Justice / Karen Robards

This suspense story has it all. Spooks of the spy kind and the ghost kind. Successful women who were once in foster care. Young girls from a girls home. Strong, dark and handsome romantic interest.Women working hard and maintaining their independence. Loving families.
It all goes together to make a great read. This was a book I looked forward to finding the time to resume reading the story, and although I wanted to know how it all turned out in the end, I was sorry to close it on the last page.
Di

Justice / Karen Robards

The Comet Box by Adrian Stirling

This book is set in 1986, the year that Halley's Comet was hurtling towards earth. It is a novel that looks into what lies beneath the Australian suburban dream and what happens in one suburban area. When Andrew's class are asked to each put their wish into the Comet Box, Andrew wishes that his runaway sister would return home. As the comet gets closer to Earth and Andrew begins to learn the truth behind his sister's actions, he begins to wonder if he wants his wish to come true after all. A confronting teen read.

The Comet Box by Adrian Stirling

Rocks in the belly / Jon Bauer

This book has won great praise for this first time author. I stopped reading half way through - too grim for me. An only child has difficulty dealing with the foster children his mum brings to the home. I couldn't find the exact words again but one comment was "like the cuckoo dropping its egg into someone elses nest, and we all know what happens to the real parents' egg when that happens". The parents natural child develops some very unnatural tendencies.
Dianne

Rocks in the belly / Jon Bauer

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: my year of magical reading / Nina Sankovitch

This is such a good book I have to buy my own copy for keeps after reading the library's copy.The author was a woman busy with work and family who struggled to cope with the too early death of her sister. She decides the therapy required is a year of reading - reading one book a day for a year.

Each chapter begins with a quote from some wise person eg "Words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living. Cyril Connolly, The unquiet grave."

Nina blogs a review of each book read and soon readers from all over the world are sharing their
experience with the same book, and recommending others."Those two books - and all the great books I was reading - were about the complexity and entirety of the human experience. About the things we wish to forget and those we want more and more of. About how we react and how we wish we could react. Books are experience, the words of authors proving the solace of love, the fulfillment of family, the torment of war, and the wisdom of memory. Joy and tears, pleasure and pain: everything came to me while I read in my purple chair. I had never sat so still, and yet experienced so much."
Dianne

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: my year of magical reading / Nina Sankovitch

The Zoo That Never Was by RD Lawrence

This is an 'oldy but a goody'. First published in 1981, 'The Zoo That Never Was' tells of the trials and heartwarming moments RD Lawrence and his wife Joan encounter when the property they own in Ontario, America becomes an unofficial wildlife refuge as the community start to bring the couple native animals that had been rescued from roadside accidents, hunters and even originally bought as pets (I no longer think river otters would make nice pets).

RD Lawrence was a Biologst and environmentalist who had a special love for wolves and the American wilderness. He and his wife purchased 'Northern Star', the property in Ontario as a weekend escape from the city. Soon they were rehabilitating a number of rescued animals including Snuffles the bear, Mary the skunk and Maggot the hawk.

'The Zoo that Never Was' captures the funny and educational lessons Lawrence & his wife go through as they learn how to care for their ever-growing menagerie, with the aim to release each animal back into the wild when they have recovered and matured.

I really enjoyed this book because it tells a great story that is also a true one. It is funny, especially the parts including Snuffles and it is also well written, even through Lawrence did occasionally go on about scientific findings that were not exactly page turning content. Lawrence also gave a wonderful account of his relationship with Joan, who tragically died of a brain aneurysm at age 33, only 3 years after they had bought Northern Star. I loved how funny and caring he made her out to be - she sounds like someone I would have liked to meet and have as a friend (plus she was a librarian).

If you love animals and think it would be great to one day be part of a wilderness rescue project, I would highly suggest reading this book. I have two more of Lawrence's books on loan and can't wait to get into them as well.

The Zoo That Never Was by RD Lawrence