The Litigators by John Grisham

I was number 319 on the waitng list for this book and I finally got it last week.  It is John Grisham's laterst , and I think each book he does get better than the last one.  It's all about sleazy lawyers who chase amublances and barely make a living.  They finally got a big case about a medicine that killed their client and the book is all about the trial and things leading up to it..Lots of personal interest in the characters...I really really liked the book...Now I have to wait for him to write another one.....

A Walk for Sunshine by Jeff Alt

I read every book I can find about the Appalachian Trail since we walked more than 800 miles of it a few years ago. The first book that got me interested was Ed Garvey's..We even named our dog after him. Jeff Alt is a good writer and he covers the trail fast enough to keep the reader going with him.  I relived the miles to Skyland Drive, and discovered that the miles in Pennsylvania are rocky and in the White Mountains the trail is like a rock climb..Maine has many rivers to cross.  Mount Katahadin is a mountain climb.  The book is an enjoyable easy chair hike..

False Impression by Jeffrey Archer

An exciting adventure from New York to England to Romania.  It involves a stolen Van Gogh painting and the woman trying to return it to the rightful owner...Jeffrey Archer writes so that you feel that you are in the middle of the  action...It's fast moving like a good adventure movie... You learn a lot about great art and how it is valued...

Into the Great Solitude, An Artic Journey by Robert Perkins

This is the  travel adventure of one man in a canoe  on the Black River which flows through the northwest territories of Canada from Great Slave Lake to the Artic Ocean He went in summer time so  he had light for 24 hours...He liked to travel at night when the sun was just on the horizon.  I am halfway through the book and I am enjoying the beautiful descriptions of nature.  He had a camera with him and the trip was made into a PBS documentary.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

I read this one after hearing about it from one of my fellow music teachers.  It is about a Chinese immigrant mother married to a Jewish dad and they have two daughters.  It is more of a memoir/recollection of how she tried to raise her girls to be less "American." In stereotypical Asian fashion, she decides to accept nothing less than perfect schoolwork and required them to practice piano (and eventually violin) for many hours a day.  She ends up butting heads with her youngest daughter's strong spirit and is challenged to change her ideas about how to raise her daughters. This was a particularly thoughtful read for me, since I've taught many Asian students who fit the stereotype. I also ended up feeling a little bad because I never practiced that hard or that much growing up, and I know I could have been better if I had. The author is extremely type A and the fact that she is wrote this book about how she is trying to be less controlling seems, ahhh, what's the word??? Controlling and attention-seeking? I don't know.  It really was a good short read and one that may leave you with more insight into the thoughts of mothers like her.