Canton Public Library - pearl's picks en-US Pearl's Picks for November 2008 <img style="float:right;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1444737.jpg" width="79" /><a href=""><strong>Oxygen</strong></a> by Carol Cassella (2008) <p>The main character in Carol Cassella's very readable first novel, <strong>Oxygen</strong>, is, like Cassella herself, an anesthesiologist in Seattle. Dr. Marie Heaton finds her life gone badly off track when what should have been a pretty routine surgical procedure goes wrong, and eight-year-old Jolene Jansen dies on the operating table. Jolene's mother files a malpractice suit against Marie as well as the hospital, and guilt, grief, and fears about her future as a physician begin to take their toll on Marie. She turns for support and reassurance to her colleague, Dr. Joe Hillary, an ex-lover who's now her best friend. At the same time that she's trying to come to terms with the possibility of losing her license to practice medicine, she must also deal with her aging father and an iffy relationship with her sister. Marie is an appealing character - intelligent but vulnerable, emotionally scarred by her past but determined to succeed in the present. But what makes Cassella's novel shine (and stand out from others in this genre) is how she opens the unfamiliar world of doctors and hospitals, with its intriguing intertwining of Hippocrates and Mammon, medicine and business, to the general reader.</p><img style="float:left;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1450143.jpg" width="80" /><p><a href=""><strong>The Hunger Games</strong></a> by Suzanne Collins (2008)</p> <p><strong>Gregor the Overlander</strong>, Suzanne Collins' first novel, is one of my all-time favorite fantasies. A brave 11-year-old hero, page-turning adventures, moral dilemmas, and a super ending made it a perfect book for middle-grade readers. Now, in <strong>The Hunger Games</strong> (the first volume of an intended trilogy), Collins has written a remarkable and thought-provoking novel for teens about the oppression and dehumanization of its citizens by an all-powerful central government, evoking George Orwell's <strong>1984</strong> and Aldous Huxley's <strong>Brave New World</strong>. At the same time, it's an impossible-to-put-down action-adventure-romance story. Panem is a wealthy and powerful city in post-apocalyptic North America; it's surrounded by 12 outlying, poverty-stricken districts that serve, in effect, as colonies providing the resources needed to maintain the capitol's wealth. Sometime in the past the districts attempted a rebellion, which Panem brutally put down. As a reminder to the districts of their powerlessness, the Capitol requires each one to choose, by lottery, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games, the ultimate TV game show, a fight to the death on live TV, in which the last contestant alive wins fame and fortune. The Games are treated as a huge celebration in the Capitol, with pre-game up-close-and-personal interviews of each "Tribute," betting on, and opportunities to send aid to, one's favorites, and round-the-clock watch parties. The story is told in the voice of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who we get to know and care about deeply during the course of the novel. When her beloved 12-year-old sister, Prim, is chosen by lot to be the girl tribute from district 12 (formerly know as Appalachia), Katniss bravely, and to the astonishment of all (but within the rules of the game), volunteers to take her place, and sets off on the most dangerous, and exciting, "adventure" of her life. And the reader gets to accompany her every step of the way. One of the things I found so remarkable (and disorienting and disturbing) about this book is the way it was able to pull me, emotionally, into the excitement of the celebration and the adventure of the game itself, almost as if I were experiencing it as a wealthy citizen of the Capitol, even though I knew, intellectually, that what I was reading about was a government forcing children to kill other children. <strong>The Hunger Games</strong>, surely destined to be a classic of teen literature, is a superb choice for book-discussion groups of all ages.</p><img style="float:right;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1442313.jpg" width="80" /><p><a href=""><strong>A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano</strong></a> by Katie Hafner (2008)</p> <p>I'm pretty sure that Katie Hafner's <strong>A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano</strong> deserves credit for a slight up-tick in circulation at my local library: when I started reading it I was so intrigued that I immediately went to the library and checked out CDs of several of Gould's recordings, which, I have to think, is what Hafner intended. Perhaps the best way to describe this solid and engrossing tale is as a triple biography. Primarily, of course, it's the story of Glenn Gould, including the growth of his phenomenal talent (which manifested itself at a very young age), his quirks (among them, an excessive fear of germs and consequent dislike of shaking hands with people), and the series of concerts and recordings that made him a household name among classical music aficionados. But it's also the biography of a piano - a Steinway CD 318 concert grand, an instrument that was the love of Gould's life, and of Charles Verne Equistar, the nearly blind piano tuner who probably loved that particular piano with a passion equal to Gould's. I don't think you need to be a classical music aficionado to appreciate this book. Heffner's writing is so fluid and her grasp of Gould's world is so sure that it's a book that will appeal to anyone who loves delving into somewhat arcane topics. Think Mark Kurlansky writing about music, rather than cod or salt, and you'll get the idea.</p> <div style="text-align:right;"><img style="float:left;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1439566.jpg" width="80" /></div> <p><a href=""><strong>Open Line: A Novel</strong></a> by Ellen Hawley (2008)</p> <p>Ellen Hawley's <strong>Open Line</strong> is the perfect choice for those looking for a satirical novel that doesn't take itself too seriously. Annette Majoris, born Annie Minor, is the host of a late-night radio call-in show in Minneapolis, but has ambitions for a larger stage. One night, in response to a caller, she jokingly speculates that perhaps the Vietnam War was simply a hoax cooked up by the government--an evil and elaborate game of mind control, devised for some sinister purpose. To her surprise, her (now exponentially expanding) audience takes up her supposition and runs with it. Many Vietnam vets weigh in on the issue, in agreement or disagreement, but a growing number express relief that, and take comfort in, the idea that their horrible memories were of events that never really happened. Politicos of every stripe from major and minor political parties come calling, each hoping to capitalize on Annette's "theory," and, of course, she's all too willing to play along. As the media and political machinery kicks into high gear, Annette's career takes off. Her show is syndicated and she leaves Minnesota for bigger markets and paychecks. When events spin out of control, as they inevitably do, Annette is forced to devise her own future. That she does so in a way that will come as a shock to most readers (it certainly did to me) is another example of Hawley's total control of her material. Hawley's characterizations are flawless, and her dialogue is lively and realistic. <strong>Open Line</strong> (Hawley's second novel) may be a sad commentary on the political/media complex, but it makes for an entertaining reading experience.</p><img style="float:right;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1429950.jpg" width="78" /><p><a href=""><strong>Matrimony: A Novel</strong></a> by Joshua Henkin (2007)</p> <p>Given the title, it will come as no surprise that <strong>Matrimony</strong> by Joshua Henkin is about marriage. What is surprising is that this quiet novel limning the complications of a particular relationship can leave such a powerful impression on the reader. It's a novel in which the payoff--when you realize just how much the book had to say to you - comes when you finish the book, and you find that you're spending a lot of time thinking about the lives of the characters, wondering what's happened to them after you turned the last page. Julian and Mia pair up when they're undergraduates at a liberal arts college in Massachusetts, and after graduation, Julian, whose ambition it is to write fiction, follows Mia to Ann Arbor. While she pursues her degree in psychotherapy, Julian is more or a less a househusband, trying (without much success) to write his first novel. During a visit with his best friend (and writing rival) from college, Carter reveals a secret that sends Julian into a tailspin from which it will take years to recover. This is not the novel of choice for readers looking to find larger-than-life characters, fireworks, and high drama. Rather, the pleasure here is in the Henkin's fine use of language, his honesty in portraying Mia's and Julian's strengths and weaknesses, and the exploration of love, betrayal, and loss.</p><img style="float:left;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1443612.jpg" width="80" /><p><a href=""><strong>Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature</strong></a> by Leonard S. Marcus (2008)</p> <p><strong>Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature</strong>, by Leonard Marcus, is an essential read (and perfect gift) for anyone working in the field of children's literature, but it also offers much pleasure to anyone who enjoys children's books, or was, at one time, a child who enjoyed them - i.e., almost everyone. It's an engaging (occasionally gossipy), informative, and animated account of the people, issues, and events involved in the history of children's literature--and who would have thought there could be so much sturm und drang involved? The question around which the book is framed is "What should children read?," and the answer to that takes Marcus (and us) on a whirlwind tour from the American Colonial period to the present. Along the way we're introduced to luminaries like Anne Carroll Moore, who was named the head of the New York Public Library's first consolidated children's department in 1906; Ursula Nordstrom, the incredibly influential Harper Collins editor who published the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder among many other iconic children's books; and Bertha Mahoney Miller, the first editor of the influential magazine about children's books, <strong>The Horn Book</strong>, whose first issue appeared in 1924. We'll also hear about the origin of the Newbery and Caldecott medals (and an answer to why the Laura Ingalls Wilder books never won the former); the controversy over the books produced by the Stratemeyer syndicate (Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are only two of the many examples); the evolution and publishing history of books like Maurice Sendak's <strong>Where the Wild Things Are</strong>, and so much more. As someone whose ambition since the age of 10 was to be a children's librarian, Marcus's lively history made me feel as though I were spending time with a group of old friends, even though I knew none of them personally. </p><img style="float:right;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1427824.jpg" width="104" /><p><a href=""><strong>The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll</strong></a> by Pat McKissack (2007)</p> <p>Writer Patricia C. McKissack and artist Jerry Pinkney collaborated on two previous children's books: <strong>Goin' Someplace Special</strong> (which won the Coretta Scott King Award) and <strong>Mirandy and Brother Wind</strong> (which was both a Caldecott Honor book, as well as winning the Coretta Scott King Award). Their latest collaboration lives up to the standards set by their previous books. <strong>The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll</strong> is the story of an impoverished family living in the rural south during the Great Depression. The first sentence nicely sets the stage - "Christmas always came to our house, but Santy Claus only showed up once in a while." All that Nella, snug in the middle between her big sister, Eddy Bernice, and little sister, Dessa wants for Christmas is a Baby Betty doll, and she writes Santy Claus telling him so. On Christmas morning the three girls not only receive sacks containing walnuts, a peppermint stick, an orange, and a box of raisins (the most Christmas they'd ever had, says Nella), but also, miraculously, a single Baby Betty doll. But which of the three sisters is the doll for? How Nella learns that sharing beats selfishness is communicated in a way that seems entirely natural, unforced, and not preachy - making it a perfect choice for parents and teachers who want a way to convey that message to their children. Pinkney's superb watercolor illustrations amply display the warmth of family life in the midst of difficult economic times. The back cover displays Nella's letter to Santy, as well as a picture of Baby Betty - images both heartbreaking and heartwarming.</p><img style="float:left;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1162325.jpg" width="79" /><p><a href=""><strong>Evening</strong></a> by Susan Minot (2007)</p> <p>Susan Minot's stylish and assured <strong>Evening</strong> was made into a movie (of the same title) featuring Meryl Streep and Vanessa Redgrave. Although I am admirer of both Streep and Redgrave, I resisted going to see the film. For me, what distinguished Minot's third novel and fourth work of fiction was how confident and yet restrained the writing was. I found it immensely difficult to put the book down, despite the depressing story it tells. As 65-year-old Ann Grant Lord lies dying of cancer and drifting in and out of morphine dreams, she looks back over her eventful life and its two defining moments: her all-too-brief love affair with Harris Arden and the death of one of her sons at the age of 12. Minot weaves the present and various points in the past together in a seemingly effortless fashion; her handling the complexity of the passage of 40 years of Ann's life is striking in how easy she makes it look, despite how hard I know it is to achieve that sort of ease. As friends and family members come and go from Ann's bedside, I was struck by the truth of William Faulkner's statement that "the past is never dead. It's not even past." I remember being moved by other novels about the end of a life (Iris Murdoch's <strong>Bruno's Dream</strong> and Kate Phillips' <strong>White Rabbit</strong> come to mind), but the blend of plot and style in Minot's novel is a potent mixture.</p><img style="float:right;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1439001.jpg" width="79" /><p><a href=""><strong>All Souls</strong></a> by Christine Schutt (2008)</p> <p>Readers of contemporary fiction will probably have noticed that there are more and more collections of linked short stories being published. I find evidence of this on the "new book" shelves of virtually every library I visit. C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia series and other fiction and nonfiction, would not be happy. He once said, "You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." While I, myself, am somewhat saddened by how few traditional novels are being written, I am heartened by the undeniable quality of so many of these "novels-in-stories." And Christine Schutt's <strong>All Souls</strong> is certainly among the best I've read in recent years. In a tony private school on Manhattan's Upper East Side, everyone is reeling from the news that one of their own, senior Astra Dell, is in the hospital with a rare form of cancer. Throughout the school year, as exams are given and taken, colleges are applied to, crushes develop and hearts are broken, Astra's illness affects, overtly or subconsciously, those connected to Siddons School. We meet Astra's best friend, the anorexic Carlotta Forrestal, who writes letters to Astra that she never sends; her father (still in mourning after the death of his wife, Grace, and now forced to confront mortality once again in the face of his daughter's perhaps fatal illness); and her classmate Marlene (who knows that the other girls in the senior class alternately despise, pity, and ignore her, and says, as if to comfort herself, "But there's always got to be one person to hate in every class, right?"); the sexually experimenting Lisa Van de Ven and the temporary object of her attention, if not affection - her teacher, Miss Wilkes; and other students, teachers, and parents. In these gorgeously wrought tales, characters and situations are presented in economical, magical prose. Here is how Schutt describes Astra, around whom the stories revolve: "that pale girl from the senior class, the dancer with all the hair, the red hair, knotted or braided or let to fall to her waist, a fever and she consumed." Schutt, who teaches in a private school in New York (not unlike, I suspect, Siddons School) demonstrates just how deeply she understands not only adolescents, in all their pettiness and grace, but the pettiness and grace of life itself.</p><img style="float:left;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/1439317.jpg" width="78" /><p><a href=""><strong>Sleeping Arrangements</strong></a> by Madeleine Wickham (2008)</p> <p>Madeleine Wickham is probably best known for her Shopaholic series, written under her nom de plume, Sophie Kinsella. That's a bit of a shame, because the novels she writes under her own name are light and diverting--grand antidotes for any gray, rainy day, or one in which you may be suffering from a fit of the dismals. Her latest is <strong>Sleeping Arrangements</strong>, the story of two English families much in need of a vacation. Chloe Harding's relationship with her longtime partner Philip has hit a rough patch, and she's desperate for some time away from her job of making wedding dresses (especially as Philip has no interest in marriage, and she's therefore unlikely ever to wear one of her own creations). Her friend Gerard, trying to be helpful, invites her and Philip to spend a week with their sons at his luxurious villa in Spain. Hugh Stratton is getting awfully tired of working impossibly long hours to try to satisfy the material needs of his wife, Amanda, who never saw a piece of clothing or objet d'art she didn't want. His old friend Gerard, always the most helpful of men, suggests that the Strattons spend a week at his luxurious villa in Spain. When both couples arrive on the same day, they realize, to their dismay, that their host had accidentally invited them both for the same week. Or was it an accident? And if not, what, exactly, did Gerard intend? Amusing dialogue, a fast-paced plot filled with twists and turns, and charming, nicely drawn characters add up to an entertaining confection.<br /></p><img style="float:right;margin:7px;" height="120" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib049.jpg" width="77" /><br />Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href=""><strong>The Best of Technology Writing 2008</strong></a> by Clive Thompson (2008)</p> <p>Even the most technophobic reader will likely find much of interest in Clive Thompson's <strong>The Best of Technology Writing 2008</strong>, a selection of 15 essays drawn from a wide variety of magazines, including <em>Wired, Popular Science, Information Weekly, Columbia Journalism Review,</em> and <em>The New Yorker.</em> Some of my favorites include Julian Dibbell's "The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer," which describes a specialized job that could only exist in the wired world in which we live--real workers are hired, and paid real money, by companies involved in the mega-popular online fantasy game, World of Warcraft, to search for virtual gold in the virtual world of the game, which then accrues to the virtual wealth of their employers. There are some interesting philosophical questions to ponder here regarding what's happening to the line between the "real" world and the "virtual" world(s) made possible by increasingly powerful computer technology. Another favorite is "Doctor Delicious," a profile by Ted Allen of Dave Arnold, who is a combination of scientist, chef, and engineer, and the guru of high-tech cooking, better known as molecular gastronomy (the scientific study of the physics and chemistry of cooking). He's the man whom chefs call on when they want to create, for example, a dish that defies the laws of gravity. Emily Nussbaum explores the whole concept of "living in public," through blogging, MySpace, YouTube, Flicker, Twitter, Facebook, and all the other applications available to savvy technophiles today. Other essays - invariably interesting, sometimes mind-boggling, and frequently eye-opening - include Jeffrey Rosen's "The Brain on the Stand," a discussion of the increased use of neuroscience in law; Caleb Crain's elegiac "Twilight of the Books"; and Thomas Goetz on how the new technology of decoding an individual's DNA has entered the business world.</p> Adults Books nancy pearl pearl's picks Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 6184 at Selections for September 2008 <img alt="" style="float:right;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1420188.jpg" height="110" width="116" /><p><a href=""><strong>Previously</strong></a> by Allan Ahlberg (2007)</p> <p>Allan Ahlberg's whimsical take on the world comes through clearly in all of his books for young children, but perhaps never more so than in <strong>Previously</strong>, where he teams up with artist Bruce Ingram to produce a charming concatenation of some familiar fairy tales. Beginning with Goldilocks arriving home after her adventure with the three bears, author and illustrator tell her story backwards, so to speak, by describing what she had been doing "previously." The final "previously" has her walking in the woods, prior to coming upon the house of the three bears, where she bumped into Jack (of climbing the beanstalk fame). As his story progresses backwards, it turns out that he's the same Jack who tumbled down the hill with his sister Jill, and that the two of them had encountered the Frog Prince, who (before he was turned into a frog) had fallen in love with "a disappearing girl named.Cinderella," who had collided with the Gingerbread Man and his retinue, and so on and so on, until the very satisfying conclusion. Reading this book aloud to 4 to 8-year-old children is a delight. Not only will they take great pleasure in repeating "previously" with you each time it appears (nearly 30 times) in the text, but they'll appreciate Ahlberg's word pictures--The Frog, "sitting on the window sill/with a sorrowful look in his eye/and a crown on his head;" or Goldilocks, who "had been humming a tune/and having a little skip by herself in the dark woods." Beginning with the deliberately childlike pencil drawings on the endpapers, Ingram's pictures offer a colorful and clever complement for Ahlberg's quirky text. Just take a look at the picture of the poor Frog Prince watching Jack and Jill arguing at the breakfast table and you'll see what I mean.</p> <img alt="" style="float:left;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1439319.jpg" height="120" width="80" /><p><a href=""><strong>City of Thieves</strong></a> by David Benioff (2008)</p> <p>Leningrad in 1942 may seem to be a strange setting for a novel that is best described as a lively, good-hearted buddy tale, but there it is, and if you enjoy the élan of movies like <em>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</em> and <em>The Sting,</em> here's the novelistic equivalent. (When I told a friend how much I enjoyed reading David Benioff's <strong>City of Thieves</strong>, he replied that he bet there was already a screenplay of it in the hands of the young actor Shia LaBeouf. I can but hope that it's true, because it would make a most entertaining film.) The novel begins with an account of a visit between the author and his grandfather, Lev, during which he presses his elderly relative for information about what happened to him in World War II; what follows is his grandfather's tale. But there's a catch. How reliable is the older man's story? When David tries to get answers to some of his specific questions, his grandfather tells him that since he's a writer, he should just make it up. So how much is truth and how much fiction? Maybe it doesn't matter. Certainly, each reader will answer the question differently after finishing City of Thieves. In 1942, Leningrad was deep into the throes of a 900-day siege by the Germans, who were determined to starve the Russians into submission. Lev Beniov, too young for the army and too old to accompany his mother and sister when they leave the dangers of Leningrad for a hoped-for safety in the countryside, is arrested and imprisoned by the police for ignoring the curfew and looting a dead Nazi paratrooper, a crime punishable by execution. His cellmate is Kolya, who seems to Lev to be the very opposite of himself: Kolya is high-spirited, good looking, knows the ways of the world (and women), and is courageous, self-confident, and reckless. His crime is desertion from the army, and he, too, is condemned to death. But the two get an unexpected reprieve: a Russian colonel offers them a chance to escape the firing squad on the condition that within the next five days they bring him a dozen eggs to be used in his daughter's wedding cake. This seemingly impossible task propels the improbable duo into a series of both wacky (meeting up with a pair of urban cannibals) and dangerous (an encounter with a fearless and dedicated group of Russian partisans, one of whose members is a beautiful young woman) adventures, both inside and outside the starving city. This page-turner is not only engrossing, but it has the added value of bringing a particular historical time and a place to life. Make reading and discussing it a third of a book discussion group trifecta: it fits well with Debra Dean's <strong>The Madonnas of Leningrad</strong> and Harrison Salisbury's comprehensive but very readable non-fiction account, <strong>The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad</strong>.</p> <img alt="" style="float:right;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1342515.jpg" height="120" width="80" /><p><a href=""><strong>Conspiracy of Fools</strong></a> by Kurt Eichenwald (2005)</p> <p>Even if <strong>Conspiracy of Fools</strong> by Kurt Eichenwald weren't such mesmerizing and instructive reading, I still would have kept turning the pages, in a state of stunned bemusement, for the simple satisfaction of having my generally pessimistic view of human nature confirmed. The subject of Eichenwald's investigative journalism is Enron, and his characters seem to miss no opportunity to display cupidity, avarice, and just plain dishonesty (not to mention stupidity--or at least awe-inspiring incompetence). Eichenwald (who writes for <em>The New York Times)</em> takes us through the days, weeks, and years leading up to Enron's ignoble collapse at the hands of Jeffrey Skilling, Ken Lay, and Andrew Fastow, who, along with their bankers, their accountants, and numerous underlings, all colluded in shady deals, sleight-of-hand tricks with the bottom line, and a disregard for their employees, their investors (except for themselves), and the good of the country. One can only hope that Enron is not representative of most corporate culture. Call me naÃƒÂ¯ve, but I found this book infinitely depressing. Still, it's definitely worth reading.</p> <div style="text-align:right;"><img alt="" style="float:left;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1446806.jpg" height="120" width="77" /></div> <p><a href=""><strong>Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery</strong></a> by G. M. Malliet (2008)</p> <p>Here's a recipe for a classic cozy whodunit. Take one irascible, manipulative, cold (but wildly successful) mystery writer, Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk. (His fictional detective, Miss Rampling, is a near clone of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple.) Beauclerk-Fisk takes great and twisted delight in controlling his family by threatening to change his will, so into the mix throw in three sons and a daughter (one is wealthy, one is a drunk, one is a layabout, and all are terrified of their father); add an ex-wife; two unexpected announcements; and a longtime cook who (possibly) knows more than just how to create phenomenal meals. Have everyone come together in a large country house in Cambridgeshire. Outcome? Not one, but two murders most violent. Enter Detective Chief Inspector St. Just to investigate, ignore the red herrings, and finally bring all the survivors together to unveil the truth behind the deaths. G.M. Malliet's <strong>Death of a Cozy Writer</strong> is a heartfelt (and successful) homage to the great novels of Britain's Golden Age of Mysteries, which lasted from about 1913 to the beginning of World War II: a time when Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh's writing careers were in full bloom.</p> <img alt="" style="float:left;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1446937.jpg" height="120" width="80" /><p><a href=""><strong>The Two Kinds of Decay</strong></a> by Sarah Manguso (2008)</p> <p>A belief that sustains many of us (or at least something we desperately hope) is that any disease that might befall us will be within the scope of the medical establishment to cure or contain. Unfortunately, that's not always the case, as poet Sarah Manguso discovered, when, as a college junior, a baffling illness high-jacked her life. It turned out (after many mis-diagnoses, late-night runs to emergency rooms, blood exchanges, stays in the psych ward as a result of severe depression, and various other indignities to the mind and body that patients routinely suffer) that she had an extremely rare autoimmune disease known as CIDP (which stands for Chronic Idiopathic Demyelinating Polyradiculoneuropathy). It's related to Guillain-Barré syndrome, in which a gradual numbness and later paralysis takes over the body and, as Manguso tells us early in this grueling memoir, ".may resolve spontaneously, relapse and remiss indefinitely, or progress and terminate in death." Manguso's lyrical memoir, <strong>The Two Kinds of Decay</strong>, written almost 11 years after the disease's first symptom--numb feet--first appeared, and several years after she went into remission, is best described as a prose poem. It's written as a series of three or four line impressions of what was going on in her life. As engrossing (and somewhat terrifying) as the description of the course of her illness is, what makes this book so memorable is Manguso's command of the language she uses, struggling to find ways of describing what's happening to her body in words that are precise, economical, and unhackneyed. The wonder is that she succeeds so beautifully: in the last chapter, Manguso writes: "This is suffering's lesson: <em>pay attention.</em> The important part might come in a form you do not recognize."