The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King

I have been meaning to read this series for awhile now, and kept putting it off. Finally I got the first book, The Gunslinger, from the library and read it. And wow, I was blown away and definitely wanted to keep going. So I got the rest of the books from the library and spent five days over the long weekend reading the next six books in the series. And these are not small books, but they are just so engaging, that I couldn’t put them down. I read while I worked out, while I ate, while I watched football, while I did practically everything. A quick synopsis is all I can give you since these books are so detailed, but I’ll do my best to get you hooked. These books are the story of Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger of Gilead. Gilead is in Mid-World, which calls to mind the Old West with a bit of magic thrown in. Mid-World was once inhabited by the “Old People” whose knowledge allowed for technological advances, but that knowledge has since been lost. Roland’s lifelong quest is to find the Dark Tower, to stop the rest of the universes from coming undone and ending all life. Throughout his journey, Roland picks up a band of misfits who become his ka-tet, a group of people bound together by a shared destiny. This group consists of Eddie Dean, a former heroin addict, Susannah Dean, a woman who lost her legs in a NYC Subway accident, Jake Chambers, an 11-year old from New York, and Oy, a bumbler from Mid-World. As I stated before, these books are complicated and I won’t try to synopsize every last detail; just know this, if you liked Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, you will love this series. Even if you’re not a Stephen King fan, this isn’t like his horror novels, this is more along the lines of the Green Mile or The Stand.

For a bit of history – Stephen King wrote the Gunslinger in 1970, although it wasn’t published until 1984. The last book in the series, The Dark Tower, came out in 2004. Part of his motivation for finally finishing the series was the car accident in Maine in June of 1999 that nearly killed him. If you pick up the paperbacks of these novels, you will be able to read all about it yourself, as King has provided a foreword and afterward for each novel, describing his thought process.

Book 1 - The Gunslinger

Book 2 - The Drawing of the Three

Book 3 - The Waste Lands

Book 4 - Wizard and Glass

Book 5 - Wolves of the Calla

Book 6 - Song of Susannah

Book 7 - The Dark Tower

Pursuit of Honor by Vince Flynn

I won’t spend a lot of time on Pursuit of Honor, it’s another Mitch Rapp novel and this time picks up where Flynn’s last novel left off. Terrorists have struck the United States again, and it’s up to Rapp to find them and bring them to justice. Or maybe subject them to his own form of justice. These books aren’t literary greats, but are decent thrillers. If you want to kill a couple hours with a decent book that won’t tax your brain overmuch, this should fit the bill. If you want something deep and satisfying, look elsewhere.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help was our book club selection for January and was definitely one of the best books we’ve picked since we’ve started. It’s really a story about writing a story; about the guilt southern whites have for exploiting the black people who made their lives so much simpler. Specifically, this is the story of Skeeter Phelan, an Ole Miss graduate who moves back in with her parents. She and her friends spend their days playing bridge, and joining the Junior League. When one of her friends, Hilly, makes a huge to-do over the ‘help’ using the same toilets as their employers, Skeeter is suddenly struck by the unfairness of life for a black person in Mississippi in 1962. She decides to write a book, with the help of the maids of Jackson, Mississippi, talking about their experiences. But these are dangerous times for anyone to challenge the status quo, black or white, and while Skeeter is able to get one maid to help out, Aibileen, she is at first unable to convince any others to tell their tales. It finally takes the death of some high profile civil rights figures to get the rest of the maids to agree. While some of the tales are disheartening, some are also uplifting, and Skeeter ends up knowing so much about the people who make up her community. This book tackles some heavy topics but doesn’t leave you feeling down. It’s also a definite page turner and I have a feeling if you pick it up, you’ll have a hard time putting it down.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

I’d been looking forward to this book ever since I heard it was coming out; as someone who loved The Time Traveler’s Wife, I couldn’t wait to see what else Niffenegger had in store for me. But Her Fearful Symmetry was a surprise – it’s nothing like TTW and I still can’t say whether or not I liked it. this is at it’s heart, a ghost story that also tries to be a love story. When Elspeth Noblin dies, in a final act of spite against her estranged twin sister Edie, she leaves everything to her 20-year old twin nieces, Valentina and Julia. The twins decide to move to London, to their new flat outside Highgate Cemetery in a building that is also occupied by two other tenants – Robert, Elspeth’s lover, and Martin, a man suffering from extreme OCD. But the twins aren’t that interested in London, they’re more interested in getting to know Elspeth, who is now haunting her old apartment. And Elspeth notes with interest that Robert is bcoming more and more attracted to her young niece, Valentina. While Valentina starts to pull away from her twin, Julia becomes jealous and disapproving, leading Valentina to come up with a plan to allow her to live her own life. Of course, this plan goes south, as these things often do, and the outcome is a weird twist that you will probably see coming. I don’t know if I should recommend this book or not, there’s just something so weird about it. I think anyone who reads this after having read and loved Time Traveler’s Wife will be sorely disappointed.