Rich Cohen "Lake Effect"

Raised in an affluent suburb on the North Shore of Chicago, Rich Cohen had a cluster of interesting friends, but none more interesting than Jamie Drew. Fatherless, reckless and lower middle class in a place that wasn’t, Jamie possessed such an irresistible insouciance and charm that even the teachers called him Drew-licious. Through the high school years of parties and Cub games and girls, of summer nights on the beach and forbidden forays into the blues bars of Chicago’s notorious South Side, the two formed a lasting bond. Even after Cohen went to college in New Orleans (Jamie went to Kansas) and then moved to New York, where he had a memorable interlude with the legendary New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell, Jamie remained oddly crucial to his life. Exquisite and taut, Lake Effect is a bittersweet coming-of-age story that quietly bores to the essence of friendship and how it survives even as it is destined to change.

Rich Cohen has taken the everyday stuff of life and made it joyously readable. The mundane becomes richly evocative in his hands. The usual becomes unusual, the boring becomes interesting, the sweet becomes bittersweet and Lake Effect becomes the proverbial book you can’t put down.
Michail    

What to Read This Summer

Ken Follett “The Pillars of the Earth”

It is a story of a British family that built Cathedrals in England. What made the book for me were the characters. The characters were interesting and complex There were the monk, the young woman, the builder and I felt that they were like a real persons As you read this book, you get to know Tom, his family and the lives of each member. The storyline was captivating and exciting.

Also I loved the love stories in it. I loved Tom and Ellen's story most of all. It was sad that it happened so quickly after Agnes but it became so like as if they were meant to be together. This love story is intriguing and captivating
A marvelous and exciting novel.
Ann

Jonathan Franzen "The Corrections"

A comic, tragic epic stretching from the Midwest of the midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, The Corrections brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental health care and globalized greed.

After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on bringing the family together for one last Christmas at home.

Greg 

Dean Koontz "Icebound"

Suspense! If you are a fan of the genre, in that case I recommend to read a novel by Dean Koontz “Icebound”.

A widespread drought is causing murderous famine. There is one possible solution: giant masses of Arctic ice, split from the polar pack by high explosives, could be moved south to parched coastlines and melted for water.

In an Arctic ice field a special team of eight scientists has planned a number of powerful bombs that will detonate automatically at midnight. But before they can withdraw to the safety of their base camp – Edgeway Station – a shuttering tidal wave breaks loose the ice on which they are working. Now they are hopelessly marooned on an iceberg during the worst winter storm of the decade. The bombs in the ice beneath them are buried irretrievably deep … and ticking.

 Abruptly thrown into a desperate struggle for survival, the Edgeway scientists are further plagued by the discovery that one of them is a ruthless killer hellbent on a strange mission of his own…

The reading of the novel swept me along with a breathless pace …

Michail

Steven Saylor “The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World”

“The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World” by Steven Saylor is a collection of short stories. The protagonist, Gordianus, is 18 years old and he sets off with his tutor Antipater of Sidon, the world’s most celebrated poet. Their journey takes them on a tour of the Seven Wonders of the World and we go along on the journey. One of the things I admire most about this book is the incredible research and description of the wonders and the cities of Greece, Asia, Egypt, which Gordianus and Antipater visit. They meet many interesting people and solve many mysteries and riddles. We see the beginnings of the Olympic Games. We not only see the wonders of the world, we go inside them. We're introduced to the politics of the time.

Saylor's writing is so real. And I really enjoy reading this book.

Ann

John Gridham "The Partner"

What can be better than to read a good detective story during the day off? Especially if it’s a story by John Grisham!!! Now a few words about the plot…

Once he was a well-liked, well paid young partner in a thriving Mississippi law firm. Then Patrick Lanigan stole ninety million dollars from his own firm and run for his life. For four years he evaded men who were rich, powerful and would stop at nothing to find him. Then inevitably on the edge of the Brazilian jungle they finally tracked him down.

Now Patrick is coming home. And in the Mississippi city where it all began an extraordinary trial is about to begin. As prosecutors circle like sharks, as Patrick’s lawyer prepares his defense, as Patrick’s lover prays for his deliverance and his former partners wait for their revenge, another story is about to emerge. Because Patrick Lanigan, the most reviled white-collar criminal of his time, knows something that no one else in the world knows. He knows the truth…

Jack

Sara Gruen “Water for Elephants”

   In the beginning of Water for Elephants Jacob Jankowski tells us that he is ninety or ninety-three. He's not really sure anymore. His body betrayed him years ago and Jacob now fears that his mind isn’t far, he’s living out his final days in the nursing home and hating every minute of it.  When the circus comes to town, Jacob comes alive and begins to tell us his life’s story. Water for Elephants transported me to a time of the great depression. I learned a lot about the old traveling circuses and life with them. That was really interesting. Water for Elephants is a wonderfully entertaining and well-written story that I think everyone should read. This novel is a delightful with unexpected and wonderful ending.

Olga

L. Frank Baum "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"

   Well, friends – it is time for the fairy-tale to come! Today it will be the bewitching tale of Dorothy’s adventures in the magical Land of Oz. The name of the book – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and for sure it’s one of the best loved of the modern fairy-tales. Made into a spectacular film in 1939 it continues to delight adult and child alike.

    The story begins when a cyclone suddenly propels Dorothy and her dog Toto skywards and she finds herself in an unknown land.  She is hailed as a powerful sorceress by the little Munchkins, but her one desire is to return to Kansas, where beloved Aunt Em and Uncle Henry await her. Dorothy’s quest to seek the ‘Great Wizard Oz’ – the only one who can help her – leads her on a perilous journey along the Yellow Brick Road towards the glittering City of Emeralds. On the way she encounters the brainless Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman in search of a heart and the Cowardly Lion, who all join her. At last they reach the castle of Oz – yet in this strange land nothing is ever as it seems…
    So… if you want to have a real rest with the book in the hand – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is your choice!!!
Yura  

Ernest Hemingway "The Old Man and the Sea"

When The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952, it was instantly hailed as a classic. The triumphant yet tragic story of an old Cuban fisherman and his supreme ordeal – a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream – it has the simplicity of a fable, the significance of a parable and the drama of an epic. Among the finest in English literature, Hemingway’s description of fishing and the teeming tropical life abounding in the Gulf Stream provide a setting of warmth and shimmering beauty for the struggle between man against sea and man against fate. A story of grace and courage, of heroism and pity, The old Man and the Sea received special recognition in the citation accompanying Hemingway’s Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 and remains one of his most popular works today.

Donald