</p> <img alt="" style="float:right;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1441552.jpg" height="120" width="79" /><p><a href=""><strong>Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World</strong></a> by David Maraniss (2008)</p> <p>After finishing David Maraniss's <strong>Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World</strong> in the midst of the 2008 Summer Games, I was struck by how technology has changed the Olympics and our relationship to it. As opposed to the Rome Olympics, which took place nearly half a century ago, when television coverage was, at best, limited and spotty, now we can comfortably sit and watch hour after hour of the competitions. Just for starters, we're able to take in the opening ceremony, swimming matches, track and field events, gymnastics, rowing, volleyball, and cycling, to name just a few of the competitions I've watched. Plus, many athletes have their own blogs, so we can read their impressions, as well as a host of blogs from those attending the games in Beijing. So what's the point of reading about a series of athletic events that took place so long ago? In fact, Maraniss's book makes fascinating reading for both sports fans and history buffs. (I count myself a member of both groups, and was therefore doubly into it.) You can certainly read it for the pure enjoyment of getting up close and personal with some American athletes at the height of their talent, including Rafer Johnson and Wilma Rudolph, as well as men and women at the start of their careers in the summer of 1960. (The best example here is Cassius Clay, a sweet-talking, flirty 18-year-old, well before he morphed into his life as Muhammad Ali.) Maraniss also offers accounts of competitors from other countries, whose names and achievements I was not familiar with, but whose stories thrilled me. One of these was the Ethiopian marathoner (and eventual winner of the event), Abebe Bikila, who ran the streets of Rome barefoot and about whom one American marathoner inaccurately predicted, "There's one guy we don't have to worry about." But, as we're reminded throughout the 400-plus pages of the book, the summer games of 1960 might well have been nicknamed "The Cold War Olympics." With tensions between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. running awfully high, both sides felt that Olympic victories would be useful for propaganda purposes. (In fact this was the first Olympics that the Russians decisively outscored the U.S. in the medal tally--a real blow to America's sense of superiority) The Olympics never seem to be controversy free, and the executive board of the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, led by the legendary Avery Brundage, had to deal with issues arising out of South Africa, whose system of apartheid appeared to be incompatible with the nondiscrimination clause of the Olympic Charter. Their biggest headache, however, seems ironic, given that the 2008 Olympics are in China: it was deciding how to handle the delegation from the Republic of China (also known as Taiwan, or Formosa). The IOC decided that those athletes had to compete as Taiwanese, or in any case, not use the word "China" in their designation, or else they would not be allowed to compete in the Games.</p> <img alt="" style="float:left;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1235694.jpg" height="120" width="79" /><p><a href=""><strong>Understanding Comics</strong></a> by Scott McCloud (1994)</p> <p>If you're the sort of person who has always turned first to the comics section in the daily paper in order to see what's happening with Cathy, or Dick Tracy, or what the folks on Gasoline Alley were up to, or if you used to spend your allowance on <em>Superman</em> or <em>Archie and Veronica</em> or <em>Little Lulu</em> comics, I suspect you've occasionally wondered what it is about the medium that drew you in. And even those with a comics-free childhood cannot help but notice the surge these days in the publication (and popularity) of comic books for adults, teens, and children, which in general have taken on the more genteel designation "graphic novels." (You can get a good sense of the diversity available in this medium by taking a look at books like Art Spiegelman's <em>Maus,</em> Marjane Satrapi's <em>Persepolis,</em> Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen series, Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, and <em>Alice in Sunderland</em> by Bryan Talbot.) In <strong>Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art</strong>, cartoonist Scott McCloud does a terrific job of answering these questions and more: What's so darn appealing about the comics form, anyway? Why are so many people of all ages hooked on comics? Why are comics arranged on the page the way they are? How do you read them--do you look at the picture first and then read the text? Why do people's words appear in those balloons? Why are they spaced out in those little boxes? Why are they called comics even when they're not really funny? How do cartoonists combine "showing" and "telling" to best effect? How do cartoonists create motion in still pictures? What about emotion? Is there a generally accepted language of cartooning art? I consider myself a relative newbie in the world of comics (although I did spend my allowance following the exploits of Archie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica, much to the dismay of my parents), and McCloud's book was an invaluable part of my learning experience. I promise you, after reading this, you'll have an increased respect for the comic artist's work and you'll certainly never look at a comic or graphic novel (whatever you choose to call it) in the same way again.</p> <img alt="" style="float:right;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1272383.jpg" height="120" width="78" /><p><a href=""><strong>Metzger's Dog</strong></a> by Thomas Perry (2003)</p> <p>Perhaps all you need to know to decide whether or not to read Thomas Perry's thriller <strong>Metzger's Dog</strong> is that Dr. Henry Metzger happens to be a cat. So, if you're hankering for a humorous crime story, you can't do better than this one. The delectably complicated plot revolves around Leroy "Chinese" Gordon and his group of anti-social pals, who break into a UCLA professor's office in order to score some cocaine, but find, instead, detailed instructions for bringing a major urban city to its knees. Think Los Angeles, think traffic, think roadblocks, think gridlock--then think what the CIA might do after phase one plays itself out, in order to stop these geniuses from producing further mayhem. It's up to agent Ben Porterfield to try to broker a deal with Chinese, his friends, and his beautiful and brilliant girlfriend, Margaret, as well as Metzger and his dog. Perry went on to write many more novels (he's best known for his Jane Whitefield thrillers), but this has always been my favorite. I've always wished that Perry would write a sequel to this, and I'm thrilled it's back in print.</p> <img alt="" style="float:left;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib041.jpg" height="120" width="80" /><br /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href=""><strong>Origin of Haloes</strong></a> by Kristen Den Hartog (2005)</p> <p>I really enjoyed <strong>Origin of Haloes</strong> by Canadian writer Kristen den Hartog. It's a sensitive and emotionally satisfying novel about the choices we make, for good or for ill, and the secrets that can eat away at our lives and the lives of those we love the best. When Olympic-caliber gymnast Kay Clancy gets pregnant in high school (her seducer is a parent's worse nightmare; I was wincing throughout this section of the novel), she marries nice-guy Joe LeBlanc, never telling him who the father of her child is. This decision will come to haunt the whole family, casting a dark spell over Joe and Kay, as well as their children. den Hartog intertwines the four year cycle of the Olympics into her novel, giving American readers insight into the games from a Canadian viewpoint. While I was reading this novel I was particularly reminded of Marilynne Robinson's <em>Housekeeping,</em> partly, I think, because den Hartog is equally talented at her descriptions of a particular place and time, and partly because she also offers an emotionally wrenching, yet satisfying, picture of what it's like growing up in the shadow of loss.</p> <img alt="" style="float:right;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib043.jpg" height="120" width="80" /><br /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href=""><strong>Fidelity</strong></a> by Grace Paley (2008)</p> <p>Before her death (at 84) last year, Grace Paley finished what would be her final book, a collection of poems called <strong>Fidelity</strong>. Although I've long been a fan of Paley's brilliant short fiction--her voice is unmistakable and, once encountered, never forgotten--I'd never read much of her poetry. But after being thoroughly drawn into the poems in <strong>Fidelity</strong>, I definitely want to go back and see what I've missed. These poems, written in the last years of her life, deal primarily with aging and with love and death, with those larger themes woven into poems about friendship and family relationships. All the poems are marked, like her fiction, with her distinctive voice, her deadpan humor, and her take on the ways of the world. Reading them is not a depressing experience, despite the subject matter. They are, though, especially poignant because both reader and writer are aware of what's just over the horizon. One of my favorites in the collection is called "An Occasional Speech at the Interfaith Thanksgiving Gathering." (The extra spaces between the words in the poems are correct; a good question to ask oneself or one's bookgroup is why Paley chose to space out her words that way, and why those particular words were chosen to be set apart.) It begins: "Anyone who gets to be/eighty years old says thank you/to the One in charge then im-/mediately begins to complain" and goes on to talk about the ironies of the very first Thanksgiving. And here's the beginning of "On Occasion": "I forget the names of my friends/and the names of the flowers in/my garden my friends remind me/Grace it's us.the flowers just/stand there stunned by the sun." But the best poem, the most moving and true poem, in the book is "Sisters." It is an exquisite tribute to those people no longer in her life. In the course of the poem Paley tells us: "I wanted to say that/my friends were dying/but have now become absent the word dead is correct/but inappropriate" and ends "their fidelity to the idea that/it is possible with only a little extra anguish/to live in this world at an absolute minimum/loving brainy sexual energetic redeemed." Which would be a perfect line for Paley's gravestone.</p> <p style="text-align:left;"><strong>Thrillers: The Kennedy Assassination</strong></p> <p style="text-align:left;"> Two dandy thrillers that take as their central tenet that the conclusions of the Warren Commission about the 1963 death of John F. Kennedy are wrong wrong wrong, are <strong>The Berlin Conspiracy</strong> by Tom Gabbay and Charles McCarry's <strong>The Tears of Autumn</strong>. Both McCarry and Gabbay offer ingenious, different from one another, and page-turningly plausible scenarios to answer the questions of why the assassination happened and who was ultimately responsible. You don't need to be a conspiracy buff to enjoy these--you just have to be someone who's looking for nicely written, well-plotted and intelligent suspense fiction. Alan Furst and John le Carré fans who haven't read either or both of these outstanding thrillers have a definite treat in store.</p> <img alt="" style="float:left;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1369546.jpg" height="120" width="80" /><p><a href=""><strong>The Berlin Conspiracy</strong></a> by Tom Gabbay (2007)</p> <p>In <strong>The Berlin Conspiracy</strong>, disgruntled ex-CIA contract agent Jack Teller is brought out of his retirement and sent to Berlin in the fall of 1963 after an East German government official claims that he has important information for the U.S. about a pending plot to kill the American president when he's on German soil. The possible informant, who insists that he will tell what he knows only to Jack, brings news of a conspiracy that reaches from East Berlin to the highest levels of American government.</p> <img alt="" style="float:left;margin:7px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib042.jpg" height="120" width="81" /><br /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href=""><strong>The Tears of Autumn</strong></a> by Charles McCarry (2005)</p> <p><strong>The Tears of Autumn</strong>, originally published in 1974, features McCarry's recurring main character, CIA agent Paul Christopher, who believes that he knows who was ultimately responsible for Kennedy's assassination. But when he raises his theories with his boss, he finds that they run counter to the "official" governmental views, and he's basically forbidden to discuss them. So Paul quits his job and sets out to verify his beliefs. Tracking down the truth takes him all over the globe, from Vietnam to Africa to Europe to the highest levels of the U.S. government.</p> Adults Books May We Suggest nancy pearl pearl's picks Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 6182 at Selections for August 2008 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1445698.jpg" alt="1445698.jpg" /><p><a href="">Apples and Oranges</a> Marie Brenner (2008)</p> <p>Marie Brenner puts her investigative reporting talents to good use in Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found, her moving memoir about her older brother Carl's life and death. Brenner is probably best known for her biography of the Binghams, the scandal-ridden family that owned the <em>Louisville Courier-Journal</em> and other newspapers, and for her exposé of the tobacco industry that became the basis for the 1999 film <em>The Insider</em>. Here she considers all the possible causes and permutations that may have led her to become a lefty New York journalist, while her brother grew up to be a Communist-hating, NRA-loving owner of an apple orchard in Washington State. (She tells of the time when, during their adolescence, Carl - who, even as a teenager, was a member of the John Birch Society - destroyed all of her Joan Baez records because he believed the singer was too liberal.) Their differences far outweighed whatever it was they shared and seemed too great to ever overcome. Yet when Carl develops cancer, Marie flies (figuratively and literally) to his rescue, determined to save him through equal parts of research and love. When she learns about an earlier feud between her rationalist father and his turbulent sister Anita, who ran off from the family home in Texas and became friends with the many artists living in Mexico at the time - including Diego Rivera, Edward Weston, and Frida Kahlo - she fears that unbridgeable emotional distance between siblings is a part of a family's genetic code. The title comes from the way Marie's mother would describe her two children - Carl and Marie, she'd say, were as different as apples and oranges.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1432116.jpg" alt="1432116.jpg" /><p><a href="">Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood</a> by Mark Harris (2008)</p> <p>Quick, can you name the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1968? Do you remember which one won the Oscar? Believe me, by the time you finish Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, Mark Harris's thorough and totally entertaining history of how each film came to be made, and the writers, actors, directors, and producers involved, you'll be able to rattle off the names with ease. And not only that - a bit of a warning here - you may have to put reading aside for a while, since you'll want to spend some quality time watching DVDs of the films Harris discusses. But Harris, a writer for <em>Entertainment Weekly,</em> is up to something more than just retelling often familiar tales of well-known Hollywood denizens. Rather, he's interested in showing how the movie-making business in the 1960s, as exemplified by these five films, changed dramatically (that's my bad pun, not Harris's) and became closer to the business of Hollywood that we're familiar with today. The star system (where movie studios developed young actors, who then "belonged" to them, and only did the projects the studios chose for them), which was so successful in previous decades (Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, and Rock Hudson are prominent examples of that system), was falling apart due to competition from European auteurs, the growing influence of television, and the rising cost of making movies. I suspect that even the most Hollywood-savvy reader will find something new in Harris's accounts of the events and people involved in the creation of these five films. There are discussions of actors Sidney Poitier, Warren Beatty, Katharine Hepburn, Dustin Hoffman, Spencer Tracy, Rex Harrison, and others; directors, such as Mike Nichols, Norman Jewison, and Arthur Penn; studio heads (Richard Zanuck and Jack Warner); and writers (Robert Benton, David Newman, and Robert Towne) and also how the 1960's zeitgeist - especially the burgeoning Civil Rights movement and the rising intensity of the war in Vietnam - affected Hollywood's decisions about what movies were made and with whom. Oh yeah, the nominated films: they were <em>Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?; Doctor Dolittle; Bonnie and Clyde; The Graduate;</em> and <em>In the Heat of the Night.</em> </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1324291.jpg" alt="1324291.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Other Side of the Story</a> by Marian Keyes (2006)</p> <p>In The Other Side of the Story, Marian Keyes explores the typically hateful "Other Woman" as seen in the inter-connected lives of three successful Dublin women in their thirties. Gemma, a party planner, is currently without a man in her life (her former best friend stole her boyfriend, Anton) and now her father has run off with a much younger woman, leaving Gemma to deal with her mother's almost catatonic despair (this involves many trips to the pharmacist to fill prescriptions). She writes about what's happening in her life in a series of emails to a friend in Seattle that just happen to come to the attention of JoJo, an editor for a major publishing house who's simultaneously angling for a coveted partnership at the company, having an affair with her boss, and trying to coax a second novel from mega-successful Lily, who is Gemma's former best friend and the woman who took Anton away from her. Whew - it's a lot more exhausting to describe this warmhearted novel (my favorite of all of Keyes's books) than it is to read it, but I assume you get the picture. Life's complications just keep happening - sometimes, as in this case, delightfully.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1349830.jpg" alt="1349830.jpg" /><p><a href="">Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder</a> by Richard Louv (2008)</p> <p>I recently went geocaching for the first time, and as I and four friends (Justina Chen Headley, Dia Calhoun, Lorie Ann Glover, and Janet Lee Carey - all writers of books for children and young adults) and two middle-graders spent an exhilarating two hours on an urban hike, walking up and down Seattle's hills, following maps, a compass, and our handheld GPS device, discovering pocket parks we hadn't been aware of, crawling through the ubiquitous blackberry bushes and mysterious dense vines (Janet was best at this), scrambling down stone stairs cut into rocks, all of us looking intently for three separate caches. Although we only found one, I'm pretty sure that we all went home to our reading and writing reinvigorated and joyful. My experience reminded me of the importance of Richard Louv's message in Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Written in a clear and accessible style, the evidence Louv offers, and the passion with which he presents it, should prompt parents, city planners, and educators to ensure that a major part of a child's experiences and education - as central, Louv believes, to healthy cognitive, emotional, and physical development as any activities that take place in a traditional classroom - are an ongoing exposure to nature and the outdoors. "No child left inside" is Louv's motto. Through a combination of anecdotes and research studies, Louv describes how a lifelong exposure to the natural world can help with problems such as depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. His call to action imagines a society in which both children and adults are aware not only of the great and grand outdoors, but that each of them acknowledges a sense of stewardship and compassion for the world we inhabit.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1371500.jpg" alt="1371500.jpg" /><p><a href="">How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life</a> by Mameve Medwed (2007)</p> <p>Fans of Elinor Lipman's or Stephen McCauley's comedies of manners will be quite taken, as I was, by Mameve Medwed's newest novel, How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life. When Abby Randolph learns (via a television show like <em>Antiques Roadshow)</em> that the chamber pot she's inherited from her mother actually belonged to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (and is therefore quite valuable), circumstances force her back into contact with her mother's lover's children, one of them being her ex-best friend and the other her ex-fiancé. Because it's so clear that Medwed cares deeply about Abby's happiness, it makes the reader root for her, as well. And she's an awfully likeable heroine (although I did want to shake her once or twice for being so darn trusting). Medwed was on a panel I moderated this May during the Massachusetts Librarian Association meeting, and she was as funny and charming as I had envisioned her to be after reading this novel.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1438140.jpg" alt="1438140.jpg" /><p><a href="">Dear American Airlines</a> by Jonathan Miles (2008)</p> <p>Anyone who's experienced the vicissitudes of air travel recently will immediately empathize with the situation that 53-year-old Bennie Ford, the complex narrator of Jonathan Miles' Dear American Airlines, finds himself in. On the way to Los Angeles from New York, to walk the daughter he hasn't seen she was a baby down the aisle at her wedding, his connecting flight is cancelled and he's stuck overnight at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Since Bennie is a writer (a failed poet and a successful translator of Polish literary works), what else can he do but begin a long letter of complaint to the airline that's stranded him and caused a major delay in what he sees as the last step of finally and completely turning his life around. And over the course of this short and comical first novel (just the right length to begin and finish during the course of a cross-country flight), we learn about Bennie's parents, his childhood, marriages, and mostly non-stop drinking. (We even get a good look at his work, since woven throughout the novel are excerpts from the Polish novel he's currently translating.) Bennie's voice - persistent, petulant, narcissistic, and remorseful - is what drew me in, and his story, which is heartbreaking, funny, and hopeful (though not about the possibility of getting a refund check for his cancelled flight from American Airlines), kept me absorbed and entertained.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1270888.jpg" alt="1270888.jpg" /><p><a href="">No Visible Horizon: Surviving the World's Most Dangerous Sport</a> by Joshua Cooper Ramo (2004)</p> <p>If you've ever been amazed at what goes on at air shows and wondered about the motivation (aside from the adrenaline rush of risking death) of the stunt pilots who zoom their planes through tunnels, loop over and under bridges, fly upside down, and do stomach churning spins and rolls and dives, then No Visible Horizon: Surviving the World's Most Dangerous Sport by Joshua Cooper Ramo is the book for you. Ramo competes in the sport of aerial acrobatics, and he shares his love of it in language that is both poetic and mesmerizing. As he describes his own addiction to a sport that is more dangerous than most, he offers a meditation on the subject of all extreme sports (which takes him - and us - from Plato to the psychological theory of "Flow"), and the men and women who risk their lives in pursuit of.what? Ramo would say, I think, a certain purity of purpose, a loss of control in the midst of perfect control, the mind-altering sensations of approaching danger and paralyzing fear. (Those last two are feelings that most of us run from, screaming.)</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1435767.jpg" alt="1435767.jpg" /><p><a href="">How I Learned Geography</a> by Uri Shulevitz (2008)</p> <p>There's a (growing) list of author/illustrators whose new picture books very seldom disappoint me, and a (growing) list of autobiographical picture books. The two lists intersect for me in How I Learned Geography, an illustrated memoir that can only enhance Uri Shulevitz's already stellar reputation as an artist and storyteller. (He's already received the Caldecott Medal and two Caldecott Honor citations.) Aimed at five- to eight-year-olds, this touching but not sentimental tale tells of the time that he, his mother, and his father fled their war-ravaged homeland (in Poland) and moved to a strange city (Turkestan, in what is now Kazakhstan, in Central Asia). They had little money for food, but even so, one day at the bazaar, Uri's father buys an enormous map rather than a loaf of bread. Although his purchase infuriates his hungry wife and son, Uri soon discovers that the map feeds another kind of hunger. The moral here - that the value and joy of imagination can trump even physical pain and deprivation, and that even in the bleakest of times something of value (and salvation) can emerge - is presented through the vivid watercolor illustrations, which completely illuminate Uri's joy at being able to travel in his mind far beyond his physical location.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1432473.jpg" alt="1432473.jpg" /><p><a href="">Olive Kitteridge</a> by Elizabeth Strout (2008)</p> <p>The first time I started reading Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, I put it down after the first chapter, disappointed and disillusioned. I had really admired Strout's first novel, Amy and Isabelle, for its exquisite use of language and the author's ability to create complexly realistic characters, not all of them totally nice people. (That's an understatement. There's a particularly loathsome teacher in the novel whom I will never get over despising.) But I realized that I really wasn't thrilled about spending any time with the eponymous Olive: I hated that she was married to a kind man to whom she was, more often than not in those pages I read, not kind at all. Then, a month or so later, for some reason that remains unclear to me, I picked it up again, began at the beginning, and was immediately and totally hooked. Olive Kitteridge is what's being called these days "a novel in stories," i.e., interwoven tales that together provide the heft and scope of a traditional novel. And, like the best traditional novels, its characters become utterly familiar to us. I began to accept Olive's quirks and bad behaviors, even if, at first, I couldn't completely understand why she acted the way she did. (And I still frequently winced and wished that she'd change.) Olive, while never an easy person to like, grew dearer (and ever more real) to me as I encountered her in many different situations. Here is how Strout sums up Olive's relationship with her son Christopher, as a child, in the story "A Little Burst": "She can almost not remember the first decade of Christopher's life, although some things she does remember and doesn't want to. She tried teaching him to play the piano and he wouldn't play the notes right. It was how scared he was of her that made her go all wacky. But she loved him!" Isn't that phrase "and doesn't want to" brilliant for its economy in telling us so much more than those four particular words? And though it's particularly painful to read "Security," in which Olive totally loses her cool during a visit with the now-adult Christopher and his new family in New York, who is there among us who has not said precisely the wrong thing (and in the wrong tone of voice) to those we love? Strout writes divinely, using language that is precise and elegant without being phony or high-falutin', about the ravages and blessings of the passage of time, about grace, and about the possibility of forgiveness, of ourselves and others, for the wrongs, large and small, that have been done to us and by us.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1408669.jpg" alt="1408669.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Broken Shore</a> by Peter Temple (2007)</p> <p>When I was in Australia a few years ago, a fellow librarian and good friend recommended Peter Temple's The Broken Shore to me. I got a copy, read it there, and was just blown away by just how good it was. At the time, though, it wasn't published in the U.S., so I couldn't include it in <em>Pearl's Picks.</em> Now, however, it's available here, and after a second reading for the purposes of writing this month's recommendations, I can assure any reader on the hunt for a powerful and complex crime novel with a social conscience that this is a book that shouldn't be missed. After being brutally assaulted in a Melbourne stake-out that went horribly awry, homicide detective Joe Cashin is reassigned, for a period of recuperation, to the sleepy, relatively crime-free, oceanside town of Port Monro, near Melbourne, where he spends his time mostly brooding on the past, drinking to deal with the residue of the physical and emotional pain from the attack, and going for long walks with his two large black poodles. But when Charles Burgoyne, a Port Monro entrepreneur, is discovered in his ransacked house on the verge of death, Cashin finds himself back doing serious police work. Suspicion falls on two aboriginal boys who live in the nearby ghetto known as The Daunt. But are they guilty? To find the truth, Cashin has to deal with the seemingly endemic racial prejudice against the Aboriginals, corrupt and inept colleagues, and the residue of his own past. The American writers Temple most resembles are Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, and George Pelecanos - all of them look squarely at the depths of depravity that humans are capable of (and write like fallen angels). But the fiction writer whom Temple most reminded me of is his fellow Aussie, Tim Winton, perhaps because they both have a powerful talent for evoking both the setting and soul of Australia. Here's Temple describing the small, rundown town of Port Monro, where Joe himself spent part of his childhood: "But the year had turned. May had come, the ice-water rain, the winds that scoured skin, and just the hardcore left - the unemployed, pensioners, people on all kinds of welfare, the halt, the lame. Now he saw the town as you saw a place after fire, all softness gone: the out-crops of rock, the dark gullies, the fireproof rubbish of brown beer bottles and car skeletons." (It's also interesting for American readers to note that several years after this book was published, the Australian government, under the leadership of newly elected prime minister, Kevin Rudd, formally apologized to all the indigenous peoples of the country for past wrongs. Joe Cashin would have approved.)