This
bookclub originally started back in September 11th, 2004 when two Kristin
fans (Ian & Brianne) decided to
start a thread over at Sweet
listing all the books mentioned by Kristin through different interviews
or by being spotted reading, so fans who were interested could follow
up on.
From there the list was then adopted by Maria,
who at the time ran Devoted
To Kristin Kreuk.com. But since her leave of the site
the list has stayed in a stand still without any updates to it! So Maria
gave me the blessing to swipe the bookclub and add it to this site for
it to live on!
This list will be updated as often as possible!
So here it is and enjoy!
In
her Twenties, Journalist Sarah Macdonald backpacked around India and came
away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty. So when
an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India-and
for love-she screamed, "Never!" and gave the country, and him,
the finger. But
eleven years later, the prophecy came true. When the love of Sarah's life
is posted to India, she quits her dream job to move to the most polluted
city on the earth, New Delhi. Holy Cow is Macdonald's often hilarious
chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters
with Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians,
and a kaleidoscope of yogis, swamis and Bollywood stars. From spiritual
retreats and crumbling nirvanas to war zones and New Delhi nightclubs,
it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love
life-- and her sanity--can survive.
This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields--a
feminist leader ahead of her times. This is the life and death of a famous
mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual extremes--even
of sexual assassinations. It is a novel rich with "lunacy and sorrow";
yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a comedy both
ribald and robust. In more than thirty languages, in more than forty countries--with
more than ten million copies in print--this novel provides almost cheerful,
even hilarious evidence of its famous last line: "In the world according
to Garp, we are all terminal cases."
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares
no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but
there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations
and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides
seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses,
a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes
as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of
loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth
century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal
of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating
spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against
all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Geek Love is the saga of a traveling carnival, the owners of which try
to save it from financial failure by using ingested chemicals and toxins
to create the birth of amazing freaks for the show. The outcome is a family
that is both proud and vain about its specialness. The narrative unfolds
the intricacies of greed and jealousy that tear the family asunder, resulting
in the deaths of some members, the madness of others, and the escape of
one.
It is Olympia, the hunchback albino dwarf, who lives on to tell the story of the Binewski clan. Central to the heyday of the carnival is Doc P, a physician of questionable credentials who performs bizarre operations in the traveling hospital that moves with the carnival. The story moves relentlessly toward a climax and denouement that is sufficiently unimaginable to be consistent with the cast of characters.
Little Women is one of the best loved books of all time. Lovely Meg, talented
Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons of poverty and of
growing up in New England during the Civil War. Through their dreams,
plays, pranks, letters, illnesses, and courtships, women of all ages have
become a part of this remarkable family and have felt the deep sadness
when Meg leaves the circle of sisters to be married at the end of Part
I. Part II, chronicles Meg's joys and mishaps as a young wife and mother,
Jo's struggle to become a writer, Beth's tragedy, and Amy's artistic pursuits
and unexpected romance. Based on Louise May Alcott's childhood, this lively
portrait of nineteenth-century family life possesses a lasting vitality
that has endeared it to generations of readers.
When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's
classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her
arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she
become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?
Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.
Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around
the world, and this tenth anniversary edition, with a new introduction
from the author, will only increase that following. This story, dazzling
in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian
shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to
the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids.
Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king,
and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his
quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able
to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey
to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasures found
within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is
an eternal testament to the transforming
power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.
