Sunday, December 19, 2010

Irish Dancing Christmas Show

Today we have my daughter's Christmas Show.  They have two performances and my family will be in attendance.  I hope to post some pictures later.  I'm just getting the hang of this blog.  I have been very busy the past two weeks with Christmas show practices and of course Christmas shopping.  I did manage to squeeze in a little reading.  I finally finished the Dark is Rising Sequence which I ended up really liking and thinking about while shopping. I will finish the review this week.  I also finished North of Beautiful which I chose to read because it received a good review on another blog - I'm going to have to keep better track of whose blog it was - and also because the storyline focuses on a teenage girl, a senior in high school, who has a "flawed" face and who wishes to escape her life, and I have a relative in a similar situation.

Also, I have to add the 2010 books that I read in the beginning of the year to my 2010 list.  I am having fun with this blog and must find the time to post more.

Have a great Sunday!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Review: Presumed Innocent

Title: Presumed Innocent
Author: Scott Turow
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1987
Genre/Pages: Fiction/431 pages
Source: library
Grade: B+


The sequel to this book, The Innocent has been recently released, and I really want to read it. But, I needed to reread Presumed Innocent because it has been over 20 years since my first read.  I loved it the first time, but this time around I just enjoyed it.  

Living in a Midwestern city, Rusty Sabich, Kindle County's chief deputy attorney, is approaching middle age, with a marriage and career stagnating until he begins a torrid affair with an ambitious and unscrupulous colleague, Carolyn Polhemus.  However, after 4 months she breaks off with Rusty and he is devastated.  She was using him as a stepping stone to achieve her goal of becoming Prosecuting Attorney. Only 6 months after the breakup, Carolyn has been found murdered, and Rusty has been put on the case.  He doesn't tell his boss, Raymond Horgan, of his affair with Carolyn. Horgan is in the final days of his political campaign to remain Prosecuting Attorney, which he is clearly losing.  He needs Rusty to find the killer quickly.  Then, just when Horgan loses the election, incredibly, Rusty is accused of Carolyn's murder.  The courtroom and the interacions between all the players are magnificent.  I really enjoyed how Turow represented the two sides without prejudice, and he constantly kept me guessing who were the "bad guys".