</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1425709.jpg" alt="1425709.jpg" /><p><a href="">A Fraction of the Whole</a> by Steve Toltz (2008)</p> <p>If you're a bit tired of trying to decide whether the memoir you're currently reading is closer to fiction than nonfiction, save yourself the trouble of fretting, put it down, and pick up A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Toltz's insane, brilliant, exasperating, and exhilarating novel written as a memoir. It's about an insane, brilliant, charming, and exasperating father (Marty) and the son (Jasper) whom he tries to remake in his own image. It's Jasper, writing from prison, after his father's death, who initially introduces us to this loopy family, but, alternating with Jasper's account, we get Marty's viewpoint, too, so it's with a double vision, so to speak, that we learn of everything that led up to Jasper's present state. And what a tale it is: a plot summary simply does not do justice to the book. If pressed to say what the novel's about, I'd mention the eternal conflict between fathers and sons, and the rivalry between brothers. Growing up in stifling small towns. Love, the errors of love, and the terrors of love. It's about the law of unintended consequences and that no good deed ever goes unpunished. It's about our fear of living and disinclination to die. It's about the consolations (or not) of philosophy. But mostly it's about Life, with a capital L, and all that it entails. Toltz's writing is always exuberant and sometimes hypnotically over-the-top. Here's Marty describing his childhood experience playing "a dreadful thing called musical chairs, another cruel game." He elaborates:</p> <p>"There's one chair short, and when the music stops you have to run for a seat. The life lessons never stop at a children's party. The music blares. You never know when it's going to stop. You're on edge the whole game; the tension is unbearable. Everyone dances in a circle around the ring of chairs, but it's no happy dance. Everyone has his eyes on the mother over by the radio, her hand poised on the volume control. Now and then a child wrongly anticipates her and dives for a chair. He's shouted at. He jumps off the seat again. He's a wreck. The music plays on. The children's faces are contorted in terror. No one wants to be excluded. The mother taunts the children by pretending to reach for the volume. The children wish she were dead. The game is an analogy for life: there are not enough chairs or good times to go around, not enough food, not enough joy, nor beds nor jobs nor laughs nor friends nor smiles nor money nor clean air to breathe.and yet the music goes on."</p> <p> Wow. It's hard to even take a breath when you're reading that paragraph. If the John Irving of The World According to Garp or David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest are your cup of tea, don't miss A Fraction of the Whole.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib040.jpg" alt="nobib040.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">Cats in May</a> by Doreen Tovey (2008)</p> <p>There's only one downside to reading Cats in May, an enchanting tale of Doreen Tovey's love affair with Siamese cats: there's a strong possibility that you'll feel a definite inclination, as I did, to put it aside for an hour or two and run out to the nearest Siamese breeder and buy yourself a cat or two. It's an unavoidable hazard, I suppose, of spending time with Solomon and Sheba, the Tovey family cats. From their appearance on the BBC to their loud disapproval of any and all attempts to introduce a third Siamese - Samson - into their midst, Solomon and Sheba rule the roost. It's not just cats that Tovey makes so appealing to the reader: there's also an adorable squirrel who they rescued from certain death as a baby, and who has his own routines, habits, and pet peeves. One of the pleasures of Blondin's life is tea, and Tovey describes how the squirrel stands vigil by the teapot, afraid he's going to miss out on a drink, how he sleeps with a hot water bottle, and seems to only half believe that he's not a human who happens to like nuts an awful lot. (Incidentally, if you happen to be a mystery lover as well as a Siamese cat fan(atic), take a look at the mysteries by Richard and Frances Lockridge. The first, The Norths Meet Murder, published in 1940, introduced amateur detectives Pam and Jerry North, who are the owners of (or who are owned by) a series of Siamese cats. Their names are Gin, Martini, and Sherry. Oh those Norths, what civilized drinkers they were!)</p> Books books nancy pearl pearl's picks Pearl's Picks recommendations Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4603 at Selections for July 2008 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1411714.jpg" alt="1411714.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science</a> by Natalie Angier (2007)</p> <p>Offhand, I can't think of a more appealing popular science writer than Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Natalie Angier. Both in her articles in the science section of the <em>New York Times</em> and in her several nonfiction books, her writing is clear, concise, frequently humorous (she makes terrific use of analogies, puns, and other bits of wordplay), and always interesting. Even if, at first, you doubt that her topic is what you've always wanted to read about, Angier's sprightly style lures you in and keeps you reading. I always come away from reading something by her feeling much smarter and more knowledgeable than I was going in. It's no different with her new book, The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (which should be required reading for anyone interested in how the world works). Here Angier explains the basics (and innate beauty) of the building blocks of the "hard" sciences, including biology, chemistry, physics, geology, and astronomy. If you found your high school (and even college) science classes to be dull grinds, taken only because they were required - as, alas, so many of us did - Angier's book just might be a revelation to you. She'll take you through a thorough explanation of what's what in the natural world, and, even better, show you why it matters. This is a book that is best read slowly, to give you a chance to contemplate what you've just taken in.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1418903.jpg" alt="1418903.jpg" /><p><a href="">Here If You Need Me</a> by Kate Braestrup (2007)</p> <p>You would be forgiven if you thought that a memoir about a newly widowed mother of four who borrows her late husband's dream and becomes a Unitarian-Universalist minister and then works as a chaplain with the Search and Rescue division of the Maine Game Warden's office would be so innately depressing and/or boring that there's no sense reading it. But - trust me on this - Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup shows its writer to be a warm, caring, and courageous woman, and these essays (which are uplifting without being smarmy or sappy) are well worth the time you spend with them. She writes about her husband's unexpected death; her experiences on the job dealing with the after-effects of suicides, murders, lost children, accidents; and her everyday life, including trying to answer her children's questions about why God let their father die. Braestrup's ability to see beyond herself (always a challenge with a memoir) and her musings on love (both human and divine) and on the need to live life fully in the face of death make this a special book indeed.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1418112.jpg" alt="1418112.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Great Man</a> by Kate Christensen (2007)</p> <p>The eponymous (love that word!) "great man" of the title in Kate Christensen's third novel is the great (and fictional) 20th-century artist Oscar Feldman, whose enormous talent for figurative painting (solely the female nude) is matched only by his genius for seducing his models. Feldman sounds like he would make a great subject for a biography - right? In fact, two competing biographers - the ink on their signed contracts barely dry - rush to interview his survivors, who include his wife, Abigail, an autistic son, and his sister Maxine, herself a celebrated painter (but not nearly as well known as her brother was) of Rothko and Pollock-like abstracts. Not mentioned in Feldman's obsequious obituaries is the fact that he also left behind a whole other family: his mistress, Teddy St. Cloud, and the couple's twin daughters. As the biographers vie for interview time with the women in Oscar Feldman's life, each one gets the chance to tell her own version of the truth about him as she knew it. The Great Man is a comedy of manners about art and artists, egos, fame, the way we fashion ourselves, and how others make us into the people they want (or need) us to be.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1436575.jpg" alt="1436575.jpg" /><p><a href="">Belong to Me</a> by Marisa de los Santos (2008)</p> <p>Marisa de los Santos definitely beat the sophomore jinx with her new novel, Belong to Me. Although de los Santos carries on the story of Cornelia and Teo, two of the central figures in her first novel, Love Walked In, in this follow-up she broadens her canvas to include several other memorable characters. In fact, if I had to choose which of de los Santos's many writerly talents is foremost, it would have to be that she creates remarkably real characters. Each novel tells an interesting tale, and the writing is consistently intelligent, smooth, and quite enjoyable to read, which should come as no surprise, since de los Santos began her writing career as a poet. However, for me, it's the three-dimensional men, women, and children who populate her fiction that I'll remember for a very long time. Two of the people she introduces in Belong to Me are a very bright 13-year-old named Dev Tremain and his mother, Lake. When one of Dev's teachers unfairly labels him a troublemaker, Lake moves the two of them to a suburb of Philadelphia (coincidentally, the same place where Cornelia and Teo have moved for Teo's work) in order to send Dev to a school for gifted kids. (Here's an example of the way de los Santos can capture the essence of a character in one short sentence: ".Dev wanted two things in the world to be as utterly straightforward and unmysterious as possible: one was music, the other was his mother.") The third important new character is one of Cornelia's new neighbors, Piper Truitt, whose improbably high standards of appearance and behavior intimidate Cornelia, and who very nearly abandons her own life to take care of a dying friend. As the plot progresses, friendships are formed, decisions are made, secrets from the past are revealed, and everyone's lives are sent spinning into new directions.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1398263.jpg" alt="1398263.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Other Side of the Bridge</a> by Mary Lawson (2006)</p> <p>The timeless story of brotherly non-love evidently began with Cain and Abel. There's a 20th-century version of it in John Steinbeck's East of Eden. Now, in the 21st century, in Mary Lawson's The Other Side of the Bridge, we get the story of two brothers growing up on a Canadian farm in the 1930s. Arthur Dunn, the oldest, is stolid, solid, and kind, while his younger brother Jake is the total opposite: flashy, manipulative, womanizing, and devious. (Even their names hint at their differences.) They both fall in love with Laura, who, improbably, it would seem, marries Arthur and settles in to a life of contentment, if not passion. Almost two decades later, Laura's charms and beauty have not noticeably waned, despite the fact that she has three children. Teenager Ian Christopherson, son of the town's doctor, takes a job on the Dunn's farm in order to worship Laura from closer than afar. His appearance, along with the unexpected return of Jake, sets off a series of events that inevitably ends in tragedy. Lawson's prose is poetic and evocative without being mannered or self-conscious. Her descriptions of the beauty and starkness of the Canadian landscape, the difficulties of the farmers getting through the Depression years, and her exploration of different sorts of love are all presented with honesty and care.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1442183.jpg" alt="1442183.jpg" /><p><a href="">House Rules: A Joe DeMarco Thriller</a> by Mike Lawson (2008)</p> <p>A lot of the hours when I'm not reading are spent searching for thrillers that I might want to read. What I am looking for are those with a smooth writing style, a complex yet fast-paced plot, and a likeable hero. So I was absolutely delighted to finally discover Mike Lawson. (I was a bit late to the party of his fans because I'd already missed his first two, The Inside Ring and The Second Perimeter, but I intend to remedy that situation quickly.) The third in his series about Joe DeMarco is House Rules, and it's an entertaining read. DeMarco is what's known in the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. as a "fixer." He's the guy you call when you want to find out what's what (without anyone knowing who's asking) or you want something done that may be everything from just a bit shady to downright illegal. DeMarco's talents for succeeding at these sorts of assignments make him an invaluable asset to his boss, John Mahoney, the powerful Speaker of the House of Representatives. In this go-round, Mahoney calls on Joe when the junior senator from Virginia, responding to two unsuccessful terrorist attacks on American soil, strongly urges Congress to pass a law requiring background checks on all Muslims in the U.S., with instant deportation if they're not citizens. And, due to the climate of fear that pervades the U.S., it looks like the bill is going to pass both Houses of Congress in a heartbeat. Not only does Mahoney (who's both an effective politician and not a stupid man) know instinctively that this new law is the wrong way to deal with the situation (it hearkens back, in his mind, to such mistakes as the law setting up the Japanese internment camps during World War II), but he has a connection to one of the terrorists that he needs to keep secret. Enter DeMarco. This smart political thriller offers readers both a wild ride and thought-provoking issues. In many ways, House Rules reminded me of the novels of the late Ross Thomas; this, from me, is high praise, indeed.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1437491.jpg" alt="1437491.jpg" /><p><a href="">The God of War</a> by Marisa Silver (2008)</p> <p>Coming of age novels can take place in a variety of settings, from the 20th-century Manhattan of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye to the Victorian London of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. And each of those locales has been the setting for many other tales. But I believe that The God of War by Marisa Silver is the only novel I've ever read that takes place hard by the Salton Sea, an (unintentionally) manmade lake in the middle of California's southern desert. Twelve-year-old Ares Ramirez lives in a trailer there with his mother, Laurel, her here-today-gone-tomorrow boyfriend, and his six-year-old brother, Malcolm, who has a profound learning disability. Ares, named for the Greek god of war, is at war with himself, his mother, and the expectations of society. He's torn between his misplaced sense of responsibility for the choices his mother makes (her unconventionality, her distrust of government and its agencies, her constant flouting of the rules, and her decision to simply ignore Malcolm's disability and the effect that has on both her sons) and Ares' own immense feelings of guilt for having caused Malcolm's condition years before. His growing friendship with 15-year-old Kevin, the town's bad boy, forces Ares to finally begin to accept who he is and what he wants to do with his life. Silver's language is both spare and evocative; she skillfully captures the confusion, tension, and pain of Ares' life.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1414589.jpg" alt="1414589.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Septembers of Shiraz</a> by Dalia Sofer (2007)</p> <p>Partly autobiographical (when she was ten, the author and her family had to flee Iran after her father was jailed by the new fundamentalist regime), Dalia Sofer's first novel, The Septembers of Shiraz, is a moving tale of a family caught up in political and religious turmoil - in Iran, it turns out, they are one and the same. Nine-year-old Shirin watches helplessly as her world is turned upside down when her father, gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested - even though it seems that his only crimes are being Jewish and wealthy. As her mother, Farnaz, tries frantically to get her husband released, an aura of fear and paranoia grips both the family and the country. The Revolutionary Guards are watching and listening for any transgression outside the walls of the prison, while inside the jails the prisoners are routinely tortured and killed. Old friends and neighbors disappear without notice, and anyone with the means to leave the country, does so. Sofer's portrait of a country and a family in turmoil is frequently sad, but never melodramatic. The cast of characters includes the country of Iran itself; it's perhaps the most three-dimensional of all: like all the others, it is never entirely innocent, but never deserving of the suffering it must now endure.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1438219.jpg" alt="1438219.jpg" /><p><a href="">Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller</a> by Steve Weinberg (2008)</p> <p>These days, muckraking is somewhat of a dirty word (the term alone seems to imply something fundamentally dirty). But as Steve Weinberg makes clear in Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller, without the hard-nosed, never-say-die work of reporters like Ida Tarbell, American corporations (not to mention America itself) would be much more monopolistic entities than they are today. Certainly, without Tarbell's articles, the landmark 1911 Supreme Court anti-trust decision dissolving Rockefeller's myriad holdings would never have occurred. Beginning in 1902, Ida Minerva Tarbell published the first of her many articles in <em>McClure's Magazine</em> exposing the wide-ranging scope of the Standard Oil Company (known simply as "The Trust"), a series of businesses owned, run, and (many would say) misused by one of the world's richest men, John Davison Rockefeller. Her groundbreaking book (800 pages long!), The History of the Standard Oil Company, grew out of her magazine articles and is still considered today to be a high point of investigative journalism. Here's an example of Tarbell's scathing assessment of Rockefeller "... [he] has introduced into business a spy system of the most odious character. He has turned commerce from a peaceful pursuit to war, and honeycombed it with cruel and corrupt practice, turned competition from honorable emulation to cutthroat struggle." Weinberg's descriptions of the foes do justice to them both, but the real star here is Tarbell, who deserves to be far better known than she is. When we talk about the importance of freedom of the press, of reporters scouring letters, legal papers, documenting their sources, and working with insiders to get the real scoop (think of Woodward and Bernstein's "Deep Throat"), Tarbell should be credited with those innovations.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1422687.jpg" alt="1422687.jpg" /><p><a href="">Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac</a> by Gabrielle Zevin (2007)</p> <p>What would you do if your memories of the past were erased and you could, as it were, invent yourself from scratch? Just how weirdly disturbing - or exciting - would that be? That's the situation faced by teenaged Naomi Porter in Gabrielle Zevin's enormously likeable Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac. After a bad fall on the steps of her high school, Naomi wakes up to the realization that she can't remember anything that's happened in her life since the sixth grade. Just for a start, she has no memory of her parents' divorce or of her mother's remarriage and her father's girlfriend. She can't remember who her friends (and enemies) were - at one point she asks one of her classmates, "Do we like each other? Do we get along?" and the girl replies, "Not since fourth grade." Naomi's clueless on the kinds of food, movies, and books she liked and didn't like. Her hopes, her dreams, and her plans for the future are a blank slate. And most importantly, perhaps, she has no idea about the extent of her relationship (if any) with the three very different guys who appear to be in her life: her boyfriend Ace (the jock); her co-editor for the school's yearbook, Will (reliable, kind, and always there for her, and, incidentally, the son of her English teacher); and James (moody, artistic, and sensitive). Zevin keeps things light, but still gives readers a lot to think about. Teen girls looking for a good love story with some added substance need look no further.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib038.jpg" alt="nobib038.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread</a> by Don Robertson (2008)</p> <p>You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll totally delight in meeting nine-year-old Morris Bird III (whom some classmates unkindly call Morris Bird the Turd) as he decides to skip school one autumn afternoon in 1944 and walk across Cleveland to visit his best friend, Stanley Chaloupka. He sets off with an alarm clock, a jar of Peter Pan Peanut Butter, a map, a compass, a dollar and some change and (most reluctantly and unhappily) his six-year-old sister Sandra. Along the way he gets delayed by a cigarette riot and Sandra's whining insistence that she be allowed to play a game of jacks, drop-kicks a football into a coal wagon (much to the annoyance of the football's young owners), and is rescued by a teacher named Miss Edna Daphne Frost. Eventually, as the afternoon winds down, Morris and Sandra collide with history. They arrive at Stanley's block at the exact moment when above ground gas tanks belonging to the East Ohio Gas Company explode. (The explosion and subsequent fire in this real event would kill 130 people and destroy a square mile of Cleveland's east side.) Among the many other wonderfully drawn characters we meet are a passionate optician named G. Henderson LeFevre and the object of his lust, Mrs. Imogene Brookes (who is described as "a rare beauty if there ever was one, a woman of immense passions and appetites who really didn't belong there in Shaker Heights living out her years in a succession of blank matronly conditioned activities and responses"). I loved Don Robertson's The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread when it was first published in the early '60s, and I am just thrilled that a whole new generation of readers is now going to get to read it, too.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib039.jpg" alt="nobib039.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point</a> by Elizabeth Samet (2007)</p> <p>After she received her PhD from Yale, Elizabeth Samet startled herself, her friends and her family by taking a job as an instructor in the English Department at West Point. She describes her experiences teaching there over the last decade in Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point, a moving tribute both to literature, her students, and the military academy itself. Literature at West Point matters, she writes, because it helps cadets learn to deal with ambiguity. Seeing a situation as grayish, rather than black or white, is not encouraged in most phases of the education of a cadet. Understanding a lyric poem demands a different kind of thinking from that used to carry out orders and survive a long day patrolling the streets of Iraq - not a better way of thinking, just not the same. Among the works of literature she assigns to her students are Randall Jarrell's devastating poem, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner;" the World War I poems of Wilfred Owen, and Robert Olen Butler's story "Mother in the Trenches." (Every time she mentioned a literary work with which I wasn't familiar, I had to go get a copy and read it: this slowed down - considerably - my reading of Samet's book.) Interspersed with accounts of her students and their responses to the literature she assigns, Samet weaves in the history of West Point, including everything from when literature was first introduced into the curriculum (the first decade of the 20th-century) and (most movingly) the terrible divisive effect the Civil War had on the Academy's graduates, who used their fine educations in the cause of either the North or South. The title of the book, in fact, is a phrase that was originally used to describe the mental and emotional sufferings of Civil War veterans; now, of course, we refer to the same syndrome as PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4620 at Selections for June 2008 <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1394818.jpg" alt="1394818.jpg" title="1394818.jpg" /><p><a href="">Grayson</a> by Lynne Cox (2006)</p> <p> Seventeen year-old Lynne Cox, aspiring long distance swimmer, was on an early morning training swim off Seal Beach, California, when she felt a rustle in the water below her. Imagine her shock when she discovered that it was a baby Gray whale, following her. Rather than heading for shore (in which case the whale might have tagged along, and likely beached itself and died), Cox decided to try to reunite the baby Gray with its mother. In Grayson, her account of what happened on that morning three decades ago, Cox shares her love and knowledge of the sea and its denizens, and explores the bond that can magically develop between creatures great and small. For everyone who enjoyed Cox's account of her career as a marathon swimmer in Swimming to Antarctica, this slim, sweet, rather quiet memoir is a must read, but it is also a good choice for any ocean-goers and animal lovers from the age of about ten and up.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1426265.jpg" alt="1426265.jpg" /><p><a href="">Brother, I'm Dying</a> by Edwidge Danticat (2007)</p> <p> Reading Edwidge Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying will likely bring you to tears, as it did me. Moving from well-reviewed novels (try the powerful and disturbing The Dew Breaker if you've never read any of her books) into the realm of memoir, Danticat opens with the day in 2004 when she learns that she is pregnant and that her father, André, is dying of pulmonary fibrosis. These two events, one happy and the other tragic, bracket Danticat's story of two brothers - her father, who decided to leave Haiti for the possibilities of a better life in New York, and her uncle, Joseph, her "second father," who chose to stay behind in Haiti. Edwidge and her younger brother Bob stayed with Joseph and his wife for eight years, from the time she was four until she was 12 and the two siblings finally got the visas that would allow them to join their parents in New York City. Danticat covers many topics, all written about in her cool, measured prose: the experiences of Haitian immigrants struggling to make a home for themselves in America; the poverty of Haiti and the terrors of living under the dictator Duvalier and his henchmen, the Tonton Macoute; and (most disturbingly) the bureaucratic nightmare that kept her 81-year-old uncle from joining his brother in New York. But in the end this is a story of life and death, of hope and despair, of love and choices made, decisions taken that echo down the years.</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1265873.jpg" alt="1265873.jpg" title="1265873.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Saturdays</a> by Elizabeth Enright (2002)</p> <p> I am just delighted that now a new generation of middle grade readers can meet the Melendy family in Elizabeth Enright's The Saturdays and its equally enjoyable sequels, The Four-Story Mistake, Then There Were Five, and Spiderweb for Two, since the whole series has now been reprinted. Hooray! Mona, Rush, Randy, and Oliver Melendy live with their father and Cuffie, their housekeeper, in a brownstone in New York City. One day the four siblings decide to pool their weekly allowances and take turns spending it all, giving each of the children a chance for a special day on their own. Their outings result in a new dog brought into family (whose name, Isaac, is an acronym for the Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure Club); a new hairdo for Mona, and, for Randy (who's been my favorite character in this series ever since I read first read it when I was a little girl), it's connecting with an old family friend who had an amazing adventure in her own childhood. The Melendys move to the country in The Four-Story Mistake, adopt a brother in Then There Were Five, and, in Spiderweb for Two, Randy and Oliver try to solve a series of mysterious clues they discover when Rush, Mona, and their adopted brother Mark Herron go off to boarding school and leave the two younger children behind.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1419119.jpg" alt="1419119.jpg" /><p><a href="">Chasing Kangaroos: A Continent, a Scientist, and a Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Creature</a> by Tim Flannery (2007)</p> <p> Just looking at the cover of Tim Flannery's Chasing Kangaroos: A Continent, a Scientist, and a Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Creature, you get a good sense of the book: a kangaroo is reclining under a bright blue sky and hot Australian sun, his (or her) ears perked up, a bird perched on one flank, staring out at you from beneath hooded eyes, looking for all the world like a creature out of Alice in Wonderland. You can almost imagine her (or him) saying, "Welcome to my strange and wonderful world. Be prepared to be amazed." Not to accept that invitation is to miss out on one of the most entertaining and informative nonfiction books I've read lately. It turns out that kangaroos are even stranger and more wondrous than I had ever imagined them to be. But this is more than just the story of kangaroo life styles and life cycles, their mating habits and their child-rearing techniques. It's also the story of the country the author loves best - Australia - and how its history and development are intertwined with that of its most iconic animal inhabitants. Part geology, part travelogue, part ecology, part ethology, part anthropology, part history, part paleontology, part natural history, and all of it always interesting, Flannery's book is a first-rate example of popular science writing. The first line of the introduction will give you a good sense of Flannery's style: "When I was young I met a man whose arse bore the bite-mark of a Tasmanian tiger"--who could resist that?</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1423719.jpg" alt="1423719.jpg" title="1423719.jpg" /><p><a href="">Caspian Rain: A Novel</a> by Gina B. Nahai (2007)</p> <p> I had the good fortune to meet author Gina Nahai at the Santa Barbara Women's Literary Festival this past February, and after listening to her presentation I can highly recommend her to any library looking for a captivating and intelligent speaker. Her subject was her Jewish-Iranian family and their experiences in the years leading up to the cataclysmic 1979 Islamic Revolution. This is also the time period and setting for Caspian Rain, her fourth novel. Yaas, the 12-year-old narrator, is the child of badly mismatched parents. Her father was born into an upper class secular Jewish family whose social circle revolved around the country's Muslim elite, while her mother grew up in the Jewish ghetto in the slums of South Tehran. Yaas watches in despair as her father begins an affair with a beautiful and wealthy Muslim woman, and becomes even more distant and unavailable to her and her mother. Her sense of abandonment is only exacerbated by the fact that she is gradually losing her hearing. Among the strengths of this moving, poetic novel is how Nahai merges the political with the personal: the uprising against the Shah and his American-backed government with the class and religious war going on within Yaas's family - it's quieter, more internal, but no less destructive to the participants. She gives us the gift of a long and deep look into the workings of a culture, a time, and a place that is unfamiliar to most American readers.