| Playing with Boys by Alisa Valdes Rodriguez, 368 pages Micaela Larkin 27 November 2006 Awful sophomore chic lit | Emily Ever After by Ann Dayton and May Vanderbilt, 307 pages Micaela Larkin 22 January 2007 The story of an evangelical girl taking on NYC and the Sex in the City publishing world. Okay read for Evangelicachick lit, but at the end of the day it is still evangelicachick lit... |
Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull by Barbara Goldsmith, 447 pages Micaela Larkin 03 February 2007 Goldsmith offers an engaging account of early suffragists, spiritualism, and the infamous Beecher family. |
Smart Girls: A New Pyschology of Girls, Women, and Giftedness by Barbara Kerr, 262 pages Micaela Larkin 29 June 2006 I was trying to balance out my Jung/Gordon reading for next week with a more "scientific" perspective. |
Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels, 385 pages Micaela Larkin 04 May 2007 academic cozy literary mystery with funny commentary about lady academics |
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, 272 pages Micaela Larkin 27 November 2006 Awesome |
The Temperamet God Gave You by Bennett, 288 pages Micaela Larkin 05 January 2007 |
To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife by Caitliyn Flanagan, 239 pages Micaela Larkin 16 July 2006 Loved it! I borrowed my cousin's copy while house-sitting. I'm a big fan of the elegant bride chapter. |
Arms of Love (Contemporary Catholic Fiction) by Carmen Marcoux, 454 pages Micaela Larkin 16 July 2006 Whatever happened to the Catholic imagination is it being surplanted by mega-evangelical dating texts? This is a strange book. It might be a bit better on a literary level if the author had not self-published. On a religious level, the book is downright disturbing. The author writes in the grand tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe, except wait a minute she is not a mid-century evangelical and you don't even have anyone to succumb to evil or a Christ figure like the little girl or Uncle Tom. They all accepted Christ into their lives and instituted "COURTSHIP" principles (no kissing before wedding) and life was perfect. I'm all for writing contemporary light fiction for religious people but I'm not so sure about books out in la la land. |
Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding by Cele C Otnes and Elizabeth Pleck, 280 pages Micaela Larkin 29 June 2007 |
The Rossetti Letter by Christi Phillips, 383 pages Micaela Larkin 25 March 2007 Ph.D student visits Venice to attend conference solve historical mystery about seventeenth-century Venitian courtesan. |
My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood by Christine Rosen, 229 pages Micaela Larkin 05 December 2006 |
The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of American Democracy by Christopher Lasch, 256 pages Micaela Larkin 12 July 2006 Awesome! |
Knitting under the influence by Claire Lazebnik, 397 pages Micaela Larkin 08 November 2006 Stupid chic-lit; wouldn't recommend |
The Women by Clare Boothe Luce, 215 pages Micaela Larkin 28 May 2007 A+++ |
the man of my dreams by curtis sittenfield, 269 pages Micaela Larkin 08 November 2006 While she keeps the same self-obssessive inner eye on her main character, this sophomore attempt is much better fare than her original book of the month, prep. |
The Mind of the Catholic Layman by Daniel Callahan, 208 pages Micaela Larkin 16 July 2006 |
Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing your Soul by David L. Goetz, 204 pages Micaela Larkin 14 April 2006 This memoir-cultural critique-advice book is a winner. The author dissects the spiritual malaise of the evangelical suburbanite, and offers timeless solutions. Of course, he finds most of his inspiration in early modern French Catholicism. :) |
The Thrill of the Chaste: Keeping Your Clothes On... by Dawn Eden, 224 pages Micaela Larkin 09 January 2007 Argument for chastity from a rock journalist turned semi-chaset evangelist turned thrilled Catholic |
Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality by Dean Radin, 298 pages Micaela Larkin 02 May 2007 Psychics & Quantum Physics |
