Broken Window by Jeffery Deaver

Features Lincoln Rhyme and Amanda Sachs

When the detective's cousin is arrested for murder, it seems to be an open-and-shut case, as plenty of forensic evidence links him to the crime. But Lincoln's gut tells him that his cousin is innocent and in his investigation he discovers that the real killer is framing others for his killings by manipulating intimate computer information. But how can you track down a killer when you don't know anything about him including what he looks like. So they name him Unsub 522 (after the date they discover him) and try to find details that will help them track down this most deadly of killers. Unsub 522 is an ingenious master of the dreaded crime of the 21st century - identity theft! He steals data, reconstructs people's lives, destroys some information, rearranges the rest and is even capable of planting legitimate evidence framing an unsuspecting victim for his own brutal serial murders.

It was interesting learning more about Lincoln's past and his relationships with his father and uncle. I have read the first book in the series and enjoyed getting to know more about Lincoln and others from other books in the series. While some aspects of the book were a bit contrived most was really thought provoking as I hadn't thought about who has access to my private information and what could be done with it. So I guess it really comes down to convenience versus privacy and what it is worth to me.

Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Lisbeth Salander is enjoying her new life of wealth lazing in a hotel in Granada. No one knows where she is (as usual), while back in Sweden, Blomkvist and Millenium magazine are preparing a an expose of the sex slave business in Sweden.

Publisher Mikael Blomkvist and the police are conducting parallel investigations into three horrifying murders -- and their initial evidence points straight at young computer genius and social misfit Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist hasn't seen Salander in nearly an year, except for one night when he happened to witness a huge man attempting to kidnap her and both she and the attacker eluded him. He's bewildered about why she cut him off cold, but had accepted her decision -- until now. He doesn't believe Salander killed these victims. Well, at least not two of them. He has to contact her, find out how she's become embroiled in this, and help her. Salander, as usual, has her own ideas about who she'll see and when.

I really enjoyed the first book and while this book wasn't quite as strong it was still compelling enough to make we want to read it. As usual it is thought provocing but I did miss some of the personal touches of the first one.

Interesting side note: Stieg Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and the third novel in the series.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

2010 Newbery winner

Sixth-grader Miranda lives in New York City in 1978 with her mother, and her life compasses Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. She has read it so many times she can quote it. Life seems so perfect as she and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it's safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner. But then things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda's mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen.

And then Miranda finds a mysterious notes scrawled on a tiny slips of paper and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she's too late.

Each chapter starts with a theme from the 20,000 pyramid game "things that start with..... or things that ............." which coinside with Miranda's mother who is practicing to be on the show. Plus the theme gives you a clue of what the chapter will be about.

This book is the 2010 Newbery so of course I have to read it. But honestly I wasn't sure what to think at first but then the book hooked me and I really enjoyed it. I loved the tie in with Wrinkle in Time which is one of my favorite books when I was in 6th Grade. I did find it interesting that she only read that one book and not the sequel which by 1978 was out.

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Odd Thomas, who narrates, is 20, works contentedly as a fry cook in a small California town, despite a talent for writing. The reason for his lack of ambition? A much rarer talent: Odd sees and converses with ghosts, the lingering dead who have yet to pass on, a secret he has kept from nearly everyone but his girlfriend, an eccentric author friend and the local police chief, whom he occasionally helps solve terrible crimes.

Odd also has the ability to see bodachs, malevolent spirits that feast on pain and whose presence signifies a likelihood of imminent violence. The proximity of bodachs to a weird-looking stranger in town, whom Odd dubs "Fungus Man," alerts Odd that trouble is brewing; breaking into Fungus Man's house, Odd discovers not only hundreds of bodachs but a shrine to serial killers that helps him deduce that somehow Fungus Man will wreak widespread havoc very soon-so Odd is caught in a classic race against time to deter catastrophe.

So while Odd tries to figure out where the event will happen he has to come to terms with his own past as he meets with his distant and conman father and his beautiful but psychotic crazy mother. Odd knows that his life is different but he wants to make a difference so he puts himself at risk to stop the killing but will it be in time to save who he loves most.