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1418910.jpg" alt="1418910.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox</a> by Maggie O'Farrell (2007)</p> <p> Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is sad and haunting, but at the same time it's somehow redemptive in its portrait of a woman who holds onto her sense of self through decades of incarceration in a mental hospital. Or does she? Each reader will have to come to her own conclusions about that. Set in present-day Edinburgh with long flashbacks to a time - the first half of the 20th century - when young women were still expected to behave according to rigid standards of right and wrong, and those who didn't adhere to societal (and their families') codes of behavior, expectation, and social mores were severely punished, we learn that independent and high spirited Esme Lennox was sent away by her family to a psychiatric facility when she was 16, never to be mentioned by them again. When the hospital she's been living in for over 60 years is finally closed, her existence comes as a total shock to her great niece, Iris, named on hospital papers as the person to call in an emergency. Iris, who runs a vintage clothing store, dallies with married men, and remains close to her half-brother, Alex, brings Esme home with her until she can find her another place to live. The meeting of the two sets in motion events that will gradually uncover long hidden (and maybe, blessingly, best forgotten) Lennox family secrets. Some of the story is told through the disconnected memories of Iris's grandmother (and Esme's sister), Kitty, who's suffering from Alzheimer's. How much of what she says can really be believed? The denouement of this slim, emotionally intense novel is, quite simply, stunning. This novel, Farrell's third, reminded me in many ways of Josephine Hart's The Reconstructionist, another outstanding work of fiction about family secrets. Book clubs take note.</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1390015.jpg" alt="1390015.jpg" title="1390015.jpg" /><p><a href="">History Lesson for Girls</a> by Aurelie Sheehan (2007)</p> <p> Horses, friendship, difficult families, and the ordinary and extra-ordinary pangs of adolescence are the subjects of Aurelie Sheehan's coming-of-age novel, History Lesson for Girls. In 1975, 13-year-old Alison moves with her parents to tony Weston, Connecticut, and finds herself in the difficult position of being the friendless new girl at school, a situation made even worse by the fact that she must wear an obtrusive back brace 23 hours a day in an effort to prevent the need for surgery for her scoliosis. Then Alison discovers that strong, outgoing, and very popular Kate Hamilton shares her love of horses, and the two girls become as inseparable as only young teens can be. Their friendship is challenged both by the behavior of their parents and by Kate's growing depression. Sheehan's often lyrical writing animates her largish cast of characters, and she's seemingly channeled the zeitgeist of the 1970s, best displayed in the description of Kate's father, Tut, a sort of New Age, free love guru whose charming and expansive public persona is far different from who is he when he's at home. He's a character whom I came to despise almost immediately, and will certainly never forget. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1442096.jpg" alt="1442096.jpg" /><p><a href="">To Be Like the Sun</a> by Susan Marie Swanson (2008)</p> <p> The enchanting language of Susan Marie Swanson's free verse To Be Like the Sun stands on its own as a poem for children, but, as in the finest picture books, the text is beautifully enhanced by the illustrations done here by Seattle artist Margaret Chodos-Irvine, whose book Ella Sarah Gets Dressed was a Caldecott Honor selection in 2004. (When I asked Chodos-Irvine, via e-mail, how she created the pictures for this new book, which I took to be linoleum block prints, this is what she said: "There isn't really a name for the technique I use for my illustrations. I kind of made it up, using techniques borrowed from many printmaking disciplines. I call it "relief printing from mixed media". Linocut is also a form of relief printing. I just use non-traditional materials to print from instead of linoleum or wood. The illustrations in To Be Like The Sun were primarily done by cutting out shapes from various flat materials - poster board, wood veneer, cork, and others - then rolling a thin layer of ink onto the shapes and printing from those shapes onto a piece of paper using an etching press. I build up layers of color with different cut pieces and successive runs through the press.") In the book, a little girl plants a sunflower seed, confident that it knows what it needs to do under the soil ("the instructions are written on your heart"), waters it, watches it emerge from the earth, and grow and grow, and as fall and winter come, she thinks about the sunflower and how, even though "a sunflower seed/is smaller than a word," the flower itself (was) "taller than everyone./When the winter sky shivers," the little girl says, "with icy stars,/I remember how hard you worked/to be like the sun." Choose this for a story hour or a family reading-together time.</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1422682.jpg" alt="1422682.jpg" title="1422682.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Arrival</a> by Shaun Tan (2007)</p> <p> Shaun Tan's The Arrival is a book without words, yet it tells a compelling story. It's a picture book, but not one intended for young children. In it, the author/artist shares with us the wonder, excitement, and fear that accompany a recent immigrant when he leaves his homeland and family to make a new life far away. There's an aura of menace and looming danger in the pictures of the immigrant's country; you can understand why he would want to leave in search of a more welcoming, less fearful situation. (Looking at them, I was reminded of Giorgio de Chirico's painting <em>Mystery and Melancholy of a Street;</em> you should be able to find a decent reproduction of this piece online.) As the man sorrowfully says goodbye to his wife and young daughter (and the two sequential pictures of the three holding hands and then letting go of one another just may break your heart), he boards the ship that will take him to his new land. In those unfamiliar settings he faces both indifference and-slowly - acceptance and friendship from those he meets. Tan brilliantly universalizes the immigrant experience by making the country of arrival a surreal place that is as wondrously strange to the reader/viewer as it is to the immigrant himself. The buildings are weirdly sized and shaped, people travel by dirigibles, what's produced in the factory where he gets work is nothing that either he or we can identify for sure, and the local animals are bizarre (although that vaguely Dali-esque, oyster-ish, mouse-ish four-legged creature who first befriends the immigrant looks adorable enough to be real). Tan conveys so much in each of the pictures that every one, whether full page or smaller, calls out to be pored over. The power of visual art to tell a narrative tale - one that is both nuanced and complex - has seldom, if ever, been demonstrated more clearly than here. Book groups for middle-school students and above (including adults) will find much to discuss.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1250207.jpg" alt="1250207.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Little Friend</a> by Donna Tartt (2002)</p> <p> Run, don't walk to your neighborhood library and pick up a copy of Donna Tartt's stunning novel, The Little Friend. Part mystery and part coming-of-age novel, with a young heroine who is reminiscent of Scout in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and a lot like Frankie in Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding. Set in a small Mississippi town in the 1970s, this is the story of 12-year-old Harriet Cleve and what happens when she decides to track down the person who murdered her older brother Robin - a terrible event that happened when Harriet was only a few months old. Compulsively readable, beautifully written, and filled with three dimensional characters, both good and bad (and the bad are really, scarily bad), this is one of those novels where I regretted having to put it down to do anything like else, like sleep, eat, or work. Quite simply: do not miss it. (A note to potential readers: I am not fond of the cover of the American edition of the book, so please don't be put off by it; in my mind it doesn't really convey anything about the plot or characters at all.)</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1402981.jpg" alt="1402981.jpg" title="1402981.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Other Side of You</a> by Salley Vickers (2008)</p> <p> In The Other Side of You, author Salley Vickers shows how each choice one makes is like a pebble thrown - carelessly or not - into a pond, causing ripples to spread out, inexorably, from the here and now into the future. Hospitalized after a failed suicide attempt, Elizabeth Cruikshank only slowly begins to share with the psychoanalyst assigned to her case the events that led to her decision to take her own life. The therapeutic relationship that develops between Daniel McBride and his patient begins a healing process for both, as they separately struggle to come to terms with the traumas in their respective pasts. Their journey together to a kind of self-acceptance illustrates Freud's assertion that the goal of psychoanalysis is to replace neurotic misery with ordinary human unhappiness, and Vickers shows us how even such a modest achievement is a major step forward from the past that led Elizabeth to actively pursue suicide and Dan to refuse to face his own demons. One added bonus of this outstanding novel is how Vickers uses a painting by the Italian artist Caravaggio to further explore her themes - you'll want to have a reproduction of the work on hand when you read. She also uses a verse from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land ("Who is the third who walks always beside you?") as an epigraph for The Other Side of You, but she might just as easily have borrowed the one from E. M. Forster's Howard's End: "Only connect." I can't fathom why British novelist (and former psychologist) Vickers is not better known in America. Her novels (this is the fourth) are consistently thoughtful, intelligent, and insightful; her well-drawn characters illuminate the different ways we struggle to integrate sadness, despair, and moments of happiness into our everyday lives.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1414970.jpg" alt="1414970.jpg" /><p><a href="">15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century</a> by Stanley Weintraub (2007)</p> <p> Between them, Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, and George Marshall had 15 stars - the first three (of only five) five-star generals. Their military careers were intricately interconnected before and during World War II, and afterwards. Each was a five-star general, and each, of course, played a central role during the war itself. Stanley Weintraub's 15 Stars: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall: Three Generals Who Saved the American Century provides readers with a good sense of the nature of each man, as well as the interconnections between the three. In many ways, Eisenhower was the pivot point between MacArthur and Marshall - at one time he reported to the other two, and then was appointed by Marshall as the supreme commander of the European theater of operations. World War II buffs may want to know going in that of the three, Eisenhower and Marshall come off the best, while the portrait of MacArthur will not bring him many new fans. Weintraub writes smoothly and non-academically, making this an excellent starting place from which to then embark on individual biographies or more in-depth military histories of the war.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4619 at Selections for May 2008 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1246453.jpg" alt="1246453.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream</a> by H. W. Brands (2003)</p> <p> H.W. Brands' The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream is history the way it ought to be written: expansive, thorough, wide-ranging, and filled with interesting people and events (in some cases so interesting that it's hard to believe that the people were real and that the events really did occur; but this isn't a "memoir," it's a history - they were and they did). The California Gold Rush did many things in addition to making a lot of people very rich - it probably also hastened the coming of the Civil War by pushing forward California's dreams of statehood. But perhaps Brands' most interesting contention is that it also changed the way Americans thought, and still think, about success. Before the Gold Rush, our vision of success was that it came after a lifetime of hard work and diligent application - but the Gold Rush rewarded luck, pure and simple. You didn't succeed simply because of your hard work, or because you were a good person or did good works, but because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. (In a sense, it was a real debunking of, or at least rebuttal to, the Protestant ethic of our nation's Founding Fathers.) This is a good choice for any American history buff, especially those most interested in 19th-century Americana.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1194576.jpg" alt="1194576.jpg" /><p><a href="">Aria of the Sea</a> by Dia Calhoun (2003)</p> <p> From the Botticelli-like young woman portrayed on the cover to its intriguing plot line, Dia Calhoun's Aria of the Sea is a winner from first page to last. Teen girls especially will appreciate and empathize with Cerinthe, the main character, who wants desperately to be a dancer (the dream her mother had for her), but whose real talents lie in another direction entirely. Although Aria of the Sea is a fantasy - the story is set in an imaginary world - readers will find Cerinthe's story, from her mother's death and her consequent decision to ignore her talents as a healer and try to follow her mother's dream to be a dancer, entirely realistic. (Her experiences at the school of dance she attends are not unlike those of the young actors and dancers in the movie <em>Fame.)</em> Calhoun's creation of a full and vivid character in Cerinthe - her strengths, how she comes to understand herself and her gifts, how she deals with her closest dance competitor (and all around not-so-nice girl), Eliana - adds depth and resonance to this coming-of-age tale.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1417308.jpg" alt="1417308.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Devil You Know</a> by Mike Carey (2007)</p> <p> When Felix (Fix) Castor is hired to exorcise a ghost at the Bonnington Archive, a private library devoted to maritime history, he doesn't realize that he will have to cope with a dazzlingly beautiful succubus who simply exudes sex appeal, werewolves and other shape changers, and plain old vanilla-flavored human evil. Whew! That's quite an array of enemies determined to keep Fix away from the archives and from finding out what's behind the haunting. The Devil You Know, Mike Carey's first novel - he's been a comic book writer up until now - moves along at a good clip and has many nice touches that give it an unexpected (but not unwelcome) depth, including descriptions of Fix's relationship with his brother, a priest who believes that exorcism is best left to the Church, and his relationship with an old friend, whose incarceration in a mental hospital he accidentally caused. From the very first scene at a child's birthday party - Fix has been brought in to entertain the spoiled little brats - you know you're in for a treat. And there's plenty of plot room for sequels galore. (For those who shy away from horror fiction, trust me, this is really a good example of horror-lite, a brand new sub-genre I just invented.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1385649.jpg" alt="1385649.jpg" /><p><a href="">The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors</a> by Ann Gibbons (2007)</p> <p> The subject matter of Ann Gibbons' book, The First Human, is revealed by its subtitle: Ã¢â‚¬ËœThe Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors.' What the subtitle doesn't give readers a taste of is just how entertaining and informative a tale the author has to tell, all about the events and individuals (in some cases, "characters" would be a more apt descriptor) involved in the quest to discover the oldest hominids and answer the question of when humans split off from apes. Aimed at the reader who has an interest in, but not necessarily any significant knowledge of, the subject, science writer Gibbons (who began this book as an article for <em>Nature</em> magazine) offers enough of a basic introduction to the fields of paleontology, paleo-anthropology, and even geology, to get us going. And what a story it is: she begins with the early disagreements over whether mankind originated in Asia or Africa (Africa won out); introduces us to some of the early paleontologists, including Louis Leakey and his family; covers the major discoveries, such as Donald Johannson's Lucy (who was featured prominently in popular science magazines as "the mother of mankind"), and Toumai, uncovered in a dig in Chad; explains the many disagreements and controversies that arise in a field when you're talking about events that took place many millions of years ago; explores the personalities of the various major players; and much more. Here's her take on why the field of paleontology is so contentious:</p> <p> Even experienced researchers often react with more emotion to the discovery of human ancestors than they do to fossils of any other animal, including dinosaurs. New fossils almost always shatter preconceived notions of what our ancestors should look like, revealing our origins as ordinary apes rather than as exalted beings marked from the beginning with a big brain or some other sign of special destiny.</p> <p> Gibbons' book exemplifies the best in popular science writing - she makes the reader want to delve more deeply into the topics she covers. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1433358.jpg" alt="1433358.jpg" /><p><a href="">Apples &amp; Oranges: Going Bananas With Pairs</a> by Sara Pinto (2007)</p> <p> In Apples &amp; Oranges: Going Bananas With Pairs, readers young and old will get a kick out of the loopy and mind-stretching comparisons Sara Pinto makes between objects. How are a bird and a kite alike? The obvious answer is that they both fly in the sky. But Pinto also lets us know, in both words and pictures, that neither one of them uses the telephone. How are trousers and underpants alike? Well yes, they're both articles of clothing, but, as Pinto demonstrates, neither one makes a good hat. The illustrations are brightly colored, eye-catching, and infectiously humorous. I'm looking forward to sharing this book with my five and three-year-old granddaughters, and having us all play a game of making up our own unlikely but perfectly reasonable comparisons. Hmm. How are a computer and a television alike? Neither eats waffles for breakfast"¦.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1399109.jpg" alt="1399109.jpg" /><p><a href="">Flower Confidential: The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers</a> by Amy Stewart (2007)</p> <p> After reading Amy Stewart's Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful, I will never look at a rose quite the same way. Indeed, despite Gertrude Stein's assertion that "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose," according to Stewart it's more the case today that a rose is no longer simply a rose, but rather a business (as are lilies, larkspurs, and almost any other flower you can name), and a highly successful one at that. Despite her love of blossoms (she describes herself as having "a smutty sort of lust for flowers"), Stewart takes a long, illuminating, and highly readable (although frequently disillusioning) look at how flowers are bred, grown, shipped, and marketed to the consumer. We meet some interesting flowerfolk and learn some startling facts and figures along the way, some good for trivia contests and some more substantive. They include: almost a third of Americans tend to purchase a flower or plant for Valentine's Day; Americans buy about 10 million cut flowers a day; Costco plays an important role in the flower industry; the number of carnation growers has shrunk by three-quarters in the last dozen years; many cut flowers (including roses) now lack a fragrance; and Holland no longer has a monopoly on tulip bulbs. Stewart mourns the loss of the many small, independent growers, whose passion translated into gorgeous flower blooms with robust fragrances, but who couldn't compete with the big producers (many of whom are now located in the Andes) and their cheap labor. Think global, smell local, is a motto she might wish the industry would adapt.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1414063.jpg" alt="1414063.jpg" /><p><a href="">Throw Like a Girl: Stories</a> by Jean Thompson (2007)</p> <p> In Jean Thompson's Throw Like a Girl: Stories, we meet a collection of women, young and not-so-young, and observe them as they attempt to navigate their way through their respective lives: the men they love (and those they lose, or leave), their shaky family relationships, their difficult choices, and the seemingly innocuous ones - taken ever so lightly - that will have unforeseen repercussions in the future. In the title story, Janey looks back over her relationship with a good friend who's dying of cancer; in "Lost," which begins, "I was twenty years old and about as pretty as I was ever going to be, although I didn't know that yet," the speaker's life was shaped, for better or worse, by a chance meeting with a black-haired motorcyclist; in my favorite story, "The Woman Taken in Adultery," an unnamed narrator tells of her affair with a man she simply calls The Paramour. That story's first line is "I had two daughters and a husband who didn't notice anything." Thompson's writing - as I suspect you can tell even from these few examples - is smart, wry, often self-mocking, and impossible to resist. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1334661.jpg" alt="1334661.jpg" /><p><a href="">Citizen Vince</a> by Jess Walter (2005)</p> <p> Jess Walter's Citizen Vince, set in the final days leading up to the presidential election of 1980 (Jimmy Carter vs. Ronald Reagan), is the story of Vince Camden, currently hiding from his past in Spokane, Washington, and working as a doughnut maker - courtesy of the federal government's witness protection program. His past, or at least that part of it relevant to Walter's story, consisted mainly of low-grade criminal activity - Vince is the kind of guy our mothers warned us against. The novel takes off when that past catches up with him, in the form of a hitman sent by none other than the youngish (but already extremely powerful) mob boss John Gotti, who didn't take kindly to his cooperation with the Feds. Trying his best to evade death sends Vince back to New Jersey, involves him in a heart-pounding poker game, and forces him to put his relationship with his girlfriend Beth (a prostitute with a heart of gold) on hold. But this is also the story of a man's one last try for redemption (even if it does involve merely doughnuts - "Fry, frost and fill," Vince muses at one point. "No reason such a sequence should be any less satisfying than some other sequence - say, scalpel, suction and suture,") framed against a presidential election that turned on the hostage crisis in Iran and Ronald Reagan's inspired question: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Part crime novel, part character study, it all adds up to a terrifically entertaining book - and one that's particularly appropriate for this run-up to the national election this coming November.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1412088.jpg" alt="1412088.jpg" /><p><a href="">Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton</a> by Sara Wheeler (2007)</p> <p> Remember Robert Redford in the film <em>Out of Africa?</em> Meryl Streep did her usual superb job of inhabiting the character of Isak Dinesen, but when I finished Sara Wheeler's engrossing and fluent Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton, I realized what a terrific choice the casting director made when Robert Redford was cast as the great love of Dinesen's life (although, as we read here, his great love was East Africa, particularly Kenya). Wheeler moves Finch Hatton (1881-1937) into the spotlight, illuminating this complex (not to mention handsome, non-conforming, dashing, charismatic, and daring) man, from his childhood in a once-wealthy family, his happiness at Eton, and his fascination with the wide open spaces of East Africa, where he spent both his happiest and most bitter days. For World War I history buffs, there's a lot of very interesting material here on warfare in East Africa, in which Finch Hatton was a combatant. Wheeler writes: "It wasn't the troglodyte world of the trenches, but it was another kind of hell. The war in East Africa - virtually unknown to the outside world - was, in its safari through purgatory, a negative metaphor for the Kenyan paradise of the epoch handed down in literature and myth. And the campaign remains buried under the weight of history, whereas Karen Blixen's luminously famous first line - Ã¢â‚¬ËœI had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills' - has irreversibly enshrined the lyrical romance of the same landscape." Although Finch Hatton left no diaries, indeed, little sign of an inner, contemplative life at all, Wheeler does an admirable job of giving us a strong sense of a man of whom it can seemingly be said that to meet him was to love him. If you have any doubts, just read Out of Africa and Beryl Markham's West With the Night and you'll see. Book clubs looking for a "mini-series" of books might consider reading Wheeler, Markham, and Dinesen over a three-month period.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1434727.jpg" alt="1434727.jpg" /><p><a href="">Long May She Reign</a> by Ellen Emerson White (2007)</p> <p> Long May She Reign is the fourth novel in Ellen Emerson White's series about Meg Powers, daughter of the first female President of the United States, and it's a definite page-turner. You don't need to have read any of the three earlier books to thoroughly enjoy this one (although now that the publisher, Feiwel and Friends, is reissuing The President's Daughter, White House Autumn, and Long Live the Queen, anyone who missed out on reading them will have a chance to catch up). Following her kidnapping and torture (events chillingly described in the third book), Meg Powers realizes that her life will never be the same. Not only is she forced to delay going off for her freshman year of college as she tries to recover, both mentally and physically, from her ordeal - and it's more than just the frequent nightmares and the painful physical therapy that she has to endure - she must come to terms with the knowledge that her mother announced publicly, again and again, that despite her daughter's life being in danger, she "can not, have not, and will not negotiate with terrorists." (And indeed, the President didn't do those things. If Meg had not smashed the bones in her own hand in a successful escape attempt, she probably would have been killed.) Meg is a completely believable teenager: she's prickly, courageous, loving, difficult, and often funny. Although the larger plot - the kidnapping, Meg's special situation as the President's daughter, the post-traumatic stress she's enduring in this book - are vastly different from the experiences of most teens, the smaller, but no less important, issues - dealing with college roommates, family relationships, and decisions about sex and boyfriends - will ring true to readers of all ages.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib036.jpg" alt="nobib036.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">In the Last Analysis</a> by Amanda Cross (2001)</p> <p> English professor Kate Fansler solves her first case (and it's a doozy!) in Amanda Cross's In the Last Analysis. When one of her students, Janet Harrison, asks Kate to suggest a psychiatrist, Kate highly recommends her old friend, analyst Emanuel Bauer. Then Janet turns up dead in Emanuel's office, and he becomes the main suspect in her murder. Totally believing in her old friend's innocence, and feeling that in some way she was responsible for Janet's death, Kate decides to solve the crime on her own, making good use of unofficial assistance from a good-looking assistant district attorney as well as from her niece's fiancé, whom she hires to do some sleuthing. Although Kate went on to solve many more crimes in many more books, this highly satisfying puzzler remains, in my view at least, the best. (Amanda Cross was the pseudonym that the late writer - and English professor - Carolyn Heilbrun used for this series of witty and literate whodunits.)</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib037.jpg" alt="nobib037.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick</a> by Jenny Uglow (2007)</p> <p> There are some books that make you realize just how lovely the book as an object can be. Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick, by Jenny Uglow, is one of them. Printed on heavy, creamy paper adorned with small, intricate woodcuts, this is clearly a book to treasure; the care taken in its production is apparent. How fortunate, then, that the excellence of the contents matches the quality of its packaging. Although I very much enjoy biographies, I had never even heard of Uglow's subject, Thomas Bewick, and would probably never have even picked up her book, save that I was one of the judges for a national contest in which it was a finalist. (I'm thrilled to say that it won.) Uglow writes elegantly, in simple and unadorned prose that perfectly illuminates a time, a place, and her subject. Thomas Bewick (1753-1828) grew up and lived all his life in Northumberland, England. As was then the fashion, as a young teenager he was apprenticed, in his case to an engraver, and began a long and successful career of depicting scenes of nature in the medium of wood engravings. (The book includes many, many beautifully reproduced examples of Bewick's meticulous work, each one worthy of looking at long and carefully - one could weave whole tales around each engraving. This slows down the reading of the book significantly!) Woven in with Bewick's biography is the larger story of what was happening in England during his lifetime, most notably the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution (which would reach its zenith after Bewick's death, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), and the competing energies of the Romantic movement, which was characterized by intellectual and artistic hostility toward that revolution. (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a prominent example of Romanticism's take on the dangers of the new industrialization.)