Interred with their Bones, by Jennifer Lee Carrell

Okay, so I teach Hamlet (check out David Tennant’s Hamlet, if you haven’t yet!) and couldn’t help but try out this book, which is basically the Da Vinci Code and National Treasure on Shakespeare.  Yes, it reads a bit like a movie, something I usually stay away from, but the story is just good romping […]

Orphan Train Girl, by Christina Baker Kline

This book opened the door to historical fiction for me, and I’m never looking back.  It might be the laziness in me, but I genuinely enjoy learning about the past through fictional stories.  The Maine setting is a bonus, as I’ve never been, but always hoped to, and now feel as if I have.  The […]

How to Be Good, by Nick Hornby

Oh, to be British! And to be funny! Both of which I will inevitably try and joyfully fail at doing. Some of my favorite lines: “Bollocks” (p. 5 and throughout) Is there a more dismissive word in the English language? I think not. Something about the air blasted through the lips and the flippant tongue […]

The Year of Fog, by Michelle Richmond

If books let us live out various vicarious lives, this one guided me through one of my deepest fears—the disappearance of my child.  The writing was a bit stilted at times, but the story was brutal and kept me going, even when I wanted to put it down.  Setting it in San Francisco was a […]