I'd heard about this series over the years but honestly I do not read horror books like Koontz or King. So I decided to get this on CD and found myself drawn into the really well done story. I found myself caring about Odd and his friends but living and dead, plus who knew that Koontz had such a sense of humor? Now I want to read more.

Thousand Bones by P.J. Parish

Part of the Louis Kincaid series.

Focuses on Jo Frye, his partner and lover, as she tells him about her rookie year. Told in flashback, Frye recounts her investigation of serial murders 13 years earlier, in 1975. Frye's uneventful rookie year in the Leelanau County, Mich., sheriff's department undergoes a drastic change with the discovery of human bones in the woods of Echo Bay. Soon, the discovery of more bones and a multitude of artifacts point police to the conclusion that the remains belong to more than one victim. Mysterious Native American glyphs carved into a tree nearby provide the lead Frye needs to push herself to the front and puts others at risk.

I have not read any of the previous books but was intrigued by the storyline. This was a page turner but I found it hard to finish the book. I don't mind mysteries that give us the point of view of the murder which this story does really well until about midway through the book and they actually name him! It just spoiled it for me as I kept wanting to yell out "he's the killer! don't go with him!" but what can you do but read to the end. I have to say the ending was really 2 endings as we end the flashback and the end of the story. The end of the flashback was really powerful but since I have not read the other books in the series the ending of the story didn't really move me.

Interesting note is that the author is actually 2 sisters,Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols, who write together.

Millie's Fling by Jill Mansell

Orla Hart is a romance author who, after meeting Millie under some distressing circumstances, decides to write her new romance novel based on Millie's life. Since Millie is out of a job the enticement of $5000 pounds is too tempting to refuse. She can share some of the stories but isn't exactly forthcoming about what is really happening in her life. But Millie quickly realizes that Orla is determined to build up some romance for Millie by setting her up with any man she meets. But Millie might just have the last laugh as she actually does meet someone but it is more complicated than she expected.

Other storylines are her roommate Hester who is happily in love with her perfect boyfriend. Problem is that he's a chef and lives 500 miles away making it a long distance relationship. Plus her crush. Lucas Kemp, is back in town and hires Millie to work for him. Will Hester be able to keep it together, most of the book's 2nd storyline follows Hester as she tries to keep it together and fails miserably. But Orla herself is married to a philandering man but she keeps forgiving him. Plus her mother is back in town and living with her father and his new lady friend! Millie's life becomes very complicated as she tries to keep track of what or who everyone is with.

Reminds me of kinder Bridget Jones. It was a light weekend read perfect for a weekend away.

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

Latest Kinsey Millhone mystery

Happy New Year - I finished up 2009 with a great book!

Still in 1988, but with flashbacks to 1967. Kinsey's latest case involves Michael Sutton, who claims that he recently recalled an event that occurred when he was just six years old. In July of 1967, four-year-old Mary Claire Fitzhugh was abducted from her home in Horton Ravine, California. Although her parents agreed to pay the ransom demanded by Mary Claire's kidnappers, the money was not picked up and the child was never seen again. Sutton remembers playing in the woods when he saw two men digging a hole and burying a bundle in the ground, and he cannot help but wonder if the pair was burying the corpse of little Mary Claire. Michael hires Kinsey to reconstruct the past and find out if his memories are accurate.

While this seems like a straight forward case Kinsey quickly finds siblings of Michael coming forth to disspell his memories. In his teens he claimed he was molested by his father and siblings which caused a huge rift in the family and years later feelings are still running hot. After his parents death he recanted saying it was placed memories under hypnosis. So Kinsey starts to doubt him and wonders if it is worth her time. But she is having problems of her own as her newly discovered family is not pulling any punches in trying to get her to come to them.

It is an interesting match between the flashbacks that at first you wonder how are connected to the story and to the final chapter that left me gasping as I frantically turned the pages to see how it would end. I think this is one Grafton's best yet and I really love seeing her stories get stronger and more complicated. It's hard to believe that there are only a few letters left. I might have to re-read the entire series again.

