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07/07/2010 12:00 AMDevouring a real page-turner? Discovered the perfect beach read or the next big author? We want to know about it! Check out some reading suggestions from our staff members, then add your own in the comments section below.
• Senior staff writer Fay Abrahamsson is re-reading Susan Isaac’s Long Time No See. It is a substantial page-turner of a murder mystery that you cannot put down. On the lighter side, I am also reading Stuart Woods’s Kisser, featuring his cop-turned-lawyer character Stone Barrington and his police caption buddy Dino. I just finished Lucid Intervals, another of Woods’s books featuring Stone and Dino. I would classify both as casual summer reading with a comforting familiarity.
• Advertising Executive Hope Allain is reading Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, a biography of Elvis’s early years, from humble beginnings to his unprecedented success.
• Interactive Editor Nicole Ball is reading Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir by Wendy Burden. From a young, privileged youth’s perspective, living in the lap of luxury means endless glasses of sugary Coca-Cola and the foreshadowing of a disturbed adulthood to come.
• Managing editor Brian Boyd is reading Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone and a yet-to-be-published work of sci-fi by Shore Assistant Editor Jen Matteis—both prime examples that great writing is alive and well—in between parsing home improvement magazines for more summer projects.
• Senior Advertising Executive Lindsay Braun is reading The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand. A mid-30s woman journeys to Nantucket to start over her career and her love life and finds her roots and herself in a small town.
• Graphic artist Chris Dobbins is reading Digital Fortress by Dan Brown—very engaging, with lots of surprises.
• Production Director Alan Ellis is reading Scent of Evil—A Joe Gunther Mystery by Archer Mayor. Grabs you right from the beginning and immerses you into this fast-paced murder mystery.
• Front Desk Manager Connie Fraser is reading a few books: Nelson DeMille’s Night Fall—a novel about TWA Flight 800 and the theories about what brought down the plane. In the story, a couple (having an affair) was on a Long Island beach videotaping themselves and caught the plane crash on tape. The authorities know that someone was using a video camera on the beach that night, but the couple can’t come forward—and the videotape is the only evidence that will show what really happened. Also, Ann Tyler’s Noah’s Compass—good story and characters; an easy read. Just finished The Finder by Colin Harrison about corporate spying (Chinese businessmen spying on American businesses in order to manipulate the stock market and make money) and murder. Good story, good hero (ex-firefighter and son of cop). Also reading Joseph Finder’s Vanished, a really good mystery/suspense novel about a businessman who disappears as his wife is attacked—don’t know yet if he’s dead, alive, kidnapped, or if he staged his disappearance.
• Senior staff writer Pam Johnson is keeping cool this summer by revisitng Mark Helprin’s ingenious Winter’s Tale—mythical, mystical New York City.
• Staff writer Bob Kilpatrick is reading Old Mortality by Sir Walter Scott, which he got second-hand for 2 pounds while looking up ancestors in Scotland. This is a scary tale of radical Presbyterians rebelling in Scotland in the late 1600s and being slaughtered and tortured by the English. Needless to say, there’s a love story woven in. It has 100 pages of footnotes, appendices, and a glossary for the many Scottish words one cannot decipher.
• Sports Editor Jenn McCulloch is reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls—great characters and a unique story that encourages you to keep turning the pages.
• Real Estate Advertising Manager Lisa Martin is reading Under the Dome by Stephen King—a 1,074-page epic novel not seen since King wrote The Stand.
• Assistant Editor Jen Matteis is reading Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem, which is forcing her to think far too much.
• Sports writer Chris Piccirillo is reading Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins—a whimsical journey through many era that delves into the mind, body, and soul.
• Community Desk Chief Laura Robida is reading Lips Unsealed: A Memoir by Belinda Carlisle. The book is like a backstage pass into the personal life of the Go-Go’s frontwoman and is frequently jaw-dropping and inspiring. Who knew there was such chaos behind the carefree ’80s girl band?
• Credit Manager Andrea Simeone is reading Seaworthy: A Swordboat Captain Returs to the Sea by Linda Greenlaw, an interesting non-fiction story told by a woman captain about her adventures going back to sea after 10 years on land.