</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Thu, 01 May 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4618 at Selections for April 2008 <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1421139.jpg" alt="1421139.jpg" title="1421139.jpg" /><p><a href="">Garden Spells</a> by Sarah Addison Allen (2007)</p> <p> On the surface, Claire and her sister Sydney are as different as chalk and cheese, and just about as close as that description implies. After a peripatetic first six years with her free-spirited mother, Claire has happily spent the rest of her 34 years at home in Bascom, North Carolina, in the same house that the Waverley family has occupied for many generations. She lives alone and works as a caterer, specializing in using the edible (and magical) flowers that grow in her garden. But when her younger sister Sydney unexpectedly returns to Bascom with her daughter Bay in tow, the sisters must gradually learn to trust and value one another, despite their differences. Of course, it doesn't hurt that true love comes along for both Claire and Sydney, or that the apple tree in the garden decides to give them a hand in finding happiness in their lives. In Garden Spells, Sarah Addison Allen has written a light and heart-warming romance that's sweet but not cloying, and thoroughly satisfying: in short, a fantasy that just could be real.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1433135.jpg" alt="1433135.jpg" /><p><a href="">Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions</a> by Dan Ariely (2008)</p> <p> Publishing being the business that it is, it is often the case that one good (selling) book begets another (of the same type). It should come as no surprise, then, that following the success of the best-selling Freakonomics, readers have been deluged with books (some good, some not so good) on various economic topics. Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions definitely fits into the "good" category. One of the bedrock principles of classical economics (known as "the dismal science") is that people can be treated as rational decision makers. Ariely, who works in the field of behavioral economics, looks at how we make the decisions that we do, and how little sense those decisions often make. One of the real life examples he includes is why putting expensive items on the menu, even if they're only infrequently ordered, makes money for restaurants - it's been shown that many people resist ordering the most expensive item on the menu, but don't hesitate to order the next most expensive. (I caught myself doing exactly that recently.) Other areas he discusses are how and why we make predictable (but not necessarily rational) decisions when we're choosing from among three similar items; why we tend to prefer more expensive brand name medications to their generic (and cheaper) counterparts; and why paying kids to perform better in school (or to participate in household chores) is actually often counterproductive. Ariely offers these (and many other) thought-provoking arguments and examples (all backed up with scientifically credible surveys and experiments), and presents them in a chatty yet informed manner.</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1208338.jpg" alt="1208338.jpg" title="1208338.jpg" /><p><a href="">Little America</a> by Henry Bromell (2002)</p> <p> Focused on the diplomatic community of a small Middle Eastern country in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, Henry Bromell's novel, Little America, is the story of a son's search for the truth about his father. History professor Terry Hooper wants to find out exactly what happened all those years ago in Kurash, where his father was CIA station chief. Congressional hearings have recently revealed that the CIA not only aided and advised the young King of Kurash, but also supplied him with large amounts of cash. What was the money for? What, exactly, was his father's role in the events that took place in Kurash at the time? Who is telling the truth? How important is it that some secrets not be revealed? Bromell cuts back and forth between the present, in Boston, and the past, in Kurash, using both fictional and historical characters to good effect. (There are some wonderful scenes with the Dulles brothers, Allen and John Foster, who between them would have ever-so-great influence on American politics in the decades between World War II and the end of the Cold War.) This is a terrific airplane read - it's stylish and intelligent, and absorbing enough that you might even wish that your plane ride were just a bit longer, so that you can finish the book before you land.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1411841.jpg" alt="1411841.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth-Century America</a> by Nigel Cliff (2007)</p> <p> Just when you think that everything that could ever be said about Shakespeare and his influence has been said, a book like Nigel Cliff's The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth Century America is published, demonstrating just how wrong that thinking is. Cliff begins by focusing on the intersecting lives of two competing Shakespearean actors. One, Edwin Forrest, was an American who appealed to the working classes; the other, William Charles Macready, was an Englishman who was a favorite of upper-class intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic. The book opens in 1949, when a huge melee broke out at Astor Place in Manhattan between followers of the two, which left an impressive number of participants dead and injured. It then looks back to 1809 and yet another riot, this one at a performance of Macbeth in London - I always knew that Shakespeare incited passionate responses, but riots? - and looks forward to the Bard's popularity on the American frontier later in the century. (This last section ties in nicely with Interred With Their Bones, Jennifer Lee Carrell's impressive debut novel that I recommended in January's Pearl's Picks.) Cliff's book offers both fans of Shakespeare and those interested in 19th-century social history a well-researched, nicely written, and extremely readable book (although I must say that I spent a lot of time looking up words with which I was unfamiliar, so it was a good vocabulary-learning experience as well).</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1429009.jpg" alt="1429009.jpg" title="1429009.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Konkans</a> by Tony d'Souza (2008)</p> <p> I'm a firm believer that you learn something from every book you read, be it fiction or nonfiction, whether it's a bit of history of which you were unaware, or a deeper understanding of human behavior. I certainly learned something from The Konkans, Tony d'Souza's second novel, another of the now large number of novels about immigrants becoming hyphenated Americans. The events are seen through the eyes of Francisco D'Sai, beginning when he is a young child. Francisco's father is a Konkan (learning of, and about, Konkan culture is one of the main things I gained from reading this novel), who grew up in Goa, on the western coast of India. The Konkans were originally Hindus who were forcibly converted to Catholicism by Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century. (The story of this forced conversion is told to Francisco by his uncle, Sam, who is - justifiably - bitter about it, and who effectively (and affectingly), communicates the taste of this bitterness to Francisco and to the reader. Francisco's parents' marriage had a profound conflict built into it from the beginning - his American mother, in India as part of the Peace Corps, adored the country and wanted to remain there, and his Indian father loved the opportunities to be had in America, and needed an American wife in order to get the precious green card required to take advantage of those opportunities. Growing up in Chicago in the 1970s, Francisco is aware of the tension between his parents, as his father strives for success in his corporate job, and all that success brings with it - fancier cars, bigger houses, a coveted membership in an exclusive country club - while his mother yearns for the simple life of rural India. When his father's two younger brothers come to live with the family, the differences between the two ways of life are thrown into even sharper relief. This poignant novel will remind readers of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, but it offers its own particular insight into the immigrant experience.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1425217.jpg" alt="1425217.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Condé Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys: Great Writers on Great Places</a> edited by Klara Glowczewska (2007)</p> <p> Armchair travelers will have a great time exploring the world with this selection of essays from Condé Nast Traveler, entitled The Book of Unforgettable Journeys: Great Writers on Great Places, compiled by the magazine's editor-in-chief Klara Glowczewska, who also wrote the introduction. There are 21 essays, all of which appeared over the last 20 years (the magazine began publishing in 1987). The contributors (who are not allowed to accept free or discounted travel from airlines, hotels, or restaurants) include a wide variety of writers, among them Russell Banks (on the Everglades), Simon Winchester (on a volcano in the Philippines), art critic Robert Hughes on the pre-Romans who lived on the west coast of Italy, Irish novelist Edna O'Brien on Jane Austen's Bath, Francine Prose on Prague, consummate traveler Pico Iyer on Iceland, which he calls "the loneliest place on earth," and a dozen others. One of my favorite essays was an account of a safari in Tanzania taken by journalist Philip Gourevitch and his wife in 2005, wherein you'll meet, albeit briefly, a lioness known as Alice Pacino. Another was about gardens in Tokyo, by novelist Nicole Krauss. "Quick, call the travel agent," I found myself saying frequently to my husband as I read these essays. "Let's go here"¦ Or no, here. Or there"¦" The choices seemed endless and the places described endlessly interesting.</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1348696.jpg" alt="1348696.jpg" title="1348696.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Known World</a> by Edward Jones (2003)</p> <p> Edward P. Jones's stunning Pulitzer Prize-winner, The Known World, is as much a tapestry as it is a novel; it's a work in which every thread, color, and texture has been chosen with care. The result is a story that is deeply felt, painfully beautiful, and richly described. It takes place in the antebellum South, and at its heart are several generations of a family of black plantation owners, their slaves, and the people whose lives intersect theirs (for better or worse): freed blacks, white slave owners, patrolling deputies and the law enforcement officials of a fictional town in Manchester County, Virginia. Many readers will be surprised (as I was) to learn of the existence of freed black people who owned slaves; Jones' account compassionately and unsparingly details the harsh contradictions of that reality, giving us both the outer zeitgeist of the times and the inner, private conflicts of the people living in it. The Known World has justly received a panoply of literary awards and drawn accolades from just about everyone, from the New York Times to the National Book Critics Circle to a friend of my younger daughter (who, upon taking it with her on an Italian vacation, saw nothing of Tuscany, opting instead to stay in the hotel, reading and crying, for the entire trip). Even so, it took me more than several chapters before I was able to really let myself sink into the slow, careful weave of Jones' epic. Once I did, the quiet spell of the writing took over and held me completely, releasing me at the end with a certainty that I had truly experienced, as one character puts it, the "silent and songful" nature of human existence. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1020407.jpg" alt="1020407.jpg" /><p><a href="">Gateway</a> by Frederik Pohl (2004)</p> <p> Gateway, by Frederik Pohl, has been one of my favorite science fiction novels for 30 years, ever since I first read it in 1978, and it's also one of the few books that have won both the Hugo and the Nebula, two of the top awards given by the SF community. Quite simply, it's a grand read. Robinette Broadhead relates the story of his life on (and off) the asteroid Gateway to his psychiatrist, a robot whom he's nicknamed Sigfrid von Shrink. (Even though he's fictional, I've often thought that the AI - artificial intelligence - Sigfrid sets the gold standard for psychotherapists.) When Broadhead wins a lottery in his native Wyoming, he uses his winnings to get a seat on the first space ship that's heading for Gateway, in order to make his fortune prospecting. Now run by a huge multinational corporation, Gateway appears to have once been the home of an alien race whom the humans call Heechees. (What they called themselves is anyone's guess.) These aliens quite clearly left Gateway millennia before the humans arrived, but they left behind a large number of working spacecraft, as well as other artifacts, that continue to puzzle human scientists, who would love to discover their original function and/or use. Any prospector who comes to Gateway can choose to go back out into space in any of the remaining spacecraft. The only catch is that each one is preprogrammed, and no one can figure out what its intended destination is, how long the trip will take, or how to change destinations once it's underway. When you're in a Heechee craft, you're forced to put your faith in Heechee plans and know-how. And what's wise for a Heechee is not necessarily wise for a human. These unpredictable journeys occasionally lead to fame and fortune for the risk-taking prospectors, but more often end in tragedy. What happens to Broadhead turns out to be a mix of fame, fortune, and tragedy, all of which involve Klara, a fellow prospector and the great love of his life - hence the necessity for his visits to Sigfrid, many years after the events he's describing. I think what keeps me rereading this novel is not the characters, well-drawn and interesting as they are, or the story, but rather wondering, down through all the years since I first discovered Gateway, if I would ever have had the nerve to take one of those Heechee spacecraft out into unknown, uncharted, and oh-so-dangerous territory. (Probably not.)</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1242882.jpg" alt="1242882.jpg" title="1242882.jpg" /><p><a href="">Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most</a> by Douglas Stone (2000)</p> <p> Although you'll find Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, on the self-help shelves in most bookstores, the library will probably have it cataloged more accurately in the "interpersonal relationships" section. Refreshingly plain spoken, the book was researched and written by the deputy director and two affiliates of the Harvard Negotiation Project, at Harvard Law School, which defines its mission as "to improve the theory, teaching, and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution, so that people can deal more constructively with conflicts ranging from the interpersonal to the international." One of the reasons I liked it so much is that the authors so clearly respect the intelligence of their readers. At the core of Difficult Conversations is a thorough and coherent analysis of the ways and whys we talk to each other when the stakes are high and our defenses are up. Using the information gained from a 15-year study, the authors' insights are humane, incisive, and wonderfully useful for those of us interested in both understanding and changing habitual responses. Conversation, in the authors' view, is as fascinating and complex as the people who engage in it, and getting better at the tough talks we find ourselves in so often is something that can benefit us all. One of my favorite parts of the book addresses our tendency to think that we need to stay rational and keep the messy feelings out of a difficult conversation with our significant other, our children, our co-workers, and our friends. "The problem with this reasoning," the authors point out, "is that it fails to take account of one simple fact: difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings. Feelings are not some noisy byproduct of engaging in difficult talk, they are an integral part of the conflict. Engaging in a difficult conversation without talking about feelings is like staging an opera without the music. You'll get the plot but miss the point."</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib033.jpg" alt="nobib033.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays</a> by Anne Fadiman (2007)</p> <p> More than half a century ago, the 814 section of the library shelves was a bustling place, with many books being published and many being checked out and read. Nowadays, there's not a lot of action going on in this part of the library. After reading Anne Fadiman's At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays, a delightful follow-up to her earlier collection, Ex Libris, we, along with Fadiman herself, can only bemoan that fact. Fadiman explains the different kinds of essays this way: the familiar essay is one that is seemingly addressed to a single reader, written in a conversational style. Unlike both the critical essay ("more brain than heart") and the personal essay ("more heart than brain"), the familiar essay has both heart and brain, in equal measures. The topics of Fadiman's essays range widely, from her admiration for Charles Lamb (who wrote hundreds of personal essays himself), moving houses, ice cream ("My favorite flavors are all variations of chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and nuts, none of which are good for you. I do not like fruit flavors. They are insufficiently redolent of sin."), butterfly collecting, and the Culture Wars, which she describes as "that peculiar development of the last two decades or so that takes culture--a multidimensional thing if there ever was one--and attempts to compress it to a skinny line running from left to right." She says, "I have never seen cultural politics enlarge a work of literature, only diminish it." (Much food for thought there.) The essays are marked, as I hope you can see by this review, by an enviable sense of humor, a passionate engagement with the world, and an engaging writing style.</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib034.jpg" alt="nobib034.jpg" title="nobib034.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">Now You See It: Stories From Cokesville PA</a> by Bathsheba Monk (2007)</p> <p> Bathsheba Monk's always smart, sometimes humorous, and frequently affecting Now You See It: Stories From Cokesville, PA, harks back to the form of Sherwood Anderson's classic, Winesburg, Ohio--a collection of interlocking short stories primarily set in and around one particular small town, in this case the coal-mining, steel-making, rust belt town of the title. The earliest story takes place in 1949, while several are set in the early 1990s. Because the stories are not arranged chronologically and do not follow the life of any one particular character, we get multiple perspectives on the residents of Cokesville, as we encounter them through their own eyes, those of an omniscient narrator, and via the words of their friends, enemies, and neighbors. Although most of the characters show up more than once (if only in a line in another tale), there are several stories about the (possibly autobiographical) Annie Kusiak, whose ambition as a child and adolescent is to be a writer. Here's how Annie describes the town she tries again and again to leave: "Seventeen church spires probe into the brown atmosphere of the downtown--looking for God, but finding soot, which rains like manna on the southside row houses. An inch of soot on the windowsill means a regular paycheck. Two inches means a fat one." Whether Monk is describing Annie's experiences both in and out of Cokesville, those of her high school friend Theresa Gojuk (known as Tess Randall in Hollywood, where she went to find fame and fortune), the experiences of the boys from Cokesville who went off to fight in Vietnam, Annie's Babba (whose first husband, she tells her granddaughter, was a dancing bear), Mrs. Szilborski, who hears the voice of God telling her to convert to Judaism, or the men for whom the loss of a job in the mines takes away their manhood and their reason to live, Monk brings them all vividly to life for us.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib035.jpg" alt="nobib035.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand</a> by Fred Vargas (2007)</p> <p> In my seemingly never-ending search for engrossing mysteries, I was delighted to discover Fred Vargas' Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand. (Although two other titles by the French author are translated into English and available in the U.S., this is the first one I've read.) The job of tracking down murderers gets personal for Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg of the French National Police when a serial killer, long thought to be dead, seems to have risen from the grave and resumed his fiendishly clever murders. The Commissaire's connection with the killer known as "the Trident" (because of the method of his murders--use your imagination), began when, as a teen, Adamsberg's own brother was (falsely?) convicted of killing his young girlfriend, a crime Adamsberg always believed was committed by the Trident. In the course of his investigations (which have to remain secret from his superiors and most of his co-workers, since only Adamsberg is convinced of the return of his old nemesis), the Commissaire and members of his squad travel to Quebec for some training in CSI techniques, which come in handy at a crucial moment in the story. An engaging hero, a smooth translation, and a creative plot all add up to one of the best new mysteries from across the Atlantic that I've found in ages.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4617 at Selections for March 2008 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1430466.jpg" alt="1430466.jpg" /><p><a href="">Fieldwork</a> by Mischa Berlinski (2007)</p> <p> Since the first-person narrator in Mischa Berlinski's Fieldwork is named Mischa Berlinski, readers might be forgiven for thinking that it's actually a memoir, an account of the author's experiences living in Thailand. That you come away from it feeling that you've learned a lot, too, compounds that belief. But it is definitely a novel - and an absorbing one, at that. When his girlfriend gets a job teaching in northern Thailand, Mischa decides to go with her, spending his time (and earning a meager living) freelancing for an English-language newspaper. It's from an old friend and fellow ex-pat that he first hears about Martiya van der Leun, an American anthropologist who's committed suicide in a Thai prison, where she was serving a life sentence for murder. Mischa's interest (soon an obsession) in the mystery surrounding Martiya's life and death leads him to the Walker family, three generations of missionaries working to convert the Thai hill tribes to Christianity, and to the Diyalos, the hill tribe that was the subject of Martiya's Ph.D. dissertation. The novel works on three levels. First, it's a satisfyingly complex why-dun-it, as we follow Mischa in his attempt to understand the conflict that led to the murder that landed Martiya in prison. Second, it's a great character-driven novel, as Berlinski offers sympathetic portrayals of both the Walkers and the tribespeople they love, and whose souls they want to save for Jesus. The Diyalos, in particular, although they are entirely a figment of (the author, not the character) Berlinski's imagination, are presented so vividly that their customs, beliefs, and way of life seem quite real. Third, the novel is, in many ways, and despite Martiya's ultimate fate, a tribute to anthropologists and the work they do. Reading Fieldwork made me wish I had taken more anthropology courses in college, and finishing it sent me to the library in search of many of the books mentioned in Berlinski's (the author, not the character) notes on the sources for the novel.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1059835.jpg" alt="1059835.jpg" /><p><a href="">Ender's Game</a> by Orson Scott Card (2006)</p> <p> There are lots of reasons why Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is worth reading once. Or twice. Or even three times or more over the course of a lifetime. Readers as young as 12 or 13 will love the adventure; as older adolescents they can relish Card's well-paced story-telling and surprising, agile characterizations; and as adults they can appreciate the novel's subtle philosophical underpinnings, including questions about war and the potential for tragic misunderstanding between different cultures. The story takes place at a time when the Earth is at war with an alien race known only as "The Buggers." It opens as a 6-year-old prodigy named Ender Wiggin is about to become the youngest person ever admitted to the Military Space Academy. Ender is a wonderful protagonist: smart, vulnerable, humane, and struggling with the conflicts he is beginning to recognize within himself. The development of a brutal nature, necessary if he wants to succeed at the Academy, is balanced by the deepening of his empathy with and compassion for those he fights. The parallel development of these seemingly opposing traits, both of which, paradoxically, are encouraged by first the Academy and then by military leaders, carries Ender to his greatest triumph and greatest pain. Its military setting notwithstanding, Ender's Game is a warm, exciting story, rich with satisfying relationships. Written in the early 1980s, its anticipation of today's technology is eerie in its exactitude: "Smart" laptop computers, the internet, and the blogosphere are all integral to the functioning of the world. Throughout, we follow Ender as he finds his way towards saving his own humanity while living in a world that calls upon him to be a killer.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1427556.jpg" alt="1427556.jpg" /><p><a href="">Beginner's Greek</a> by James Collins (2008)</p> <p> I'm sure that publicists all over the world are trying to come up with a phrase as catchy as "chick lit" to describe a book about love (okay, a romance) that's told from a man's point of view - a book like Bridget Jones' Diary but with a male protagonist. "Lad lit" was, so to speak, run up the flag pole, but not enough people saluted. Whatever this genre eventually comes to be called, James Collins' Beginner's Greek provides a quintessential example of it. Collins' novel, a confection of a tale, giddy and full of improbable fun, sets a mighty high standard for other practitioners of the genre to match, let alone exceed. Twenty-something Peter Russell is an unabashed romantic, plain and simple. He's always believed that he'd meet the girl of his dreams by fate, via the randomly assigned seating on an airplane. And, amazingly enough, he does. Her name is Holly and she's reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, which Peter has actually also read. And she's beautiful. And she seems to like him, too, since she gives him her father's phone number, where she's staying for a visit, so he can call her. Alas, when he gets to his hotel room, Peter can't find the scrap of paper where she wrote it down. As the fates would have it, he does see her again, about a year later, only to discover that, following a whirlwind courtship, she's become engaged to his best friend Jonathan, an unreliable, woman-chasing, all around rotter of a guy whom Peter wouldn't trust to take care of his dog, let alone the most wonderful woman he's ever met. So Peter gives up on True Love and marries Charlotte, a perfectly nice person, and settles down to a life of not-thinking-about-Holly. But those capricious fates have other plans in store for Peter, Holly, Jonathan, and Charlotte... Cleverly written (one character muses that "One of the odd things about living in an apartment was that you could walk out of someone's life, but still have to wait for the elevator" and Charlotte feels about Holly that "they were like two acquaintances in a tragedy, who, after all the leads had died, had to stay onstage and talk about the weather") and populated with an idiosyncratic group of characters, Beginner's Greek deserves an honored place in the genre of "totally entertaining books."</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1365762.jpg" alt="1365762.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Thin Place</a> by Kathryn Davis (2007)</p> <p> Kathryn Davis's The Thin Place is mesmerizing and mysterious. But there's no mystery as to why it's mesmerizing - simply take a look at the opening paragraph:</p> <p>"There were three girlfriends and they were walking down a trail that led to a lake. One small and plump, one pretty and medium-sized, one not so pretty and tall. This was in the early years of the twenty-first century, the unspeakable having happened so many times everyone was still in shock, still reeling from what they'd seen, what they'd done or failed to do. The dead souls no longer wore gowns. They'd gotten loose, broadcasting their immense soundless chord through the precincts of the living."</p> <p>Three adolescent friends on an aimless walk. The horrors of the post 9/11 world. The ineffable world of the dead leaching through to the living. In five short sentences Davis sets the stage for a remarkable and unpredictable tale. And that's what keeps you reading this stunning novel - the mystery of what's going to happen next. In Varennes, a town near the Canadian border, ordinary life goes on - Helen Zeebrugge copes with the various indignities of old age, ex-hippie Andrea Murdock researches the past, Buddy the dog does his doggy doings, Gigi the cat works on fully experiencing every one of her nine lives, and 12-year-old Mees tries to understand the strange gift she's been given. But Varennes is a "thin place," a shimmering, permeable division between the real and the inchoate, between the living and the dead, and strange things happen almost as a matter of routine. Davis uses a variety of points-of-view to tell her story, including those of both two and four-legged animals, but to give a plot summary would be unfair to readers - suffice it to say that you've never read anything like this before.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1425477.jpg" alt="1425477.jpg" /><p><a href="">Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella</a> by Paul Fleischman (2007)</p> <p> Of all the many excellent picture books I've read and reviewed over the years, few have come as close as Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal to being a perfect melding of artistic visions between author and illustrator. Author Paul Fleischman weaves together versions of the Cinderella story from 17 different parts of the world - among them Appalachia, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Ireland, and the West Indies - and blends them into one enchanted tale. Artist Julie Paschkis uses a colorful palate and a folk art motif to illustrate each culture's contributions to the tale. Whether Cinderella is known as Catskin, Vasalisa, Sootface, or Cendrillon, whether she's dressed in a red kimono or a gold sarong, whether her foot fits perfectly into a slipper or a sandal, whether the wedding guests feast on mangoes, lamb stew, rice seasoned with almonds, or anise cookies, Fleischman and Paschkis show us the both the universality and the particularities of this most-beloved fairy tale.