My goal was to read more books this year than any other and I did it! My record was 76 books read in 2006 and in 2009 I hit 86! Maybe someday I'll hit a 100 but I have a ways to go.

Merry Christmas!

Cold Christmas by Charlene Weir


Set in Hampstead, Kansas, Police Chief Susan Wren has a lot on her plate as Christmas approaches. Half of the town's police force is out with the flu, and a series of burglaries is confounding those still standing. Meanwhile, Wren is nervous about her long-overdue trip home to San Francisco, where her cantankerous parents await, along with her old boss, determined to hire her back.


Christmas spirit is nowhere to be found at the home of Caley James. She had caught the flu, the house is falling apart, her ex was no help at all, her three kids were living in front of the television eating cold cereal, and then the furnace decided to die. Life had definitely hit rock bottom, and just when she figures things couldn't get worse, her four year old daughter finds the furnace repairman, Tim Holiday, dead and badly burned in the basement. Police Chief, Susan Wren, takes on this case herself, but immediately hits a brick wall. Nothing about this murder makes sense. Who was Tim Holiday, and why did he seem to be trying to keep his identity a secret? Though everyone claims theyv'e never seen him before, someone wanted him dead. Plus they quickly discover that Holiday isn't who they thought he was. Add to that, two more possibly related murders, and Chief Wren has her hands full with a whole town full of suspects and too many unanswered questions.


I picked this up as a Christmas holiday read and found myself really enjoying this book. Now that I know that it's a series I want to go back and read some of the previous books to get a better idea of the main characters.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Kind of cross between Harry Potter meets the Chronicals of Narnia. Or imagine if Harry Potter goes to college without the boarding school. Quentin believes in magic, he re-reads the Fillory books over and over and practices magic tricks in his spare time. But where will his hobby take him? It hasn't helped him get the girl or be popular. Quentin is on his way to a college interview when he discovers the interviewee deseased. After he calls 911 he is given a letter from the paramedic and finds himself pulled into a magical world and examination. After he passes he is informed he has been selected to attend a Brakebills a secret magician university that only accepts 20 students a year.

About half the book focuses on his 4 years at Brakebills and the friendships he developes. Quentin and his parents are distant and neither seems to miss the others so visits home become shorter and fewer. During one of his last visits home he meets up with his highschool crush who has radically changed into a crazy goth girl and somehow knows that Brakebill is a magic school. It just re-enforces his belief that he is no longer a part of the normal world. After a grueling semester in the South pole where Quentin transforms into the magician he hopes to become he settles in NYC with the gang from Brakebills and life just becomes one big party. Days seem to blend together with nothing ever changing and Quentin becomes to feel despair at his choices and wondering what purpose his life has. He then makes a choice, one that he will regret for the rest of his life that changes everything.

A former classmate from Brakebills, Penny, has hunted them down in NYC and brought a magic button that will take them to the neverworld and then to Fillory. So a quest has been thrown and they all go without thinking about the consequences or cost. The rest of the book is in Fillory and becomes a graphic battle of kill or be killed and Quentin must decide if the cost is worth it.

I enjoyed the majority of the book but did find myself wanting to shake the narrator, Quentin, as seems to whine and dwell on the negative. But I did find the story interesting and enjoyed remembering parts that reminded me of the Chronicles of Narnia. I listened to it on CD and did find that I had to skip some of the more graphic parts.

Gate at the Top of the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

Set just after 9/11, Tassie Keltjin, 20, a smalltown Iowa girl weathering a clumsy college year and finds a job as a nanny by brittle Sarah Brink, the proprietor of a pricey restaurant who is desperate to adopt a baby despite her dodgy past. Subsequent adventures in prospective motherhood involve a pregnant girl with scarcely a tooth in her head and a white birth mother abandoned by her African-American boyfriend—both encounters expose class and racial prejudice to an increasingly less naïve Tassie.

I tried to read this and about half-way through just didn't care about finishing it. It was due back to the library so just returned it. It just felt like it was going nowhere and while some of the observations were funny it wasn't enough to engage me.

Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry

A Mystery graphic novel set in gloomy 1940s London, PI Fernández Britten is known as the Heartbreaker. He's the one who follows cheating spouses and delivers news that ruins marriages. He's so tired of the life that he states dramatically that he won't get up for anything less than a murder. But when Charlotte Maughton, the daughter of children's publishing magnate Maurice Maughton, hires him to look into the alleged suicide of her fiancé, Berni Kudos, Britten glumly takes the case.

With his trusty sidekick and confident, Stewart Brulightly—who just happens to be a teabag (Brulightly provides the comedic layer needed to prevent the story from bogging down with the gloom) —Britten begins sniffing around Kudos's job at Maughton Publishing, keeping in mind Charlotte's suspicion that her fiancé's death could be tied to a blackmailing scheme aimed at her powerful father. The deeper Britten digs, the more mired he becomes in a pit of long-festering family secrets. For a man who's made his living telling the truth, Britten begins to realize that there are some instances when it's best to stay quiet.

On the surface this appears to be a gloomy graphic novel but then the subtle nuances come to light. It is illustrated with dark washes of sepia, blue and grey that give backdrop to the gloom and disappointment and sadness that sets the stage for the story. It's a bit refreshing to read a story that you just know is not going to end well but doesn't wallow in the muck plus the mystery is not apparent on who done it and was a surprise even to the end. Not a GN to read lightly.

Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment

The book features one long weekend in the life of Ruth and Alex Cohen, an elderly New York couple hoping to sell their East Village apartment of 45 years. Ruth is a retired teacher and Chekhov devotee, and Alex is an artist, currently adding colorful illuminations to the couples' old FBI files. As they ready for an open house, a gas tanker truck gets stuck in the Midtown tunnel, seizing the city with gridlock and fear of a terrorist attack.

Meanwhile, the Cohens' beloved dachshund, Dorothy, falls ill and has to be taken to an uptown animal hospital. Since no cabs are running part of the story is them trying to get her to the vet and then trying to get back to visit her. As the real estate market swings in response to the news about the tanker, the Cohens wait for news about their dog and confront the reality of leaving their home.

I picked up this book because it caught my eye as it has an outline of a dachshund on the cover. It is short book, less than 200 pages, but I found myself slowing down to read it almost relishing the story. It isn't a complicated tale yet a lot is happening. We see the story from the couples point of view but some of the most interesting part of the story comes from Dorothy, the couples little dachshund who spends most of the story at the vet recovering from a back operation.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

First of a trilogy "The Millenium-series" introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multi pierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable super hacker.

A 24-year-old computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, sports an assortment of tattoos and body piercings but is oddly emotionally dissociated with others and maybe afflicted with Asperger Syndrome or something of the like. She has been under state guardianship in her native Sweden since she was thirteen. She supports herself by doing deep background investigations for Dragan Armansky, who, in turn, worries the anorexic-looking Lisbeth Salander is "the perfect victim for anyone who wished her ill." Salander may look fourteen and stubbornly shun social norms, but she possesses the inner strength of a determined survivor. She sees more than her word processor page in black and white and despises the users and abusers of this world. She won't hesitate to exact her own unique brand of retribution against small-potatoes bullies, sick predators, and corrupt magnates alike.

Financial journalist Carl Mikael Blomkvist has just been convicted of libeling a financier and is facing a fine and three months in jail. Blomkvist, after a Salander-completed background check, is summoned to a meeting with semi-retired industrialist Henrik Vanger whose far-flung but shrinking corporate empire is wholly family owned. Vanger has brooded for 36 years about the fate of his great niece, Harriet. Blomkvist is expected to live for a year on the island where many Vanger family members still reside and where Harriet was last seen. Under the cover story that he is writing a family history, Blomkvist is to investigate which family member might have done away with the teenager.

On the surface this seems to be a cold-case but quickly develops into layers of hatred and corruption against women and men. Each section has a kind of statistic about crimes against women in Sweden. But we learn so much more. I really found this book fascinating and can't wait to read the other 2. I'm wondering if the 2 other books will hold up to this one.

Interesting side-note. The author, Stieg Larsson died just after submitting all 3 manuscripts in 2004. Already book 1 has been made into a movie under the original title "Man who hated women", interestingly enough in Spanish. Considering the original book was in Swedish, I expected it to have been done in that language first.

