* Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (Elmwood Springs #1) by Fannie Flagg [JSWolf]
Goodreads |
Overdrive
Print Length: 480 pages
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
Once again, Flagg's humor and respect and affection for her characters shine forth. Many inhabit small-town or suburban America. But this time, her heroine is urban: a brainy, beautiful, and ambitious rising star of 1970s television. Dena Nordstrom, pride of the network, is a woman whose future is full of promise, her present rich with complications, and her past marked by mystery.Among the colorful cast of characters are: Sookie, of Selma, Alabama, Dena's exuberant college roommate, who is everything that Dena is not; she is thrilled by Dena's success and will do everything short of signing autographs for her; Sookie's a mom, a wife, and a Kappa forever Dena's cousins, the Warrens, and her aunt Elner, of Elmwood Springs, Missouri, endearing, loyal, talkative, ditsy, and, in their way, wise Neighbor Dorothy, whose spirit hovers over them all through the radio show that she broadcast from her home in the 1940s Sidney Capello, pioneer of modern sleaze journalism and privateer of privacy, and Ira Wallace, his partner in tabloid television Several doctors, all of them taken with--and almost taken in by-DenaThere are others, captivated by a woman who tries to go home again, not knowing where home or love lie.
*** Alice, Let's Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater (The Tummy Trilogy #2) by Calvin Trillin [CRussel, issybird, Dazrin]
Goodreads |
Amazon Ca /
Amazon US /
Overdrive
Print Length: 192 pages
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
In this delightful and delicious book, Calvin Trillin, guided by an insatiable appetite, embarks on a hilarious odyssey in search of “something decent to eat.” Across time zones and cultures, and often with his wife, Alice, at his side, Trillin shares his triumphs in the art of culinary discovery, including Dungeness crabs in California, barbecued mutton in Kentucky, potato latkes in London, blaff d’oursins in Martinique, and a $33 picnic on a no-frills flight to Miami. His eating companions include Fats Goldberg, the New York pizza baron and reformed blimp; William Edgett Smith, the man with the Naughahyde palate; and his six-year-old daughter, Sarah, who refuses to enter a Chinese restaurant unless she is carrying a bagel (“just in case”). And though Alice “has a weird predilection for limiting our family to three meals a day,” on the road she proves to be a serious eater–despite “seemingly uncontrollable attacks of moderation.”
*** Breakup (Kate Shugak #7) by Dana Stabenow [CRussel, Luffy, GA Russell]
Goodreads |
Amazon UK /
Amazon US /
Audible UK /
Audible US /
Kobo UK
Print Length: 260 pages
Spoiler:
From Amazon:
When winter’s done, but spring has not yet fully-sprung, much of Alaska turns to slush. Locally, it’s called “breakup,” and it’s a… messy time of year. It’s certainly messy for Kate Shugak; between doing her taxes, being chased by grizzlies and getting shot-at by feuding families, she has to cope with an NTSB investigation that hits very close to home. Then, of course, there’s the body in the woods. And up at the old mining town. And… being Kate Shugak, somehow she can’t leave well enough alone, and begins to tease-apart a well-planned and surprising crime.
*** The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols [BenG, John F, GA Russell]
Goodreads
Print Length: 623 pages
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
Joe Mondragon, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, slammed his battered pickup to a stop, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into the arid patch of ground. Carefully (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began-though few knew it at the time-the Milagro beanfield war. But like everything else in the dirt-poor town of Milagro, it would be a patchwork war, fought more by tactical retreats than by battlefield victories. Gradually, the small farmers and sheepmen begin to rally to Joe's beanfield as the symbol of their lost rights and their lost lands. And downstate in the capital, the Anglo water barons and power brokers huddle in urgent conference, intent on destroying that symbol before it destroys their multimillion-dollar land-development schemes. The tale of Milagro's rising is wildly comic and lovingly tender, a vivid portrayal of a town that, half-stumbling and partly prodded, gropes its way toward its own stubborn salvation.
*** Post Office: A Novel by Charles Bukowski [obs20, JSWolf, issybird]
Goodreads |
Amazon US
Print Length: 162 pages
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers. This classic 1971 novel—the one that catapulted its author to national fame—is the perfect introduction to the grimly hysterical world of legendary writer, poet, and Dirty Old Man Charles Bukowski and his fictional alter ego, Chinaski.
*** England, Their England by A.G. Macdonell [issybird, JSWolf, CRussel]
Goodreads |
Faded Page |
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub /
Kindle
Print Length: 114 pages
*** The Worst Class Trip Ever (Class Trip, Book 1) by Dave Barry [WT Sharpe, Dazrin, GA Russell]
Goodreads |
Amazon US /
Amazon US (audiobook) /
Audible
Print Length: pages
*** Bucky F&%@ing Dent by David Duchovny [WT Sharpe, John F, drofgnal]
Goodreads
Print Length: 306 pages
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
Ted Fullilove, aka Mr. Peanut, is not like other Ivy League grads. He shares an apartment with Goldberg, his beloved battery-operated fish, sleeps on a bed littered with yellow legal pads penned with what he hopes will be the next great American Novel, and spends the waning days of the Carter administration at Yankee Stadium, waxing poetic while slinging peanuts to pay the rent.
When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father of Ted’s youth tries to make up for lost time, but his health dips drastically whenever his beloved Red Sox lose. And so, with help from Mariana—the Nuyorican grief counselor with whom Ted promptly falls in love—and a crew of neighborhood old-timers, Ted orchestrates the illusion of a Boston winning streak, enabling Marty and the Red Sox to reverse the Curse of the Bambino and cruise their way to World Series victory. Well, sort of.
David Duchovny’s richly drawn Bucky F*cking Dent explores the bonds between fathers and sons and the age-old rivalry between Yankee fans and the Fenway faithful, and grapples with our urgent need to persevere—and risk everything—in the name of love. Culminating in that fateful moment in October of ’78 when the mighty Bucky Dent hit his way into baseball history with the unlikeliest of home runs, this tender, insightful, and hilarious novel demonstrates how life truly belongs to the losers, and that the long shots are the ones worth betting on.
Bucky F*cking Dent is a singular tale that brims with the mirth, poignancy, and profound solitude of modern life.