Dollbaby, by Laura Lane McNeal FIC McN

When Liberty Alice (Ibby) Bell's father dies in 1964, shortly before Ibby's 12th birthday, she is rather unceremoniously left to live with her paternal grandmother, Fannie.  The New Orleans home in which Ibby finds herself is peopled by her crazy grandmother, her grandmother's cook, Queenie Trout, and Dollbaby, Queenie's adult daughter.  Having been kept from her father's family by her mother, as well as living far from the South, Ibby has to learn about Southern traditions while trying to navigate the minefields of Fannie's memories, which have a tendency to send Fannie to the nuthouse down the road.  Queenie and Dollbaby prove to be good guides, though family secrets seem to spill out of every corner.  Tragic history and long-held secrets mix with the racial tensions of the time, and Ibby learns that family is where you find it. 

I enjoyed this book, and found myself comparing it favorably to The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird.  I did find myself getting hungry, reading about all the wonderful food Queenie makes!

Working Stiff by Judy Melinek and T. J. Mitchell 614 Mel

     

Judy Melinek became a doctor who planned on being a surgeon.  The craziness of that world forced her to rethink that decision.  And that is how she ended up as a forensic pathologist.  This book covers the beginnings of her career.  After quitting surgery she accepted a residency at UCLA.  After four years it was time for a fellowship program and she was advised to go to New York City to really learn forensic pathology.  Eventually she was offered a job as an assistant medical examiner.  She began in July 2001.

So I am reading very quickly through the book until I arrived at the last section.  I hadn't paid any attention to the dates earlier in the book.  And then she begins a paragraph with this sentence:  "I saw American Airlines Flight 11 a few seconds before it hit the North Tower."  It was nine weeks after she had begun her job.  After having watched all of the 9/11 memorial programs recently the images were fresh in my mind.  What she and her colleagues did for months after that day was incredible.  Like the people going through the rubble around the clock, her office began twelve-hour shifts, day or night.  They did meticulous work to try and identify what was left of the victims.  It was very touching.

Not a book for everyone but I am glad I read it. The stories she tells are interesting.  It is a very readable book.  If you watch any of the CSI shows you will be able to take the details in the book! 

Murder at the Breakers: A Gilded Newport Mystery by Alyssa Maxwell MYS Max

When Murder at the Breakers came across the desk to be checked in, I didn't have to think twice about checking it out myself. Only a few weeks earlier, I had toured The Breakers during an afternoon in Newport, Rhode Island. Even if the story wasn't great literature, I'd be able to revisit this amazing historic town vicariously, and while my memory of the great homes I'd seen were still fresh. Newport, as you probably know, was the summer playground of America's wealthy in the last half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century. Because summers in Newport were all about one's place in high society, they were filled with large dinner parties and opulent balls. And the hostesses needed extravagant homes in which to hold them.
It is at one such event, the presentation of Gertrude Vanderbilt to society -- and the completion of the Vanderbilts' new Breakers -- rebuilt after a fire destroyed the original, that Murder at the Breakers begins. The narrator, Emmaline Cross, is a poor cousin several times removed of the Cornelius and William Vanderbilt families. Poor, relatively speaking (pun not intended but works too well to omit).  Compared to her famous relatives, she has very little and -- gasp -- she has to work! Yet she employs two domestics at her home on Ocean Avenue.

The afternoon of the ball at The Breakers, her half-brother Brady, who's slept off several benders in a unlocked cell in the local jail, asks her to keep an eye on Uncle Cornelius from 11:45 to midnight to make sure he doesn't go upstairs. At the appointed hour, Emma doesn't see Cornelius anywhere, and she makes an attempt to find Brady and warn him off of whatever scheme he's hatched. While outside looking for her brother, she notices a light in her Uncle's room, then hears shouting and a scuffle, and watches as a body plunges from the second-floor balcony and lands right at her feet. When Brady is found passed out in Cornelius's room, he is the prime suspect and is whisked off to jail, and this time the cell is locked. Thus begins Emma's quest to exonerate her brother, which she can only do by tracking down the real killer.

Emma is a strong-willed woman determined to manage and succeed on her own terms, unlike many of the young women of the times whose goal was to marry minor royalty from Europe and maintain their pampered lifestyle. She proves herself resourceful, tough and determined, and maybe a bit too stubborn, especially when she sends Derrick Andrews, heir to the Providence Sun fortune, packing.
The second book in the series, Murder at Marble House, comes out in October. I'm sure hoping Derrick comes back to Newport in that one. Every mystery needs a little romance, or is it the other way around?

A fun read and a pretty good mystery, to boot.

Flight 232 by Laurence Gonzales 363.12 Gon

    

This was a sad book.  This was an uplifting book.  This was a book about machines.  This was a book about human emotions.  It was quite the book!   It tells the story of what happened in an Iowa cornfield 25 years ago this summer.  It tells the story of the people who boarded a flight in Denver with the belief that they would end up in Chicago.  It tells the story of flight attendants (the young and the more experienced) who were trained so well that they did their jobs even though they were as afraid as the passengers.  It tells the story of the people at the airport, people in the federal government, people at the hospital, people who were eye witnesses and most importantly it tells the story of the people who lived and died that July day.  It was a miracle that there were any survivors from the crash - but 184 people did.  From this crash a lot of lessons were learned.  This very readable book will make you a little more likely to listen to the attendant the next time you fly. 
    

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple FIC Sem

I really enjoyed this book.  It is a bit quirky which is a nice change.  Bernadette is living in Seattle with her genius husband, Elgin Branch (Microsoft hotshot), her highly intelligent daughter, Bee and a large dog named Ice Cream.  The first page of the book will tell you that Bernadette disappeared two days before Christmas.  The rest of the book will tell you how that happened!

It is quickly apparent that Bernadette is having a hard time dealing with life.  She has a virtual assistant, Manjula, who lives in India.  Manjula takes care of many of life's annoyances - making appointments, paying bills, buying things on-line etc.  Bernadette needs her more than ever because her family is going to Antarctica.  There is a cautionary tale buried here - don't promise anyone something for motivation unless you are prepared to follow through with it!  That is why they are going on this trip.  Bernadette can't deal with all of this - she is too busy annoying her daughter's school, her neighbors, the parents' group -  well, just about anyone you can think of!   Just as I thought I had figured out Bernadette another story helps explain why she is the way she is. 

The Confessions of Frances Godwin by Robert Hellenga FIC Hel

I enjoyed this book a lot.  When I read the cover I thought it would appeal to me because Frances Godwin and I were both  language teachers.   By the end of the first page I had 'bonded' with Frances.  On her last day at school she made the observation that "The students were looking ahead, I was looking back:  they were letting go, I was hanging on." Her program was being phased out - budget cuts.  Her classroom was filled with lots of clutter (administrators!) / cultural enrichment (teachers!).  Her husband has been dead for five years.  While cleaning out her classroom she overdoes it and finds herself in need of a hernia repair.  Before every surgery there is paperwork with lots of boxes to check.  When she saw "Do not resuscitate" she checked it.   That caused an uproar!  I have only covered the first four pages!  She survives the surgery (!).  She decides she needs to leave a confession about something so she begins writing and continues on for two weeks.  So the story really begins with her first intimate moments with Paul...........................