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What are we reading?

Daily Staff Report

These lists reflect the top 10 bestsellers at local independent bookstores, Verbatim Booksellers in Lionshead and The Bookwork of Edwards

Verbatim Booksellers

1. “Da Vinci Code,” by Dan Brown: When a curator of the Louvre turns up murdered, his body surrounded by enigmatic ciphers written in invisible ink, code-breaker Robert Langdon and a French cryptologist are called in to unravel the clues to the killing. They discover the riddles are linked to the works of da Vinci and to a clandestine sect within the Catholic Church.



2. “It’s Not About the Bike,” by Lance Armstrong: Five-time champion of the Tour de France and cancer survivor, Armstrong writes about his journey through triumph, tragedy, transformation, and transcendence.

3. “Secret Life of Bees,” by Sue Monk Kidd: Lily Owens has shaped her life around one devastating, blurred, memory – the afternoon her mother was killed. Since then, her only real companion on the peach farm of her harsh, unyielding father has been a fierce-hearted black woman, Rosaleen. When Rosaleen insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily knows it is time to spring them both free.

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4. “Three Junes,” by Julia Glass: Glass’s first novel traces the lives of a Scottish family across three summers, as they experience the joys and frustrations, sadness and possibilities offered by romantic and familial love.

5. “Under the Banner of Heaven,” by Jon Krakauer: Krakauer shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims.

6. “The Namesake,” by Jhumpa Lahiri: An incisive portrait of the immigrant experience. Spanning three decades, two continents and two generations, the novel follows the Ganguli family from their traditional life in India through their arrival in Massachusetts in the late 1960s and their difficult melding into an American way of life.-

7. “Seabiscuit: An American Legend,” by Laura Hillenbrand: The story of Seabiscuit, a horse with crooked legs and a pathetic tail that made racing history in 1938, thanks to the efforts of a trainer, owner, and jockey who transformed a bottom-level racehorse into a legend.

8. “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” by Tracy Chevalier: Through the eyes of 16-year-old Griet, the world of 1660s Holland comes alive in this portrait of the young woman who inspired one of Vermeer’s most celebrated paintings.

9. “Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life,” by Queen Noor: Sharing a personal perspective on the past three decades of world history, Queen Noor talks frankly of the many challenges of her life as wife and partner to the monarch of Jordan, providing an intimate portrait of the late king and a moving account of their public role.

10. “Angels and Demons,” by Dan Brown: After the murder of a world-renowned physicist, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon learns an ancient secret society called the Illuminati, which stands for science and has opposed the Catholic church since the 1500s, is responsible. When Langdon realizes the Illuminati may attempt to defeat the church by destroying Vatican City, he and scientist Vittoria Vetra are the world’s only hope. This is the prequel to The Da Vinci Code.

The Bookworm of Edwards

1. “South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss,” by Arthur Agatston: Dr. Agatston says he has developed an all-science, heart-healthy program that offers immediate results, helping dieters shed pounds while changing their blood chemistry, reversing diabetes, and lowering high cholesterol.

2. “Da Vinci Code,” by Dan Brown: When a curator of the Louvre turns up murdered, his body surrounded by enigmatic ciphers written in invisible ink, code-breaker Robert Langdon and a French cryptologist are called in to unravel the clues to the killing. They discover the riddles are linked to the works of da Vinci and to a clandestine sect within the Catholic Church.

3. “Piano Tuner,” by Daniel Mason: In 1866, British piano Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the British War Office: he must leave his wife and his quiet life in London to travel to the jungles of Burma, where a rare Erard grand piano is in need of repair. The piano belongs to an army surgeon-major whose unorthodox peace-keeping methods – poetry, music, and learning shared with local warring princes – have brought a tentative quiet to the southern Shan States but have elicited questions from his superiors about his loyalty.

4. “Vail Hiker,” by Mary Ellen Gilliland: An in depth guide to the trails of Eagle County, from easy to difficult.

5. “Middlesex,” by Jeffrey Eugenides: The story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious narrators in contemporary fiction.

6. “The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom,” by Phillip McGraw: From the author of “Self Matters” comes a new weight loss program as only Dr. Phil could write it – a book that changes behavior in a unique way.

7. “Secret Life of Bees,” by Sue Monk Kidd: Lily Owens has shaped her life around one devastating, blurred, memory – the afternoon her mother was killed. Since then, her only real companion on the peach farm of her harsh, unyielding father has been a fierce-hearted black woman, Rosaleen. When Rosaleen insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily knows it is time to spring them both free.

8. “Time Traveler’s Wife,” by Audrey Niffenegger: A love story about a man caught by the whims of time and the woman who must wait for his return.

9. “I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother,” by Allison Pearson: In a novel that is at once uproariously funny and achingly sad, Pearson captures the guilty secret lives of working women – the self-recrimination, the comic deceptions, the giddy exhaustion, and the despair.

10.”Virgin Blue,” by Tracy Chevalier: Never before published in the United States, this first novel is released by the critically acclaimed author of “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and “Falling Angels.” Readers meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin – two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy.


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