Undertaking: life studies of a dismal trade by Thomas Lynch

This is a collection of Thomas Lynch's essays. Lynch is the sole funeral director in Milford, Michigan, a business he became a part of because his father was a funeral director as are several family members. Each essay discusses a topic linked to death. At times this becomes a bit mind numbing has he dwells on the same topics in much detail and likes lists. But at other times there is a flash of almost brilliance and you see the poet come out. I think the most moving were the essays where death is brought home to him personally but I cannot say I personally enjoyed this that much.

It was part of my bookclub so I gave it a try but it will not be on my best book list. I really felt that he liked to read his own work and wish that he had had a better editor to help him be more concise and not dupliate so much. You can tell that these essays were written separately and then just put together. I think I would have enjoyed it more as single essays in the New Yorker versus a whole book put together.

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith

The story begins with two young men driving in the country side looking for a particular town. They finally find it and there begins the story of La "short for Lavender". This beginning is nicely tied up in the end as well.

La's life is pretty ordinary. She goes to college at Cambridge where she meets the man that will become her husband. He proposes just a month after they meet, she doesn't love him in a passionate sense but more in a settling for what life gives her. There marriage seems to be alright except that La cannot have children but her husband seems to accept it. Suddenly her life changes when her father-in-law comes to their home to tell her that he has left her for another woman in France. Not long after that he is injured and consequently dies.

La retreats to a small cottage in Suffolk given to her by her mortified in-laws. The isolation and peacefulness suit La, who joins the Women's Land Army soon after the outbreak of war. She is lonely but enjoys the isolation and feels determined to make something of her life. She takes care of hens who belong a local farmer who suffers from arthritis. Through a friend she meets Tim, who is a local military man, who mentions Feliks Dabrowski (Dab), an attractive Polish ex-pat soldier who lost the sight of one eye and needed a job. The farmer she helps needs a worker to do odd jobs on the farm so together they get Dab a job. La finds herself attracted to him, despite her suspicions that Feliks hasn't been fully truthful about his past.

When Tim finds out La used to perform in chamber orchestras in Cambridge he suggests she start an amateur local orchestra to boost morale for both soldiers and locals. This proves an unexpected success and helps give her purpose during the war's darkest days.

This is a quiet almost observant work of life in rural England during WWII. But we see it from La's point of view as she struggles to find herself up until the very end.

I so enjoyed this book. It was the perfect book to read over a weekend. It was a nice change of pace to see the author write outside his series. He has such a way of writing the female voice that one forgets the author is a male. There is no mystery in the true sense as it is more of La's living her life.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe by Douglas Adams

Arthur Dent's day is not starting well. He wakes up with a terrible hangover and the realization that his house is about to be torn down to make way for an expressway. Unfortunately it's going to get worse as his friend Ford Prefect convenciences him to go have a drink and then says the world is ending in 6 minutes. Wouldn't you know it, the Earth is going to be blown up for an intergalexic expressway.

Ford Prefect, is actually a researcher for the book "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" from a planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and has been stranded on earth for 15 years. Thankfully just moments before the Earth is destroyed Arthur and Ford hitch a ride on the Vogon space cruiser that has just destroyed the planet Earth. Poor Arthur wakes up confused and sick and not able to understand anything being said until he sticks a Babel fish into his ear. After Arthur and Ford are thrown out into space they are picked up by the Heart of Gold stolen by President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox and his shipmate Trillian, both of whom Arthur actually met months before at a party. Such impossible coincidences are explained by the fact that the Heart of Gold is powered by the new Infinite Improbability Drive. More considents abound as they zoom through space. The ending leaves it open to the next book "Restaurant at the end of Universe".

I've read this several times but this was my first time hearing it read on CD. The reader was Stephen Fry and it was so well done. I just laughed and laughed and now want to continue the adventures by hopefully another tale online.

