Tuesday, October 18, 2011

November pick...The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie


It's the beginning of a lazy summer in 1950 at the sleepy English village of Bishop's Lacey. Up at the great house of Buckshaw, aspiring chemist Flavia de Luce passes the time tinkering in the laboratory she's inherited from her deceased mother and an eccentric great uncle. When Flavia discovers a murdered stranger in the cucumber patch outside her bedroom window early one morning, she decides to leave aside her flasks and Bunsen burners to solve the crime herself, much to the chagrin of the local authorities. But who can blame her? What else does an eleven-year-old science prodigy have to do when left to her own devices? With her widowed father and two older sisters far too preoccupied with their own pursuits and passions—stamp collecting, adventure novels, and boys respectively—Flavia takes off on her trusty bicycle Gladys to catch a murderer. In Alan Bradley's critically acclaimed debut mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, adult readers will be totally charmed by this fearless, funny, and unflappable kid sleuth. But don't be fooled: this carefully plotted detective novel (the first in a new series) features plenty of unexpected twists and turns and loads of tasty period detail. As the pages fly by, you'll be rooting for this curious combination of Harriet the Spy and Sherlock Holmes. Go ahead, take a bite. --Lauren Nemroff

Monday, October 10, 2011

Just so you know, someone has been spying on our bookclub and writing personalized tomes just for us. Other books in the series include:

Stephanie and the one book she reads that year.
Lucinda and the moving van.
Candy and the publisher who finally got his head on straight.
Pam and the one that goes F&*%!
Anne and the story that only her and Jennifer will like.
Jennifer and the one with a strong, canine role.
Athena and the one where she goes missing.
And of course...
Susan, Lauri, Linda and Annell and the young-adult zombies who travel to a far-away land by spaceship with their centipede totems where they find that they have magical powers that change their toenails green and allow them to almost save the world but not quite! because this is a trilogy after all, and where it's not necessary to read the first one first because the second one totally stands on it's own.

Personally, I cannot wait!

Jen