Double-Stacked Bookshelves

Sometimes you just need a romance novel to lose your mind in.  Thank you Diana Palmer for providing me with something mindless and fun to read in Nora .  Of course, as nearly all romance novels do, Nora follows a pretty predictable pattern:  boy meets girl, girl hates boy, boy sets out to get girl, boy gets girl, boy and girl fight, boy and girl make up and live happily ever after.  It's pure romance gold!  Nora follows Eleanor "Nora" Marlowe out West from her comfortable, sophisticated, SNOBBY home in Virginia and chronicles her time spent in Tyler Junction, Texas.  Here she meets Cal Barton, who might not be exactly what he seems, and quickly falls in love with his rugged persona.  There are ups and downs, social constraints, personal heartaches, legal deals gone bad, secrets kept and told, and so much more. You really don't have to stretch your imagination far in these novels and that's exactly why I pick them up.  After spending years rea...

It took me quite a while to finish this book.  I don't know if it was the style, the language, or the story in general that kept me from getting settled and engaged.  DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little was the 2003 winner of the Man Booker Prize , the award for the very best literature written for that year.  Somehow I don't think I agree with this decision.  Yes, the book is good, but I did not think that it was great.  There were so many great novels published in 2003, and, forgive me, but Pierre's isn't the best.  The novel centers around Vernon Gregory Little and the aftermath of a school shooting, of which he is accused of participating, in small Martirio, Texas.  The reader is taken on a journey encompassing Vernon's thought process, attempted escapes, border crossings, and eventual incarceration.  All of these segments are separated into five acts that chronicle the events leading up to the conclusion of the story...the trial and it's conseq...