Category: Book Baristas

Robert Crais’ new book “Suspect” is a thriller/police procedural and features LAPD police officer Scott James and Maggie, a military working dog.  These characters are a departure from his more well known characters-Elvis Cole and Joe Pike.  Crais has said he wrote most of Maggie’s character based on his own dog Yossi who died sixteen years ago and to date

Rebecca and Alex.  The 196os.  Pasadena, California.  The Autobiography of Us is a tale of growing up, becoming best friends, betrayal,  moving away, and never being able to sever a friendship. Rebecca is the daughter of parents who, with great effort, appear to be wealthier and happier than they actually are.  Rebecca does everything expected of her.  She doesn’t have a

Evie Ferrante is resigned when she gets the call from her sister about their mother.  She knows it is her turn to take care of her, Ginger, her older sister,  has been doing most of the care-taking of late, but the call couldn’t have come at a worse time with Evie’s big exhibition only months away.  Nevertheless, when Evie arrives at her childhood home

Another delicious read…Z:  A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is the fictionalized autobiography of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, from her days as a privileged teen through her tumultuous years married to the author of The Great Gatsby, to her final years in an institution.  Theirs was a passionate love story, always against her parents wishes, and despite their wild life, Scott’s alcoholism,  money

I preface this book recommendation by saying I will pretty much read anything Linda Greenlaw writes–  I’ve been a fan since a friend invited me to join her at a reading for The Hungry Ocean.   If you have a chance to hear her speak, do.  She is fantastic. Lifesaving Lessons is the latest installment in her episodic memoirs and relays

I have had this book in my “to read” pile for a long time-the book was published in 2010.  As all fellow booklovers know your book pile can get, well,  a little out of control.  While a friend was visiting I loaned her this book from my pile, to read and she couldn’t put it down.  “The Poacher’s Son”  was Paul

As I browsed the new non-fiction recently, I could not resist Secrets of an Organized Mom by Barbara Reich.  It could only help jump start my recent “bag a day” project encouraging me to purposefully remove a bag of stuff from my house each day, right?  Right!  This is a great resource for those of us with too many papers, toys,

Fever is a great period piece.  Meet Typhoid Mary, the real person, and get her side of the Typhoid epidemic.  Mary emigrates from Ireland as a teenager to New York City, and gets a laundry job.  She works her way up to cooking, and as she moves from job to job, so too does the coincidental (or not) outbreak of

Adding to the new trend in fictionalized memoirs of famous wives is Melanie Benjamin’s The Aviator’s Wife, the story of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  Benjamin starts with their starstruck courtship and shares their life up through Charles’ death in 1974, all from Anne’s point of view.  Interspersed throughout are short chapters while Anne attends Charles as he is dying.  These

Meet Betsey Dobson, turn of the century typewriter girl in London.  Betsey has few advantages besides her determination and hard working nature, so she does what she thinks she needs to do to make a better life for herself.  Against the odds, she ends up with a job offer as an excursion manager at a new resort and pier at Indensea, but