GnL Recommend ~ Paranormal Edition

Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.




But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.

So much for normal.

To read my human's review click here.

 

After being separated from his fiancee centuries ago, Gabriel binds himself to a sorceress who makes him immortal and promises to help him find his lost love. But when the woman he's been looking for is discovered living in modern times, Gabriel finds the sorceress has no intention of letting him go.

To read my human's review click here.

 

GnL Recommend ~ Animal Stories

I haven't done GnL Recommend in a VERY long time....So without further ado....I give you GnL Recommend....Animal Story Edition.  Take it away girlies! 

 This vivid inside look into the world of horseracing, complete with colorful horses, jockeys, trainers and gallop girls, wonderfully depicts the insights horses and other animals can offer when we reevaluate our relationship with them. Reardon shares an unlikely story. In 2004, she quit her Washington DC–area office job and moved to rural Texas to open the racehorse adoption ranch LOPE. (LoneStar Outreach to Place Ex-Racers.) Though now the director of this high-profile organization that has saved more than 600 thoroughbreds from the slaughterhouse, Reardon didn’t learn to ride until she was an adult. Horses like Tawakoni, the son of a Kentucky Derby winner, and Endofthestorm, the speedy bay who required an emergency tracheotomy, give Reardon — and readers — an apprenticeship in facing fear and finding a new life. 

Ten-year-old Willy needs to win the big dogsled race in order to pay the back taxes on his grandfather's farm--but that means beating the huge Indian mountain man, Stone Fox. "Gardiner's description of the race and sudden climax (based on legend) is fast-paced and enveloping."--School Library Journal. New York Times Outstanding Children's Book.  NOTE: Our human LOVES this movie! 

  

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn't simply about going fast. Using the techniques needed on the race track, one can successfully navigate all of life's ordeals.

On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through. In the end, despite what he sees as his own limitations, Enzo comes through heroically to preserve the Swift family, holding in his heart the dream that Denny will become a racing champion with Zoë at his side.

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life...as only a dog could tell it.

 

 

“One Good Dog is a wonderful novel: a moving, tender, and brilliantly crafted story about two fighters—one a man, one a dog— hoping to leave the fight behind, who ultimately find their salvation in each other. Susan Wilson’s clear and unflinching style is perfectly suited for her story that strips away the trappings and toys we all hide behind, and exposes our essential need to give and accept love in order to thrive.”—Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

Adam March is a self-made “Master of the Universe.” He has it all: the beautiful wife, the high-powered job, the glittering circle of friends. But there is a price to be paid for all these trappings, and the pressure is mounting—until the day Adam makes a fatal mistake. His assistant leaves him a message with three words: your sister called. What no one knows is that Adam’s sister has been missing for decades. That she represents the excruciatingly painful past he has left behind. And that her absence has secretly tormented him all these years. When his assistant brushes off his request for an explanation in favor of her more pressing personal call, Adam loses it. And all hell breaks loose.

Adam is escorted from the building. He loses his job. He loses his wife. He loses the life he’s worked so hard to achieve. He doesn’t believe it is possible to sink any lower when he is assigned to work in a soup kitchen as a form of community service. But unbeknownst to Adam, this is where his life will intersect with Chance.

Chance is a mixed breed Pit Bull. He’s been born and raised to fight and seldom leaves the dirty basement where he is kept between fights. But Chance is not a victim or a monster. It is Chance’s unique spirit that helps him escape and puts him in the path of Adam.

What transpires is the story of one man, one dog, and how they save each other—in ways they never could have expected.

NOTE: Our human bought this in e-book format because of the beginning of the story.  You think the author is talking about one character but you don't realize until the last sentence of the first section that she's talking about the other.

 

GnL Recommend - Oscar Edition

So the Oscar's were last weekend and I was SUPER happy to Sandra Bullock win for her portrayal of Mrs. Tuohy in The Blind Side....Which comes out on DVD on March 23....I've already pre-ordered my copy. So the girls thought that they would make this week's GnL Recommend the Oscar edition. Past and present nominees and winners are included.

Gus Recommends:

Synopsis (off of Barnes and Noble webpage, from the publisher):

In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play.

When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.

