Friday Finds 12/12/08

My Friday Finds for this week:

1. The Black Death, by Katherine Weikert - this book takes the census records from one medieval manor and uses it to create a fictional account of the residents during the plague years - LitMob's review brought it to my attention
   


2. When We Were Gods, by Colin Falconer - this is the story of Cleopatra and Amanda says it is very good - I'm intrigued!
   


3. Know It All, by Susan Aldridge - this book is filled with facts and randomness, according to Letters on Pages - it sounds like the perfect gift book for Christmas or to leave on my coffee table (once I clean it up) for when guests are over
   


4. The Air We Breathe, by Andrea Barrett - this one sounds fascinating to me! According to the Reading Group Picks newsletter: In the fall of 1916, America prepares for war—but in the community of Tamarack Lake, the focus is on the sick. Wealthy tubercular patients live in private cure cottages; charity patients, mainly immigrants, fill the large public sanatorium. Prisoners of routine, they take solace in gossip, rumor, and—sometimes—secret attachments. But when the well-meaning efforts of one enterprising patient lead to a tragic accident and a terrible betrayal, the war comes home, bringing with it a surge of anti-immigrant prejudice and vigilante sentiment.
   


5. Not Yet Drown'd, by Peg Kingman - this came from the same source: Catherine MacDonald is astonished to receive from her twin brother—who had apparently drowned a year earlier in the monsoon floods of 1821—a kashmiri shawl, a caddy of unusual tea, and a sheaf of traditional bagpipe music in his handwriting. When had he sent it? And why had he retitled a certain tune "Not Yet Drown'd"? Irresistibly, she is drawn to India to search for answers. With her stepdaughter and their two maids—one an enigmatic Hindu, the other a runaway American slave—she follows an obscure trail of tea, opium, and bagpipe music, discovering unsuspected truths about the man she is seeking.
   


6. Power of a Praying Parent, by Stormie Omartian - Confessions of a Mommy Blogger brought this to my attention (although I'm not sure how I got to her blog ... it's not one I've ever visited before) and it looks like a great resource for me
   
   
7. Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen, by Bob Greene - I heard of this book years ago but had forgotten about it until Dreamybee posted a comment about it on my WWII reading challenge post - in her words, "North Platte is this little town in Nebraska and the military trains ran through there with all these young soldiers going off to war. The town rallied around the troops to entertain them and basically let them know that they were appreciated and that someone was thinking about them." - this jives with what I remember hearing about the book, so I'll definitely have to read this one

No new books in kiddo's list this time around.

Have you found any good books this week? I'd love to hear about them. Post a comment or head over to MizB's page to link up to your own Friday Finds post.