By The Beachwood Book Club

1. Everlasting/Nancy Thayer. “A lightweight, predictable fairy tale of a young woman’s success in business and in love.” (Publisher’s Weekly)
2. The Road to Gandolfo/Robert Ludlum. “A wickedly funny Robert Ludlum you’ve never met before.” (From the Publisher – Bantam)
3. The Five Fingers/Gayle Rivers and James Hudson. “The book is a brusque but joyous Benzedrine-fueled rollercoaster of ambushes and flesh wounds. The seven members of the Five Fingers team stomp through Laos, leaving armies of dead in their wake. Male bonding occurs. There is a betrayal. The ending is ambiguous, startlingly so for a cheapo battle paperback . . . Hey, the Hemingway plod got popular because it fucking works. The Five Fingers – weird, compelling, and perhaps overdue for recognition.” (Colby Cosh)

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Posted on September 26, 2006

By Jonathan Shipley

If I don’t like a book by its 50th page I usually give up on it. But, sometimes, I stick with it because others have stuck with it (friends, family, my former professor who smelled of cheese), because the book is supposed to be good, and/or because I want to look intelligent on the bus as I return home from work. “Look at me,” I say silently to other bus riders, “I have a thick tome upon my lap and I’m looking at it thoughtfully. Yes, it’s crap, but you won’t know that until you read it and by then I’ll be long gone off this public tube of judgement.”
Allow me to introduce you, then, in reverse order, to the 10 books I have, to date, most hated reading.
10. Moby Dick/Herman Melville.
Yeah, I want to read about the whaling industry and other boring stuff for hundreds of pages with nary an interesting plot moving forward. Yes, tangents. That’s what a great novel needs! Long-winded coma-inducing tangents!

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Posted on September 21, 2006

By ML Van Valkenburgh

I have this dog, Jed, and life without him would be unthinkable, so, though he is a mannerly and not bratty dog, he is consequently extraordinarily spoiled. He does not wear clothes – I refuse to degrade him in this way. But he eats the best of foods, has the newest of collars (and leashes), and has more toys and treats than Baron Trump. He has a ratty bed that I would replace, but he just doesn’t like other ones, and he sleeps with me at night, anyway, hogging at least 3/4 of the bed so he can stretch out.

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Posted on September 16, 2006