The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart

This is a great little book that suffers from a cumbersome, awkward title ... I'd love to recommend for people to read this book, but I can't ever remember the name of it!

It's a quaint little book about life inside the Tower of London. The yeomen (also called beefeaters) are required to live inside the walls, and some of their families adjust to the demands better than others. Like any little village, the Tower's got its share of eccentrics - and some are the ghosts of former prisoners. Essentially, it's a quirky, cozy story of community and relationships.

The main storyline follows Balthazar Jones and his wife, Hebe, who are still grieving the loss of their young son. Since his death, their picture-perfect marriage has started to show cracks. And the things carved into the walls of their tower home by former "residents" aren't helping anybody's sanity.

I loved this book, and highly recommend it. It's the kind of small, goofy story that's heartwarming without being sappy, and you'll quickly become endeared to it's oddball characters.

You Suck: A Love Story by Chirstopher Moore

This, the second in Moore's vampire series, is completely stolen away from the vampire protagonists by a human. But not just any normal - their new minion, teenage goth girl Abby Normal.

Abby's got all the best lines and the biggest laughs. And I've got to give HUGE KUDOS to Susan Bennett for her narration of this audiobook. To switch from Abby's voice, to the 800-year-old vampire Elijah, to the former cheddar queen of Fond du Lac Wisconsin ... well, that's real talent.

This book is classic Moore dark comedy. Excellent.

"Much like the toaster, I control the darkness."

High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips

Surprisingly, this is a well-written, thoughtful and extremely interesting look at the ups, the downs, and all-around upside-down life of a famous family through the eyes of a actress/daughter/addict.

When this book was published, the media immediately latched on to Mackenzie's stories of incest with her famous father, Papa John Phillips. I was going to skip past that part, avoid the infamous drug stories ... and go directly to what I was searching for (I was interested in one particular ex-boyfriend). But I was surprised by how quickly I got wrapped up in the storytelling: I ended up going back to the start and reading the whole book, despite the fact I'd picked it up just to read a couple pages.

She's smarter than I thought - or had an excellent ghost writer. Either way, it's a great look at rock-and-roll excess and the trials of a junkie.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

As our narrator is entering a new stage in her life, she's feeling nostalgic. And so she begins her reminiscence: of her idyllic upbringing at Hailsham boarding school, of her friendships, and of her nearly-completed role as a "carer."

It's a quiet book, read with a genteel British lilt and literary diction. I found it easy to let my defenses down and allow my concentration to relax a bit ... to just pleasantly float along. Until I began to realize that many things don't add up in this story. Hey, does it seem like the book takes place in the 1950s, or today?

Hailsham students "know, and don't know" - and it turns out they aren't the only ones!

It's hard to characterize this story: It's literary and high-brow, with a somehow gentlemanly punch to the gut. "So sorry to have to dust you up this way, pip. But you'll be fine in a minute, old chap!"

The White Garden by Stephanie Barron

I've never been a Virginia Woolf fan, so I probably wouldn't have picked up this book myself - but it was the book club's choice this month. And actually, I quite enjoyed it!

An American landscape specialist visits England to view a famous garden in order to recreate it for a client. In researching the garden's history, she makes a shocking discovery - a diary that could be an unknown Virginia Woolf manuscript.

"The White Garden" then takes a cue from Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" by turning into a literary quest for answers that spans England: through university libraries, rare book collections, and even a secret society. The expert and the novice find there's a sexual tension between them, but can't be distracted until the answers are found ...

OK, so it's not really deep cloak-and-dagger adventure. But it was more fun and twisty than I'd expected. And they spend enough time "explaining things" for the "dumb American" that you don't have to be a Anglophile or Woolf scholar to understand and enjoy the tale.

Maybe this time

by Jennifer Crusie

Do you like ghost stories? How about romance? This one has them both. Andie stops by to tell her ex-husband that she's getting remarried. The next thing she knows, she is in charge of two very disturbed children that live in a haunted house. Can she get the kids up to grade level, and moved out before the ghosts kill again? Normally, I am not a fan of ghost stories. However, I was absolutely riveted. Just like Andie, I began to see more to the children and the haunting than previous characters were given credit for seeing. The twist at the end was also a nice touch.

City of Thieves by David Benioff

Sometimes an "epic journey" takes place over just a few miles and in only a couple days. Especially in 1942 St. Petersburg, Russia, when war rages around you.

Two young men are given a reprieve from prison to perform a special errand for the colonel; it's an impossible mission, but failure means death. The unlikely pair sets out to try, and a friendship grows as the duo experience all the worst that wartime Piter has to offer.

This book takes a grim look at a painful war, but a delicate hand with the relationships that form in a time of distress.