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1409530.jpg" alt="1409530.jpg" /><p><a href="">How Doctors Think</a> by Jerome Groopman (2007)</p> <p> Doctor-patient communication could be immeasurably improved if Jerome Groopman's How Doctors Think was required reading for patients and doctors alike. Here's a suggestion: It would make a fine and substantive addition to the ubiquitous - and usually out-of-date - collection of magazines in every physician's waiting room. Groopman examines how doctors make decisions - from the diagnosis to the treatment plan - about the health and well-being of their patients. He explores the reasons why well-trained physicians usually get it right, but are sometimes (and sometimes tragically) wrong. (As he praises and faults other physicians, he does not spare himself. He examines his own faulty thinking, both as a doctor and as a patient, describing what went wrong, and why.) The reason doctors think the way they do, says Groopman, has both an objective and a subjective component. Beginning in medical school, students are taught to use a series of algorithms to arrive at a diagnosis: A symptom, or group of symptoms, may directly suggest a diagnosis, which leads to a particular treatment plan. If not, further information is collected, either by probing for additional symptoms, or tests of one sort or another. The additional information suggests a diagnosis, which leads to a particular treatment plan. If not, further information is collected, and so forth and so on. Groopman argues that this kind of linear thinking often inappropriately forces a doctor's thoughts down a too well-trodden path. He believes that, as a result, too many doctors end up putting their patients in neat boxes with standardized labels, without really listening carefully to their specific complaints. His examples include a number of misdiagnoses (some chilling), all based on a doctor's inability, or disinclination, to really see the unique person in front of him or her. This is an important book, one that will inform and empower patients in their dealings with the medical establishment.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1433523.jpg" alt="1433523.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Principles of Uncertainty</a> by Maira Kalman (2007)</p> <p> I've always enjoyed Maira Kalman's artistry, from her picture books (take a look at What Pete Ate From A to Z) to her delightful illustrations in William Strunk and E. B. White's classic tome on grammar and language usage, The Elements of Style. But I was just totally wowed by her newest book, The Principles of Uncertainty. Perhaps the best way to describe it - although this is a book that is far too idiosyncratic to be easily captured in words - is to say that it's an abundantly illustrated and totally unconventional journal of a year in the life of the author. Whether she's riffing on her passion for hats, considering the losses she's faced (most notably the deaths of her mother and husband), describing her lusts for embroidery and travel, letting us peek at her morning routine, or making us salivate over her candy collection, Kalman writes (and draws) from both her mind and her heart. In turns whimsical and poignant, this unique book, which you'll want to read again and again, feels like a gift that Kalman has given us: a guide to living (and loving) joyfully in this world, all the while knowing that death comes at the end. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1426795.jpg" alt="1426795.jpg" /><p><a href="">They Did It With Love</a> by Kate Morgenroth (2007)</p> <p> Take several dashes of the television shows Desperate Housewives and Murder, She Wrote, add a cast of thin, rich, and beautiful female characters (and their assorted male partners), toss in some snappy dialogue, and you'll come up with Kate Morgenroth's They Did It With Love. Twenty-something Sofie and her husband leave Manhattan for suburbia, specifically the very upscale suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut. Being a bookish sort of gal, Sofie decides to join her neighbors' mystery book club, but she soon discovers that uncovering the secrets in her neighbor's lives is even more interesting than discussing Agatha Christie. Especially after one of the women turns up dead. Is it suicide, or murder? Is it just a gruesome coincidence that the first wife of the dead woman's husband did kill herself? (Or did she, really?) Fans of fast-paced amateur detective mysteries will have a thoroughly enjoyable time trying to stay one step ahead of Sofie, and the ending is, well, boffo. This is a perfect choice for your next long plane ride.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1426029.jpg" alt="1426029.jpg" /><p><a href="">Lady of the Snakes</a> by Rachel Pastan.(2008)</p> <p> In her second novel, Lady of the Snakes, Rachel Pastan combines elements of two genres: the literary detective novel (see Possession by A. S. Byatt for a good example) and what is sometimes called "mommy lit" (the chicks of "chick lit" are now married mothers confronting a new set of issues - Allison Pearson's novel I Don't Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother is the gold standard here, although Pastan's novel is, overall, a more serious take on the subject). After completing a Ph.D. in 19th-century Russian literature, specifically on the works of Grigory Karkov (in the process of which she becomes intrigued by his patient, self-effacing wife, Masha, and her influence on his work), Jane Levitsky, her lawyer husband, and their toddler daughter Maisie, move to Wisconsin where Jane gets a teaching position. Even as she juggles the demands of teaching and writing (the latter a necessity if she wants to get tenure) with being a good wife and mother, she sees evidence all around her that in the end, women have to choose one or the other - it seems that no one can really have (or at least do a good job at) it all. Complications mount when Jane finds evidence that Masha may have played a far more important role in her husband's writing career than was previously thought, her babysitter quits unexpectedly, and her easy-going husband, Billy, suddenly becomes a lot more demanding. Any young (or not so young) mother trying to traverse the mommy track will have many aha! moments while reading this consistently entertaining novel, plus it's a great choice for those looking for intelligent, nicely written, character-driven novels. Book clubs take note.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1425830.jpg" alt="1425830.jpg" /><p><a href="">Chester</a> by Melanie Watt (2007)</p> <p> In literary criticism circles, you often hear the term "metafiction," which is defined in the Encarta Dictionary as "fiction writing that deals, often playfully and parodically, with the nature of fiction, the techniques and conventions used in it, and the role of the author." (One example might be Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.) When I read Mélanie Watt's Chester, I figured that I had come across perhaps the world's very first meta-picture book. The book opens with Watt explaining that she's trying to write and illustrate a book about a mouse, a book that will begin "Once upon a time there was a mouse. He lived in a house in country." But her cat Chester (a.k.a. the self-centered furball, according to Watt) won't let her get on with her story - he thinks that it's his book and that he's in charge of creating it. With red marker in hand (or paw), Chester goes about editing Mélanie's (cat and author are, of course, on a first name basis) manuscript, with hilarious results. Just when the reader thinks that Watt has gotten the last word, or at least the last picture, of Chester in a pink tutu - could there be a more biting insult to any self-respecting cat? (Especially one who believes that his name stands for:</p> <p> Charming Handsome Envy of Mouse Smart Talented, Envy of Mélanie Really Handsome</p> <p> Chester comes up with his own revenge. I can't imagine there's a four to seven year old out there who won't love this collaboration between author and subject, and amused adult readers will want to ask themselves just which of the two is the author, and which the subject of this laugh-aloud book.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib031.jpg" alt="nobib031.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">An Infamous Army</a> by Georgette Heyer (2007)</p> <p> Georgette Heyer took the title of her novel about the epic defeat of the emperor Napoleon at Waterloo from a remark attributed to the Duke of Wellington. He famously (and ruefully) described his troops, which included the remnants of ragtag armies from all across Europe and who were understaffed, undermanned, and under-equipped, as "an infamous army." Heyer is best known (and much loved) as the iconic author of dozens of romances, most set in England during the Regency period, 1811-1820, when King George III was declared unfit to rule, and his oldest son (who became George IV) was named Prince Regent of Britain. Like her romances, which are always solidly grounded in authentic period detail and richly convey both the time and the place, An Infamous Army skillfully brings the past to life. Although I've never been able to independently verify this, a good friend once told me that at the French Military Academy, An Infamous Army is required reading for the cadets. If it's not, it should be. Heyer scrupulously and exhaustively researched the battle of Waterloo, and she presents it in all its heroics and bloody loss of life. In fact, much of the dialogue between Wellington and his men in Heyer's novel is taken directly from his diaries and letters. But An Infamous Army - it is, after all, a Georgette Heyer novel - is also a romance. In addition to the characters based on real people, Heyer has invented a beautiful and strong-willed young woman, Lady Barbara Childe, and a handsome and dashing British Army officer (and aide to Wellington), Charles Audley, who loves (and tames) her. (In this pre-feminist time, it seems that the ultimate fulfillment of a beautiful and strong-willed young woman depended on her being both loved and tamed by a handsome and dashing young man.) Romance fans will certainly not be disappointed, and readers of historical fiction may be more than pleasantly surprised to discover Heyer's not inconsiderable story-telling talents.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib032.jpg" alt="nobib032.jpg" /> Title available via inter-library loan <p><a href="">The Queen's Gambit</a> by Walter Tevis (2003)</p> <p> Walter Tevis' 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit may nominally be about chess, and chess may not be a game normally associated with speed, but this suspense-filled novel rockets along like an action movie. Perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise, considering that Tevis is also the author of The Hustler as well as the less well-known The Man Who Fell to Earth. Here Tevis' deft pacing, action-packed plot, and compelling characters combine in a page-turner that will appeal to chess players and non-chess players alike. As the book opens, we meet 8-year-old orphan Beth Harmon. Feeling lonely and out of place, one day Beth wanders into the basement of the orphanage where she lives and happens upon a chess board belonging to the janitor, a sort of working class Obi-Wan Kenobi figure named Mr. Schaibel, who becomes Beth's first chess teacher. From the beginning, Beth knows she has an almost uncanny and uncommon affinity for the game. We follow her as she attempts to make her way through both the perilous world of competitive chess and a complicated adolescence, filled with tournaments, pills, and beer (the latter shared with her adoptive mother, a wonderfully imperfect character). Even readers who are unfamiliar with the game of chess will delight in the way Tevis manages to make tournament after tournament a nail-biter - and manages, too, to make the book as much about Beth's growing up as it is about her winning chess contests. And for chess aficionados, each game Beth plays is coherently laid out, with fascinating discussions of strategy and heart-pounding descriptions of her attempts to win. The title of the book refers to an opening move in a chess game, one Beth struggles to master. But it also refers to Beth herself, as she moves through the world of competitive chess, and the wider world of her own life.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4616 at Selections for February 2008 <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1421617.jpg" alt="1421617.jpg" title="1421617.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Uncommon Reader: A Novella</a> by Alan Bennett (2007)</p> <p>Strange as it may sound, sometimes the only appropriate description of a book is "delicious." At least, that's the only summing-up adjective I could think of when I finished Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, in which the main character is Queen Elizabeth, the reigning monarch of Great Britain. A bit bored with her life, and in the act of chasing her incorrigible corgis, Elizabeth finds herself outside Buckingham Palace and happens upon the traveling library that serves the reading needs of the Palace staff. Believing that Protocol (which she follows scrupulously) requires, in such a situation, that she check out a book, she picks one at random - a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett ("Didn't I make her a dame?" the Queen muses). Starting it that very evening, she finds it a bit of a slog. Nevertheless, Duty demands that she finish it. Rather than entrust returning the book to one of her servants (and eager to excuse herself from a boring meeting with her private secretary), she returns to the traveling library; then, of course, to avoid offending the helpful librarian, she feels she must select another book to take out. This time she makes a more fortunate choice: Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. Lo and behold: the pleasure she takes from Mitford's novel turns her into A Reader. With the assistance of Norman, a regular traveling library user (he's employed in the kitchen of the palace, but she soon promotes him to be her personal assistant), Elizabeth continues choosing and reading all sorts of books. Each one she reads leads to another, and another, and yet another; soon, reading takes precedence over all of the Queen's duties, giving her new food for thought and new matters to discuss at the state dinners she is forced to attend. This shocks and dismays her husband, Prince Philip, her dogs, and her private secretary (not to mention the world leaders seated next to her at the state dinners, who have no idea what to make of her literary allusions). It eventually precipitates a Royal Crisis, because, as the Queen soon discovers, when you love to read, that's how you want to spend all your time - forget Parliament, the marriage woes of your children, and your Duty to the Nation. Bennett's slim little book is a paean of praise for the joy of books and reading. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1426026.jpg" alt="1426026.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild</a> by Craig Childs (2007)</p> <p>I have long been a huge fan of Craig Childs' nature writing, and I was delighted to discover his newest offering, The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild. This is a book to savor slowly, accompanying Childs one chapter at a time as he travels through the rain forest of Washington's Olympic Peninsula to the Arizona desert, from the mountains of Colorado to the rapids of the Colorado River, from Alaska to New Mexico, and sharing his experiences - vicariously, of course - with the various animals he meets along the way. (I have to say that for much of this book I was in a state of extreme anxiety on Childs' behalf, though he seems to have undertaken the - to me - daunting excursions described here with no more worry than I might feel, say, crossing a street against the light. At times I felt there needed to be a warning label on the book: "Author is a trained professional. Do not try this on your own." But then, I have never claimed to be an outdoorsy sort of gal and perhaps I was over-reacting.) There are sections on species ranging from the Great Blue Heron to the blue shark, as well as ravens, coyotes, camels, owls, and jaguars, among many others. If I had to choose my three favorite chapters, they would include the description of Childs' mostly futile attempts to get rid of the (uninvited) mice that insist on and persist in sharing his tipi in the snowy Colorado mountains; his tense stand-off with a mountain lion (even knowing, obviously, that the author survived didn't keep this part from being a heart-pounding experience for me); and his discussion of grizzly bears, which includes this marvelous description: "Most animals show themselves sparingly. The grizzly bear is six to eight hundred pounds of smugness. It has no need to hide. If it were a person, it would laugh loudly in quiet restaurants, boastfully wear the wrong clothes for special occasions, and probably play hockey." Pick the species you want to know more about, and read on. </p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1418223.jpg" alt="1418223.jpg" title="1418223.jpg" /><p><a href="">King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War</a> by Catrine Clay (2007)</p> <p>Although I was vaguely aware of the interconnectedness of the European royal families, I never really appreciated quite how close they actually were until I started Catrine Clay's eminently readable biography, King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War. Making excellent use of newly translated and recently discovered letters and other materials, Clay explores the events, both personal and public, that led up to World War I, focusing on the lives of the three cousins of her title: George, who became King of England; Nicky, destined to become Tsar of All the Russias after the death of his father, Alexander; and Wilhelm (known as William to his English relatives), who grew up to be the final Kaiser of Germany. To what extent did the characters of these three men lead inexorably to the war? Of what significance were other, more impersonal, factors? Did the very forms of government in their respective countries make war likely, if not inevitable? As Clay describes, despite the physical distances that separated the three boys as they were growing up, they developed close relationships with one another. They spent vacations together, "visited each other's homes, played together, celebrated each other's birthdays, danced with each other's sisters, and later attended each other's weddings. They were tied to one another by history, and history would tear them apart." She comes to the conclusion that "the relationships between the three, their personal likes and dislikes, did indeed contribute to the outbreak of hostilities." This is an excellent choice for both fans of biography and history. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1207761.jpg" alt="1207761.jpg" /><p><a href="">Cold Comfort Farm</a> by Stella Gibbons (1994)</p> <p>Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm has the mixed blessing of being among the very few books that have been made into equally good films. But, even if you've seen the movie (with Kate Beckinsale and Rufus Sewell among the stellar cast of actors), don't let that deter you from reading the book (which, however good the movie, still has something more to offer) - it's quite simply one of the funniest satirical novels of the last century. When Flora Poste is orphaned at the age of twenty, leaving her an income of a paltry hundred pounds a year on which to survive, she accepts the invitation of her relatives, the Starkadders, to come live with them at Cold Comfort, their dilapidated, perennially failing farm in Sussex, located just outside the town of Howling. There she discovers one extremely peculiar family. Aunt Ada Doom has pretty much refused to come out of her bedroom for almost seven decades, ever since the day that she saw "something nasty in the woodshed." And Aunt Ada Doom's children and grandchildren are equally eccentric. Flora's cousin Judith is depressed (well, who wouldn't be, in such a situation?), while Amos, Judith's husband, ignores the farm in favor of the hell-and-damnation preaching he does for the Church of the Quivering Brethren. Amos and Judith's sons and daughter, Seth, Reuben, and Elfine, have their own quirks. Then there's Adam, the handyman, who uses a twig to wash the dishes and dotes on the cows he cares for, whose names happen to be Graceless, Pointless, Feckless, and Aimless. Once Flora gets the lay of the land, so to speak, she decides that she could manage her relatives' lives better than they've been doing themselves - and she takes it upon herself to do so. The story of how she succeeds - or not - in clearing Cold Comfort Farm of the gloominess and foreboding that envelops it (and whether we ever learn what it was that Aunt Ada Doom saw in the woodshed all those years ago) makes for a most entertaining novel. </p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1427783.jpg" alt="1427783.jpg" title="1427783.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Conscience of a Liberal</a> by Paul Krugman (2007)</p> <p>Few write about politics and economics better than Paul Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, and twice-weekly op-ed columnist for <em>The New York Times.</em> His new book, The Conscience of a Liberal (the title is obviously intended to evoke Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative, one of the founding documents of the modern conservative movement) is a sweeping history and analysis of the political economy of the United States over the last 100 years, or so. He divides this history into three periods. The first he calls the "Long Gilded Age," from the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s to the coming of the New Deal in the 1930s, which he describes as "a period defined above all by persistently high levels of economic inequality," and (during the 1920s, in particular) characterized by "political polarization.between the dominant right and the embattled left." The second he calls "The Great Compression," the period following the New Deal and World War II, during which America became an essentially middle-class society. The rich had lost ground, the poor had benefited from the great boom in wages that began during wartime, and "there was a striking sense of economic commonality: Most people in America lived recognizably similar and remarkably decent material lives." Furthermore, "the equability of our economy was matched by moderation in our politics" (think the Eisenhower years here). The final period, beginning with the economic crisis of the 1970's (remember "stagflation"?) and culminating in the Bush administration, he calls "The Great Divergence," a time during which a small minority has gotten richer (much, much richer) and the middle class, at best, treads water, returning America to a New Gilded Age of income inequality (and, not coincidentally, in Krugman's view, bitter partisan politics). The central question that Krugman asks is what explains this historical arc in income inequality? And, specifically, is the conservative or the liberal analysis of this phenomenon the more valid one? This is an important book, especially during this political season. And don't be intimidated by the subject matter. Krugman's prose is lucid, his arguments easily accessible, and, believe it or not, this is (especially for the political junkies among us) a real page-turner.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1429371.jpg" alt="1429371.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Alphabet From A to Y With Bonus Letter, Z!</a> by Steve Martin and Roz Chast (2007)</p> <p>It goes without saying that the attraction of alphabet books is not that they're filled with suspense about how they'll end - count on it, the last letter will always be "Z." And it's not that they're filled with distinctive characters - the letters may look and sound different, but beneath the surface, they're all just letters. That's what makes alphabet books such a challenge for writers and illustrators. And the fun of such books is to see the inventiveness with which they meet that challenge (especially with regard to that pesky letter "X"!). The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z! marks an inspired collaboration between comedian Steve Martin and illustrator Roz Chast (best known for her longtime and frequent contributions to <em>The New Yorker.</em> For each letter, there's a rhymed couplet, filled with examples of the letter, and a charmingly humorous color drawing to complement the text. "M," for example is this: "Maniacal Marvin munched many a macaroon, / Making his middle a mini hot air balloon," and Chast's illustration is of grinning Marvin, floating next to many hot air balloons (all sporting words that begin with the letter "M"). And that most challenging letter, "X"? Here it is: "Ambidextrous Alex was actually axed / For waxing, then faxing, his boss's new slacks."</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1341902.jpg" alt="1341902.jpg" title="1341902.jpg" /><p><a href="">Lost in the Forest</a> by Sue Miller (2005)</p> <p>Sue Miller hit the bestseller list with her first novel, The Good Mother, and has been steadily publishing well-reviewed and enjoyable fiction ever since. But I believe her best book - ever - is Lost in the Forest. In it she tells a story of twin losses - the loss of love and the loss of innocence. When Eva's husband (and Daisy's stepfather) dies, the family he leaves behind is sent into a tailspin, culminating with teenage Daisy falling into a sexual relationship with the husband of her mother's best friend. What Miller does so well is craft each character with such precision that each one simply steps off the page and into your life. One of the ways she accomplishes this is to tell the story from multiple points of view, including those of Daisy's mother, Eva, of her father, Mark, and of Daisy herself, torn with sorrow at her stepfather's death, still angry at the divorce of her parents many years before, and both frightened and fascinated by her unhealthy introduction to sex. Miller handles a difficult subject with deep compassion. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1421222.jpg" alt="1421222.jpg" /><p><a href="">Last Night at the Lobster</a> by Stewart O'Nan (2007)</p> <p>With each new work of fiction, Stewart O'Nan has shown himself to be a graceful, insightful writer. His novels range widely, from historicals (The Circus Fire and A Prayer for the Dying) to those limning contemporary relationships (Snow Angels and The Good Wife). In his tenth novel, Last Night at the Lobster, O'Nan introduces us to Manny DeLeon, the manager of a Red Lobster restaurant in a run-down New Britain, Connecticut shopping mall. It's four days before Christmas, there's a prediction of two feet of snow, and that evening will be the restaurant's last. The corporate owners are closing it, and moving a few of the employees (including Manny) to an Olive Garden in the next town over. Meanwhile, Manny and his dwindling crew (several of whom are going to be out of work at the end of the day) have to be ready to serve whoever comes in the door. As the day progresses, the prediction of snow comes true, customers are few and far between, and some of the employees (even those not due to be let go at the end of the day) begin deserting the restaurant. Nevertheless, Manny tries to keep morale up and the service good. In this brief (less than 150 pages) novel, O'Nan brings Manny vividly to life: honest, diligent, and thoroughly committed to his job (just the sort of fellow any boss would be pleased to employ), though leavened with a few faults, of course, since no one's perfect. He's cheated on his girlfriend with one of the waitresses (though it's over), and he can't seem to really commit to her, even though the waitress is out of his life, but all in all, he's a straight-up guy. There aren't a lot of novels with perfectly decent heroes and even fewer with perfectly decent working class heroes: in this quiet novel that packs a punch, Stewart O'Nan has created one for the ages in Manny DeLeon.</p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1195891.jpg" alt="1195891.jpg" title="1195891.jpg" /><p><a href="">I Capture the Castle</a> by Dodie Smith (1999)</p> <p>American readers probably know the British writer Dodie Smith best - if they know her at all - as the author of the book The One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which was made into the popular 1961 Disney animated film. (As good as the movie is - and who can forget Cruella de Vil - the book offers its own particular pleasures.) In I Capture the Castle, first published in 1948, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain begins her account of her family's life in a dilapidated castle with these lines: "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." And write she does, all about her unpredictable, often irascible father, who published one critically acclaimed novel many years ago but developed a terrible writer's block and has been unable to produce anything since; her step-mother, Topaz, an artist's model who loves to commune with nature sans clothing; her beautiful older sister, Rose, who dreams of escaping from the family's poverty; her younger brother, Thomas, who together with Cassandra schemes to get their father back to writing; and Stephen, the orphan (son of their deceased housekeeper) raised by the Mortmains. But when an American family with two handsome, unattached sons moves into the estate next door, life for each of the Mortmains, as well as for Stephen, changes in dramatic ways. Cassandra continues writing, through heartache and happiness, giving us a book that's perfect for any woman with even a scintilla of romance in her heart, from the age of 12 to 112.