The House at the End of Hope Street

The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna Van Praag is a book set in Cambridge, England full of magical realism. After Alba has the worst experience of her life and is forced to leave Cambridge University she finds herself being called to a mysterious house run by a beautiful older woman who takes her in and tells her she can stay there for 99 days while she turns her life around.

There are two other women staying at the house as well as a ghost and numerous famous women pictured on the walls who once stayed there. They have a tendency to come to life from time to time and voice their opinions on all manner of things. With a wonderful cast of literary figures and just the right amount of magic, this book was a joy to read.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan is a book more about computers than books. I was very excited to read this book about a small bookstore in San Francisco, only to find it was really about secret societies and breaking codes using mega computers and finding eternal life and very little about books.

That all sounds pretty cool, and some would probably love this, but personally I was disappointed; maybe because I'm jaded at this point and few books written by men live up to my expectations.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is a fantastic new novel by one of my favorite writers, Lisa See. It is about the Akha hill tribe people in the Yunnan region of China, who for generations have farmed tea, and held on to their customs and traditions despite the modern world encroaching upon them.

See has written many books of historical fiction based in China and her books are always meticulously researched, this one is no exception. I loved every page and was sad to come to the end. A perfect book to read with a cup of Yunnan tea or Pu-erh. If you don't know what that is, you will learn while reading this book.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson is a hilarious and mildly disturbing book taken mostly from her blog, The Bloggess. Lawson starts with her early life, growing up poor in rural Texas with a taxidermist Dad and the stories are laugh out loud funny at the same time as they are truly unsettling.

Lawson goes in for shock value each chapter and I was getting a bit tired of it by the end of the book, but still found it one of the funniest things Ive read in a long time.

The Last Anniversary

The Last Anniversary, is an early novel by one of my favorite writers, Liane Moriarty. Moriarty always weaves a good tale full of interesting characters and keeps the reader in a bit of suspense waiting to find out what happens.

Set on tiny Scribbly Gum Island, just off the coast of Sydney, Sophie inherits a house and becomes part of a family mystery about parents who left their newborn baby and disappeared without a trace. As Sophie's biological clock is ticking and she desperately hopes to start a family of her own, the truth about the Scribbly Gum baby might just be coming to light.

An entertaining read, although not nearly as good as her later books.

Quiet Until the Thaw

Quiet Until the Thaw by Alexandra Fuller is a novel about life on the Lakota reservation for two Native American cousins who choose very different paths. Fuller captures the wisdom and humor, as well as great sadness and injustice experienced by the Lakota on the reservation.

Fuller is one of my favorite writers and I still much prefer her non-fiction, but this is an engaging debut novel worth checking out.