What People Magazine is Reading This Week (April 9th Issue)

For those Kindle readers who, like me, read for entertainment, scanning the book reviews in People magazine is good way to check out new people-related books - celebrity bios, popular novels, absorbing nonfiction - just hitting bookstore shelves. Featured in the April 9th issue of People:

The Red Book, by Deborah Copaken Kogan. Publisher. Print Length: 347 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (9 reviews). People's slant: "...hilarious, addictive..." Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"The Big Chill meets The Group in Deborah Copaken Kogan’s wry, lively, and irresistible new novel about a once-close circle of friends at their twentieth college reunion. Clover, Addison, Mia, and Jane were roommates at Harvard until their graduation in 1989. Clover, homeschooled on a commune by mixed-race parents, felt woefully out of place. Addison yearned to shed the burden of her Mayflower heritage. Mia mined the depths of her suburban ennui to enact brilliant performances on the Harvard stage. Jane, an adopted Vietnamese war orphan, made sense of her fractured world through words. Like all Harvard grads, they’ve kept abreast of one another via the red book, a class report published every five years, containing brief autobiographical essays by fellow alumni. But there’s the story we tell the world, and then there’s the real story, as these former classmates will learn during their twentieth reunion weekend..." - Publisher.

What They Do in the Dark, by Amanda Coe. W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print Length: 257 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (10 reviews). People's slant: "A chilling tale about childhood innocence brutally lost." Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Spoiled but emotionally neglected Gemma, who seems to have everything, and semi-feral Pauline, who has less than nothing, are two very different ten-year-old girls growing up in a tough Yorkshire town in the 1970s. Pauline longs for the simple luxuries of Gemma’s life: her neatly folded socks and her clean hair. Gemma, upset by her parent’s breakup, loses herself in fantasies of meeting the child television star Lallie. When Lallie shoots a movie in their hometown, Gemma and Pauline grab the chance for their wildest dreams to come true. But the film becomes a terrible catalyst for the larger forces acting on the two girls..." - Publisher.

Triggered: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, by Fletcher Wortmann. Thomas Dunne Books, 2012. Print Length: 272 p. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 5 stars (6 reviews). People's slant: "...grimly funny memoir..." Kindle edition: $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"Imagine the worst thing in the world. Picture it. Construct it, carefully and deliberately in your mind. Be careful not to omit anything. Imagine it happening to you, to the people you love. Imagine the worst thing in the world. Now try not to think about it. This is what it is like for Fletcher Wortmann. In his brilliant memoir, the author takes us on an intimate journey across the psychological landscape of OCD, known as the 'doubting disorder,' as populated by God, girls, and apocalyptic nightmares. Wortmann unflinchingly reveals the elaborate series of psychological rituals he constructs as 'preventative measures' to ward off the end times, as well as his learning to cope with intrusive thoughts through Clockwork Orange-like 'trigger' therapy. But even more than this, the author emerges as a preternatural talent as he unfolds a kaleidoscope of culture high and low ranging from his obsessions with David Bowie, X-Men, and Pokemon, to an eclectic education shaped by Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Catholic mysticism, Christian comic books, and the collegiate dating scene at the 'People’s Republic of Swarthmore.'" - Publisher.

The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods, by Hank Haney. Crown Archetype, 2012. Print Length: 274 p. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (86 reviews). People's slant: "...paints an unflinching portrait of the pro golfer." Kindle edition: $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"The Big Miss is Hank Haney’s candid and surprisingly insightful account of his tumultuous six-year journey with Tiger Woods, during which the supremely gifted golfer collected six major championships and rewrote golf history. Hank was one of the very few people allowed behind the curtain. He was with Tiger 110 days a year, spoke to him over 200 days a year, and stayed at his home up to 30 days a year, observing him in nearly every circumstance: at tournaments, on the practice range, over meals, with his wife, Elin, and relaxing with friends. The relationship between the two men began in March 2004 when Hank received a call from Tiger in which the golf champion asked him to be his coach. It was a call that would change both men’s lives..." - Publisher.

Soldier Dogs, by Maria Goodavage. Dutton, 2012. Print Length: 320 p. NONFICTION. Amazon Customer Rating: 4 1/2 stars (16 reviews). People's slant: "A moving portrait of the loyal, courageious, furry warriors who truly are an enlisted Man's Best Friend." Kindle edition: 12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"People all over the world have been riveted by the story of Cairo, the Belgian Malinois who was a part of the Navy SEAL team that led the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. A dog's natural intelligence, physical abilities, and pure loyalty contribute more to our military efforts than ever before. You don't have to be a dog lover to be fascinated by the idea that a dog - the cousin of that furry guy begging for scraps under your table - could be one of the heroes who helped execute the most vital and high-tech military mission of the new millennium. Now Maria Goodavage, editor and featured writer for one of the world's most widely read dog blogs, tells heartwarming stories of modern soldier dogs and the amazing bonds that develop between them and their handlers. Beyond tales of training, operations, retirement, and adoption into the families of fallen soldiers, Goodavage talks to leading dog-cognition experts about why dogs like nothing more than to be on a mission with a handler they trust, no matter how deadly the IEDs they are sniffing, nor how far they must parachute or rappel from aircraft into enemy territory." - Publisher.
_______________________

Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.


see more dog and puppy pictures