Cold Light of Mourning by Elizabeth J. Duncan

More than two and a half decades ago, Penny Brannigan left Canada to relocate in Llanelen, Wales where she opened a reasonably successful manicure shop. She recently just lost her best friend, Emma the retired school teacher for the area. Emma had been her first friend and was one of the reasons that Penny decided to settle in Llanelen. But life must go on so she continues giving her manicures and silently observing what goes around her. But when she ends up being the last one to see bride-to-be Meg Wynne Thompson the morning of her wedding to the squire's son, she is thrust into the thick of it. During her friend, Emma's, funeral something just doesn't seem right to Penny. So she contacts the local police to report her suspicions.

Detective Chief Inspector Gareth Davies and his lieutenant Morgan are assigned to the missing persons case but after talking to Penny determine foul play may be afoot. Penny informs Gareth about the strange client whom she now believes was not Meg but someone pretending to be the missing woman. As the police arrest the fiancé whose father suddenly dies Meg and her new friend Victoria Hopkird begin asking questions that bring them to the a startling conclusion.

This starts out as a typical cozy mystery but as the mystery progresses it gets more complicated as Penny peels the layers of the various suspects. I enjoyed this story and found it to have more depth than I originally anticipated. I'm looking forward to other books by the author whether the same series or not.

Dresden Files - # 1 Storm Front (Graphic Novel 1-4)
by Jim Butcher, adapted by Mark Powers and illustrated by Ardian Syaf

This Graphic Novel covers the first part of the book "Storm Front" that introduced Harry Dresden, a modern wizard who's set up shop in downtown Chicago. Dresden is called upon to determine how a double homicide, a bloody murder in which two people's hearts exploded out of their chests! Murphy, a female Chicago police detective needs Dresden to help them figure out if this could have been done supernaturally. Along the way, he runs afoul of a Chicago mob boss, a brothel-owning vampiress, an acid-spewing demon, and ultimately a drug-selling practitioner of the dark arts.

Harry is in bad standing with the White Council that governs wizards because he survived an incident in which he killed someone in self-defense using magic. He is under the Doom of Damocles in which if he breaks any rules, he will be executed. This makes his present situation a bit touchy. He is working a case involving the use of deadly magic that requires Harry to reconstruct the original spell in order to identify the murderer. If his watchdog who loathes him catches him performing an inkling of dark magic, he will be obliterated. Feeling he has no choice, Harry soon finds himself on the abyss by the dark magic he encounters.

Because this is a partial collection of a comic book it will be awhile before we see the conclusion to the story. But it is a decent adaption of the book. I need to go back and re-read it to compare.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. All of her friends are married and having children, leaving Skeeter feeling like an old maid. Her friend Hilly sets her up with a senator's son with mixed results. Her circumstances make her tied to staying with her disapproving mother and feeling like there is no future.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Aibileen is suffering from a silent rage which makes her respond to Miss Skeeter and sets all their lives in motion.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. But Minny has her own problems, a drunk of a husband who beats her, leaving her future uncertain. So she keeps herself pregnant as then her husband usually leaves her alone.

Skeeter wants to be a writer but all she can find is a column about writing household hints, since she knows nothing about running a household she relies on her friend Elizabeth's maid Aibileen to help her out. But until she finds something to really write about she will never become a writer. After a chance conversation with a book editor from NYC Skeeter decides to start writing about the help of the women she are friends with. Aibileen is her first interview and then Minny does too but 2 interviews are not enough and it isn't until Skeeter is herself austersied from her community do other maids decide to step up and tell their stories. Some are happy and some are terrible but all ring true. Skeeter changed the names and the locations but it doesn't take long for the people of Jackson to figure it out. When it finally the truth comes to light what will happen?

It is an interesting mix of historical fiction during a time of tremendous turmoil in the US. JFK had just been assassinated, MLK was stirring things up and you see the different sides of the story from the stories told. I really enjoyed this glimpse into a very exciting time of American history.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

It takes place in an unspecified future time in an anti-intellectual America that has completely abandoned self-control. This America is filled with lawlessness in the streets ranging from teenagers crashing cars to firemen who burn books instead of fight fires. Anyone caught reading or possessing books is, at the minimum, confined to a mental hospital while the books are burned by the firemen. It is never really specified what constitutes an illegal book but anything from the bible to works of literature.

