JULIE
11/22/63 by Stephen King
“
I bought this book for my mother for Christmas, but she already had it, so it became my airplane reading over the holidays. I started it going, “Okay, whatever, this’ll be kind of entertaining while I’m tens of thousands of feet in the air.” And now I cannot stop reading this book. King just pulls me in. To sum up the storyline briefly (and at over 800 pages, the story of this novel does not exactly fit in a nutshell), a guy goes back in time through a portal in the pantry of a local diner to 1958. His mission is to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing Kennedy in 1963. Along the way, he tries to correct some other wrongs to give his friends in the “future” a better life; he falls in love; he lives as a man out of time until he is acutely in that time. King really does know how to spin a good story. I thought the draw would be having to know whether or not JFK lives, but the real draw is whether or not this character will make it through this experience, if he’ll go back to his old life, if the menacing force of the “obdurate past” will overtake him before he can complete his mission. Add to that all of King’s sideways glances at the passage of time and the power of the past and I’m totally hooked. I’m just really, unexpectedly digging this book.”
HADORAH
Sacred Contracts by Carolyn Myss
“Sacred Contracts is about the quest to find what you want on emotional, physical and spiritual levels. It’s kind of a self help book but it would be found in metaphysical. It’s been really helpful. Myss cites Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad as the four archetypes illustrating the separate stages of the sacred contract. This book assists you in identifying your life’s divine purpose and unlocking the meaning of your relationships.”
TREVOR
Finding Ultra by Rich Roll
“At first I thought this book would just be about ultra running and Rich Roll’s experiences as a long time long distance runner, but it is also about his surprising diet choices. Rich Roll eats only a plant based diet, and in Finding Ultra outlines his nutrition plan surrounding his 100+ mile runs. I eat meat, but after reading this book I’ve reexamined how I fuel my body and have cut out a lot of it. It’s a really interesting read no matter what stage of fitness you are in.”
STEVEN
Happy Baby by Stephen Elliot
“Flippo told me to read it so I am- it’s super depressing and super entertaining. Happy Baby is about a guy who is slowly reconciling with his childhood. His tentative forays into adult life are interspersed with heart breaking retreats into his past. It’s great I love it, two sad faces up! I can’t wait for the movie!”
BookPeople 
I really enjoyed 11/22/63 too! I read it this time last year and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would! Read the whole thing on a plane from LA to Sydney! 14 hours of Stephen King, it’s the kind of book you can knock over in one go! If you want another really interesting but very different read, ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak is amazing.
I recall being disappointed with 11/22/63. I went back to see what notes I wrote after abandoning it:
A tough question: What makes a reader abandon a book that’s written with clear, concise prose and that contains lively action and tender interpersonal relationships? I’m speculating, but I wonder if the answer isn’t the complexity of emotions dramatized.
Good guy kills bad guy
Fat kid excels as actor
Daring action alleviates suffering
Nice people fall in love
Person interrupts life for good cause.
Compare those dramatizations with these:
Copperfield’s relationship to Steerforth or Pip’s, with Magwitch—Dickens
Augie March’s adult as a product of family—Bellow
Zuckerman’s conflict with family over personal lore as writer’s capital—Roth
Stephens’s loyalty as vice—Ishiguro
Mental illness as therapy—Persig.
Is complexity the problem? Anyway, I’m abandoning King’s book after about 330 pages.