Busy Fingers Are Happy Fingers — Joe Deegan Mother Reader — Barbarella Build Your Writing Muscles — Ollie Let the Tape Recorder Do the Work — Matthew Lickona Faith — Abe Opincar Make Something Better …

Judith and I shared an October 14 birthday. We met when a mutual friend threw a party for us both, 30 years ago. I was freshly graduated from a state teachers' college, where I had …

English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable by Lacey Baldwin Smith. Academy Chicago Publishers, 2006, 275 pages, $17.95 ABOUT THE BOOK: No people have engendered quite so much acclaim or earned so much censure as …

The IHOP Papers by Ali Liebegott. Carroll & Graf, 2007, 256 pages, $14.95. ABOUT THE BOOK: Francesca, a disgruntled 19-year-old lesbian, tries desperately to pull together the pieces of her scattered life. This novel opens …

Flesh and Bone: A Body Farm Novel by Jefferson Bass. William Morrow, 2007, 368 pages, $24.95 ABOUT THE BOOK: Flesh and Bone is a roller-coaster ride into the world of forensic anthropology, its twists and …

Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcón. Harper Collins, 2007, 272 pages, $24.95 ABOUT THE BOOK: A nameless, timeless South American country slowly emerges from a war everyone would prefer to forget. For ten years, Norma …

Leonard Woolf: A Biography by Victoria Glendinning. Free Press, 2006, 512 pages, $30 WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: Publishers Weekly: Although Leonard Woolf (1880--1969) was a seminal figure in the Bloomsbury set, he is known today …

WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAY: Booklist: Ruby Kincaid can't believe the way her life is going. While running her late husband's bowling alley, she is also taking care of her wayward daughter's two small children. When …

ABOUT THE BOOK: In Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith, Cross looks back at the life that led her to marry a charismatic young man, handsome and articulate, who appeared destined for greatness as …