I have read many books the last few months as I rode in planes, buses, and automobiles to places such as New Orleans, Memphis, Seattle, Bozeman, and Minneapolis. Some of them fall into the category of possible classics and some into the category of brain candy. They all are a fun way to pass the time whether you are at home or traveling across the country. Enjoy.

The Book of Lost Things
By John Connolly

The protagonist of the novel is a sad little boy named David who lives with his parents in London during World War II. Life is good until his mother dies of an illness, leaving him blaming himself for not being good enough or doing the right kinds of things to keep her alive. David retreats into his books, wishing that real life could be like the world he reads about:

In that world, good was rewarded and evil was punished. If you kept to the path and stayed out of the forest, then you would be safe. If someone was sick, like the old king in one of the tales, then his sons could be sent out into the world to seek the remedy, the Water of Life, and if just one of them was brave enough and true enough, then the king’s life could be saved. David had been brave. His mother had been braver still. In the end, bravery had not been enough. This was a world that did not reward it. The more David thought about it, the more he did not want to be part of such a world.

When David’s father falls in love, remarries, and has a new baby, David finds himself in conflict with the rest of the family. He can’t bring himself to care about his stepmother and new brother, instead retreating into the room filled with books left behind by a boy who had lived there long ago. As David reads these fantastic tales, he imagines he sees the vines outside the house growing into his room:

And then a figure moved inside David’s room. He saw a shape pass by the glass, dressed in forest green. . . . It wasn’t his father either. . . . The figure was slightly hunched, as though it had become so used to sneaking about that its body had contorted, the spine curving, the arms like twisted branches, the fingers clutching, ready to snatch at whatever it saw. Its nose was narrow and hooked, and it wore a crooked hat upon its head.

His father investigates, but instead of a crooked man, he finds a magpie flying in David’s room. David knows the crooked man had changed his appearance and that he would meet the crooked man again.

One day when David is investigating a ruined sunken garden behind his house, a Nazi plane crashes into it. David awakens to find himself in a forest where the flowers seem to have the faces of children and the trees bleed red blood. He is found by a man called the Woodsman, who helps David escape from an attack by strange half-man/half-wolf creatures called Loups. The rest of the tale is about David’s search, with the help of the Woodsman, for his mother, whom he is sure lives in this strange alternate, fairy tale world. He experiences fear, wonder, happiness, and pain on this journey to find what he finally realizes is not his mother but himself.

Connolly creates a world peopled by creatures we have heard about before in the fairy tales of our childhood—Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf, the Woodsman, Snow White and her dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty—all with a twist to their stories. The story appeals to those of us who know those stories by heart and to those who can identify with David’s search for himself as he learns to adapt to the changes in his life. This is indeed an excellent book for both adults and teens. It would be a fun book to read with a young adult—and I can definitely see it as a movie.

The Shop on Blossom Street and A Good Yarn
By Debbie Macomber

A friend of mine loaned me these books after she saw me knitting when we were on a trip together. After all, Debbie Macomber has used a yarn shop as a setting and characters who learn to knit. My friend was right—these novels are an enjoyable way to pass the time. The knitting metaphor is an apt one for the stories of these men and women brought together in the yarn shop of Lydia Hoffman, a thirtyish woman who, after suffering through two bouts with cancer, has decided to pursue her dream of going into business. She opens a small yarn shop in Seattle and decides to give knitting classes as a way of bringing in customers. She ends up in the first novel with a disparate group of woman who are using the knitting as a way to find the pattern in their own lives.

The reader becomes increasingly drawn into the complications of people who are unhappy for a variety of reasons: childlessness, unfulfilled dreams, loneliness. As these women attend class, they come to see that they can rely on each other and that perhaps their friendships may hold clues to bringing happiness. Of course, not only do the customers find out about themselves, but Lydia also finds someone to love and a better understanding of herself.

Blue Heaven
By C.J. Box