The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate, 544 pages Micaela Larkin 12 December 2006 I enjoyed this biography of the most famous Beecher brother.... |
The Death of Sybil Bolton by Dennis McAuliffe, Jr., 307 pages Micaela Larkin 05 April 2006 Washington post writer with a penchant for alcohol explores the murder of his Osage Indian grandmother in 1925. The memoir part is a little much, but the author does a nice job exposing the rise and fall of the Osage Nation in the early twentieth century and the systematic killing of oil "rich" Indians. |
The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor, 328 pages Micaela Larkin 08 September 2005 |
An Untold Story: The Roosevelts of Hyde Park by Eliot Roosevelt, 305 pages Micaela Larkin 03 July 2007 FDR's son psychoanalyzes his parents. |
Something Blue by Emily Giffin, 368 pages Micaela Larkin 08 November 2006 What if you were the scorned best friend from previous book who went to England to stay with other childhood friend? |
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin, 336 pages Micaela Larkin 08 November 2006 kind of weird book, but not a bad read... what happens if you slept with your best friend from grade school's fiancee on your birthday six months before the wedding? |
Real Life, Real Love by Father Albert Cutie, 357 pages Micaela Larkin 05 December 2006 Yes, his name is Cutie. :) |
The Scarlet Threat by Francine Rivers , 401 pages Micaela Larkin 21 June 2007 My attempt to read evangelical historical fiction. Well written but..... |
Vipers' Tangle by Francois Mauriac, 281 pages Micaela Larkin 16 April 2006 Novel dissecting the interior life of middle-class french lawyer.... Catholic Classic Best line:"Our thoughts, our desires, our actions struck no root in the faith to which we paid lip service. All our strength was employed in keeping our eyes fixed on material things." |
The Elixir of Youth by Gillian Bradshaw, 220 pages Micaela Larkin 08 November 2006 limits of science... in a contemporary mystery by a classical historian |
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, 372 pages Micaela Larkin 28 May 2007 mid-century melodrama |
Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides, 380 pages Micaela Larkin 08 September 2005 |
Tete a Tete: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sarte by Hazel Rowley, 95 pages Micaela Larkin 15 April 2006 I think I deserve credit for making it through the first 95 pages. I felt like I was reading people magazine (european edition) after their initial meeting. If anyone makes it through the whole book maybe they can give a better review. |
Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen, 152 pages Micaela Larkin 12 September 2006 |
Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan by Howard Sounes, 527 pages Micaela Larkin 19 April 2007 Excellent biography of Dylan... |
Bloody Mary by J.A. Konrath, 315 pages Micaela Larkin 08 September 2005 Mystery! This is another freebie from my good friend who edits mystery novels! |
Poland by James Michener, 640 pages Micaela Larkin 11 June 2007 Awesome |
The Trunk Murderess by Jana Bommersbach, 270 pages Micaela Larkin 01 February 2007 True life mystery regarding Arizona's most famous murder trial in the 1930s... engaging! |
The Reckoning: A Thriller by Jeff Long, 384 pages Micaela Larkin 08 September 2005 This engaging thriller is part historical mystery, part Michael Chrichton, and part magical realism. |
The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy: The Real English Patient : The Real English Patient (Hardcover) by John Bierman, 304 pages Micaela Larkin 08 September 2005 The author surveys the truth and myth surrounding Laszlo Almasy, the subject of the novel The English Patient. Bierman proves that life is stranger than fiction in this decent account of a doomed desert lover. |
Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics by John Grabowski, 224 pages Micaela Larkin 16 July 2006 Virtue ethics meets theology of the body. Interesting read. It makes some telling points about the legalistic attitudes of the pro-contraception Catholic crowd. |
