze of dark events that shape the fate of these three sisters’ lives.
One of her best.

"Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And although he doesn't know it, that book also survived: it crossed oceans and generations, and changed lives." Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that book. She has her hands full keeping track of her little brother Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah) and taking copious notes in her book, How to Survive in the Wild Volume Three. But when a mysterious letter arrives in the mail she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family.