What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. Their love is the first great force that alters the world's perception of the boy, whom they adopt. The second force is the evolution of professional football itself.

In The Blind Side, Lewis shows us a largely unanalyzed but inexorable trend in football working its way down from the pros to the high school game, where it collides with the life of a single young man to produce a narrative of great and surprising power.

Synopsis (from Barnes and Noble webpage):

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive inNew England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with “woman’s work,” including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the “girl’s book” her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

Laci Recommends:

Synopsis:

Margaret Mitchell's epic novel of love and war won the Pulitzer Prize and went on to give rise to two authorized sequels and one of the most popular and celebrated movies of all time.

Many novels have been written about the Civil War and its aftermath. None take us into the burning fields and cities of the American South as Gone With the Wind does, creating haunting scenes and thrilling portraits of characters so vivid that we remember their words and feel their fear and hunger for the rest of our lives.

In the two main characters, the white-shouldered, irresistible Scarlett and the flashy, contemptuous Rhett, Margaret Mitchell not only conveyed a timeless story of survival under the harshest of circumstances, she also created two of the most famous lovers in the English-speaking world since Romeo and Juliet.

Synopsis:

Cold Mountain is an extraordinary novel about a soldier’s perilous journey back to his beloved at the end of the Civil War. At once a magnificent love story and a harrowing account of one man’s long walk home, Cold Mountain introduces a stunning new talent in American literature.

Based on local history and family stories passed down by the author’s great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. Inman’s odyssey through the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada’s struggle to revive her father’s farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront the vastly transformed world they’ve been delivered.

Charles Frazier reveals marked insight into man’s relationship to the land and the dangers of solitude. He also shares with the great nineteenth century novelists a keen observation of a society undergoing change. Cold Mountain re-creates a world gone by that speaks eloquently to our time.

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GnL Recommend

This week because the weather has been pretty nice here in the great state of Wisconsin the girls and I have been spending a little more time outside walking and burning off some of that winter "flab." But there was a new release this week that both Gus and Laci decided was going to be their recommendation for the week.

Synopsis (from Barnes and Noble):

Bestselling author Nick Trout is back with another touching and heartfelt story from the front lines of veterinary medicine….a tale of two dogs who forever changed the way he thought about life, death, fate and love.

Helen is a ten-year-old cocker spaniel found neglected and abandoned in a restaurant parking lot one rainy night. Despite her mangy condition and terrible smell, Ben and Eileen fall in love with the pitiful creature and decide to take her in. But just as Helen is rescued from a sad life on the streets and enveloped in a loving home with all the creature comforts an old dog could ask for, a tumor is discovered and she's given a devastating prognosis. All Ben and Eileen want is for Helen to beat the odds and survive for one more summer so that she can have one chance to swim in the ocean on the family's annual trip to Prince Edward Island. In short, they want a miracle.

Meanwhile, fourteen-month-old Min Pin, Cleo, is suffering from chronic leg fractures which is devastating for her poor owner, Sandi. While Cleo is visiting Sandi's daughter, Sonja, in Bermuda, a third fracture happens. Distraught that the injury happened on her watch, Sonja makes a plan to fly Cleo to Boston to get the specialist care she needs before Sandi even finds out. Enter Dr. Trout who presides over what should be a fairly routine surgery...until the unthinkable happens.

Love is the Best Medicine immerses readers in the true life drama of beloved pets whose lives hang in the balance. Every page underscores the profound bond we have with the animals in our lives and the incredible responsibility Nick carries as theirhealer. Certainly Dr. Trout has an impressive array of fancy equipment, training and skills at his disposable, but his most important tool (as he powerfully illustrates here) is a fundamental belief in the power of hope, humility, and grace.

Fresh, charming, and intensely affecting, Love is the Best Medicine is a one of a kind story only the winsome Dr. Trout could deliver and is destined to become a favorite for animal lovers.

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GnL Recommend

It's Saturday again, so here are Gus and Laci with this weeks recommendations! GnL Recommend is a weekly feature here on The Book Junkie's Bookshelf where my dogs Gus and Laci recommend books to you that they happen to enjoy.

