Koontz hooked me as a reader devotee with Watchers. Along with hundreds of thousands of fans, I grew to love his (believable) talking dog character.
This non-fictional memoir of the retired service dog who shared her life with the Koontz family and their staff is incredibly special. Throughout the book are story vignettes with memory-sticking power, such as Koontz’s writing process and filtering publishing industry personalities through Trixie’s senses.
If you are a dog person or writer, this heartwarming tale will make you laugh, sigh, and cry.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In a profound, funny, and beautifully rendered portrait of a beloved companion, bestselling novelist Dean Koontz remembers the golden retriever who changed his life.
A retired service dog, Trixie was three when Dean and his wife, Gerda, welcomed her into their home. She was superbly trained, but her greatest gifts couldn’t be taught: her keen intelligence, her innate joy, and an uncanny knack for living in the moment. Whether chasing a tennis ball or protecting those she loved, Trixie gave all she had to everything she did, inspiring Dean and Gerda to trust their instincts…
The building blocks for this story are a developing intergenerational neighbor relationship, a source of gold, greed, a door to another world, and a hero.
King is a trustworthy storyteller. My most favorite of all his books is the one he wrote for his children. Fairy Tale, published in 2022, is a solid second. On a gore scale of one being none and ten being blood on every page, this one is about a four. It’s good fun. If you enjoy lingering in the alternate worlds he creates (608 pages!), this one will not disappoint.
A #1 New York Times Bestseller and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice!
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad…
This book caused a seismic thinking shift as it relates to the American Dream and real estate investment.
Married professionals spend their careers following the rules and chasing the dream. They struggle with disillusionment when their adult children’s work choices, old house, and a cranky parent in ill health don’t jibe with their ‘vision’ of retirement.
After a series of attention-holding family dramas, the tide turns when they chuck the expected and reframe their hope for the future.
As a history buff, I liked learning about an early, unknown female botanist in the subplot. I also enjoyed the book because I’m entering the empty-nest life season. A blooming desire to live like a minimalist who travels frequently is incompatible with the amount of accumulated stuff in my habitation space.
THE NEW NOVEL FROM ORANGE PRIZE WINNER AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER BARBARA KINGSOLVER
2016 Vineland Meet Willa Knox, a woman who stands braced against an upended world that seems to hold no mercy for her shattered life and family - or the crumbling house that contains her.
1871 Vineland Thatcher Greenwood, the new science teacher, is a fervent advocate of the work of Charles Darwin, and he is keen to communicate his ideas to his students. But those in power in Thatcher's small town have no desire for a new world order. Thatcher and his teachings are not welcome.
In 1849, Phineas Gage is a young man adapting to life after a traumatic brain injury. In a fashionable New York 'freak show,' P. T. Barnum promoted him as "The Man with his Brains Blown Out."
Based on a true story and known facts (at the time of writing), this novella focuses on the family who experienced a tragedy, and it reminds us that Phineas was so much more than the first neuroscience and psychology casebook study or popular culture icon.
