Hot Reads
The Stand is still my all time favourite book. I love the way King breaks the ‘word count’ rule (by a country mile!). It makes the book even more value for money and works because it’s a page turner. Give me a book with a strong plot and sub plots and fill it with realistic, fascinating characters, and you’ll have me in the palm of your hand. There are rumors going around about another movie or series. I know, I know, the movie’s never as good as the book, but I’ll be right there, bag of popcorn in hand, when it’s released!
The Stand by Stephen King
This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.
And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides — or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail — and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.
In 1978 Stephen King published The Stand, the novel that is now considered to be one of his finest works. But as it was first published, The Stand was incomplete, since more than 150,000 words had been cut from the original manuscript.
Now Stephen King’s apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been restored to its entirety. The Stand : The Complete And Uncut Edition includes more than five hundred pages of material previously deleted, along with new material that King added as he reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new characters and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning and a new ending. What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral comlexity of a true epic.
For hundreds of thousands of fans who read The Stand in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King’s gift. And those who are reading The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival.
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
My Sister’s Keeper is right up there on my ‘hot reads’ list as a poignant, reflective novel that holds your attention from page one through to its harrowing end. I personally preferred the ending in the movie. I just felt it was more realistic, however, I respect Jodi’s right to allow her characters to speak to her…I know I do!
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister – and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable… a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister’s Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life… even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less?
Hello From the Gillespies by Monica McInerney
I found this book under the Christmas tree last year and was surprised at the word count…yet another novel breaking the ‘almost’ unspoken ‘word count rule’. It’s one rule I could easily break (and will one day – once my foot is in the door). Hello From the Gillesies was a page turner filled with characters you can’t help falling in love with. A women’s fiction novel, mostly set in rural South Australia, explores family dynamics in a way that will make you laugh, cry and relate.
Hello From the Gillespies by Monica McInerney
For more than thirty years, Angela Gillespie has sent friends and family around the world an end-of-the-year letter titled ‘Hello from the Gillespies’. It’s always been cheery and full of good news. This year, Angela surprises herself – she tells the truth . . .
The Gillespies are far from the perfect family that Angela has made them out to be. Her husband is coping poorly with retirement. Her 32-year-old twins are having career meltdowns. Her third daughter, badly in debt, can’t stop crying. And her ten-year-old son spends more time talking to his imaginary friend than to real ones.
Without Angela, the family would fall apart. But when Angela is taken from them in a most unexpected manner, the Gillespies pull together – and pull themselves together – in wonderfully surprising ways . . .