Dry Heat by Jon Talton, 224 pages Micaela Larkin 08 September 2005 The main character is a cop turned academic historian turned cold case detective in his native hometown of Phoenix. The author is the only insightful columnist in the local paper, and his books provide a nice overview of the nation's largest unknown city. :) |
The Grasshopper King by Jordan Ellenberg, 200 pages Micaela Larkin 08 September 2005 |
Summer Friends by Judy Blume, 399 pages Micaela Larkin 26 June 2007 Dumbest book ever. I should not have picked it up!! |
In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, 352 pages Micaela Larkin 10 July 2006 Dorm group-read, this is a lively book that fades in the last one hundred pages. |
Love and Responsibility by Karol W, 319 pages Micaela Larkin 28 July 2006 In my newest holy roller phase, I decided to take on Pope JPII's first foray into Catholic marriage, and in some ways it provides a practical foray (psych/bio/philo) look into his later developed theology of the body. Good reading! It also is useful for assessing one's own descent into utilitarianism in one's personal life. Or the hefty book can be thrown at people who need to wake up! |
Sammy's Hill by Kristin Gore, 400 pages Micaela Larkin 08 June 2007 Gore's daughter writes political chic lit. |
Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps by Lara Rios, 284 pages Micaela Larkin 17 November 2006 Chicana Chic Lit |
Becoming Americana by Lara Rios, 307 pages Micaela Larkin 27 November 2006 Chicana chic lit... sophomore slump! |
Love Stories of World War II by Larry King, 325 pages Micaela Larkin 24 March 2007 |
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig, 428 pages Micaela Larkin 15 April 2007 |
The Mystery of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig, 403 pages Micaela Larkin 17 April 2007 |
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Albert Urrea, 495 pages Micaela Larkin 19 April 2006 Novel trying to capture the life of real life mystic Teresa Urrea who helped promote Indian revolts in turn of the century Sonora, Mexico. I was dissappointed in the book. The author's strength lies more in his award winning non-fiction on immigration and his memoirs of growing up Mexican in Southern California. |
Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millett, 506 pages Micaela Larkin 01 February 2006 "What if Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard, the primary physicists from the Manhattan Project, returned to contemporary America to survey their atomic legacy?" -- Amazing!!!! |
The Way of All Women by M. Esther Harding, 301 pages Micaela Larkin 21 June 2006 |
The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, 304 pages Micaela Larkin 01 February 2007 |
The Convert by Margaret Culkin Banning, 313 pages Micaela Larkin 08 August 2006 catholic fiction of the fifties-- I'm not sure it would convert me to the one holy true Church as Colbert would say! |
Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart, 258 pages Micaela Larkin 18 April 2007 Do you remember the best summer of your life? This is the story of two Iowa girls who spend the summer of 1945 working at TIFFANYS. |
Good Boys and Dead Girls-- And Other Essays by Mary Gordon, 272 pages Micaela Larkin 23 June 2006 Raiding the Donahue's book shelf. Interesting! |
The Group by Mary McCarthy, 397 pages Micaela Larkin 18 May 2006 This 1963 book follows the lives of Vassar graduates through the 1930s-1940s. While the characters humanity in the text is inconstant, the well describe characters illuminate the intellectual and social milieu of the day. I think the best part of the book is the inner monologue of one character on why she can't share her visit to be fitted for a birth control device with her mother (who had ardently fought for such devices in a previous era as a clubwoman), and a later scene when she reveals her loss of virginity to her mother. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/23/home/mccarthy-group.html |
Bull from the Sea by Mary Renault, 352 pages Micaela Larkin 16 May 2006 I'm taking on classic mid century paperback fiction books this month. This book might be of interest to you if you like Greek mythology, drifting conversations, and a slow pace. Not my cupt of tea! |
The Vanishing Point by Mary Sharratt, 364 pages Micaela Larkin 13 September 2006 |
