Category Archives: Pelican’s Picks

Some excitement in our area this week! Wednesday the movie industry came to town and spent the day filming around the Ingram Planetarium. We understand they are filming a movie for the Hallmark Channel. We’ll let you know when it will be aired.

New this week is Sandra Brown’s “Lethal,” Lee Childs “The Affair,” and James Lee Burkes “ Feast Day of Fools”. Charles Frazier, who wrote “Cold Mountain” has released “Nightwoods” set in the 1950’s and 60’s. Unlike his previous 2 novels this one is a suspense.

With Halloween coming up we have stocked some really cute cards, and later this month we will have Thanksgiving greeting cards out. Christmas fiction is already starting to come in with many of your favorite romance authors.

New to the bookstore this week: cards, cards and more cards. We have received our Christmas cards and updated our greeting card inventory—we now have twice as many cards as before!

As far as our picks of the week we have two this week. Robert Parker’s new novel Killing the Blues and Stuart Woods’ Son of Stone part of the Stone Barrington Series.

Killing the Blues is set in Paradise, Massachusetts,  a town preparing for the summer tourist season when a string of car thefts disturbs what is usually a quiet time in town. In a sudden escalation of violence, the thefts become murder, and chief of police Jesse Stone finds himself facing one of the toughest cases of his career. Pressure from the town politicians only increases when another crime wave puts residents on edge. Jesse confronts a personal dilemma as well: a burgeoning relationship with a young PR executive, whose plans to turn Paradise into a summertime concert destination may have her running afoul of the law. When a mysterious figure from Jesse’s past arrives in town, memories of his last troubled days as a cop in L.A. threaten his ability to keep order in Paradise-especially when it appears that the stranger is out for revenge.

Woods’ newest in the series Son of Stone picks up after an eventful trip to Bel-Air and a reunion with his sophisticated (and very wealthy) former love, Arrington Calder, Stone Barrington is back in New York, and he’s looking to stay closer to home and cash in on his partnership at Woodman & Weld. But Arrington has other plans for Stone…including introducing him to the child he fathered many years ago.

Both of these books are good mystery reads within their respective series. We highly recommend both of these books, especially if you’ve read either of them before–they continue the tradition of good story telling they are both known for.

We mentioned this book a few weeks ago when it first came out and now that we’ve all read it, we agree, it is deserving of our pick of the week title. It’s Jeffrey Archer’s Only Time Will Tell.  It is the first in a new series (The Clifton Chronicles) that tells the story of one family across generations.

The story starts with the epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war.” A dock worker in Bristol, Harry never knew his father, but he learns about life on the docks from his uncle, who expects Harry to join him at the shipyard once he’s left school. But then an unexpected gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive boys’ school, and his life will never be the same again.

As he enters into adulthood, Harry finally learns how his father really died, but the awful truth only leads him to question, was he even his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who spent his whole life on the docks, or the firstborn son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?

This is a great book with a set of truly memorable characters that make the story come alive. We can’t wait for the next in this series!

If you enjoyed reading Lisa See’s, “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”, “Shanghai Girls ” or the sequel,  Try Pearl Buck’s “The Good Earth”  written in 1931, she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 in Literature.  It is still as good as it was when first written.  This would make an excellent book club pick.

This is a Conch shell found on Ocean Isle Beach after Irene had passed. Susan who lives on Anson Street would win the prize if they gave them out, this shell is huge!  The shell is sitting on her laptop.

We’ve had a beautiful week here weather wise, temps were perfect for yard work and beach reading.  Hope all our friends to the north were as lucky as we were with Hurricane Irene.  Now we’re watching T.S. Katia, Tis the season!!

Debbie Macomber has released the 11^th in her Cedar Cove Series that has been a popular story line “1105 Yakima Street”. Dick Cheney’s new book “In My Time” is on the shelf and has been seen on all the TV talk shows.  I’ll let you know what our readers are saying next week.

What we’re looking forward to: Nicholas Sparks  “The Best of Me “ due out in October 11, Lee Childs new Reacher  novel “The Affair”  out September 27, and Vince Flynn has a new novel “Kill Shot” Nov. 7.

