2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas

2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino is a day in the life of almost ten year old Madeleine Altimari. Madeleine doesn't have any friends in her fifth grade class at school, she's just been expelled, her mother has recently died, her father is lost in grief, and all she really wants to to is sing.

Bertino weaves together beautifully the stories of Jazz Club owner Lorca, in debt and about to lose his club, Madeleine's teacher Sarina, recently divorced, and of course Madeleine herself, as they all find their way to The Cat's Pajamas, Philadelphia's once premiere Jazz Club, on Christmas Eve Eve, where Bertino brings Philadelphia's Jazz scene to life.

This is a wonderful, well written story, at times funny, at times heartbreaking, ultimately redeeming. I loved it.

Lost in a Good Book

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde is the second book in his Thursday Next series. If you enjoyed his first book, you will surely enjoy this one, as it is more of the same.

Next's husband has been eradicated, and to get him back she has to find her way into the poems of Edgar Allen Poe. Before she can do that, she must enter Great Expectations, to apprentice with Miss Havisham and learn how to book jump.

If you can suspend your disbelief, this is a fun adventure through some of the classics of literature, with a very modern twist.

Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, is a beautifully crafted post-apocalyptic novel unlike others in the same genre. After a flu wipes out 99 percent of Earth's population, those left are finding a way to live.

The novel moves back and forth through time, from an actor who dies on the night the pandemic starts, to the paramedic in training who tries to revive him, to a child actor who survives, and 20 years later is living with a Traveling Symphony performing Shakespeare plays to other survivors.

These characters are linked together through wonderful details and images, not least of which is the comic Station Eleven, from which the book gets its name.

An original, well written and haunting novel that you won't soon forget.

The Eyre Affair

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fford is the first novel in a series of novels about detective Thursday Next. Set in Britain in the 80's, Fford has created a world where the barrier between literature and reality is bendable and it is possible to steal characters out of novels and poems, or even enter into them yourself.

You must completely suspend your disbelief to enjoy this story. Sometimes it worked for me and sometimes it didn't, but it's hard not to like the heroine of the story, Thursday Next, a SpecOps Literatech tracking down an evil villain hidden deep in the pages of Jane Eyre.

A fun and clever read, if you're up for a truly fantastic journey.

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate is the second book in the Isabel Dalhousie Series by Alexander McCall Smith. These books have a weightier quality to them than the more lighthearted Ladies No.1 Detective Agency Series. Set in Edinburgh, Isabel Dalhousie is another wonderful, strong, intelligent, female lead character. She is a philosopher and a bit of an investigator herself.

In this book, she meets a man who has recently had a heart transplant, and now is having strange dreams, almost like memories. She decides to investigate and we wander through Edinburgh with her, getting acquainted with the neighborhood, as well as listening to all the philosophical musings going on in her mind.

McCall Smith is always clever, charming and original. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Good Things

Good Things is the debut novel by Mia King. After five years of her own TV show in Seattle called 'Live Simple,' Deidre's show is cancelled. She also looses her apartment the same week and is conveniently offered the use of a country home by a gorgeous, rich stanger she happens to meet.

Its all a little too good to be true for my taste, which seems to be a theme in the books I've been reading lately. What are supposed to be struggles and hardships for Deidre in the following months, seem like more abundance heaped onto her supposedly challenging life.

I never really bought into any of it, or cared about the characters. King has some promise as a writer if she digs a little deeper next time.