Adult Summer Reading Program 
Rio Vista and Vacaville Reviews

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Title: Dakota
Author: Martha Grimes

Review:

            This mystery held me even though I didn't like that the main female character was a gun-toting young adult. With very well written Wild West scenery, this mystery follows "Andi" as she fearlessly forges ahead to rescue various animals and learns more than she ever was prepared to find out about factory animal husbandry and slaughterhouses. Andi is supported by an excellent cast of local characters and inspires readers to step courageously into our own lives after reading about her journey. You will never look at pork fried rice, sweet and sour pork, or a good juicy steak the way you did before reading this book.   

Name: Carol B

Branch: Rio Vista

Title: Pound for Pound

Author: F.X. Toole

Rating: 5 stars

Do you recommend this book as a Reader’s Pick? Yes

            Pound for Pound, posthumously published, written by F.X. Toole (the author of the short story, Million Dollar Baby) is a book that abounds with subtly crafted yet vivid characters that we love and hate as their emerging characters demand.

Setting descriptions are as real and vivid as the characters, as the story winds through run-down neighborhoods of Los Angeles and moves through small Tex-Mex towns.  Toole captures the flavor and essence of settings as he weaves two separate stories of two deeply different characters, a young Chicano boy and an aging Irish American ex-boxer, both emotionally scarred by life; Toole brings them together in a moving and engrossing manner.

            The settings, the story line, and especially the characters, make this an absorbing read, taking one deep into the world of boxing and well beyond.

These characters will live in your mind and heart long after the last page.

Name: Irene

Branch Rio Vista

Title: How to change the world. Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.

Author: David Bornstein

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            The heart-moving and eye-watering inspiration from around the world to dare to make a difference just by one single person with his/her ideas having impact on millions of others. Social entrepreneurship is not just a scattered movement anymore but rather citizen oriented industry with problem-solving concepts for improvement of diverse social challenges that transcend into every field of human existence.

Name: Renatka K

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Leaving Home

Author: Anita Brookner

Rating: Good

Review:

            A short read but very well-written.  Dealing with issues of loneliness, lack of family and friends, and finding a place to live and a way to live that does not squander time.

Name: Patricia K

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: The Commoner

Author: John Burharm Schwartz

Rating: Good

Review:

            This story is an interesting look into an exotic and intriguing world only understood by those living in it.  A good read with interesting characters.

Name: Sherri P

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Widow for One Year

Author: John Irving

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            Very readable!  Mysterious and compelling.

Name: Sherri

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: The Red Tent

Author: Anita Diamant

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            A book every woman should read!  Biblical yet spiritually enlightening.

Name: Sharrell C

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Pizza Grill It, Bake It, Love It

Author: Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

Review:

            If you love pizza then this is the cookbook to offer you everything your heart desires.  Great ideas and tips.  A great resource for every pizza lover.

Name: Sherri P

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Catch-22

Author: Joseph Heller

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            A quite perfect novel where it encourages rereading in the complete necessity of each of its parts towards the organic whole enjoyment offered by the ending's "opening."  It is circular, the novel above all being a testament to the ever self-proceeding liberating power of creativity.  A background in Lacanian thought will augment the exciting subversive aspects of the work (note the panoptic effects of absent things).  A perfect cross between One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Gravity's Rainbow.  Though not zany at all (as is Pynchon), it is supreme in its absurd qualities.

Name: Arian C

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Black Water Rising

Author: Attica Locke

Rating: Good

Review:

            Houston attorney Jay Porter gets more than he bargained for during a boat ride on the Bayou. This sets off a chain of events that could ultimately affect his future while at the same time forcing him to confront his past. This is a good book if you like thrillers.

Name: Trinette

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: Manicure and Pedicure: The Complete guide to Professional Results

Author: Rosie Watson

            Review: This do-it-yourself guide to manicures and pedicures would also be a great resource for those interested in opening their own business. the information was informational and easy to understand. The photos make it an easy to understand guide for novice or professional.

Name: Sherri P

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Shop Smart, Save More

Author: Teri Gault

Review:

            This is an excellent resource to saving money on your grocery bill! I highly suggest reading this book fro tips on lowering your food bill.

Name: Sherri P

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: On Forgiveness

Author: Rickard Holloway

Rating: Do not read this book.

