Paula Spencer

Paula Spencer (2006) by Roddy Doyle. Paula Spencer is a middle-aged Irish woman who drinks -- or rather, used to drink. She's quit now, and is trying her best to rebuild a life ravaged by alcoholism. Her daily struggles, and her dealings with her children and her sisters, all told with an Irish accent, make up the main body of this book. Grade: A-

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) by Alison Bechdel. Graphic novel about a dysfunctional family -- the father is a closeted homosexual, the daughter (Bechdel) discovers she is a lesbian. Highly readable and well designed, but might have more resonance for gay readers than it had for me. Grade: B

The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky

The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky (2006) by Ken Dornstein. Dornstein's brother, David, was a passenger aboard Pan Am Flight 103, which was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. This book tells the true story of Ken's efforts to trace his brother's history up to the time of the crash -- reading David's notebooks, visiting Lockerbie, even becoming romantically involved with two of David's former girlfriends. I found it very involving and a vivid portrait of a troubled young man. Grade: A

Glory in Death

Glory in Death (1995) by J.D. Robb. Pathetically overwrought mystery-romance from Nora Roberts, who writes the "... in Death" series under the pseudonym of J.D. Robb. The heroine, Eve Dallas, is a detective who does her police work in New York ... 50 years in the future! Her fabulously wealthy boyfriend, Roarke, makes love to her with mad passion in sex scenes that are downright embarrassing for their purple prose. Never has a fictional detective swooped up to so many orgasms in the course of pursuing her perp. Grade: D

Spook

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005) by Mary Roach. Roach fancies herself quite a wit, but I just found her tone and attitude to be irritating. She does, however, conduct a fairly interesting tour of the various activities pursued by people who believe, or pretend to believe, that we have souls which leave our bodies upon death. She explores reincarnation, scientific efforts to communicate with the dead through electromagnetic means, near-death experiences and many other aspects of the afterlife -- if there is one. Grade: B

Saving Agnes

Saving Agnes (1993) by Rachel Cusk. At first I found this book a little hard to follow because it is written in a poetic style and there are lots of Briticisms. But by the time I got to the end I decided that I had just experienced something really fine. It's the story of a British woman who has recently graduated from college and finds the adult world very disappointing. What's it all about, she wonders. Her search for answers makes for engaging reading. Grade: A-