I have to agree with other reviewers who have panned this book for being a rehash of previous "Vampire Chronicle" books, such as "Vampire Armand" and "Queen of the Damned." (I confess I have not read "Pandora," the one "VC" novel I have missed, but given the way Marius's time with her was glossed over, I suspect that "Blood and Gold" is a rehash of "Pandora," too, as other reviewers have suggested.) And what is the deal with this new Thorne character? Clearly, he was brought in so that Marius could have someone to tell his life story to, but it was never fully explained why he was so angry at Maharet. And why did he feel it necessary to take revenge on Santino on Marius's behalf? The whole Thorne plotline made no sense whatsoever, and was far more frustrating than the Marius story, which for all its repetition, at least kept my attention for being told from a different viewpoint.

At least Anne Rice's storytelling is up to her usual lush standards, the Thorne plotline notwithstanding. We get her beautiful descriptions of the ancient and Renaissance times, as well as that of the 1700s. We learn more about Bianca and her relationship to Marius, as well as what it meant for him to guard the secret of Those Who Must Be Kept for so long. So it is not a total waste of time. But don't buy the hardcover version -- save a few dollars and buy the paperback.

This is the first book I have read of CS Lewis's (amazingly enough!) and it won't be my last. I didn't read this at a time of grief, but rather for a book club. However, I am in the process of signing up as a Hospice volunteer, so death and grieving were in my mind when I was reading "A Grief Observed." C.S. Lewis doesn't pull any punches with his grief or with God. He asks tough questions of what kind of God allows such immeasurable pain, yet seems to not be there when the pain and grieving are at their worst. By reading this, others would feel they have permission to be angry at God, to let out their pain and frustration and anger. A great book, especially for those whose faith development is at a high level.

I really, really wanted to dislike this book. Few of the characters were likeable, there were far more subplots than necessary, and as a previous reader noted, it could have easily been 300 words shorter. But somehow, the story of a small town in 1960, with all its meandering plots, its residents' twisted lives, secrets, desires, and blind spots, pulled me along. As unlikeable as the characters were, they were believable, and ultimately, that is what kept me going through 740 pages. At least they were 740 relatively fast pages. The one exception to the believablity quotient was that Norm, after 650 pages of hating Omar Duval, suddenly fell under his spell for about 50 pages. The sudden change of heart made no sense and seemed entirely plot driven. At least Norm did come to his senses pretty quickly!

I read this for our church's book club, and I was not disappointed. This is a beautifully told tale of how women learn, love, laugh, and live together. At the center of it all is Dinah, the only surviving daughter Jacob and his four wives. She becomes not only the repository of the saga of her four mothers, but becomes the bearer of her own story, as her brothers twists the love of her life into an awful rape (the story as we get in our Bible) and leave behind a massacre so awful, it forces Dinah to flee her family and start a new life as a midwife in Egypt. The rich detail, the descriptions, the dialog, the portrayal of feelings, are all what the Bible truly might have been like, if it has been written by women.

Some have criticized the deviations from the Bible in this work. First of all, this is fiction, and should be treated as such. Secondly, those who are offended by the way God and the men who follow God are portrayed, let me offer this: Look at how the men of God behave in Genesis! Jacob and his sons are hardly role models in their Biblical portrayals. Why should Anita Diamant give them any better treatment? Whatever your religious inclinations are, "The Red Tent" brings alive an ancient time, and is beautifully written. Definitely highly recommended.

Perhaps the best thing about Rev. Buechner's book is that, in reading about his early journey toward finding Christ, it really will, as so many have noted, help you reflect on your journey. Buechner writes about how our lives are like novels, that they have a structure and a meaning, and indeed, they do, if we take the time to delve into them and try to process them. God, of course, is the Author of that meaning, and as Buechner finds meaning in his life, so too can we find meaning in ours. This is one I am sure I will read again and again. (Fair warning -- the cover photograph will come to haunt you as you read about what happens to Buechner's father!)