Gus Recommends:

Synopsis:

Four murders.
Three accidents.
Two suicides.
One left…

THE LAST SURGEON

Michael Palmer’s latest novel pits a flawed doctor against a ruthless psychopath, who has made murder his art form. Dr. Nick Garrity, a vet suffering from PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder—spends his days and nights dispensing medical treatment from a mobile clinic to the homeless and disenfranchised in D.C. and Baltimore. In addition, he is constantly on the lookout for his war buddy Umberto Vasquez, who was plucked from the streets by the military four years ago for a secret mission and has not been seen since.

Psych nurse Gillian Coates wants to find her sister’s killer. She does not believe that Belle Coates, an ICU nurse, took her own life, even though every bit of evidence indicates that she did—every bit save one. Belle has left Gillian a subtle clue that connects her with Nick Garrity.

Together, Nick and Gillian determine that one-by-one, each of those in the operating room for a fatally botched case is dying. Their discoveries pit them against genius Franz Koller--the highly-paid master of the “non-kill”—the art of murder that does not look like murder. As Doctor and nurse move closer to finding the terrifying secret behind these killings, Koller has been given a new directive: his mission will not be complete until Gillian Coates and Garrity, the last surgeon, are dead.

Gus says: Jamie reviewed this book not all that long ago...You can find the review here. I liked this book cause the author incorporated a dog into the story...even though his part was small...he was there.

Laci Recommends:

Synopsis:

In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there's a deadly turf war going on between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other-six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Yet none of them relishes killing more than Wrath, the leader of The Black Dagger Brotherhood.

The only purebred vampire left on earth, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who murdered his parents centuries ago. But, when one of his most trusted fighters is killed-leaving his half-breed daughter unaware of his existence or her fate-Wrath must usher her into the world of the undead-a world of sensuality beyond her wildest dreams.

Laci says: Jamie reviewed this one too!...You can find that review here. I'm partical to vampires and the paranormal so I thought I'd recommend something this week that I'm into.

Until next week...This is

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signing off.

GnL Recommend

It's Saturday again so it's time for GnL Recommend. Hopefully this week the girls are a little more cooperative than they were last week! This week the girls actually agreed on something and actually selected the SAME book. Write this date down....The girls agreeing on anything is a VERY rare accurance!

Gus AND Laci recommend this week:

Synopsis:

Christopher Moore, much beloved scrivener and peerless literary jester, now takes on no less than the legendary Bard himself (with the utmost humility and respect) with a twisted and insanely funny tale of a moronic monarch and his deceitful daughters, as seen through the eyes of a man wearing a codpiece and bells on his head.

Pocket has been Lear's cherished fool for years. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege's side when Lear demands that his kids swear to him their undying love and devotion. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father's request is kind of . . . well . . . stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot.

Well now the bangers and mash have really hit the fan. And the only person who can possibly make things right . . . is Pocket. Now he's going to have do some very fancy maneuvering—cast some spells, start a war or two—the usual stuff—to get Cordelia back into Daddy Lear's good graces, to derail the fiendish power plays of Cordelia's twisted sisters, and to shag every lusciously shaggable wench who's amenable to shagging along the way.

Pocket may be a fool . . . but he's definitely not an idiot.

What the girls have to say (Gus was the spokesperson for the two):

G - Jamie (our human) reviewed this book back at the end of September and we thought it was a really good choice for this week....That and a VERY rare thing happend....We actually agreed on something. This book even comes with a WARNING! How many books do you know that have this “This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank. If that sort of thing bothers you then gentle reader pass by, for we endeavor only to entertain, not to offend. That said, if that’s the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you happened upon the perfect story!” written in the beginning of the book?!

Until next week....this is

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signing off.

Debut of GnL Recommend!

This is the first edition of GnL Recommend. This is a feature where my girlies (AKA my dogs or reading buddies) recommend a book(s) that they think are worth your time looking into. This feature will be held weekly on Staurdays so keep checking back to see what the girls have come up with for the week.

Laci Recommends:

Synopsis (A review found on Amazon that describes the story pretty well):


Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry has been knocking around for more than a decade and is recognized by many as a classic of American Western literature. And no wonder. If you like a good cowboy story; if you're an aficionado of the West, in love with its history and geography; if you want your heart torn out and kicked from Texas to the Teton, then Lonesome Dove is the book you're looking for.