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib030.jpg" alt="nobib030.jpg" /><p>Lost Geography: A Novel by Charlotte Bacon (2002)</p> <p>Lost Geography, by Charlotte Bacon, is a luminous first novel that fans of Alice Munro and Carol Shields will certainly enjoy. It tells the story of four generations of women (Margaret, Hilda, Danielle, and Sophie), and how each is both shaped by and, at the same time, transcends, her family history. The book begins with Margaret, growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan; succeeding generations move on to Toronto, France, and finally, Manhattan. As the stories of these four women unfold, readers get a feel for the distances everyone must travel as we each make our way through our lives, and how the geography of family and place shapes our decisions, by both expanding and limiting the choices available to us. Here's a scene that occurs when Hilda is helping her daughter, Danielle, get ready to move to France: "'All I've done is travel,' Hilda said. Later, Danielle would see that Hilda equated travel with survival. That she'd endured some difficult circumstances and wound up with work, a daughter, enough money, a satisfactory life. All that journeys meant to her were adaptations to difficulty. She understood, however that change of scene could mean something less fraught to other people." Bacon does an especially nice job of exploring the unsaid in relationships - those roiling, hidden feelings that lie beneath a seemingly placid surface. </p> <img style="float:right;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib028.jpg" alt="nobib028.jpg" title="nobib028.jpg" /><p>Novels in Three Lines by Félix Fénéon</p> <p>Félix Fénéon's Novels in Three Lines, translated and with an introduction by Luc Sante, is a collection of over a thousand brief items that Fénéon published anonymously in the French newspaper <em>Le Matin,</em> in 1906. Starting with longer news accounts of often inconsequential events that appealed, for whatever reason, to his sense of oddness - tales of death, love, hate, humor, and despair - Fénéon distilled each one down to its essence, and in the process demonstrates how a distinct sense of time, place, and feeling could be evoked in the briefest of stories. I was struck by the extent to which each of Fénéon's distillations did actually feel like a story (if not quite a novel) to me, one that was compelling enough to both engage me and leave me wanting to know more. I suspect that most American readers coming upon this book (like myself) won't know anything about the author, and will therefore find Luc Sante's introduction very useful. He describes Fénéon as a critical genius (he brought the artist Georges Seurat to the public's attention and was the first French publisher of James Joyce's work) and a mover and shaker in the history of modernism. To appreciate Fénéon's work, simply open this treasure trove at random and just begin reading. Along the way you'll find such exquisite three line gems as these:</p> <p>"Finding his daughter, 19, insufficiently austere, Jallat, watchmaker of Saint-Ãƒâ€°tienne, killed her. It is true that he has 11 children left."</p> <p>"On the riverbank at Saint-Cloud were found the saber and uniform of Baudet, the soldier who disappeared the 11th. Murder, suicide, or hoax?"</p> <p>"Catherine Rosello of Toulon, mother of four, got out of the way of a freight train. She was then run over by a passenger train."</p> <p>"As M. Poulbot, a teacher in Ile-Saint-Denis, rang the signal to return to class, the bell dropped, nearly scalping him."</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib029.jpg" alt="nobib029.jpg" /><p>An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters From Westerbork by Etty Hillesum (1996)</p> <p>An Interrupted Life, the Diaries of Etty Hillesum takes us into the inner world of a unique and complex woman as she confronts the issues and circumstances of World War II and the Holocaust. Often compared to the better-known diary of Anne Frank, Etty's diaries are those of a mature young woman, and provide a more complex perspective than that of the adolescent, albeit precocious, Anne. Though their perspectives are very different, the two writers do share a common theme: the importance of - the possibility of - maintaining one's humanity in the face of an inhumane world. In 1941, Etty, a 27-year-old Jewish woman living in Amsterdam, began an unconventional form of analysis with a well-regarded Jungian psycho-chirologist which included palm readings, wrestling matches, and deep spiritual inquiry. As part of her treatment, her analyst, Julius Spier, requested that she (already an aspiring writer) keep a journal recording her daily activities, thoughts, and dreams. The result is two years of obsessively kept, militantly honest and unabashedly intimate writing, tracking Etty's transformation from a suicidal, emotionally chaotic, sexually volatile young woman into a deeply reflective, spiritually aware person whose humanist social philosophy carries overtones of both Eastern and Western religions. Etty was a controversial figure in her day and continues to be in ours. She was not a resistance fighter; she refused go into hiding. Instead, Etty attempted to find a third response, one that emphasized present consciousness and personal responsibility. In some of her last letters, written to friends in Amsterdam from the transit camp Westerbork where she was held before being shipped to her death in Auschwitz at age 29, Etty reflects upon the system of destruction in which she is caught up. "We must mobilize our inner forces," she says. "If you cannot help us, oh God, then we must find a way to help you."</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4615 at Selections for January 2008 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1418947.jpg" alt="1418947.jpg" /><p><a href="">Territory</a> by Emma Bull (2007)</p> <p>Emma Bull's newest novel, Territory, belongs to a fantasy sub-genre that I find hard to resist, that of "alternate history." It typically starts with places and people that we think we know all about, and then gives them a subtle (or not so subtle) twist, creating a sort of parallel world which is different, in large and small ways, from the world we inhabit. The territory referred to in the title is Tombstone, Arizona. The "familiar" historical events around which the novel is built are those leading up to the famous shoot-out at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. Part of the fun here is having what you thought you knew about all those events undercut. And a typical result is to find yourself, as I did when I finished Territory, half-way convinced that Bull's version has as much truth in it as the old legends do. Maybe more, in fact. Mildred Benjamin is a widow who earns her living setting type for the local newspaper. She also, unbeknownst to her neighbors, writes genre westerns, or as they might have been called then, dime novels, all filled with the requisite themes of strangers come to town, heroism, moral frailty, and much derring-do involving guns and bars. When she meets Jesse Fox, a stranger from the East who's recently arrived in Tombstone, the two realize that - for good or ill - they share an ability to see beyond the appearances of things. Their discoveries about the dark forces afoot involving Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and others leads us to reexamine all we thought we knew about the time, the place, and the people. Bull's descriptions are captivating - about Doc Holliday she writes "no amount of wanting would make Doc an upstanding member of the community. He was a fine dentist - he just wasn't a fine person. And he was so good at being bad that it seemed like a genuine gift. One ought not to waste one's gifts." I was especially intrigued by the way Bull made use of the belief so prevalent among 19th century men and women - that one can go west and reinvent themselves - one of the themes of the novel. As Millie's boss tells her, "You're whoever you say you are, Millie. That's the point of coming west." I'm eagerly waiting for Bull to write the concluding volume in this two book series.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1419086.jpg" alt="1419086.jpg" /><p><a href="">Interred With Their Bones</a> by Jennifer Lee Carrell (2007)</p> <p>Readers searching for a fast-paced, yet intelligent and atmospheric mystery need look no farther than Interred With Their Bones, Jennifer Lee Carrell's impressive debut novel. When American Kate Stanley arrives in London to direct a new production of Shakespeare's Hamlet at the refurbished Globe Theater, her one-time close friend and professor, the eccentric and brilliant Harvard Shakespeare scholar Rosalind Howard, gives Kate a present, telling her that she must follow wherever the gift leads. Roz then goes on to inform Kate that she's made a mind-boggling discovery that will undoubtedly turn Shakespeare scholarship on its head. That night, before Kate has a chance to learn more, there's a fire at the theater, Roz's body is found in Kate's office, dead, and a valuable copy of Shakespeare's plays is discovered to be missing. Rosalind's death and her mysterious gift (it turns out be a Victorian mourning brooch that's entwined with all the flowers that are mentioned by Ophelia), set Kate off on an adventure that will take her back and forth across the Atlantic, from Stratford-upon-Avon to Washington, Utah, Spain, and deep into the heart of evil. In addition to being a greatly entertaining read, Interred with Their Bones is educational - it's a painless, nicely written, and entertaining way to learn more about Shakespeare, that man of mystery, and his writings.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1350984.jpg" alt="1350984.jpg" /><p><a href="">Lunch Money</a> by Andrew Clements (2005)</p> <p>Andrew Clements, author of Lunch Money, is one of the most reliable children's book writers around. (His best-known book is probably Frindle.) You can always count on Clements to come up with an unusual plot, realistic dialogue, and a cast of characters that will appeal to any group of eight to twelve-year-olds. For all of his young life, fifth-grader Greg Kenton has been deeply interested in money - making it, saving it and spending it on whatever he wants. Plus, he's obsessed with Maura, his classmate, next-door neighbor and would-be business competitor. So when Maura starts horning in on Greg's very successful Chunky Comics sales, it's all out war. Complications set in when their grouchy principal bars the sale of comic books in school, and Maura and Greg find themselves banding together to defeat their common enemy. The humor and sprightly writing makes this an excellent choice for reading aloud. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1417962.jpg" alt="1417962.jpg" /><p><a href="">A Killer's Kiss</a> by William Lashner (2007)</p> <p>Of all the lawyer-as-detective mysteries that are available these days, among the ones I most look forward to are those by William Lashner featuring Philadelphia criminal lawyer Victor Carl. How could anyone resist a protagonist who uses the exclamations "yowza" and "gad" to express his feelings? Not me. Carl is a good attorney, but not a very successful one. He always seems to be teetering on the edge of going broke, so he's frequently forced to take cases no one else will, and he's not above using deceit, dodgy ethics, and downright trickery to get his clients off. Often, his cases involve friends, or friends of friends. A Killer's Kiss marks his 7th appearance between the pages of a book. When the police come to Carl's door in the middle of the night, they have a grim message to tell him: the very wealthy and successful husband of his former fiancée, Julia, has been murdered, a large sum of money has disappeared, and all the evidence points to Julia as the killer. What the cops don't know is that Julia has recently tried (with some success) to get back together with Victor - husband or no husband. This, to put it mildly, places Victor in an awkward position. As he sorts through clues, deals with murderous thugs who have a personal interest in the absent money, and matches wits with cops who are more than willing to make him a suspect, too, he finds himself falling back in love with Julia (if he ever stopped), even if she is guilty. As in all of the Victor Carl mysteries, the plot is satisfyingly complex, making it almost impossible for anyone to figure out whodunit (and how) before the last page is turned. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1185551.jpg" alt="1185551.jpg" /><p><a href="">Spindle's End</a> by Robin McKinley(2001)</p> <p>In Spindle's End, Robin McKinley uses the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty as a springboard into a totally original story, set in a world that's vividly evoked. Here's how the book begins: "The magic in that country was so thick and tenacious that it settled over the land like chalk-dust and over floors and shelves like slightly sticky plaster-dust. (Housecleaners in that country earned unusually good wages.)" If there are fantasy fans who could resist that opening, I'm not one of them. And it only gets better. Out of revenge for an injustice done four centuries before, the evil fairy Pernicia casts a terrible curse on Princess Casta Albinia Allegra Dove Minerva Fidelia Aletta Blythe Domina Delicia Aurelia Grace Isabel Griselda Gwyneth Pearl Ruby Coral Lily Iris Briar-Rose's naming day: one day, some time before her 21st birthday, the Princess will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, which will cause her to fall into a deep sleep from which no one can wake her. Sounds like Sleeping Beauty, right? Ah - but here's where the differences begin: Katriona, a young fairy, determines to save Briar-Rose from this terrible fate, and she kidnaps the baby and takes her home to the village of Foggy Bottom, hoping to hide her from Pernicia's evil. Will Pernicia prevail in spite of Katriona's best intentions? Will good win out over wickedness? Will Rosie, who's grown up as a more or less perfectly ordinary girl, accept her fate as the doomed princess? This beautifully conceived and executed novel is perfect for any reader, of any age, with a hint of romance in her (or his) soul.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1421770.jpg" alt="1421770.jpg" /><p><a href="">Gimme Cracked Corn &amp; I Will Share</a> by Kevin O'Malley (2007)</p> <p>You can always count on Kevin O'Malley for an entertaining picture book - his Little Buggy has long been a favorite of mine. But even by the standard of his past work, Gimme Cracked Corn &amp; I Will Share is something special. In the spirit of the book and its barnyard setting, I'd go so far as to say that it's something eggstra-special. Although it's clearly aimed at five and six-year-olds who are just beginning to appreciate the possibilities of language and the pleasures of playing with words, this groanworthy, pun-filled picture book will delight the grownups in their lives, as well. "One night," the book begins, "Chicken had a dream. He dreamed that in a beautiful barn, buried under a great pink pig, was a treasure of cracked corn - all the corn that any chicken could ever want." When he tells his friend George, George says, "You must be yolking," and "What are you--a comedi-hen?" Nevertheless, when Chicken sets out the next morning to follow his dream, George agrees to go with him, explaining that he's been "feeling a little cooped up lately." An adventure, and further wordplay, ensues. Readers, young and old, will probably cackle with amusement as they follow Chicken and George's eggstrordinarily entertaining adventure.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1158271.jpg" alt="1158271.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Paris Review Interviews, Vols. 1 and 2. Vol. 1: Picador</a> edited by George Plimpton (2006)</p> <p>Reading the first two volumes in the The Paris Review: Interviews series (a third is to be published in 2008, edited, like the first two, by Philip Gourevitch) is like having the chance to listen in to fascinating conversations with a diverse collection of 20th century writers of all stripes. Among the interviewees are William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Isaac Bashevis Singer, T.S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Toni Morrison, Philip Larkin, and many others. The interviewers - no slouches themselves - include poet Donald Hall (talking to Eliot), George Plimpton (Hemingway and Thurber), Jeanne McCulloch and Mona Simpson (Alice Munro), and Christopher Lehmann-Haupt and Nathaniel Rich (Stephen King). Time and again these interviews yield remarkable insights into the writer and his or her work. Faulkner offers an anecdote about his experience writing for Hollywood; John Gardner talks about the role of the writer in society, critiquing John O'Hara and John Updike, and quotes Robert Louis Stevenson on reading; James Thurber explains the difference between American and British humor; James Baldwin comments on his relationship to his mentor, Richard Wright; Harold Bloom confesses his longtime love for Sophia Loren and dishes on Norman Mailer, William Gaddis and Saul Bellow ("He's an enormous pleasure but he does not make things difficult enough for himself or for us."); and Alice Munro discusses how she reacts to a rereading of her older work. These splendid collections of interviews satisfied both the writer and the reader in me.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1390943.jpg" alt="1390943.jpg" /><p><a href="">On Agate Hill</a> by Lee Smith (2006)</p> <p>Of the many historical novels about the Civil War, only a handful take place during the period immediately following the war. Of that handful, Lee Smith's On Agate Hill stands out. Smith's protagonist, Molly Petree, is a gutsy heroine who's buffeted about by both public events (the war and its aftermath) and private ones (the strengths and weaknesses that humans are prone to). We are made aware of these events through a montage of her journals, letters, songs, poems and court records. This narrative style allows us both to see the world through her eyes, and to get a wider view of the world within which she is living. The journals begin in 1872, on Molly's 13th birthday. She's living at Agate Hill, her uncle's dilapidated plantation house in North Carolina, where life (and the house) is going from bad to worse. She's finally rescued by the mysterious Simon Black, her father's best friend, who sends her off to an elite boarding school in Virginia (and keeps a benign eye on her for the rest of her life). After spending a rather turbulent four years at school, headstrong Molly decides to become a teacher in Appalachia, where she meets, falls in love with, and marries a sweet-talking musician named Jacky Jarvis. Their life together in a North Carolina mountain holler carries her - with joy and sorrow - though middle age, when a catastrophic event turns her life in yet another direction. Smith, a master storyteller, offers us in On Agate Hill both the opportunity to share the life of a memorable character, and entrée into a world that will be quite new to all but the Civil War history buffs among us.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1159018.jpg" alt="1159018.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Thief</a> by Megan Whalen Turner (1996)</p> <p>Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief is one of the most satisfying books for kids ten and up that I've read recently. It's the first in a trilogy, followed by Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia. The eponymous protagonist is Gen, imprisoned deep in the King of Sounis's dungeons after stealing the King's gold ring. His chance at freedom comes when the King's magus takes him along on a dangerous journey that requires Gen's talents to succeed: he must steal Hamiathes's Gift (a precious stone that reserves for its owner the right to rule) from its well-guarded hiding place. If Gen succeeds, he'll be rewarded; if he fails, he'll die. And there will be no escape from the magus, who promises to track him down from one end of the earth to the other if he tries to get away. There are many adventures and not a few surprises in store for both Gen and readers alike before the last page is turned in this extremely satisfying novel. Gen is a terrific hero, a mixture of bravado and cunning, and the well evoked settings - three warring kingdoms, Eddis, Attolia, and Sounis, which loosely resemble the city-states of ancient Greece - will ring true to readers.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib025.jpg" alt="nobib025.jpg" /><p>Tight Lines: Ten Years of the Yale Anglers' Journal by Joseph Furia, editor (2007)</p> <p>I have never actually been fishing, but I know people who have, some of whom even refer to themselves as "anglers." For them, it's hard to know if the activity is a sport, a pastime, or makes up their entire life. But the anglers I know, of all stripes, sizes, and devotion to the rod and reel, are always eager to read about other anglers' love of angling. For them, and for non-fisherfolk who, like me, just enjoy reading about anything and everything, check out Tight Lines: Ten Years of the Yale Anglers' Journal. The reader should be forewarned that the journal in question is literary, not instructional. It was conceived of, and is still edited by, Yale undergraduates. What I found so enjoyable about this collection of offerings is its diversity of contributors. There's a memoir by Jimmy Carter, a selection of poems by William Butler Yeats, and 48 other poems, essays, stories and reminiscences that will introduce readers to writers, young and old, who are much less well-known. I particularly enjoyed Mark Spitzer's humorous essay, "Gittin' Myself a Garfish," which begins with the tantalizing line, "Still, it's frustrating not to git a garfish"; Robert Tisdale's lovely poem, "At Home in the Midwest"; and two accounts of fishing in foreign waters: Peter Fong's "Scratching the Surface, in Borneo" and "A Tale of Talau" by Richard Kenneth Stoll, both of which, to my surprise, made me contemplate the most unlikely possibility of me actually taking a fishing vacation.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib026.jpg" alt="nobib026.jpg" /><p>Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols (1998)</p> <p>Gardeners will love reading Beverley Nichols' Merry Hall, as well as the two books which complete the trilogy, Laughter on the Stairs and Sunlight on the Lawn. (They were originally published in the 1950s, in England.) Fans of British fiction of the sort written by E.F. Benson (as in Mapp and Lucia), Barbara Pym (my favorite is No Fond Return of Love), and even P.G. Wodehouse's tales of Bertie and Jeeves - that is, lovingly humorous descriptions of people and places - will also adore these. And if you count yourself as both a gardener and an anglophile (and you know who you are!), then you have a double treat in store. Just from the first few sentences, you can get a feel for Nichols' style and wry sense of humor: "Some fall in love with women; some fall in love with art; some fall in love with death. I fall in love with gardens, which is much the same as falling in love with all three at once." He's always happy to share his opinions on people and plants. For example: "Begonias are not flowers," he states, "they are a state of mind, and a regrettable state into the bargain." His tale of redoing a decrepit 200-year-old house and its gardens in post-World War II England all the while coping with the ghosts of owners past, and the descriptions of his encounters with the people around him, including Oldfield, the estate's ancient gardener (whom he tries to persuade to plant the "boolbs" he so despises), his Wodehousian factotum, Gaskin (who believes strongly in "first things first" and bemoans his employer's diversions from the task at hand, whatever it may be), and the vegetarian Miss Emily Kaye (who refuses to take no for answer), are simply delightful.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib027.jpg" alt="nobib027.jpg" /><p>Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (2002)</p> <p>It's impossible for me to choose my all-time favorite book, but if I were pressed for my top ten, say, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is certainly among them. He's probably best known for his ÃƒÂ¼ber-cyberpunk science fiction novel, Snow Crash (first published in 1992 and the inspiration for the online virtual world, Second Life), but it's Cryptonomicon, published in 1999, and often mis-shelved in libraries and bookstores alongside Snow Crash in the science fiction section, that I press on friends and strangers alike who are looking for a book that's a page-turning adventure that will teach them things they didn't know before (theory of randomness, and many facets of cryptanalysis, for two), and make them think. This wildly ambitious, brilliant novel is difficult to describe briefly, both because of its complexity and the large cast of characters; it's set in various times and places, including the Pacific Theater during World War II, Bletchley Park in England, home to the men and women working on decoding Nazi transmissions, as well as a fictitious country called Kinakuta, where a group of contemporary computer geeks are attempting to set up a data haven. Stephenson's main protagonists are invented, but they mix and mingle with historical characters like Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Douglas MacArthur, Ronald Reagan, and Alan Turing, among others. Stephenson deftly moves the action back and forth among time periods, locations, and the lives of his sundry characters, several of whom I developed a huge fondness for. Perhaps Stephenson's closest literary compatriot is David Foster Wallace, whose writing - like that of Stephenson - also reveals a deep intelligence, prodigious imagination, and a sly sense of humor.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4614 at Selections for December 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1231810.jpg" alt="1231810.jpg" /><p><a href="">Lucky in the Corner</a> by Carol Abshaw (2002)</p> <p>There was a time in my childhood when I read nothing but books about dogs and horses, and I still have a definite soft spot for novels in which there's a dog in the plot, whether his (or her) role is large or not. So, you can imagine how pleased I was to come across Lucky in the Corner, by Carol Anshaw. Although Lucky, a dog of indeterminate breed, is not around for a large number of scenes, he definitely steals every one of the ones he's in. Plus, it's his name in the title! Lucky in the Corner is one the most good-hearted novels I've ever read. It's a tender and insightful novel about friendship, love, passion, and family relationships. The main characters are Nora, her 21-year-old daughter Fern (who has never really forgiven Nora for leaving her husband and coming out as a lesbian when Fern was 11 - an event which, in Fern's view, destroyed their family), Nora's cross-dressing brother Harold (and his alter-ego Dolores), and Fern's best friend, Tracy, a single mother who is not quite ready for the responsibilities of single-motherhood and who increasingly leaves her baby son, Vaughn, in Fern's care. Anshaw presents each of these people with such compassion and understanding that anyone, gay or straight, cross-dressing or not, 20-something or 50-something, can empathize with them and wish them well as they struggle to make their way through an often difficult, occasionally turbulent, and sometimes unfair life. But (you won't be surprised to know) the character who I most loved was Fern's dog, Lucky. I realized that his approaching death from old age (which Fern dreads more than almost anything else) works as a metaphor for all that human beings have to go through before we finally grow up.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1414803.jpg" alt="1414803.jpg" /><p><a href="">Acacia: Book One: The War With the Mein</a> by David Anthony Durham (2007)</p> <p>In the right authorial hands, a fantasy novel can be not only a rousing read, but - because the author is limited only by his or her imagination in creating characters and settings - can also provide a unique opportunity for crystallizing and providing insight into the very real world that we live in. David Anthony Durham is such an author and Acacia: Book One: The War With the Mein is such a book. Fans of Durham's historical novels, including Pride of Carthage, the story of Hannibal's march on Rome in 218 B.C., know how well he can make the past come alive, but even they may be surprised, and newly impressed, by his accomplishment here. The rulers of the Akaran Dynasty's empire, known as Acacia, maintain their power through a thriving trade in drugs and slaves. The king of Acacia, Leodan, keeps the sordid details of his rule from his children - he wants reform, but is helpless to bring it about. When Acacia falls to the Mein (and Durham does not spare us the bloody details of war), Leodan is killed but his four children, Aliver, Corinn, Mena and Dariel, escape into hiding. Years pass, and the day comes when Leodan's now grown children set out to avenge the death of their father and regain the empire that is their birthright. This page-turning adventure includes examples of heroism, treachery, love, and bloodshed (with, because it is fantasy, after all, some bits of magic thrown into the mix).</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1222297.jpg" alt="1222297.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins: An Illuminating History of Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, Artist and Lecturer</a> by Barbara Kerley (2000)</p> <p>Readers of all ages - say 6 to 106 - should check out The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins: An Illuminating History of Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, Artist and Lecturer, written by Barbara Kerley and illustrated by Brian Selznick. It's the true story of a Victorian artist whose interest in dinosaurs led to a career creating reproductions of them for the public to enjoy. In 1868, after achieving fame as a re-creator of dinosaurs in England, Hawkins was invited to New York to build life-size models of dinosaurs for display in a new museum to be built in Central Park. But when Waterhouse ran afoul of the notorious Boss Tweed, the project was stopped in its tracks. Hawkins' life is captured in both the text and the large and colorful period illustrations, which together will delight and inform readers as they discover the life and work of an almost forgotten 19th-century artist and scientist. And best of all, anyone really caught up in the story can travel to Sydenham Park, south of London, to see some of Hawkins' amazing creations in person.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1416292.jpg" alt="1416292.jpg" /><p><a href="">Dead Ex</a> by Harley Jane Kozak (2007)</p> <p>Those on the lookout for a light, bright and amusing read will be as happy as I was to discover Harley Jane Kozak's Dead Ex. This is the third book in Kozak's mystery series featuring Wollstonecraft ("Wollie") Shelley, erstwhile greeting card designer, muralist and (in this book) new correspondent for the TV show SoapDirt, in which she dates hunky soap stars and then dishes about them on air. (The first two books in the series are Dating Dead Men and Dating is Murder - I don't think you really need to read them in any particular order.) When television producer David Zetrakis (one of the most prominent "Mr. Wrongs" of Hollywood) is murdered, the police suspect Wollie's best friend, actress Joey Rafferty, who had not only been one of Zetrakis's lovers, but was once the star of his long running television soap opera, until he unceremoniously fired her. Given those circumstances, plus the fact that the dead man bequeathed a valuable Gustav Klimt painting to her, the LAPD figures they've got their man (or woman, in this case) and sees no reason to look any further than Joey. Naturally (and to the immense annoyance of Simon, her FBI agent boyfriend), Wollie ropes in several friends and relatives, old and new, to help her clear Joey of the crime. In the process, she discovers that real life can be as wacky - but a lot more dangerous - than even daytime television portrays it. Kozak, who's a movie and television actress herself, has dreamed up a supporting cast of appealingly three-dimensional characters, among them Wollie's schizophrenic brother, P.B., an uncle obsessed with Greek mythology, and her good friend, the improbably named Fredreeq, all of whom add greatly to the enjoyment of the novel. Fans of Janet Evanovich's mysteries won't want to miss this.