A gentleman visiting the Yorkshire moors where the novel is set, and of
Mrs Dean, housekeeper to the Earnshaw family, who had been witness of
the interlocked destinies of the original owners of the Heights. In a
series of flashbacks and time shifts, Brontë draws a powerful picture
of the enigmatic Heathcliff, who is brought to Heights from the streets
of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw. Heathcliff is treated as Earnshaw's own children,
Catherine and Hindley. After his death Heathcliff is bullied by Hindley,
who loves Catherine, but she marries Edgar Linton. Heathcliff 's destructive
force is unleashed, and his first victim is Catherine, who dies giving
birth to a girl, another Catherine. Isabella Linton, Edgar's sister, whom
he had married, flees to the south. Their son Linton and Catherine are
married, but always sickly Linton dies. Hareton, Hindley's son, and the
young widow became close. Increasingly isolated and alienated from daily
life, Heathcliff experiences visions, and he longs for the death that
will reunite him with Catherine.Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakani
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo,
is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their
mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years
before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation
he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of
life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds
himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and
sexually liberated young woman.
For how much longer can Canada expect to get a free ride? With
9/11 and the international “war on terrorism,” the time has
come to ask some hard questions. Should we continue to starve our military,
reduce our humanitarian assistance, dilute our diplomacy, and absent ourselves
from global intelligence-gathering? Can we expect to sit at the global
table by virtue of our economic power without pursuing a foreign policy
worthy of our history, geography, and diversity?
Marilla
and Matthew want to adopt an orphan boy to help out on the farm. By mistake,
they are sent spunky red-haired Anne instead. At first, it seems that wherever
Anne goes, trouble follows. She hits a boy over the head with her slate
at school. Then she falls off the neighbor's roof during a game of truth
or dare! But as she grows up, all of Avonlea comes to love Anne of Green
Gables.
Fifty years ago, seconds after midnight on 14-15 August 1947, the Union
Jack, emblazoned with the Star of India, began its final journey down
the flagstaff of Viceroy's House, New Delhi. One fifth of humanity claimed
their independence from the greatest empire history has ever seen. But
400 million people were to find that the price of freedom was partition
and war, riot and murder. 
Christopher
John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals
and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has
no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And
he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.
A stunning, evocative novel set in Ireland and Canada, Away traces a family’s
complex and layered past. The narrative unfolds with shimmering clarity,
and takes us from the harsh northern Irish coast in the 1840s to the quarantine
stations at Grosse Isle and the barely hospitable land of the Canadian
Shield; from the flourishing town of Port Hope to the flooded streets
of Montreal; from Ottawa at the time of Confederation to a large-windowed
house at the edge of a Great Lake during the present day. Graceful and
moving, Away unites the personal and the political as it explores the
most private, often darkest corners of our emotions where the things that
root us to ourselves endure. Powerful, intricate, lyrical, Away is an
unforgettable novel.
From the best-selling author of RED AZALEA, this extraordinary novel tells
the stirring, erotically charged story of Madame Mao Zedong, the woman
almost universally known as the 'white-boned demon,' whom many hold directly
responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Bringing her
lush psychological insight to bear on the facts of history, Min penetrates
the myth surrounding this woman and provides a "convincing, nuanced
portrait of a damaged personality" (Entertainment Weekly) driven
by ambition, betrayal, and a never-to-be-fulfilled need to be loved. With
all the compressed drama and high lyrical poetry of great opera, BECOMING
MADAME MAO is a "remarkable accomplishment . . . Madame Mao is finally
given her own voice" (Ha Jin). 
You are what you eat. But do you really know what you’re eating?
Britain eats more fast food than any other country in Europe. Rates of obesity and food poisoning spiral upwards, but it seems we just can’t get enough of those tasty burgers and fries.
This myth-shattering book tells the story of America and the world’s infatuation with fast food, from its origins in 1950s southern California to the global triumph of a handful of burger and fried chicken chains. In a meticulously researched and powerfully argued account, Eric Schlosser visits the labs where scientists re-create the smell and taste of everything - from cooked meat to fresh strawberries; talks to the workers at abattoirs with some of the worst safety records in the world; explains exactly where the meat comes from and just why the fries taste so good; and looks at the way the fast food industry is transforming not only our diet but our landscape, economy, workforce and culture.
Both funny and terrifying, Fast Food Nation will make you think, but more than that, it might make you realize you don’t want a quick bite after all.