Aimee Semple McPherson & the Resurrection of Christian America by Matthew Avery Sutton, 416 pages Micaela Larkin 17 June 2007 A++++ |
Size 12 Is Not Fat: A Heather Wells Mystery by Meg Cabot, 368 pages Micaela Larkin 21 April 2006 The author of the Princess Diaries dynasty takes on mystery. What happens if an ex-teen pop princess has to solve the mysterious deaths of NYU students in the dorm elevators? This cozy is comfortable, smart, and a good mystery. |
Next: A Novel by Michael Chricton, 423 pages Micaela Larkin 04 May 2007 Do you own your genes? |
The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, 288 pages Micaela Larkin 15 January 2007 This book chronicles the personal story of Michael Oher and a engaging account of the rise of the position of left tackle. I loved it. |
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, 288 pages Micaela Larkin 13 February 2007 |
A New Generation: Catholic and American by Michael Novak, 205 pages Micaela Larkin 16 July 2006 |
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, 464 pages Micaela Larkin 29 June 2007 A++++++ Corn is in everything we eat! |
Border-Line Personalities by Michele Herrera Mulligan and Robyn Moreno, 299 pages Micaela Larkin 06 December 2006 |
City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles by Mike Davis, 435 pages Micaela Larkin 01 February 2006 Part noir, part history, part utopia, part hell.... solid non-fiction for the armchair urban historian |
The Devil's Advocate by Morris West, 430 pages Micaela Larkin 26 April 2006 |
Passing by Nella Larsen (1929), 122 pages Micaela Larkin 19 July 2006 By harlem renaissance's premier woman writer--- "first published in 1929, Passing is a remarkably candid exploration of racial and sexual boundaries." |
At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks, 277 pages Micaela Larkin 26 November 2006 ND's most famous writer after Edwin O'Connor and old Ralph takes on love and pathos in the South. |
Myself & I by Norma Johnston, 210 pages Micaela Larkin 07 May 2007 |
Barbara Goldsmith by Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie, 236 pages Micaela Larkin 29 June 2006 Superb. Romance, Chemistry, and Modern Science!!! This short tome is a part of the tiny biography series that you can pick up at half-price books. |
Saints by Orson Scott Card, 711 pages Micaela Larkin 19 April 2007 Polygamy. Polygamy. Polygamy. Not science fiction... Former ND Student writes fictional account of his Mormon pioneer ancestors. Good read! |
Suburbanistas by Pamela Satran, 352 pages Micaela Larkin 22 April 2006 Run far away! I'm a bit embarrased to admit that I checked this out of the library. It did have a cool cover. That said, this tale of movie star returning home to stop the gentrification of her old commuter New England town falls under the category of pretty lame and one should only read it if execptionally bored and too cheap to pay 9 dollars to attend an afternoon movie. |
Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy, 576 pages Micaela Larkin 01 January 2006 Decent read! |
Beach Music by Pat Conroy, 816 pages Micaela Larkin 01 January 2006 Forgotten gem! Conroy manages to construct an intriguing story that connects Rome, the Holocaust, the South, and Vietnam in a bittersweet emotionally wrought tale of a man coming to grips with the past. |
The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory, 390 pages Micaela Larkin 14 September 2006 |
I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You by Ralph McInerny, 167 pages Micaela Larkin 23 June 2006 Ralph surveys his life, Notre Dame, and academics. I think the best part is his accounts of a little summer loving in between seminary stays. |
The Priest by Ralph McInerny, 563 pages Micaela Larkin 28 May 2007 1968 religious melodrama |
The Catholic Marriage Manual (1958) by Rev. George A. Kelley, 223 pages Micaela Larkin 28 May 2007 prior to his battles for the Church |
Chicano: A Novel by Richard Vasquez, 464 pages Micaela Larkin 26 April 2006 Vasquez's classic has been reprinted after thirty five years. Think Grapes of Wrath without the moral hope at the end. Drawing on his tenure as a journalist, Vasquez takes readers through the trials and disentegration of a Mexican American family from 1910 to the late 1960s. |
