Week Three Reader Advisories

Conversation #1 - I'd recommend another surprising love story, The Dirty Life by Kristen Kimball. This is a memoir by a young, hip New York journalist who interviewed a farmer in the Adirondacks and fell in love -- with the farmer and farming. She buys into her  husband's compelling but quixotic vision, to feed their community absolutely everything they need from their farm. The book covers her first year there, where Kimball learns how to butcher pigs, make cheese, and plow with draft horses. Here is another interesting and brave young woman, who is painstakingly honest in describing her inept attempts at changing her lifestye as well as her frustrations in loving a man so charismatic and driven. Sure to provoke lots of book club discussion about choices, commitment, and living a worthwhile life.

Conversation #2 - I'd run to the stacks and pull off Guilty Pleasures, the first book in Laurell Hamilton's series, "Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter." There are no sparkly vampires on the scene here! This is a well written, fast paced, urban fantasy series with a kick ass female detective, set in an alternate universe where the undead coexist with humans and Anita's job is to make sure the undead behave themselves. The vampires are scary but seductive, the zombies are appropriately menacing, and there's the promise of some edgy romance in future books of the series. I am not a big vampire or urban fantasy fan, but visiting Anita's world was a fun diversion.

Conversation #3 - One of my favorite recommendations is Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. A sensational biography, a miraculous story of survival, a triumphant account of faith over hatred; this book has it all. Louis Zamperini transcended his delinquent youth to become an Olympic athlete. With the outbreak of World War II he became a Navy pilot, his plane crashed, and he and some of his crew members survived for months on the open sea before finally washing up on a Japanese-occupied island. Zamperini survived years of brutality in a Japanese POW camp, but his life's greatest achievement happened years after he safely returned to America. Louis' ordeals are presented in riveting detail -- the months spent on a tiny liferaft with his crewmates are almost unbelievable -- but what remains seared in my memory is his indomitable spirit and will to live.