            Review: Having read this short text two weeks ago, I can now (still) say, as I did upon first reading, this is not a practical text, as it does not contain within it any procedures to follow should events for forgiveness arise.  However, the point of Derridean forgiveness is that no precise procedure can ever be set (like anything deconstructive).  We must simply keep ourselves open should the divine gift of forgiveness grace us and free us from the binds of retributive (vengeful) justice.  Holloway's thesis is Jesus' (example biblical references are provided) and in this may have strayed from Derrida's.  Consequently, this book is not recommended, as it derives more from an "inspirational" perspective rather than a critical one (it hardly integrates quotes from direct sources, textually and socially, i.e. from current event forums).

Name: Arian C

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: South Hampton Row

Author: Anne Perry

Rating: Good

Review:

            In this continuation of the Pitt vs. Voise, Voise attains a minor victory.  It is an excellent continuation of the series as characters are further explored.  A fine mystery and an interesting novel.

Name: Arielle V

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: Come Sunday

Author: Isla Morley

Rating: Good

Review:

            This book used many overlays to explore the aftermath of a family tragedy.  We grieve with the mother who has lost her only child.  Her raw pain, chronicled in her story, is layered upon the Christian Church liturgical calendar, which her pastor husband follows.  Her life in Hawaii becomes layered in time and place with her childhood on the African Cape.  All of these - the people, the places, the generations - collide in this melancholy tale of mourning.

Name: Linda H

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

RIO Solano County Library Adult Summer Reading Program

Book Review

Title: The God Cookie

Author: Geoffrey Wood

5 stars out of 5

Do you recommend this book as a reader’s pick? Yes

Review: A witty story about a guy named Parrish who one day asks for a sign from God.  The sign is the fortune in the cookie fortune saying “Take the corner.”  He goes to the bus stop on the corner, finds a letter from a person in need, but who?  For a week he helps anyone who comes his way.  The story is witty with great characters.  Really enjoyed reading this book, especially the “extra bit” at the end of the book.

Name: Pamela M.

RIO Solano County Library Adult Summer Reading Program

Book Review

Title: Brimstone

Author: Robert B. Parker

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Do you recommend this book as a Reader’s Pick? Yes.

The author’s excellence is his terse dialogue and there is lots of it.  This book requires very little introspection and gives very little of it.  This book gives the reader a real sense of what it was like to live in the old Wild West: whiskey, whores and gambling were the diversions and needs of the men of the time.  A fast read.

Name: Thomas L.

Title: Siddhartha

Author: Hermann Hesse

Rating: Good

Review:

            Siddhartha tells the story of a man going through life and trying to find the correct path.  He goes through many changes throughout his life in order to find it.  The story itself is not difficult to read, although it does include many ideas about the world, time, life, etc that are more complex.  It’s really thought provoking to read this view of what life’s all about.

Name: Melissa V

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: Thinking Out Loud

Author: Anna Quindlen

Rating: Good

Review:

            Compilation of Quindlen's NY Times Op-Ed articles 1990-1992. Many covered subjects particularly say nights Roe is Wade S.H.W. Bersh + operation desert storm

Name: Mary U

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Man and Wife

Author: Tony Parsons

Review:

            Humorous with stabs at the core of anyone whos been through a divorce

            Bias as written by a male given the story through the eyes of a father-stepfather-husband-2nd husband

Name: Sherri D

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Watchers

Author: Dean Koontz

Review:

            One of the most interesting books I've ever read, and still my favorite book of his. Has all the qualities of a good book: action, drama, suspense, romance. Not to mention an eye gouging monster, a bioengineered dog, and one homicidal maniac that will have you locking your doors and windows at night.

Name: Megan G

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Strangers

Author: Anita Brookner

Rating: Excellent

Review: Extremely well written and engrossing but the story is depressing old age and loneliness; reliance on superficial relationships, not finding comfort in home or solace in money.

Name: Patricia K

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Portnoy's Complaint

Author: Philip roth

Rating: Good

Review:

            No wonder Herald Bloom included this novel of Roth's in his Western Canon. It is aesthetically polished in a compelling voice that enchants at the start and engrosses at the end. no other novel is as literarily lewd as Porthoy's, it's allusions and wordplay rivaling Nabokov's. The "comic irony" is that the racist escapism of Alexander is served in his parents' enemy's office the German Herr Dokfer "Playbird," the beginner of the Jew's end. Knowledge of Jewish history is recommended.