Love Among the Ruins (Novel) by Robert Clarkin, 333 pages Micaela Larkin 28 May 2007 |
Lord of the World (1906) by Robert Hugh Benson, 338 pages Micaela Larkin 21 June 2007 Catholic apocalyptic fiction at its best (according to Fulton Sheen). You judge: "He had talked to him of inner life again and again, in which verities are seen to be true, and acts of faith are ratified; he had urgent prayer and humility till he was almost weary of the naes; and had been met by the retort that this was to advise sheer self-hyptonism; and he ahd despaired of making clear to one who did not see it for himself that while love and Faith may be called self-hypnotism from one angle, yet from another they are as much realities as, for example, artistic faculties, and need similar cultivation; that they produce a conviction that they are convictions, that they handle and taste things which when handled and tasted are overwhelmingly more real and objective than the things of sense. Evidences seemed to mean nothing to this man. |
Come Rack! Come Rope! by Robert Hugh Benson, 377 pages Micaela Larkin 02 July 2007 DJ: "Edmund Campion's defiant cry, "Come Rack! Come Rope!" was taken up as the rallying cry of the hunted priests in Elizabethean England. The story of these priests and of the people who surrounded and helped them has never been told more graphically..." |
Privilege: Harvard and Educating the Ruling Class by Ross Douthat, 288 pages Micaela Larkin 15 September 2006 |
The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell, 196 pages Micaela Larkin 17 June 2006 |
Sarge: The Life and Times of Sarge Shriver by Scot Stossell, 704 pages Micaela Larkin 01 January 2007 A++ I read it in one sitting. |
Louisa: A Novel by Simone Zelitch, 377 pages Micaela Larkin 10 April 2006 Decent read. Hungarian Jewish survivor accompanied by her German daughter in law move to Palestine in 1949. Flows back and forth across space and time... |
Bad Bridesmaid: Bachelorette Brawls and Tantrum Tales by Siri Agrell, 171 pages Micaela Larkin 25 March 2007 Signs that you are a bad bridesmaid: You don't know the difference between taffeta and tulle, but you think they're both ugly. |
Duchess: A Novel of Sarah Churchill by Susan Galloway Scott, 379 pages Micaela Larkin 26 November 2006 Excellent historical fiction... it makes you want to read more about the subject! |
Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce by Sylvia Jukes Morris, 478 pages Micaela Larkin 08 May 2007 |
And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander, 320 pages Micaela Larkin 01 February 2007 This book rocks. I picked it up because I liked the cover at Target. When I flipped it over I realized Ralph McInerny liked it. Opened up the flap to read that author went to ND and her dad taught there, I immediately bought it. It was a great mystery! Luckily, the sequel comes out in a few months! |
A Poisoned Seasons (2007) by Tasha Alexander, 320 pages Micaela Larkin 28 May 2007 |
Lauren Willig by The Deception of the Emerald Ring, 386 pages Micaela Larkin 16 April 2007 |
Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer by Thomas Dubay, 122 pages Micaela Larkin 21 July 2006 |
The Heartless Stone by Tom Zoellner, 270 pages Micaela Larkin 08 November 2006 Diamonds are a girl's best friend, NOT!!! The real story of how diamond's change cultures. |
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, 193 pages Micaela Larkin 18 November 2006 |
Lancelot by Walker Percy, 272 pages Micaela Larkin 28 July 2006 continuing my descent into diagnostic Catholic reading.... Nice pairing with L&R, Walker Percy illustrates the utilitarian world that JPII critiques. |
A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shallit, 304 pages Micaela Larkin 27 November 2006 Shallit offers an intelligent discussion of modern dating. |
The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards by Whit Stillman, 339 pages Micaela Larkin 01 January 2006 Brilliant movie-man Whit Stillman novelizes his own last days of disco, and succeeds. Perfect for any UHB (Urban Haute Bourgeoisie) or Austen lover. |
Clare Boothe Luce by Wilfrid Sheed, 176 pages Micaela Larkin 07 May 2007 |