Books We Recommend

Here are some books we recommend and a link to Amazon.com if you want to order them online.
Click on the book to get more information about the book or to order from Amazon.com:

Aaron's father, has written a new book. It's an educational book for children (reading level 9-12) about events and daily life in Istanbul. His parents traveled to Turkey a few years ago to research the book.

This is the brother of Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes and 'Tis, but he is a different writer and he's not Frank. This book is mostly about Malachy's life after he came back to America as a young man. He includes brief flashbacks to his childhood but doesn't dwell on it. It is very interesting to read his version of the events Frank wrote about and equally interesting to consider what he chose to include or exclude.

 
What's waiting to be read:

The Crossword Murder by Nero Blanc I bought this in Ocean City last summer. The authors (Nero Blanc - "Black White" is the pen name for husband and wife writing team Cordelia Frances Biddle and Steve Zettler) were doing a book signing at Atlantic Books. It looks like a fun book and I love crosswords.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

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Tis : A Memoir by Frank McCourt

Though not as good as Angela's Ashes, this book was still a good story. It starts where Angela's Ashes left off - Frank has just arrived in America with an Irish brogue, no job and no friends or family. The pace starts out slow and covers his early jobs, loves and struggles but then picks up and rapidly brings you through about 35 years of his life. The humorous stories still abound and though the poor Irish boy makes out well in the end, it's not a fairy tale life of a fictional story. This is real love, life and loss.

 

 

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Angela's Ashes : A Memoir by Frank McCourt

This Pulitzer Prize winner is a captivating true story about Frank McCourt's childhood growing up poor in New York and then Ireland. Talk about a hard life! Most of the men in his life (and those in Ireland for that matter) drink away what little money they manage to make when they're sober and when they're on the dole they drink that away too. McCourt's ingenuity, humor and thirst for reading are what kept him alive. This was a joy to read and once finished I immediately dove into his sequel, 'Tis.

 

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October Sky : A Memoir by Homer H. Hickam Jr. (Originally titledRocket Boys)

This was a great book! I read the last half on a 5 hour plane trip and couldn't put it down. A movie based on this book and titled October Sky was released around Feb, 1999. I didn't see it though I wanted too. The book is about a young boy who is inspired by the launch of Sputnik in 1957 to build his own rockets with his friends. He lives in a coal mining town in West Virginia without much money or access to the science he needs to know. His father, who works for the mine, expects his son to follow in his footsteps and doesn't support him, but the boy is determined to make his rockets fly.

 

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Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston

I read this a few years ago and it still sticks in my mind as a good "womans" book. It's a collection of short stories about strong, smart women looking for love in the wild men they meet up with.

 

click here to go to this book on Amazon.com

Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts

The main character, Novalee, is seventeen, pregnant, and just dumped by her boyfriend at a rural Oklahoma Walmart with $10 to her name. They were on their way to California so she doesn't know anyone and wouldn't go back to her trailer in Tennessee anyway. I enjoyed this book a lot and actually rationed my reading so that it wouldn't end so soon! Excellent reading.

 

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The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard

The story begins with the kidnapping of a three year old boy and continues through many years of heartache, depression and anguish for the family. The plot twists and turns at the end as we find out what happened to the boy. I won't divulge the ending, although if you see the promos for the movie coming out this fall, you'll know a key element of the conclusion.

 

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Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and the Last Great Lesson by Mitch Albom

I highly recommend it. It's sad, yet uplifting. This is a true story written by a sports journalist about weekly meetings he had with an old professor dying of ALS, also known as Lou Gherig's disease.

 

click here to go to this book on Amazon.com

The Perfect Palette : Fifty Inspired Color Plans for Painting Every Room in Your Home by Bonnie Rosser Krims

Having finally bought a house, I am determined to have color and not the white walls I was forced to live with in every apartment I previously rented. But how does one avoid the patchwork quilt look with each room painted a different color? This book provides the decorator-impaired person fifty different plans which consist of three colors, a suggested accent color and the color trim (white, dark wood, light wood) that would look best. Each plan could be used in one room or across multiple rooms, which is what I am going to try.

 

click here to go to this book on Amazon.com

Be Your Own Home Decorator : Creating the Look You Love Without Spending a Fortune by Pauline B. Guntlow

This book contains realistic decorating ideas as well as projects, like making tab curtains or a corner cabinet. I like it because the ideas are affordable.

 

click here to go to this book on Amazon.com

The New Decorating Book by Denise L. Caringer (Editor)

This book categorizes decorating ideas according to style. It has lots of glossy photos and covers just about every aspect of decorating that the average person needs.

 

click here to go to this book on Amazon.com

The Woodworker's Problem Solver : 532 Shop-Proven Solutions to Your Most Challenging Woodworking Problems by Tony O'Malley (Editor)

It's almost as good as having dad in the workshop with us!

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