Augustus McRae, Woodrow Call, and Jake Spoon, three has-been Texas Rangers, hatch a half-baked scheme to abandon their dusty lives in the un-town of Lonesome Dove on the Rio Grande, and embark on a cattle drive to the upper reaches of Montana. They depart with two thousand head of re-stolen cattle along with a misbegotten crew of sometime ranch hands, lost and found Irish brothers, green local kids, a Mexican cook who can't, and the town whore Lorena -- with hair of gold even though her heart isn't.



They struggle north to untamed country none of them but Jake has ever seen -- and him a liar. They cross the Neuces, the Colorado, the Red, the Canadian, the Arkansas and up and up, fighting desperados, Comanches, sandstorms, water moccasins, bad food, bad water, bad luck and bad news. Multiple plots weave and braid and separate and double back upon you again like all the streams and rivers descending from the High Plains.



But it is into the strange landscape of the human heart which the reader has been lured. For while this story concerns a pilgrimage to Montana, it is, on another level, a journey in understanding what human life amounts to, balanced as it is between hope and hopelessness, and in the words of Gus McRae, "rich with hardship." It is McMurtry's characters, as much as the route they take, which define this journey. With all their quirkiness, these characters are mind-stickers, all. We're talking Dickens 'n dogies, here. Hamlet on horseback. From the raping, torturing Comanche renegade Blue Duck, so evil as to be devoid of humanity, to the feisty widow who has her way with the the deputy sheriff, a man who finds her "almost as scary as wild pigs", to the tragic young whore Maggie, who asks only to hear her name spoken once by the man she loves, it is a haunting group we travel with.



Snake attack on the Neuces to sneak attack on the Musselshell, Lonesome Dove ropes the reader, drags him through hell and high water, and leaves him feeling that the one certain thing is love, the existence of which is proven only by the size of the hole it blasts in the human heart.



Laci says: Read it! It's one of our favorites and the "movie" is pretty great too. You don't even have to like westerns to like this book. I don't like westerns (I prefer to sleep or plot world domination with my vertically challenged pal, Gus) and I like this book.

Gus Recommends:

Synopsis (Amazon.com review of the book):

First published in 1970, this extraordinary book changed the way Americans think about the original inhabitants of their country. Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos in 1860 and ending 30 years later with the massacre of Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, it tells how the American Indians lost their land and lives to a dynamically expanding white society. During these three decades, America's population doubled from 31 million to 62 million. Again and again, promises made to the Indians fell victim to the ruthlessness and greed of settlers pushing westward to make new lives. The Indians were herded off their ancestral lands into ever-shrinking reservations, and were starved and killed if they resisted. It is a truism that "history is written by the victors"; for the first time, this book described the opening of the West from the Indians' viewpoint. Accustomed to stereotypes of Indians as red savages, white Americans were shocked to read the reasoned eloquence of Indian leaders and learn of the bravery with which they and their peoples endured suffering. With meticulous research and in measured language overlaying brutal narrative, Dee Brown focused attention on a national disgrace. Still controversial but with many of its premises now accepted, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee has sold 5 million copies around the world. Thirty years after it first broke onto the national conscience, it has lost none of its importance or emotional impact.

It took a little doing but here is what Gus has to say.

Gus says: You woke me for this?!

Jamie says: Yup, you two wanted to contribute to the blog so here it is.

Gus says: GRRRR!

Jamie says: Well what do you want the people to know?

Gus says: I want them to know that I'm tired!

Jamie says: About the book!

Gus says: Well, why didn't you say so?!....they should read it because I said so (I hear that used alot around here and it seems to be very effective). You liked it, right?

Jamie says: Yeah I liked it a lot. Very accurate historically...Makes you rethink who the "savages" really are.

Gus says: Well I liked it a lot too, LOTS of "Team Cuddle" time. If they don't read it I'll sick the "Tall One" on them!

Well there you have it....Until next week, when hopefully Gus is a little more copperative and Laci isn't threatening world domination.

This is

&

signing off!