One rainy night returning from his job, fireman Guy Montag meets his new neighbor Clarisse McClellan, whose free-thinking ideals and liberating spirit force him to question his life, his ideals, and his own perceived happiness. Clarisse always asked why and never just accepted a pat answer. Later Montag finds out that Clarisse is hit by a car and killed, her family gone.

After the first meeting of Clarisse, Montag returns home to find his wife Mildred asleep with an empty bottle of sleeping pills next to her bed. He calls for medical help; two technicians respond by proceeding to suck out Mildred's blood with a machine and insert new blood into her. The technicians' utter disregard for Mildred forces Montag to question the state of society.

In the following days, while ransacking the book-filled house of an old woman before the inevitable burning, Montag accidentally reads a line in one of her books: "Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine". This prompts him to steal one of the books. The woman refuses to leave her house and her books, choosing instead to light a match she had concealed from the firemen's view, prematurely igniting the flammable kerosene the firemen had sprayed her house with and, in a bizarre act subsequently burns herself alive along with her beloved books. This severely disturbs Montag, who wonders why someone would die for books, which he considers to be without value.

Jarred by the woman's suicide, Montag calls in sick, but gets a visit from his fire chief Captain Beatty, who explains to him the political and social causes which underlie the work they perform. Captain Beatty claims that society, in its search for happiness and in an attempt to minimize cultural offenses through political correctness, brought about the suppression of literature as an act of self-censorship and that the government merely took advantage of the situation. Beatty adds that all firemen eventually steal a book out of curiosity, but all would be well if the book is turned in within 24 hours. Montag argues with his wife, Mildred, over the book he himself has stolen, showing his growing disgust for her and for his society.

After Beatty leaves it is revealed that Montag has, over the course of a year, hidden dozens of books in the ventilation shafts of his own house, and tries to memorize them to preserve their contents, but becomes frustrated that the words seem to simply fall away from his memory. He then remembers a man he had met at one time: Faber, a former English professor. Montag seeks Faber's help, where after Faber begins teaching Montag about the vagaries and ambiguities but overall importance of literature in its attempt to explain human existence. He also tells him what books really mean. He also gives Montag a green bullet-shaped ear-piece so that Faber can offer guidance throughout his daily activities.

After a disastrous encounter with Beatty in which he kills him and severely injures 2 other firefighters, Montag flees to Faber's house. Even though he killed the hound another has been sent after him with television network helicopters in hot pursuit. The newscasters hope to document his escape as a spectacle, and distract the people from the oncoming threat of war, a threat that has been foreshadowed throughout the book via the reader being repeatedly told of planes flying over the buildings that the characters are in, as well as a radio broadcast that says "this country stands ready to defend itself".

Faber tells Montag of vagabond book-lovers in the countryside. Montag then escapes to a local river, floats downstream and meets a group of older men who, to Montag's astonishment, have memorized entire books, preserving them orally until the law against books is overturned. They burn the books they read to prevent discovery, retaining the verbatim content (and possibly valid interpretations) in their minds. The group leader, Granger, discusses the legendary phoenix and its endless cycle of long life, death in flames, and rebirth, adding that the phoenix must have some relation to mankind, which constantly repeats its mistakes.

Meanwhile, the television network helicopters surround and kill another man (who regularly walks about) instead of Montag, to maintain the illusion of a successful hunt for the watching audience. But in the end the war begins. Montag watches helplessly as jet bombers fly overhead and attack the city with nuclear weapons. Montag is sad to think that Mildred has died but he hopes that Faber has left the city. They assume that more cities across the country have been incinerated as well; a bitter irony in that the world that sought to burn thought is burned itself. While the initiation of modern society is clear Montag the survivors strive to create a new world in which literature and intellectual freedom will prevail.

I listened to this story on CD and it included a fascinating prologue that Bradbury wrote in 1979 where he talks about the play he wrote based on the book as well as told the progress he took to write the original story and the censorship he has gotten over the years. It is really incredible how a story from the 1950's could still be relevant in an even more profound way. I read this in college and really enjoyed it even more now.