Everyone here is watching Irene tearing up the Bahamas.  We hope all will be well here. At this time we plan on being open our regular hours.  However, we will close if we feel the slightest uneasy.

Jeffrey Archer will release his new novel on Tuesday.  If you haven’t read any of his books, let us suggest “The Prisoner of Birth”.  One of the best written books in many years.  His new title is “Only Time Will Tell”   We plan to read it this weekend and will let you know.  Can’t wait.

Kathy Reichs has a new one out called “Flash and Bones”.  The TV  series  “Bones” on FOX-TV is based on this series.  Have it to read this weekend, too.  These storms give us an opportunity to get ahead in our reading so that we can tell you the best books!!

Also out this week Dick Cheney’s Memoir, and a new fast read by James Patterson.

Turtles are hatching!!  Our turtle patrol people and visitors are excited.  The sea turtles are starting to hatch maybe a little early because of the hot weather we have been having.  If you want to share the turtle story with your children, the best picture book for adults and children is “Turtle Summer” by Mary Alice Monroe and illustrator Barbara Bergwerf. If you would like a copy give us a call and we’ll send it out the next day.  It’s the best turtle book out there.

If you saw the movie “The Help” and loved it…read the book.  It’s terrific; if you haven’t seen the movie, see it.  They have done a great job in bringing the book alive.

Patti Callahan Henri ‘s new book was released this week, I read it and enjoyed it very much.  If you like Dorothea Benton Frank, Mary Alice Monroe or Karen White you’re going to love this new book called “Coming Up For Air.”

One of my favorite places to go on line to hear about upcoming books and reviews is Books on the Nightstand.  Check it out they have a website, blog and podcast, all are very informative.

http://booksonthenightstand.com/

This week Pat has picked the notable series, currently in production for a film release in 2012, “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins.  The book is set in the ruins of a place once known as North America now known as the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, “The Hunger Games,” a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed.

This riveting trilogy will be sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.  We’ve also got a few side picks from our non-fiction section. (Clockwise from left, “Does The Noise In My Head Bother You?: A Rock n’ Roll Memoir” by Steven Tyler, “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris” by David McCullough, “Kid Carolina: R. J. Reynolds Jr., a Tobacco Fortune, and the Mysterious Death of a Southern Icon” by Heidi Schnakenberg, and “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard.

Happy reading!

We’re in for a treat, Pat has not only picked one but 4 books she recommends this week.

First, and very expectedly “The Help” is flying off shelves as everyone is rushing to read it before the movie premiers this weekend.  “The Help” is an uplifting story set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom raise the children and do the household chores of the country club types.

Pat also recommends, George R.R. Martin’s new hardback “A Dance With Dragons,” “Beach Trees” by Karen White and “Burnt Mountain” by Anne Rivers Siddons are all popular in the bookstore this week.

If none of these caught your attention, stop in the bookstore and get a personalized suggestion from Pat, Anne or Suzanne.

At the Iron Mountain Home for Boys, there was nothing but time. Time to burn and time to kill, time for two young orphans to learn that life isn’t won without a fight. Julian survives only because his older brother, Michael, is fearless and fiercely protective. When tensions boil over and a boy is brutally killed, there is only one sacrifice left for Michael to make: He flees the orphanage and takes the blame with him.

For two decades, Michael has been an enforcer in New York’s world of organized crime, a prince of the streets so widely feared he rarely has to kill anymore. But the life he’s fought to build unravels when he meets Elena, a beautiful innocent who teaches him the meaning and power of love. He wants a fresh start with her, the chance to start a family like the one he and Julian never had. But someone else is holding the strings. And escape is not that easy. . . .

The mob boss who gave Michael his blessing to begin anew is dying, and his son is intent on making Michael pay for his betrayal. Determined to protect the ones he loves, Michael spirits Elena—who knows nothing of his past crimes, or the peril he’s laid at her door— back to North Carolina, to the place he was born and the brother he lost so long ago. There, he will encounter a whole new level of danger, a thicket of deceit and violence that leads inexorably to the one place he’s been running from his whole life: Iron House.

For Pat’s next pick, check back on Friday…