Drop Dead Healthy

For his most recent self-experiments author A.J. Jacobs set out to become the healthiest man alive. Over the course of two years, he tackled a different body part each month (stomach, heart, ears, etc.) and consulted experts to maximize his health in each area.  His experiences are humorously shared in Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection.  From wearing large noise cancelling headphones in public and turning his desk into a treadmill to exercising like a caveman in Central Park, nothing is out of bounds. I appreciate that the author is willing to try anything, even ideas that have questionable scientific backing. Much of the advice has been heard many times before (shop the perimeter of the grocery store, use smaller dinner plates), but to me the point of the book was entertainment and I was not disappointed.  

Lola and the Boy Next Door

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Lola likes to dress up. She isn’t what one would call a girl of high fashion, no she much prefers to walk on the wild side; the more glitter, the more feathers, the more absurdity--the better! Her life is full of excitement, including the perfect punk rock boyfriend, two amazing parents, and a best friend that totally gets her. Everything is going along until the Bell twins move back into town… Cricket and Calliope, two people Lola never wanted to see again. As Cricket pushes himself back into her life, Lola must comes to terms with the feelings she once--and maybe still has--for the boy next door.

Packed with more lovable, crushable, and hilarious characters, this novel will surely keep you turning pages. Though it is a companion novel to Anna and the French Kiss, it is not told from the same point of view. But many of the characters we grew to love in Anna do make another appearance in Lola’s world (more page time with Etienne)!

Mystery Book Club: No Mark Upon Her

No Mark Upon Her, the fourteenth book in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series by Deborah Crombie, is set in present day London. The newly married couple are just back from taking leave to care for their foster daughter, three-year-old Charlotte. Gemma had suffered a miscarriage the year before. They’re hoping to adopt the little girl. Duncan has a 14-year-old-son, Kit, and Gemma a six- year-old, Toby.

Duncan is asked to head a special case that involves the death of Rebecca Meredith, a police sergeant who ends up dead near her racing scull. Meredith had been training for her rowing comeback, hoping to compete in
the 2012 Olympics. At first there are no suspects but soon, more than Duncan knows what to do with. Maybe Rebecca’s killer is her ex-husband Freddie who is also her sole beneficiary. Or could it have been Kieran, Rebecca’s secret lover. Kieran lives near the river with his search dog, Finn. Gemma and Duncan with the help  of their assistants Melody and Doug come at the case from two different directions.

Author Crombie writes complicated stories with interesting characters. Seldom will you guess the killer before the end of the books. Don't miss a discussion of this book at the Mystery Book Club Thursday, May 10 at 6:45 p.m.

The Host

This month's selection for Book of the Month is The Host by Stephenie Meyer.  This is  the author's (known for the Twilight saga) first adult novel.  Copies are available on display in the library.

For a summary and reviews, check LINKcat.

The Other Side of Dark

The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith

Katie Mullen has had too much death in her life--her dad, her mom, the neighbor boy who died in the 1800s... Ghosts haunt her every step--so much that sometimes it is hard to pick out what is real and what is a hallucination. While others would likely cry or scream under the circumstances, Katie draws. Everyone thinks she’s crazy, even she thinks she’s crazy. But she never lets anyone close enough to find out why… at least she didn’t before Law asked her out for coffee one fateful day. Although Katie is too afraid to ask these ghosts questions or hear their secrets, Law is not. In fact, Katie is just what he was searching for--a road into the past. Together they will begin to uncover the truth about themselves, their ancestry and a secret from Boston’s history that is buried so deep is it difficult to see Katie escaping from that which she fears--death.

Recommended enthusiastically by YA authors such as Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, this eclectic novel will have you on the edge of your seat! It is a great teen mystery based on real people and a true Boston secret.

The Company of the Dead

One hundred years ago early on the morning of April 14, 1912 the Titanic sank. In The Company of the Dead, the first novel by David Kowalski, Jonathan Wells comes from the future to try to spare the lives of the 1200 people who went down with the ship. It is from Wells’s attempt to decrease the chance of changing the future that he only interacts with passengers he knows died in the original voyage, thus the title.

The reader soon sees that the outcome of Wells’s actions are dramatic. America never enters World War I. By April 2012, Germany and Japan control the west and east coasts of the US. America is divided into a union and confederacy.

In April 2012 Joseph R. Kennedy, a grand-nephew of John F. Kennedy lives in a New York occupied by Imperial Japan. Kennedy is a well known figure from the war between Mexico and the second confederacy. As the world teeters on the edge of war, escendants of Astors, Kennedy and Lighthollers discover the time machine Wells used to alter the past. They make the decision to go back and restore the original time line.

The Company of the Dead is an espionage, time travel, alternate history novel. The characters have interesting lives. Read and see what might have been.

Some other new novels featuring the titanic are The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott, House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe and The Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn.

Mystery Book Club

The Prairie du Sac Library's Mystery Book Club will meet Thursday, April 12 at 6:45 p.m. to discuss mysteries by Tom Franklin. His Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter was the 2011 CWA Gold Dagger award winner. Copies are on display in the library. New members are always welcome!