The Memory Keeper's Daughter - by Kim Edwards

I would recommend this book for a thoughtful read. It is the story of a young doctor who delivers his children in the middle of a snow storm. He and his wife are excited as it is their first child - but unbeknownst to him, his wife is pregnant with twins and the baby girl is born with downs syndrome. He panics thinking about the life she will have, the strain and hardship she will put on the family and he remembers his sister who was chronically ill and what it did to his parents. He makes a life altering decision to tell his wife that the little girl died - then he sends the baby with his nurse to an institution. However, the nurse can't bring herself to leave the child and instead takes her and raises her as her own. This is a story of a marriage suffering from one decision, one lie - the rift between a husband who can't bring himself to tell the woman he loves the truth and a mother who struggles to deal with her overwhelming sense of lose, and the story of an unlikely mother and the joy one little girl brings to her. Edward's characters are complex and the story, like life, has no easy answers, no completely happy ending.

Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling

Like many of my friends, I have been furiously rereading the books in preparation for the new release of book 7. I do have a couple of predictions that I thought I might share before I open the book: First, I think Snape is on the GOOD side! I think he and Dumbledore set up his death and made sure Harry saw it or "thought" he saw it so that if Voldermort was able to penetrate Harry's mind, he would think Dumbledore was dead -removing a huge threat to him. IF Dumbledore is dead, I think that he made Snape agree to take his life to protect Draco and Harry, this is why he said - please Severus - on the roof prior to his death.
I had a friend email me with an interesting idea which I think is quite plausible - Harry is in fact the last horcrux - this would explain the prophecy - neither can live while the other survives, and it would explain the connection between Voldermort and Harry. However, there is one flaw - wouldn't Voldermort KNOW Harry was a Horcrux as he made them?

Anyway, this is the first time I have reread all of the books, and I must say this was WELL worth my time. I was amazed at the number of connections to events in the later books that are set up in the earlier books. GREAT foreshadowing - shows such a talent for writing. I know lots of people who have just seen the movies and think they KNOW about Potter - AS with most books to movies - the movies are such a different medium - by necessity they leave so much out!