In her shoes

Twenty-eight-year-old Maggie Fuller relies on her looks and size zero body to flirt her way through life while working dozens of dead-end jobs and dreaming of stardom. At the other end of the spectrum is her older, larger sister, Rose, who relies on her intelligence and is an accomplished attorney at a large Philadelphia firm. The only things that these two seem to have in common is their shared history, a loathing for their "stepmonster," Sydelle, size six feet and a passion for luxurious shoes. When Maggie is evicted from her apartment and loses yet another job, Rose takes her in and tries to endure her closet raids and endless insults. But her patience abruptly ends when Maggie crosses a line so sacred that Rose kicks Maggie out and all but terminates their relationship ("Her sister was like a fucking Weebel, [Rose] thought. She'd wobble, she'd screw up, she'd steal your shoes... but she'd absolutely never fall down"). The sisters go on with their lives and Maggie discovers that she has a brain and a will to learn, while Rose learns to loosen up a bit and finds that there is more to life than work. The two sisters also get to know their maternal grandmother, Ella Hirsch, who they haven't seen since their mother's funeral more than 20 years ago. With Ella's love and support, Maggie reaches out to Rose and the two begin to repair their relationship. In the end, these three remarkable women learn that they are stronger than they thought they were, that family ties are worth preserving, and that there are perks to sharing the same shoe size. Weiner, a marvelously natural storyteller, blends humor and heartbreak to create an irresistible novel.
http://bookstorecommunity.com/2010/in-her-shoes/

Runaway, the conclusion to the Airhead trilogy, is a snappy and smart read that goes by far too quickly! The novel picks up only days after the tension filled conclusion of Being Nikki, and dives into the action right away, with all of the drama surrounding Brandon Stark’s attempt at whisking Em and the Howards away to his summer home. They are quickly rescued, but when they return to New York, it is evident that they aren’t any safer there. Lulu and Gabriel Luna quickly join the group as Em and Christopher attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery through a series of fast paced action scenes, complete with plenty of quick thinking, computer hacking, and romantic tension. With everyone Nikki loves furious with her for something she can’t explain, and nothing but the live Stark Angel fashion show on New Year’s Eve to look forward to, Em’s reached the end of her rope. Not to mention the person her body use to belong to wants it back. But she is getting closer to discovering the reason why her brain was transplanted into Nikki’s body. Emerson Watts is on the run: from school, from work, from her family, from her friends, from herself. To all the people that say what can I do it…I’m too young, not pretty, not smart enough watch what a group of teenagers and her non-boyfriend (who just happens to be the power hungry son of her evil employer)can do.
http://bookstorecommunity.com/2010/runaway

Ain’t She Sweet Book Review

A small town’s prodigal daughter returns to face her past in bestseller Phillips’s cheeky, diverting fairy tale. Sugar Beth Carey, “the wild child of Parrish, Mississippi,” was once the queen of all she surveyed, but after 15 years and three marriages, she’s a broken (and broke) husk of her former self. Who’s loving the schadenfreude? The Seawillows, for starters-the gaggle of Southern belles Sugar dumped years ago, plus Winnie Davis, the half-sister she treated like dirt. And there’s more: not only did Sugar stomp on gorgeous Ryan Galantine’s heart (luckily, Winnie caught him on the rebound), she also got Colin Byrne, the sexy British high school teacher, fired for ostensibly coming on to her. Colin now owns her family’s manse, and she’s inherited the carriage house on his property-along with a highly valuable painting, location unknown (might it be hiding in Colin’s attic? Or is it right under her nose?). Phillips keeps the tension high, with Colin (now a successful writer and member of the town’s “in” crowd) and all of the rest of Parrish looking to make Sugar pay for past misdeeds. Colin hires her to be his housekeeper, and soon their days are filled with bickering, backstabbing and lots of orgasmic sex. A subplot involving Gigi, Winnie and Ryan’s rebellious teenage daughter, who somewhat improbably turns to Sugar Beth for advice, detracts from the primary drama.
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Ryan Murphy Calls for Boycott of Newsweek - Glee

Ryan Murphy Calls for Boycott of Newsweek - Glee

Tales from Q School: Inside Golf’s Fifth Major

Q School (or, more formally, the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament) is golf's Long March, the winding road that aspiring professionals must negotiate if they are to qualify to play on the PGA Tour. Even though the players in the annual event are mainly unknowns, golf fans are fascinated by the grueling, heartbreaking nature of the competition--three separate tournaments during which more than 1,000 aspirants are winnowed down to 30 qualifiers, the survivors of the 108-hole, six-day Final Stage. It's surprising, really, that it's taken the best-selling Feinstein, master of the year-in-the-life sports chronicle, this long to write about Q School. The subject is made to order for his slices-of-life approach. There's plenty of dramatic shot-by-shot reporting here, as Feinstein follows the action at the 2005 Q School, but the core of the book is taken up with getting inside the heads of the competitors, whether it's overmatched also-rans who don't know when to quit, talented rookies seemingly on the verge of great careers, or former champions struggling to hang on one more year. (Masters winner Larry Mize says it all for the last group: "It's been a long time since I had to put my golf shoes on in the parking lot.") What makes this account so compelling is the way Feinstein drives home the point recreational golfers know all too well: golf is, above all, a humbling, even humiliating, game.

http://bookstorecommunity.com/2010/tales-from-q-s…fs-fifth-major

Quick Bite

That hot guy tied to Lissianna Argeneau's bed? He's not dessert he's the main course!

Lissianna has been spending her centuries pining for Mr. Right, not just a quick snack, and this sexy guy she finds in her bed looks like he might be a candidate. But there's another, more pressing issue: her tendency to faint at the sight of blood an especially annoying quirk for a vampire. Of course it doesn't hurt that this man has a delicious looking neck. What kind of cold blooded vampire woman could resist a bite of that?

Dr. Gregory Hewitt recovers from the shock of waking up in a stranger's bedroom pretty quickly once he sees a gorgeous woman about to treat him to a wild night of passion. But is it possible for the good doctor to find true love with a vampire vixen, or will he be just a good meal? That's a question Dr. Greg might be willing to sink his teeth into if he can just get Lissianna to http://bookstorecommunity.com/2010/a-quick-bite

Blue Blood

As a Harvard graduate and regular writer for the New Yorker, Edward Conlon is a little different from most of his fellow New York City cops. And the stories he tells in his compelling memoir Blue Blood are miles away from the commonly told Hollywood-style police tales that are always action packed but rarely tethered to reality. While there is action here, there's also political hassle, the rich and often troubling history of a department not unfamiliar with corruption, and the day to day life of people charged with preserving order in America's largest city. Conlon's book is, in part, a memoir as he progresses from being a rookie cop working the beat at troubled housing projects to assignments in the narcotics division to eventually becoming a detective. But it's also the story of his family history within the enormous NYPD as well as the evolving role of the police force within the city. Conlon relates the controversies surrounding the somewhat familiar shoo! ting of Amadou Diallou and the abuse, at the hands of New York cops, of Abner Louima. But being a cop himself, Conlon lends insight and nuance to these issues that could not possibly be found in the newspapers. And as an outstanding writer, he draws the reader into that world. In the book's most remarkable passage, Conlon tells of the grim but necessary work done at the Fresh Kills landfill, sifting through the rubble and remains left in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11 (a section originally published in The New Yorker). In many ways, Blue Blood comes to resemble the world of New York City law enforcement that Conlon describes: both are expansive, sprawling, multi-dimensional, and endlessly fascinating.
http://bookstorecommunity.com/2010/blue-blood