Name: Arian C

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: No country for Old Men

Author: Cormac McCarthy

Rating: Good

Review:

            Where the Road is post-Apocalypse and Blood Meridian is the Apocalypse, No Country is the peculiar calm before the Apocalypse. There is no gore or grotesquency, but there is the swift queerness of death between the narrator and the malevolence at imminent hand. Death and Justice dance in this sendup, the music supplied by the pious Bell and the Quasi-Ubermensch Chigurh. One is rightfully tempted to say No Country ends where The Road picks up. (note-movie differs from book in 2 ways: it adds a chase scene by dogs and the exceptive office murder)

Name: Arian C

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Finger Lickin' Fifteen

Author: Janet Evanonich

Review:

            Anyone who has need one of Evanonich's numbered books about bounty hunter Stephanie Plum will want to need all of them. They are laugh out loud funny. The books also have 2 of the sexiest male characters ever.

Name: Jean M

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Perfect Poison

Author: Amanda Quick

Review:

            A Victorian era novel about psychic powers. It has mystery, adventure, and romance. It is a good, fast, fun read.

Name: Jean M

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: The Nature of Good and Evil

Author: Sylvia Browne

Review:

            Sylvia is a known psychic seen on the Montel Williams show. In this book she mainly describes her church, its foundation and the agnostic religion. it is a self help book on how to improve your positive thoughts and your life.

Name: Christina R

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Laura Rider's Masterpiece

Author: Jane Hamilton

Rating: Good

Review:

            Laura Rider is about to create her masterpiece but what will be the surviving legacy of her choices? Her daydreaming husband and her radio-show idol prove to be more than just pawns in the game she sets. Grabbed by the cover and not disappointed.

Name: Rebekah D

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You

Author: Sam Gosling

Review:

            Gosling instructs you on ways you evaluate means of "snooping". Looking at others' literature, music, environment, and etc. tell you a lot about others' choices and behavior. But more surprising, I found new insight into "me". Why I am like I am and the reason(s) I react to things the way I do. (Very interesting and informative.)

Name: Audry M

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: The Art of Negotiating

Author: Gerard Nierenberg

Review: A very comprehensive study of the strategies used in negotiating. Historic examples of how different strategies worked, didn't work, or backfired. Best results are obtained when both sides are satisfied with the outcome.

Name: Richard A

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Two for the Road

Author: Jane and Micheal Stern

Rating: Do not read this book.

Review: What could have been an interesting "tell all" about the lives of travel food writers ends up a grammatical mess of food stereotypes with a heavy emphasis on Southern BBQ and Midwest church folk.

Name: Rebekah D

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,

Author: Lisa See

Review:

            A story of women’s friendship in nineteenth century rural China.  Lily, the narrator, is in her eighties looking back on her life.  As a young girl, Lily is paired with Snow Flower in a sworn sisterhood that was to last until marriage.  This book is an interesting read about the traditions of foot binding, arranged marriages and nu shu (the secret women’s writing).  Lisa See has done in depth historical research of the lives of both men and women in nineteenth China.  This is a fascinating and informative book.

Reviewed by Margaret

Rio Vista.

Title: Crystal Singer

Author: Anne McCaffrey

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            Killashandra leaves her life at the music conservatory after being told she will never be a stellar singer. After befriending a crystal singer of Ballybran, she embarks on a life changing journey... as a crystal singer.

Name: Juliet V

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Author: Rushdie, Salman

Rating: Fair

            Review: Writers will have a lot to learn of point-of-view, as the novel's apparent godliness is brought to humble ground by the book's close. Perspective is everything as with everything cultural, a point that this enormously informal novel steers into the heart of our simulecral climate, asking us to see all of the world at once, however difficult from our shallow Western hermeticism. A highly nuanced book, fantasically yet objectively particularist, containing its own critique, this being themotically achieved in a very simular way Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day is.

Name: Arian Cato

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Dragon Singer and Dragon Song

Author: Anne McCaffrey

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            Menoly is forced to leave the home she grew up in so she could sing music. She befriends 9 fire-lizard friends, is rescued from Thread and goes to the Harperhall. There she learns her true calling as a harper of Pern.

