Stop the Wedding! A Romantic Comedy

From Rosemarie Jerome
Author:  Stephanie Bond
Stop the Wedding!  A Romantic Comedy
Annabelle Coakley’s widowed mother is getting married to Martin Castleberry. This is not good news. Castleberry is a playboy movie star. He has been married five times before and each wife is younger than her predecessor. Annabelle is a divorce lawyer, she has dealt with the pain and suffering of divorce. She does not want her mother to get hurt, so she must stop this wedding. Clay is Martin’s son. He is used to cleaning up his father’s messes. He wants to end this relationship before his father makes another big mistake. They are both on the same mission but never on the same track. It’s the formula for a humorous, light read. This exclusive Kindle eBook is available on our circulating Paperwhite Kindle.

The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek

From Ginny  Pisciotta
Author:  Jane Myers  Perrine
The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek
The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek is a light-hearted look at small town life.  It focuses on the newly  arrived, newly ordained minister Adam Jordan. As he adjusts to small town life, he must learn to deal with Miss Birdie(who he nicknames “ the pillar”, a kind hearted but pushy and outspoken widow who feels it’s her job to train him in how to be a proper minister.  One of Birdie’s chief jobs as a member of “the widows” is matchmaking.  She takes this role very seriously.  She does not believe ministers, or anyone else of marriageable age for that matter, should be single so Adam must learn to deal with her not so subtle attempts at matchmaking.  Another  of the widows’  pet projects is matching up a marine who lost his leg in Afghanistan and is dealing with post-traumatic stress and depression with a recently divorced physical therapist with 2 sons.

The book maintains a humorous and light-hearted tone, even through sad or serious storylines.  It is similar in substance and style to Phillip Gulley’s Harmony series. You grow to love all the characters, even with their flaws and eccentricities.

The next Butternut Creek novel is titled The Matchmakers of Butternut Creek.

Jeeves & wooster. complete series [videorecording DVD]

From Ginny Pisciotta
Author:  P.G. Wodehouse
Jeeves & wooster. complete series [videorecording DVD].
Jeeves and Wooster is a fun, zany British series  based on stories by P.G. Wodehouse.  The 23 episodes are set in the 1930s and revolve around Bertie Wooster (Hugh Laurie), a likeable but feckless member of the idle rich, and his extremely competent valet Jeeves (Stephen Frye).

Bertie always seems to be involved in some wacky scheme, usually at the request of one his eccentric  friends or relations.  The unflappable and brilliant Jeeves is always working behind the scenes to fix the bumbling messes that Bertie puts himself in, all while  maintaining his professional image and duties.

There aren’t many series that my husband and I both love, but this is one fits the bill.  It is worth watching for the theme song alone – a toe-tapping original piece written in the jazz/swing style.  If you are looking for light-hearted entertainment this series is a must-watch.

 

Klonopin Lunch: a Memoir

From  Jackie Cantwell
Author:  Jessica Dorfman Jones
Klonopin Lunch: a Memoir
What happens when a married lawyer with a hum-drum life gets a taste of Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll? Read this well-crafted memoir to find out. Jessica, a product of New York’s Upper East Side, always played by the rules, which included excelling at the finest schools and marrying her college boyfriend. Enter a handsome guitar teacher, and at the age of thirty, she forgets the life she knew. Their flirtation becomes a full-blown affair, and she starts to take illegal drugs, gets tattooed, and fancies herself a rock star. She writes songs with the guitar teacher’s pal, becomes the lead singer of a fledgling rock band, and stays out ‘til all hours of the night, thus testing the limits of her husband’s understanding and support. This tale of sexual obsession and codependency is painfully honest. She often doesn’t come across as very likeable or sympathetic. Yes, she’s selfish, and yes, she ought to know better. There are very funny sections, including the lunch with her gay pal, where the book gets its title. It could be said that New York City is another character in the book; the evocative descriptions of Manhattan are such that you can almost smell the spilled beer and cigarette smoke in the clubs. There are graphic depictions of sexual activity and drug use, so this book is not for the squeamish or the prudish.

