Only Time Will Tell , The Sins of the Father- Jeffrey Archer, November 2013

I couldn't put the book down.  I loved the way it was written with sections of the book given to each character.  The story unfolds as you read the story from one persons perspective and they fill in the details that you missed from the previous chapters and then give you more to wonder about.  Yes, it is entirely unbelievable that one character could go through so much.   Then to pull it into the truly unbelievable, each of the side characters has just as unbelievable series of events that happen to all intertwine.  But who cares.  Sometimes the foreshadowing is so blatant that you can nearly call the next chapter before reading it.  But who cares.  I want to keep reading -see if I am right and see what other twists happen because I can't unravel it all.  I am taken by the boy who against-all-odds becomes a scholar.  Who doesn't want to root for the boy who has nothing and is becoming something great? Then his mother who will do anything and everything to make the life for her Henry better than her own.  Stan is a filthy character who will defy his own family for money.  For a time you want to like the character, only because Harry follows him like a puppy dog but in the end you just can't like him. Worse yet is Hugo, the father of Harry's best friend at school.  He is entirely unpalatable yet has a father Sir Barrington who is very upstanding and smart man.  The Tancock/Clifton clan intermingles with the Barringtons and a number of other characters and many intertwined stories weave together to create intrigue.  I finished the book in less than a week.  I then picked up its sequel and finished it within a day. I am not allowing myself to get the third book from the library until I complete some of my 'to do' list or I will never get anything done.  Even with my best intentions I would convince myself, "Just one more chapter."  And so it went until I had flipped through to the very last page.

It isn't a literary classic and I feel somewhat guilty to have liked it so much (stealing a line from the book when Harry is working in the library).

State of Wonder by Ann Patchet October 2013

A pharmaceutical company is developing a new drug in the Amazon.  The ever energetic and incredibly intelligent Dr.Swenson is working on the drug that will allow women to become mothers even as old women.  She has been working in a place down an undisclosed tributary in a spot in the Amazon and not even her boss Mr.Fox doesn't know of its location.

Anders Eckman is given an assignment to the jungle to learn of the drugs progress after Dr. Swenson fails to give reports to the company.  He is supposed to report back  to Mr.Fox but a succinct letter from Swenson states that he is dead.  Karen Eckman his wife falls apart but doesn't necessarily believe that her husband is dead.

Then Marina is asked to go by her boss and lover Mr.Fox.

Okay read.  Entertaining.