Name: Juliet V

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: The Centurians Wife

Author: Janette Oke

Rating: Good

            Review: This is the story of two people in search of answers for their lives. It takes place in Jerusalem after the Crucifixion of Christ. Sweet love story. Very clean many answers to our own lives. Great book!

Name: Mary S

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: The Masterharper of Pern

Author: Anne McCaffrey

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            This is the life story of Robinton, the masterharper of Pern. It starts out with his precious music composition at 3 years, and follows him to become Pern's most important political figure, and manipulator.

Name: Juliet V

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Evening Class

Author: Maeve Binchy

Review:

            Another wonderful story by Maeve Binchy in which she intertwines the lives of many unique characters. "Signora" teaches the Dubliners Italian in preparation for a vacation in Rome.

Name: Mary U

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Animal Dreams

Author: Kingsolver

Review:

            Wonderful story about two sisters. Codi returns to her Grace, Arizona hometown to face her past. Hallie heads to Nicaragua to help the locals with their crops descire their revolution.

Name: Mary U

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Twelve Sharp

Author: Jantel Evanovich

Rating: Fair

Review:

            This is the 12th book by Evanovich about Stephanie Plum, the Trenton, NJ Bounty Hunter. Plot regards someone who is impersonating Ranger. Language and some events are too racy for me.

Name: Mary U

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: The Beach House

Author: Jane Green

Review:

            I ordered this book from the library based on a recommendation from someone – probably an independent book seller on NPR.org.  After the first page, I knew I’d already read it, but also knew it was a good, easy read and that I had enjoyed it.  The characters are just complex enough and the vignettes are real-life enough that I didn’t remember them and wanted to live through them again.  Set on Nantucket Island off Cape Cod, and the Massachusetts coast, it hints at the insular nature of small island society.  But it’s summertime, and the interactions reflect both being away from home and also not being on vacation from real life. It reminds me a bit of Three Junes, by Julia Glass, which also has appealing characters and is also set partly on the Atlantic seaboard.

            The story: several relationships coming apart for different reasons; people coming away to take stock or rebuild; needing to move on in different ways.

            Setting: Nantucket, focused on an old island house where the possibly eccentric grande dame finds in 2007 that she has no more money to keep up her old hilltop house. She decides to spiff it up and take in summer paying guests. Guests become family in a variety of ways. Some of the resolutions seem simple but pleasing.

Review by Julie L.

Branch: Rio Vista

Title: Other Colors

Author: Orhan Pamuk

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            Much of the summer still has its fast days. I have school and work, which is focused on writing. There are months I don't have the time to develop a relationship with the novel. Orhan Pamuk's "Other Colors" is a book of essays, articles, and interviews, in where he shares his insights on the simplest of things (like his workspace) to the grandest (politics in his home Turkey, Istanbul). Like poems--compact, refined language, and short--these articles gave me a similar pleasure that I find in discovery. Downstairs eating my cereal, instead of absorbing facts after reading the newspaper, I had a nice feeling when I read one Pamuk's essays and saw at the clock over my microwave as a face staring back at me, very tangible. I slightly had to change my life.

Name: John T

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Uncommon: Finding your path to significance

Author: Tony Dungy

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            Straight talking, simple information with a Christian point of view given to men--on how to be a man (strong) and a visible involved father. Dungy often refers to his background--childhood, student, football player and coaching career. The importance of his parents  and a Christian commitment inform and direct his life.

Name: Audry M

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Weight of Heaven

Author: Thrity Umrigar

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            A tragic poignant story of an American couple relocating to India after the loss of an only child. Very interesting topics: marriage, culture, grief and mourning

Name: Patricia K

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Laura Rider's Masterpiece

Author: Jane Hamilton

Rating: Good

Review:

            Laura Rider is about to create her masterpiece but what will be the surviving legacy of her choices? He day-dreaming husband and her radio show idol prove to be more than pawns in the game she sets. Grabbed by her cover and not disappointed.

Name: Rebekah D

Branch: Vacaville Town Square

Title: Between Here and April

Author: Deborah Kogan

Rating: Do not read this book.