Paula Sharp manages to keep her cast of characters larger than life, yet believable at the same time. "I Loved You All," told from the point of view of a precocious eight year old Penny, tells the story of her and her sister Mahalia's stay with anti-abortion zealot, Isabel Flood, while their mother, Louisiana native Marguerite Daigle, must dry out from a losing battle with the bottle. Penny can, in her own way, see the failings of Isabel in her efforts to rally the troops, but Mahalia becomes Isabel's most faithful disciple -- a sort of backhanded way to rebel against her fiery mother. The story may seem to be about abortion, but it is more about how religion is used by people as a controlling device, an escape valve, a way to judge people, anything but what it is supposed to be.

I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the book. I say I hate to admit it because the book just simply meandered too much -- flowing into the past, going hither and yon, digging into parts of the past that really didn't reveal much about the characters. The information about Sarath and his brother, ultimately, proved fairly revealing, but all that stuff about Anil and her friend Leaf could have been left out in favor of more information about the political underpinnings of the novel. We get hints, for example, that Sarath may have mixed motives in his involvement in working with Anil, but they are never made clear, so Anil's actions toward the end of the novel don't make as much sense.

Still, what makes "Anil's Ghost" worthwhile is Ondaatje's beautiful, poetic writing style, his unerring sense of place, and his ability to reveal layers of characters, like pealing layers of an onion. And yes, sometimes making us cry in the process. I expect to see this book not only perused in book clubs, but in college literature classes as well, as students ponder Ondaatje's use of water, of eyes and faces, of family relations, in this novel.

OK, we know there are a few implausibilities. How does Winterbotham get to be such a good spy? Why do they recruit a guy with questionable sympathies in the first place? How does Katarina survive all those injuries and keep killing so many people? (Paging Linda Hamilton!) But who cares? This is a great spy novel, with plenty at stake (just the fate of the world, no big deal!), and characters on both sides to root for. Yes, you WILL find yourself at times rooting for Katarina. Eveyrone has their agendas, and Altman makes it fun keeping track of them all, seeing how the agendas weave together.

Marjorie Reynolds has quite a lot going on in this tale: a father who is trapped at the drive-in by a wife who is terrorized by the idea of leaving home, a drifter who comes in and sweeps both the wife (Teal) and the daughter (Callie Anne, the 12-year-old narrator) off their feet, a World War II veteran who's lost his mind, a 15-year-old ticket-taker named Virgil who becomes a love interest for Callie Anne, even an injured turtle who serves as a metaphor for the feelings of entrapment and freedom each of the main characters must face. At the heart is the romance between the drifter, Charlie Memphis, and Teal, and how it touches the lives of everyone around them.

Claude, the husband, is a jerk, and he didn't get what was coming to him. That made me mad. Also, I didn't like the "wrap-up" method used in the final chapter to summarize the 36 years between the time the main story ends and when the bones on the drive-in property were found. Too fast for my taste. Still, this is a wonderful book, a delightful and true-feeling coming of age story.

I agree with John J. Martin's review that Michel and Herbeck do an excellent job of "de-demonizing" Timothy McVeigh, though by the same token, they hardly make him a sympathetic person. Instead, the authors present a balanced view of who the Oklahoma City bomber was, as a human, a soldier, and an anti-government activitist who took his views to unimaginable extremes. What is especially scary is realizing that McVeigh could have been anybody's kid growing up next door. Many kids survive harsh blizzards, go through a divorce, have bad experiences with bullies. He's certainly not the first soldier to have regrets about killing someone in the line of duty. To think that something about him made him hate the government so much and react so strongly to what happened in Waco makes one pause. You don't have to be a total wacko to blow up a building and murder innocent people. You could be anyone's neighbor or friend.

One thing I found odd was the repeated contention that McVeigh did not know there was a daycare in the building until after the bombing, and that he might not have chosen to bomb the Murrah building had he known about the daycare. Apparently, he only knew what offices were in the building by looking in the phone book. And he only cased the outside of the building. Because the windows were black, he contends, he could not see inside and view the daycare. It would seem to me, though, a well-trained and highly decorated soldier like him would have thought to have cased the *inside* of the building, as wellas the outside. That shouldn't have been hard to do, given the lack of security in most federal buildings at the time. I can't speak for the security of the Murrah federal building, but my then-husband worked at the federal building in Kansas City around the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, and I can assure you, McVeigh would have had no problem going into the building to assess for himself what facilities were inside.

Bottom line: this book will give the reader an unbiased, balanced view of who Tim McVeigh is and what his mindset was leading up to the bombing, as well as his thoughts on his defense.