Never mind that it's a young adult book. Lynne Reid Banks' work has such a vast scope, it should not be missed by anyone.

The book is set in 1968. Lesley is a typical teenager. She's always trendily dressed, always popular, always the envied one. Then her father announces that the entire family is going to emigrate to Israel. She cries, pleads, threatens, but soon enough they arrive on a border kibbutz. Lesley doesn't speak Hebrew, can't do much in the way of chores, and is at first treated like anathema by her peers. Meanwhile, the conflict between Israel and Jordan escalates. Across the River Jordan, surprisingly lacking in width or depth, she observes over time a young boy whose loneliness reminds her of herself. Despite knowing better, Lesley cannot imagine him an enemy. When war breaks out, the world of the kibbutz seems terribly fragile, but Lesley finds herself fighting as desperately as her neighbors to hold on.

The relationship between Lesley and Mustapha, however brief, is one of the most unforgettable I've ever read about. The final scene of the book still haunts me. I reread it at least once a year.

I can honestly say that I have never read a better book. That is not to say it was the most fun to read, nor the easiest. It is an unforgettable book, the kind that probably will darken your mood, but will teach you as no other book can.

The story begins in 1947. Stingo, a cocky but nevertheless self-deprecating young Southerner, gets himself fired (with flair!) from his job in a prestigious, rather stodgy publishing firm. He gathers up his savings and moves into a boarding house, with plans to write The Great American Novel during the rest of the summer, or at least until his money runs out. Almost against his will, Stingo is drawn into a relationship with two of his neighbors-- the gorgeous Sophie, a survivor of Auschwitz, and her Jewish lover Nathan, an oddly compelling but often terrifying man.

Meanwhile Stingo tries desperately to have sex with a girl, any girl. The retelling of his hysterical failures are intertwined with Sophie's tortured memories of the death camps of Poland. And then the truth about her experiences, as well as the truth about Nathan, is revealed. Ow.

Styron is an amazing writer. He makes me gnash my teeth at my own pitiful efforts to write. This is his best work.

This book was far too long for its own good.

Dean Koontz has generally been good with the pacing of his suspense, in such novels as Dragon Tears and Fear Nothing. Nevertheless in this book he seems to have eschewed much of what he used in the other books.

Now, I loved Martie and Dusty, Skeet, Susan, Valet, and the rest. Martie's autophobia, Dusty's revelations-- all this was well done. The book was incredibly exciting, but then it hit the halfway point.

There things stopped making sense. The villain starts off deliciously menacing, with seemingly limitless power and a penchant for mind games. But soon he's a foolhardy incompetent, and it becomes clear many pages before the ending that he is out of control. Also, too many characters will make the plot stop making sense. When several more people are introduced at once, everything falls to pieces. The denouement was just flat.

I gave the story three stars for its fun 'good guys', its playful dialogue, and its occasional winks at pop culture .............. Nevertheless, I was disappointed by the end.

Ever since I was eleven, when I first discovered Anne of Green Gables, I have always loved L.M. Montgomery. I've read all of the Anne books, I have all three Emily books, and have read most of her others-- but The Blue Castle is my favorite.

Valancy is the most convincing heroine Montgomery ever created. Only 29, she sees the rest of her life stretching out in front of her, and doesn't believe she can change it anymore-- until a doctor tells her she has a short time left to live.

Valancy no longer cares about her oppressive family, or her own reputation. She leaves them and starts to live for herself.

This is not a children's book. Not to say there is any crudity, just that Valancy is very much a woman, leaving her girlhood behind. Her relationship with Barney Snaith is far more memorable than any conventional romance. This is an astoundingly good book.

Dorothy L. Sayers wrote some of the best mystery novels that ever appeared in print. In fact she wrote most of them.

Gaudy Night is mainly a novel of Oxford, despite its being ostensibly a mystery. Harriet Vane is the main character of this novel, though of course Sayers' best creation, Lord Peter Wimsey, plays an important part in this book. The dialogue is as clever and wonderfully piffling as ever, the story thought-provoking, and best of all it is here that Peter is finally successful in wooing his Harriet. (The punt scene! And the finale...)

There never was a better mystery writer. I would suggest, before reading this, that you read Strong Poison and Have His Carcase for the full effect. Oh, and follow Gaudy Night up with Busman's Honeymoon.

There is not the slightest hint of schmaltz in this modern Romance (the caps on the "R" are important); in fact the first person I recommended it to complained that the first 100 pages were terribly dry. Once she got past them, however, she agreed with me: it's an astonishingly good read.

_Possession_ starts with a discovery: an unfinished letter in a book belonging to a long-dead Victorian poet. At first the ramifications of this are unexplained, but soon it falls into place. Love and mystery, disenchantment and discovery make up this perfect novel. Several times I had to pause and catch my breath. This is one of the most significant works of the 1990s.

That is, this is the best Holmesian spin-off ever. "Pastiche" doesn't even come close to describing this book. It seems every fledgling mystery writer must reincarnate Holmes at least once. In my opinion this is the most successful incarnation, so successful in fact that it is the very same one presented by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself.

I have always been a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast. I spent two years in a place basically lacking in decent reading material in the English language. The Canon (all of the novels and short stories Conan Doyle wrote about Holmes) basically sustained me during that time. Holmes seemed to live and breathe in those works, and I despaired when I finished them.

I was lucky enough to find this book. It is just astoundingly good. Laurie R. King has a good ear for dialogue, and her descriptions always hit the mark. I can think of no mystery writer who rivals her in building a completely real, vivid atmosphere with just a few lines. In her works, Holmes lives again. Yes, it seems an implausible, perhaps even sacrilegious premise, giving him a young female partner. Yet Mary Russell is herself a fascinating character, and equals Holmes in deductive abilities.

Read this book. The plot is enthralling, the prose sharp and lucid, and the characters unforgettable. And rejoice in the fact that this is but the first book in a still ongoing series.