Review:

            I was hoping for an enjoyable paperback about motherhood from an authentic female voice to read on my lakeside vacation.  Unfortunately, this "first novel" delivers marriage misery, divorce situations, violent gang rape, suicide, adultery--even exactly what to buy at the hardware store to step-by-step affixiate two little girls in the family station wagon.  Bleck.  References to 1970s suburbia were interesting but not worth suffering through the depressing narrative of broken lives.  Skip this one.

Name: Chris K

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: Thirteen at Dinner

Author: Agatha Christie

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            Taking a long trip in the car?  This Hercule Poirot mystery in CD format, read by Hugh Fraser aka "Captian Hastings," transports the listener to mental images of the famous PBS-TV series.  Originally published as "Lord Edgeware Dies," the six disc audio book lasts six-and-a-half hours, perfect for the half day get-away.  What starts out as a lighthearted dinner party becomes a web of alibis, lies and hidden truths.  A classic Who Done It for teens and adults.  You'll be dying to get back to the car to hear the ending!

Name: Chris K

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: Shanghai Girls

Author: Lisa See

Rating: Excellent

Review:

            If you enjoyed "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" you'll love See's new heartbreakingly beautiful tale: Shanghai Girls.  The bond between two once-spoiled sisters is severely tested when Japanese bombs fall on their Shanghai home.  Pearl and May move from naive "calendar girl" models to become California brides.  The mental journey is even more transcendental than the physical one.  New salvations challenge their view of "freedom" at every turn.  Seductive, passionate and compelling, this novel will keep you up all night reading!

Name: Chris K

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: Dreams from my Father

Author: Barack Obama

Rating: Excellent

Review: This book is definitely worth reading.  In it Barack Obama tells the story of his childhood and his life working as an organizer in Chicago.  He discusses his search for identity, which leads him all the way to Kenya to meet his father's side of the family.  Although Obama's story is unique, it is easy to relate to his search for who he is.

Name: Melissa

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: The Perfect Husband

Author: Lisa Gardner

Rating: Excellent

Review: Jim Beckett was a police officer and he was handsome and strong.  Theresa thought she would be safe with him and so she started a life with him.  Jim had other plans.  From the day she said "I do", Jim owned Theresa.  He controlled and beat her.

Theresa found out who her husband really was. A cold blooded killer that not even the cops could catch. She watched him, she took notes and eventually turned him in.

He went to prison for a few years but outsmarted the police and escaped. Now he's after Theresa and her daughter.

Theresa is ready for him this time. With the help of mercenary, JT Dillon, Tess learns to fight for her life and fight for her future.

Name: Maryellen

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: The Morning After

Author: Lisa Jackson

Rating: Excellent

Review: Crime reporter, Nikki Gilette, is after her first breakthrough story that will get her out of boring Savannah.  The Grave Robber killer, who buries his victims alive, will help her get there.  Detective Pierce Reed doesn't like reporters, but when the Grave Robber pulls him in personally he to the investigation he turns to Nikki for help.

The two work to find the killer and save each other.

Name: Maryellen

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: 8th Confession

Author: James Patterson

Rating: Excellent

Review: In the 8th installment of the Women's Murder Club you find Lindsay Boxer tracking a serial killer who is going after the elite of San Francisco.  She is still struggling with her feelings for her partner and her fiancée.

Meanwhile, her friend Cindy, reporter for the Chronicle is solving a case of her own, a homeless man found dead and no one wants to talk.

Lindsay and Cindy work with their friends, Yuki and Claire, to solve both mysteries before more people are hurt.

Name: Maryellen

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: We Shall Not Sleep

Author: Anne Perry

Rating: Good

Review: The last of Anne Perry's WWI series, set primarily in Europe.  It provides a window into a historical time which is often ignored.  It's a fine conclusion to a fine series.

Name: Arielle

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: The Geography of Bliss

Author: Eric Weiner

Rating: Excellent

Review: Longtime NPR journalist Eric Weiner, a self-described grump with a dry wit, seeks to answer the question, "Where is the happiest place on earth?"

Name: Chris

Branch: Vacaville Cultural Center

Title: Bridgeof Birds

Author: Barry Hughart

Rating: Excellent

Review: The memory of a captive princess and the soul of an immortal tyrant are the elusive treasures Number Ten Ox and Li Kao seek in an ancient mythical China filled with wonders and deadly danger.

I also recommend Story of the Stone by Barry Hughart

Name: Bradford

Branch: Town Square