The Brothers Bloom

It's official...the next time I fall in love it will be with Adrien Brody. After spending the afternoon seeing the movie called The Brothers Bloom I am totally smitten. In order to survive their upbringing being shuttled from town to town and foster home to foster home the orphaned brothers develop conning scenarios. To make matters worse, they meet a master con artist who creates such a clever pair that it is impossible to keep track of what is real and what isn't real, even for them. Following their complicated schemes isn't important. What is important is that you have fallen in love with these intriguing characters...don't take Adrien Brody...he's mine.

Happy Birthday Betty

Shanghai Girls

I have spent some time in Shanghai and much more in Los Angeles, but I will never see either place the same again after having read Shanghai Girls. The author, Lisa See, again describes the indelible bond between sisters. There couldn't be two more unlikely survivors of the Japanese occupation as these two beautiful sisters. Being surrounded by World War ll, they are faced with incomprehensible circumstances. I will never again visit the Chinatown section of Los Angeles without being touched by the struggle of Pearl and May and others when coming to America.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

It is said that "no one writes letters anymore."  Not so with  the authors Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece Annie Barrows.  In a series of letters the cast of characters  are introduced to us in such a way that they feel like new friends.  The setting is on an island called Guernsey between England and France (so close to France that cars on their highway can be seen on a clear day).  The time is when I was ten years old and the World War II was raging. The Nazis' had occupied this small British Isle.  While trying to survive this five-year-long occupation these people read many books, cared for and about each other and become ingenious in their survival.  As I read this series of letters I was definitely changed, feeling  more intimately involved and wishing to be much more clever and caring myself.