Downtown

Downtown chronicles the fast-paced life and loves of Maureen "Smoky" O'Donnell, a magazine writer in 1960's Atlanta. Working at a frenetic city magazine called Downtown, Smoky experiences the sometimes violent reactions of a Southern city to the civil rights movement, hippie counterculture, the sexual revolution, and the war in Vietnam. The people she meets in the big city are worlds away from her childhood Irish working-class Corkie neighborhood of Savannah, Georgia. And the man she ends up with is quite the opposite of her first love, from the tony Buckhead section of old Atlanta society money. Take a trip back to bell-bottoms and go-go-boots in Downtown!

Fallen Skies

Fallen Skies is by one of my favorite authors, Philippa Gregory. Her typical stories occur in Tudor England, but this thriller is set in post-WWI Portsmouth, England. Lily Pears meets and marries the rich and handsome, but unbalanced, war hero Stephen Winters, breaking with her dream of singing on the stage. The doting Charlie Smith, another war veteran, loves Lily but cannot fulfill her dreams of a future with him. The mysterious Coventry, Stephen's batman from his war command, lurks mutely near, loyally serving his commander Stephen. All is undone when Stephen and Lily's baby, Christopher, disappears amidst a failed marriage, strained family relationships, and Stephen's unwinding mental state. A great read for a wintry weekend!

The Seekers

The Seekers was a bear to get through. This book takes a sweeping ride through the ages describing the times and views of great wisdom seekers and philosophers, including the ancient Greeks, Martin Luther, Hegel, and many more. Although I learned new information about the ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle that will be useful for the Jeopardy test someday, I had to bail after the chapter on Karl Marx about 2/3 of the way through. Don't tackle this one unless you have a heart for philosophy, or a bad bout of insomnia!