I’ll mature when I’m dead : Dave Barry’s amazing tales of adulthood

From Jackie Cantwell
Author:  Dave Barry
I’ll mature when I’m dead : Dave Barry’s amazing tales of adulthood
This is another laugh-out-loud book from my favorite funny man. With chapters covering topics such as fatherhood, technology, dog ownership, Dave’s Hollywood career and visiting Miami, you’re sure to find a favorite. Two chapters are hilarious parodies of the recent popular phenomena: The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer and “24” the television show starring Kiefer Sutherland. My favorite is  “Tips for visiting Miami: No. 1: Are you insane?” This had me in stitches: “We also have a growing population of unwelcome out-of-town wildlife species that have come here and clearly intend to stay. Two invasive species in particular have caused serious concern: Burmese pythons, and New Yorkers. The New Yorkers have been coming for years, which is weird because pretty much all they do once they get to Florida is bitch about how everything here sucks compared to the earthly paradise that is New York. They continue to root, loudly, for the Jets, the Knicks, the Mets, and the Yankees; they never stop declaring, loudly, that in New York the restaurants are better, the stores are nicer, the people are smarter, the public transportation is free of sharks, etc.” Dave has a most unique suggestion for handling the python problem once and for all.

Drop Dead Healthy

 From Laura Caran 
Title:  Drop Dead Healthy
Author:  A. J. Jacobs
This is about one man’s quest for bodily perfection. He wants to be as healthy as can be.  He quotes an “army” of experts in medical and health related fields as well as authors and doctors.  Very humorous and enjoyable.

I Suck at Girls

From Donna Southard
Title:  I Suck at Girls
Author:  Justin Halpern
Great book!  This was a quick read and I found it to be very funny to read about the conversations regarding  the subject of girls that the author had with his father!  I found myself laughing through most of the book.

The Hamptons real estate horror show

From Andrea  Kalinowski
Author: Anonymous Times Two
The Hamptons real estate horror show 
The Hamptons Real Estate Horror Show by Anonymous Times Two is an entertaining peek into the realtors’ viewpoint of the Hampton real estate market. The vignettes of the different prospective buyers were quite astounding. One buyer wanted top of the line kitchen equipment even as her husband stated “But you don’t cook.” Another potential renter left her baby in the foyer while touring the property. Thanks that the baby turned out to be a doll but I am scared for that woman’s potential real child. Another woman was trying to reclaim her security deposit stating “We left the house in better shape than when we rented it.” A claim the realtor could refute with evidence of a dog unhousebroken. An entertaining and quick read in addition to giving us some insight into how some of those with money behave when it comes to renting real estate.

We bought a zoo

From Jackie Cantwell
Author:  Benjamin Mee
We bought a zoo
This is the remarkable true story of a successful journalist and married father of two who buys the dilapidated Dartmoor Zoo in southwest England. The book was made into a movie, in theatres now, starring Matt Damon. Benjamin is joined in this venture with his siblings and widowed mother, who sinks her inheritance into the purchase.  Ever media-savvy, Ben lands a TV deal to film the park being prepared to be reopened for the public. This book has it all: a love story, exotic animals, impatient creditors, indifferent bankers, demanding government officials, and a ragtag crew of zookeepers. The most exciting parts are when the most dangerous animals (such as Sovereign the jaguar) escape or almost escape their enclosures.   A fascinating section, which became known as the Day of the Dentist, was when a renowned animal dentist checked the teeth of all the animals in a marathon, costly session. The threat of danger always lurks, which makes the narrative so suspenseful. Will the park pass the inspection? Will it ever open to the public again? Will his family give up on his dream?

Palinisms : the accidental wit and wisdom of Sarah Palin

From Jackie Cantwell
Author:  Jacob Weisberg
Palinisms : the accidental wit and wisdom of Sarah Palin 
According to the author’s very humorous introduction, Palinisms occur when Palin expresses one of her views about God, Alaska, oil drilling, or the political establishment in her idiosyncratically involuted syntax.  According to Weisberg, Palin’s exuberant incoherence testifies to an unusually wide gulf between confidence and ability. She is proud of what she doesn’t know and contemptuous of those “experts” and “elitists” who are too knowledgeable to be trusted.  Here are some of my favorites. When asked by Katie Couric which newspapers she reads, Sarah replied, “All of ‘em, any of ‘em that have been in front of me over all these years.” And this is Sarah speaking at a town hall meeting in  Michigan, “Oil and coal? Of course, it’s a fungible commodity and they don’t flag, you know, the molecules, where it’s going and where it’s  not.”  And Sarah explains her foreign policy experience to Katie Couric, “As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”  This book is a lot of fun and at just 96 pages, it can be read in one sitting.