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For those Kindle readers who, like me, read for entertainment, scanning the book reviews in People magazine is good way to check out new people-related books - celebrity bios, popular novels, absorbing nonfiction - just hitting bookstore shelves. Featured in the October 17th and 24th issues of People:

The Night Strangers, by Chris Bohjalian. Crown, 2011. Print Length: 400 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 3 1/2 stars (48 reviews). People's slant: "This unsettling latest from master storyteller Bohjalian...will keep you up at night." Kindle edition $12.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts. The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain due to double engine failure. The body count? Thirty-nine. What follows is a riveting ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling, award-winning novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, meticulous research, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply. The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead." - Publisher.

The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes. Knopf, 2011. Print Length: 176 p. NOVEL. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (14 reviews). People's slant: "Barnes weaves a taut, suspenseful tale while raising fascinating questions about memory, accountability and the limits of self-knowledge." Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"This intense new novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about - until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he’d left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he’d understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world. " - from the hardcover edition. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2011).

It's Hard Not to Hate You, by Valerie Frankel. St. Martin's Press, 2011. Print Length: 256 p. MEMOIR. Amazon customer rating: 4 stars (34 reviews). People's slant: "In a breezy 242 pages, she turns The Secret on its head." Kindle edition $11.99. Text-to-Speech: Enabled.

"The hate in you has got to come out. After being advised to reduce stress by her doctor, humorist Valerie Frankel realized the biggest source of pressure in her life was maintaining an unflappable easy-going persona. After years of glossing over the negative, Frankel goes on a mission of emotional honesty, vowing to let herself feel and express all the toxic emotions she’d long suppressed or denied: jealousy, rage, greed, envy, impatience, regret. Frankel reveals her personal History of Hate, from mean girls in junior high, selfish boyfriends in her twenties and old professional rivals. Hate stomps through her current life, too, with snobby neighbors, rude cell phone talkers, scary doctors and helicopter moms. By the end of her authentic emotional experience, Frankel concludes that toxic emotions are actually good for you.Trying to ward off negativity was what had been causing Frankel’s career stagnation, as well as her health and personal problems." - Publisher.

The Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman. Scribner, 2011. Print length: 512 p. NOVEL. People's slant: "With her 29th and most ambitious book, Hoffman has ventured beyond magical realism to create first-rate historical fiction..." Amazon customer rating: 4 1/2 stars (23 reviews). Kindle edition $14.99. Text-to-Speech: Disabled.

"In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets - about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love." - Publisher.
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Note to readers: The book prices quoted here are the Amazon.com prices in effect at the time of the blog posting. Please follow the links to the individual book to check the current price.