Book Review: Liar Temptress Soldier Spy

A young Northern woman cuts her hair and dons a Union uniform. A seventeen-year old Southern woman aims a pistol at the Union soldier who breaks into her house. A notorious Confederate spy struggles to maintain her operations under scrutiny and in prison. And a Union sympathizer in Virginia begins operating an espionage ring out of her home.

Liar Temptress Soldier Spy tells the stories of these four historical figures, real women who defied the conventions of their time to join the fight for their countries during the Civil War. All of them went undercover at some point during the war, carrying intelligence that affected the outcome of numerous military operations. This fascinating historical account reads like fiction, alternating the stories of the four women with cliffhanger chapter breaks, and speculating on the thoughts and emotions that bring them to life. - Michelle (Sunset)

Book Review: Zac & Mia

Two teens find themselves in the hospital, on opposite sides of the same wall, communicating with knocks and taps. In the real world, they would never be friends - Zac is from a large farming family in rural Australia, and Mia is a popular city girl - but here they're the only people who understand what the other is going through. Both are in the hospital being treated for cancer.

 Zac & Mia tells the story of how young people face a terrible illness in different ways: optimistically or with embarrassment, hopefully or fearfully, with support from their families or with arguing and misunderstanding. An honest and unflinching novel about learning to accept and fight for life. - Michelle (Sunset)

Book Review: Wild

Reeling from the sudden death of her mother and the crumbling of her marriage, Cheryl Strayed embarks on what she intends to be a journey of self-discovery: a three-month, 1100-mile solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail. Wild is her account of this trek and the many unexpected things she discovers. At first, she doesn't even have the energy to come to terms with her mother's loss, instead finding herself burdened with a backpack that's almost too heavy to lift, an incredible amount of damage done to her body by the physical exertions of the trail, and the worst weather to hit the region in years. These hardships prove to be just what she needs, however, to untangle her feelings of grief, anger, guilt, and defensiveness. A fascinating account of undertaking a difficult journey in the wild, as well as a brutally honest memoir of one woman's attempt to deal with trauma. - Michelle (Sunset)

Book Review: 10% Happier

Dan Harris was an up-and-coming news correspondant for ABC when he had a nervous breakdown on camera. While he kept it together - and kept his job - he realized he needed to change his life. Influenced by his new assignments covering religion, he began to explore what some of these spiritual traditions have to say about the ways in which we make ourselves crazy, and found himself reading and interviewing the likes of Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, and the people behind The Secret. None of these sources seemed to have the answers he was looking for, though; he found some to be downright ridiculous. Reluctantly he was pointed in a slightly different direction, toward the Buddhist practice of meditation, and to his own surprise, he found a self-help approach that actually helped.

10% Happier is a skeptic's guide to meditation, a spirituality book for people who aren't spiritual. Harris describes how he learned to recognize the voice in his head that was constantly criticizing him, driving him to compulsive behaviors, and tormenting him with imagined castastrophes ("Flophouse in Duluth in six months, guaranteed"). He offers very practical suggestions to get this inner voice under control, while still keeping a skeptical eye on some of stranger aspects of the traditions he studies. Not only that, but Harris gives us an insider's view into the competitive world of network news, with fascinating stories about the shows and personalities that are so familiar to us - and things we might not have known about them. - Michelle (Sunset)

Book Review: Summer House with Swimming Pool

Marc Schlosser is a doctor whose patients number among celebrities and politicians, none of whom he likes very well. But does he just have a poor sense of medical ethics - or is there something more sinister to his character? Because one of his patients, the famous actor Ralph Meier, has died after a sudden illness, an assisted suicide administered by Dr. Schlosser. The medical board thinks Schlosser's actions were questionable. Meier's widow calls him a murderer outright. But what really happened?

Summer House with Swimming Pool unfolds the story by revisiting Schlosser's relationship with Meier, culminating in a vacation the doctor and his family spent at Meier's summer house and the mystery of what happened there. The novel is the second one by Dutch author Herman Koch to be translated into English, after the bestseller The Dinner. As in the earlier novel, Koch shows himself to be a master at creating characters who are both completely despicable and somehow compelling, motivated by selfish instincts in one moment and desperation to protect their loved ones in the next. Summer House with Swimming Pool is horrifying, fascinating, and hard to put down. - Michelle (Sunset)