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1410531.jpg" alt="1410531.jpg" /><p><a href="">Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction Is Changing Men, Women and the World</a> by Liza Mundy (2007)</p> <p>Liza Mundy's Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction Is Changing Men, Women, and the World is a mesmerizing discussion of the modern medical field of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). When I first picked it up, I wondered if there was really enough material to justify a whole book, or if it was going to be - like so much investigative and/or narrative nonfiction today - essentially a long magazine article stretched out (with much unnecessary filler) to book length. But once I started reading it, I realized that this is one of those topics that is definitely worth a whole book. Mundy begins with numbers: 80 million people across the globe suffer from infertility; 500,000 frozen embryos are currently in storage in the United States alone; three billion dollars worth of fertility drugs are sold each year. She then goes on to describe the current state of Assisted Reproductive Technology, as well as the myriad issues it gives rise to: Do children born from sperm and/or egg donors have a moral, and should they have a legal, right to know who their genetic parents, and even siblings, are? Is it ethical for women experiencing multiple pregnancies to delete unwanted fetuses? What is, or should be, the attitude of society, and the medical profession, toward the use of ART to help single women (or men) become parents? What about gay men and lesbians, single or partnered? Throughout the book, and this is one of its main strengths, Mundy humanizes the topic by including interviews with doctors, patients, parents and children whose lives were changed by the particular ART being discussed. Thorough, eminently readable, and eye-opening, this is indeed an entry point into a brave new world. Definitely suggest this one to your book club. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1428212.jpg" alt="1428212.jpg" /><p><a href="">Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians</a> by Brandon Sanderson (2007)</p> <p>Perhaps there are some people (even librarians) who could resist a book titled Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, but I'm not one of them. Brandon Sanderson's novel, written for 9- to13-year-olds, introduces readers to Alcatraz Smedry, who has spent most of his life so far in foster homes, moving from one to another as each set of foster parents gets fed up with his clumsiness, despite his protestations that he doesn't break things on purpose. On his 13th birthday, Alcatraz receives a strange sort of present - a bag of sand! - from his real parents. But the gift is soon (and inexplicably - why in the world would anyone want a bag of sand?) stolen from him by a group of evil librarians bent on world domination. Only Alcatraz can prevent these librarians from fulfilling their dastardly plan. First, of course, he and his fellow world-savers (a group that includes Alcatraz's grandfather Leavenworth - all the Smedry men are named for prisons - and assorted other characters) have to infiltrate the local library. Sanderson's novel, apparently intended to be the first in a series, is funny, exciting, and briskly paced, making it a good choice to read aloud. As a bonus, it gives young readers the potentially helpful message that a person's flaws - being habitually late, having a tendency to break things, etc. - can sometimes turn into an advantage. (Alert adult science fiction and fantasy fans will recognize the authors memorialized in Grandpa Smedry's frequent exclamations, like "Blistering Brooks" and "Rumbling Rawns.")</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1403747.jpg" alt="1403747.jpg" /><p><a href="">Body Surfing</a> by Anita Shreve (2007)</p> <p>Each time I pick up a novel by Anita Shreve, I'm reminded of what a graceful and smart storyteller she is, and how willing she is to confront the betrayals that are often at the heart of human relationships. In Body Surfing, 29-year-old Sydney Sklar has had more than her share of pain in relationships. Already once divorced, and once widowed, she takes a job with the Edwards family at their New Hampshire summer home, where she is to tutor 18-year-old Julie. (This same house was the setting for two more of my favorites of Shreve's novels, Sea Glass and The Pilot's Wife.) When Ben and Jeff, Julie's two older brothers, arrive for a summer weekend, Sydney unwittingly becomes a pawn in an old battle between the ever-competitive brothers. The strength of Body Surfing, one of Shreve's best novels, is that she is unflinching in portraying the icy depths of old angers and resentments, and the damage they can do, and the havoc they can wreak, when they resurface. Sometimes, she shows us, things just don't work out: old wounds don't heal, and siblings are not always able to overcome their childhood conflicts and become friends. The ending of the novel is sad, unexpected, and at the same time completely right.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1414588.jpg" alt="1414588.jpg" /><p><a href="">By George</a> by Wesley Stace (2007)</p> <p>In By George, author Wesley Stace weaves together the life stories of two different Georges--one human and the other a wooden ventriloquist's dummy. In 1973, 11-year-old George Fisher, who comes from a long line of show business folks, and is something of a misfit, is sent off to boarding school when his famous actress mother goes on tour in Peter Pan. George is heartsick at being separated from the mother he adores, but even more he can't bear the thought of leaving his beloved 93-year-old great grandmother, Evangeline. She once performed as a ventriloquist, and passed that talent on to her son, George's grandfather, Joe, whose own dummy was also named George. School is just as bad as (the human) George fears, until he's befriended by the headmaster and by the school's groundskeeper, who presents him with a how-to book on ventriloquism, a gift that will change George's life. Meanwhile, the wooden George relates his own experiences of working with (the human) George's grandfather, especially those years during World War II when Joe and (wooden) George were sent overseas to entertain the British troops. Neither of the two Georges is aware of the existence of the other, until a series of events brings them together and brings long buried family secrets to light. This inventive novel rewards the reader with its intelligence, its wit, its poignancy, and its splendid writing. By George, I loved this book!</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib021.jpg" alt="nobib021.jpg" /><p>Double Negative by David Carkeet (2005)</p> <p>Before I read David Carkeet's Double Negative, it never occurred to me that a linguistics laboratory doubling as a day care center (or vice versa) could ever be the setting for a mystery novel - and a highly enjoyable one at that. Boy, was I ever wrong! Jeremy Cook, the one acknowledged genius among his fellow linguists at the Wabash Institute, is, well, a genius at developing theories about the language development of children, but he's totally inept in the area of interpersonal relationships, especially those involving the fairer sex. He becomes the main suspect when fellow linguist Arthur Stiph is found murdered in Jeremy's office, at least in the eyes of Lieutenant Leaf, one of the most entertaining policemen I've had the pleasure of encountering in the many pages of mystery fiction I've read over the years. How Jeremy finds the culprit (with the help of a 16-month-old toddler who hasn't yet learned to talk) and wins the heart of beautiful research assistant Paula will delight language lovers and anyone who enjoys witty, intelligent whodunits. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib022.jpg" alt="nobib022.jpg" /><p>The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat (1998)</p> <p>Every year, as Seattle's glorious summer fades away, its days get shorter, and the perpetually gray and rainy weather of a Seattle winter takes hold, I dig my light box out of the closet and I reread Farley Mowat's The Dog Who Wouldn't Be. It's a book that never fails to cheer me up. Mowat spent much of his Dust Bowl-era childhood in Saskatoon, on the great plains of Saskatchewan, where his father worked as a librarian. When Farley's mother unexpectedly buys a strange looking puppy of no determinate breed (whom they name Mutt), none of the Mowats could have predicted the sort of character (if a dog can be said to be a character - and the evidence here would certainly argue yes) they'd end up living with. Mutt is a dog who knows his own mind - he climbs ladders, rides in the back seat of the Mowat's Model A (outfitted with goggles to protect his eyes from the never-ending dust of the prairies - there's a great scene in which Farley and his father go into a drugstore to purchase the protective eye-gear for Mutt), feigns deafness when he wants to get out of doing something that in his mind, at least, is distasteful (like being bathed), and, after much resistance, learns the ins and outs of the "retrieving game." (I still laugh aloud when I remember the scene in which Mutt retrieves a stuffed grouse.) With a chortle or belly-laugh available on nearly every page, this is a perfect book for the whole family to read together.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib023.jpg" alt="nobib023.jpg" /><p>A Death in Brazil: A Book of Omissions by Peter Robb (2005)</p> <p>I am a bit embarrassed to admit it, but before reading Peter Robb's A Death in Brazil I knew almost nothing about this fifth largest country in the world (except that, unlike the rest of Spanish-speaking South America, its national language is Portuguese). But as a result of my initial ignorance, Robb's book offered me the experience that so often leads me to seek out nonfiction in my reading life - that of learning about something new. Robb's ostensible subject is the disastrous presidency of Fernando Collor, the murder of his trusted associate, P.C. Farias, and the rise to political power of the current president of Brazil, Luiz InÃƒÂ¡cio "Lula" da Silva. But along the way, he offers up a leisurely look at Brazilian history, including the events surrounding the first contact of Portuguese explorers with the indigenous indios, the development of the huge differential between the wealthy and the poor in contemporary Brazil, and the repercussions of the country's historical dependence on slavery, especially as it plays out in the racism that is still part of Brazilian society. The book reads almost like an ultra-addictive telenovela, one of those TV soap operas whose characters' lives are a merry-go-round of tragedy, comedy, sex, and violence, except that Robb is writing about real life.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib024.jpg" alt="nobib024.jpg" /><p>Little, Big by John Crowley (2006)</p> <p>John Crowley's Little, Big is, quite simply, one of the most amazing novels I've ever read. In and out of print almost from the time it was first published in 1981, I only read it myself a few years ago. (And all the way through it, I kept asking myself, "What on earth have you been reading all these years that you missed this?") Although it's probably most often thought of as fantasy, it's really too complex and unpredictable to be easily assigned to one particular genre or another; it's both emotionally satisfying and intellectually challenging. Through the experiences of several generations of the Bramble-Drinkwater-Mouse-Barnable clan, Crowley shows us just how close (and yet how far) the world of faerie is to our own world, and how the two worlds can converge at points and yet be separated by seemingly unbridgeable chasms at others. Its setting is primarily Edgewood, the Drinkwater family home, from the late 19th century through the late 20th, although there are long portions set in the City (which is modeled on New York). We're introduced to the clan through Smoky Barnable, who falls in love-at-first-sight with Daily Alice Drinkwater (and she with him) and goes to live with her in her family's home (designed two generations before by her great-grandfather John Drinkwater), on the edge of a great wood. Crowley has filled the novel with many tales of lovers meeting (and some parting); of plans made and gone awry; and of attempts to understand what just might be beyond our powers to comprehend. I can imagine some eager English PhD student writing a doctoral dissertation on Crowley's influences in Little, Big - I can see how he's made use of the fables of Aesop, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Shakespeare, T.H. White, and Gabriel GarcÃƒÂ­a MÃƒÂ¡rquez, among others. (I must say that although I didn't think it was possible to write a fantasy novel after the 1950s without a hint of Middle Earth, there's no sign of J.R.R. Tolkien's influence here.) If you want to read a fabulous novel but fear that fantasy is not your thing, you can easily approach Little, Big as one of the best examples of a homegrown version of what in Latin American literature we refer to as magic realism.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4613 at Selections for November 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1395230.jpg" alt="1395230.jpg" /><p><a href="">Nothing But the Truth (And a Few White Lies)</a> by Justina Chen Headley (2007)</p> <p>One of the knocks on many contemporary novels for teens is that they tend to be bleak - terrible things happen to their angst-ridden protagonists, it's always raining (metaphorically, at least), and the chance of a they-lived-happily-ever-after ending is poor, if not impossible. Of course, nobody, least of all me, is arguing that adolescence is a bed of roses - or that it should be portrayed that way in fiction - but I must say it was refreshing to read Justina Chen Headley's decidedly upbeat debut novel, Nothing But the Truth (And a Few White Lies). The author has given her protagonist, high school student Patty Ho, some difficult problems to deal with in the summer between her freshman and sophomore years. These include the perennial teen novel problem of learning to accept yourself (made more complicated here by the fact that Patty is half Taiwanese and half white), as well as racism, the highs and lows of first love, and a mother who has never told Patty one thing about her absent father. Headley also gives Patty an intelligent, self-mocking, and quite funny voice, which makes all the difference in how we read and perceive the novel. When a Chinese fortuneteller (who's intuiting Patty's future through her belly button) sees a white guy in Patty's future, her mother decides to keep Patty's mind off love with the wrong sort of boy by sending her to math camp. Being away from her super-strict mother, dating Stu Huang, being paired with a roommate who breaks all the rules (and stereotypes), and getting to know her Auntie Lu all combine to give Patty a secure sense of herself and her place in the world. And best of all, there's no bleakness in sight.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1405014.jpg" alt="1405014.jpg" /><p><a href="">Made to Stick</a> by Chip Heath (2007)</p> <p>Ever wonder why one idea or brand name is unforgettable and another just slips in and out of your mind like water passing under a bridge? Brothers Chip and Dan Heath explore just that in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Dan, a teacher and textbook publisher, and Chip, a business professor at Stanford, propose that the answer lies in a particular quality of such phenomena, which they label stickiness. They offer tips and techniques to writers, speakers, and those involved in creative endeavors of all sorts to enhance the stickiness of their ideas and products. Their message is as applicable for marketers and speech writers as it is for college professors and even parents. The Heaths' formula for stickiness boils down to making use of six elements: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. (With one more "s" word, they could have had the acronym "success," and there's nothing like a good acronym for stickiness, but I couldn't come up with a good "s" word.) The Heaths offer examples from a wide swath of people and situations, including Mother Teresa, John F. Kennedy, Nora Ephron, Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign (remember "It's the economy, stupid"?), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Steve Jobs, as well as memorable urban legends and Subway's most successful advertising campaign (Jared Fogle's dieting success on a Subway-heavy diet - I'm sure you remember it). We can only hope that if enough people read this fast moving, entertaining, and very useful book, none of us will ever again have to suffer through yet another boring and humdrum PowerPoint presentation.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1415113.jpg" alt="1415113.jpg" /><p><a href="">Dancing With Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's</a> by Lauren Kessler (2007)</p> <p>For most people, the word "Alzheimer's" conjures up a vision of difficult personality changes, lost memories, and a slow decline to death. It has taken its place alongside "cancer" as the word that no one wants to hear in connection with themselves or their loved ones. Yet an estimated 5 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and it's hard to find anyone whose life has not been touched in some way by the disease. For journalist and professor Lauren Kessler, the news of her mother's diagnosis impelled her to take a job as one of the low-paid resident assistants at an Alzheimer's care facility in Oregon. She writes about her experiences in Dancing With Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's, one of the most compassionate accounts of working with the ill and aged that I've ever read. About a dozen residents live in each "neighborhood" in the home; each includes private rooms and baths, a common kitchen, and enclosed patios for the patients. Kessler and her fellow resident assistants are each assigned to a neighborhood, where they assist the residents with the ADLs (activities of daily living) of toileting, showering, dressing, and eating, as well as doing their laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and emptying the garbage from their rooms. As she comes to know those in her care, Kessler discovers that even within the fog of dementia many of them are still able to love, to laugh, to experience friendship and pleasure; they are, in fact, in many ways perfect practitioners of the Buddhist philosophy of living in the present moment. When asked about her day, one patient says, "I don't remember what we did... but that doesn't matter. It was sure fun while it was happening." Kessler offers readers a new way of looking at and thinking about Alzheimer's that just may take some of the dread of the disease away.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1251294.jpg" alt="1251294.jpg" /><p><a href="">Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy</a> by Andro Linklater (2003)</p> <p>Despite its grandiose if somewhat vague subtitle, Andro Linklater's engaging, easygoing, and informative Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy is actually about, well, measurement. (It occurred to me upon finishing it that a better, but possibly more boring, subtitle might have been "How the United States Became the Only Industrial Society In the World that Doesn't Use the Metric System.") Following the Revolutionary War, a deeply indebted United States was in desperate need of accumulating cash through the sales of its most valuable asset, the federal land outside the original 13 states. But before that could occur, the land had to be measured. This is the story of that great and (Linklater convincingly argues) historically significant measurement. Its main character is the surveyor Thomas Hutchinson and his decision about the choice of units with which that measurement was to be done. Thomas Jefferson argued for the meters and kilometers of the metric system used in France, among other countries, but Hutchinson ended up sticking to the traditional surveyor's chain, a unit of measurement (as well as an actual device) that had been used in Britain for centuries, and which results in the miles and acres with which we are all so familiar. But this is not only a history of measurement (though that's much more interesting than you might think) - Linklater also covers such topics as the Jeffersonian ideal of the small farmer, the shape of building blocks, and the conflict between speculators and western settlers. This is a great example of the sort of oddball history that's frequently so much fun to read.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1028445.jpg" alt="1028445.jpg" /><p><a href="">Tico and the Golden Wings</a> by Leo Lionni (2007)</p> <p>Leo Lionni's career as a creator of picture books is long and distinguished. The author and illustrator of more than 40 books (four of them Caldecott Honor books, including Inch By Inch; Swimmy; Frederick; and Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse), he offers children imaginative and thoughtful stories accompanied by meticulously drawn and colorful pictures. Tico and the Golden Wings, first published in 1964, has just been reissued with the original gold ink of Tico's wings restored to the illustrations. Because Tico (a bird) was born without any wings, he can't join his friends as they fly hither and yon. Being good friends, they always bring back presents for Tico, but still he wishes that he could fly, too. And one night he gets his wish - golden wings that shimmer in the moonlight. But Tico's friends are upset and jealous because his wings are more beautiful than theirs. How Tico learns the real value of his golden wings, and how he copes with his friends' envy and learns that being different is not bad, is a fable that children (and adults) can (and will) treasure.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1418815.jpg" alt="1418815.jpg" /><p><a href="">Out Stealing Horses</a> by Per Petterson (2007)</p> <p>Out Stealing Horses, by award-winning Norwegian writer Per Petterson, is best read slowly, the better to savor his spare and restrained prose, and the nuances of the slowly emerging plot. Petterson's narrative style is one that is not often encountered in the typically fast-moving and hyperbolic American popular fiction of the bestseller lists, so for some readers it might take some getting used to (it did for me). But it's well worth the effort. Petterson's sensitive and insightful exploration of death, grief, forgiveness, and love make this a novel to cherish. So take a deep breath, settle back in a comfortable chair, and prepare yourself for a beautifully translated (by Anne Born), transporting read. Now nearing 70, emotionally unmoored from his family and friends, Trond has come to a desolate and isolated part of eastern Norway to spend the rest of his life in reading (especially Dickens) and solitary thought. However, a meeting with a neighbor forces the unwilling Trond to remember one particular summer day more than 50 years before, which began when his best friend Jon came by with a plan to "borrow" a neighbor's horses, and ended in tragedy and the realization that nothing would ever again be the same, for him or, especially, for Jon.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1416108.jpg" alt="1416108.jpg" /><p><a href="">Alice in Sunderland</a> by Bryan Talbot (2007)</p> <p>"Brilliant" is the word that kept coming to mind as I was reading Bryan Talbot's idiosyncratic Alice in Sunderland, a graphic novel that explores the connections between the author's beloved home town of Sunderland, situated in England's northeast corner, and another of his great loves, Lewis Carroll's two classic fantasies, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Among the more delectable tidbits Talbot offers up are: a history of Sunderland from the Roman occupation to the present; an extended accounting of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell's family trees; a comic book style rendering of the myth of the Lambton worm (worm - or wyrm - being an ancient name for dragon); a sight-seeing journey down the river Wear (rhymes with 'hear'); famous Mackems (as the residents of Sunderland are known), past and present; well-known contemporary writers, artists, performers, musicians, and others, who have Alice or Sunderland connections; a discussion of when and why Carroll wrote the Alice books; and a meta-fictional discourse on comics. The accompanying illustrations are in both black-and-white and color, and include drawings, photographs, reproductions of articles from old newspapers, and fragments of letters. The book is organized in a non-linear, non-chronological manner, circling backward and forward in time, jumping from one subject to another, and then back again, so the total experience is rather like dreaming, where myth, reality, and invention mix and mingle. This would make a perfect gift for any lighthearted fan of Lewis Carroll, or any devotee of graphic novels.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1063373.jpg" alt="1063373.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Once and Future King</a> by T.H. White (1987)</p> <p>I can still remember the day when, as an 11-year-old, I first made the acquaintance of King Arthur: it was in T.H. White's classic novel, The Sword and the Stone. In this delightful tale, told with sly wit and a knowing twinkle by White's omniscient narrator, we meet a boy called "The Wart" who is being raised in a castle on the outskirts of the Forest Sauvage. One day, he encounters a bumbling old wizard who becomes his tutor. This is Merlyn, of course, complete with the pointy hat and long beard (which he frequently chews on in times of anxiety or befuddlement) of legend. But this was, of course, no chance encounter. Merlyn has a specific agenda for his pupil - to prepare him to be king. It is not enough that the Wart acquires the skills to be a great knight - Merlyn also goes to great lengths to teach him to think for himself, to question the rule of Might, and to cultivate the sense of love, kindness, and justice that is every child's birthright. Merlyn's teaching method most often involves transfiguring the Wart into different animals, so that he can learn about and observe human society and behavior from these other species. By the time the Wart finally passes the test of The Sword in the Stone and becomes King Arthur, Merlyn has prepared the boy as best he can to fulfill the responsibilities of a king, and to face his destiny, or as Merlyn calls it, his "glorious doom". Those who continue on to the next three books that complete the quartet The Once and Future King will find that the story of that destiny and doom is a glorious read. White's rendering of the familiar historical events of Arthur's life is suffused with psychological complexity, emotional sensitivity, and political commentary. (The first two books in the collection of four were written in 1938 and 1939, and the allusions to the burgeoning Nazi regime are unmistakable.) The universal battle between Right and Might is played out in both the political and personal realms. White turns iconic figures such as Arthur, Lancelot, and Guenever into living, breathing, complex individuals. And because the reader can relate to them as such, the interpersonal battle they play out, so heavily steeped in love and mutual respect, is intensely painful and unbearably beautiful to witness. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib017.jpg" alt="nobib017.jpg" /><p>In the Woods by Tana French (2007)</p> <p>Tana French's intense debut novel, In the Woods, is part whodunit, part psychological thriller (ÃƒÂ  la Barbara Vine and Patricia Highsmith), and wholly successful. Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox are Dublin police detectives who are called in to investigate the murder of a young girl. For Rob, the murder forces him to remember the central event of his childhood - the woods where Katy was found are the same woods where his two best friends disappeared. All he remembers from that awful day is that he was found terrorized and traumatized, with his sneakers filled with blood. Following that event, Rob's parents sent him away to boarding school, and when he does return to Ireland many years later, to work for the police force near his childhood home in a Dublin suburb, it's with a new name, a posh accent, and a well hidden secret. Rob has shared his connection to that cold case of the missing and long presumed dead children with only one person: his partner and best friend, Cassie. As past and present crimes collide uneasily, French's plot twists and turns will bamboozle even the most astute reader. The scene, close to the end of the novel, in which Cassie interrogates a suspect, will remain in your mind long after you finish the novel. Because these characters are so well drawn, I almost wish French would write another novel about them, but a more sensible voice (my own, save more sensible) tells me that it wouldn't be the same, and I should just be delighted to have found such a well-written, expertly plotted thriller. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib018.jpg" alt="nobib018.jpg" /><p>The End of the World as We Know It by Robert Goolrick (2007)</p> <p>Robert Goolrick's memoir, The End of the World As We Know It: Scenes From a Life, reads like a novel, and when you turn the last page over you may desperately wish, as I did, that it actually was a novel - a complete work of imagination - because it's too awful to think that any child had to suffer the way that Goolrick did. And be forewarned - no one I know has finished this book with dry eyes. Yet, painful as the memoir is, it's on my "too good to miss" list. Goolrick's voice is un-histrionic yet very moving. The story he tells, which is fascinating, if terribly sad, is lightened by unexpected and very welcome moments of humor. Using the occasion of returning to his Virginia hometown for his father's funeral, Goolrick shines a searchlight into the heart of his dysfunctional family in order to understand his own scarred and lonely life. To all outsiders, the Goolricks seemed to be a perfect Leave It to Beaver sort of family - his father taught English at the local college, his mother was a Southern belle, his apparently loving grandmother taught manners and morals to young Robert and his siblings. Yet behind the scenes, the family's life was anything but a 1950s sitcom, marked as it was by a sea of alcohol and abuse. Goolrick is no exception to the rule that no child comes through this sort of childhood unscarred. Goolrick makes us understand that even though on the surface it appears that he's managed to build a successful life for himself (at the very least, financially), in most of the important ways he's still that terrified, solitary, untrusting kid. The book's epigraph, from Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II" encapsulates his dark theme: "Come death, and with thy fingers close my eyes,/Or if I live, let me forget myself."</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib019.jpg" alt="nobib019.jpg" /><p>Nothing But Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson by Sue Stauffacher (2007)</p> <p>In 1957, at the age of 30, Althea Gibson was not only the first African American tennis player to win the Wimbledon women's tennis championship, she was the first African American to ever play there. In Nothing But Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson, Sue Stauffacher brings her story to life for second through fifth graders. And even the youngest readers, I think, will be able to relate to tomboy Althea's love of sports and her desire to excel, and sympathize with her frustration at the codes of behavior she's forced to live by. Folks who knew the high-spirited and energetic child believed Althea was "nothing but trouble," but Buddy Walker, a savvy and caring recreation leader in her Harlem neighborhood, saw Althea's potential, and gave her her first tennis racket. Recognizing how her personality might get in the way of her success as an athlete, Buddy says to her: "You've got to decide, Althea. Are you going to play your game, or are you going to let the game play you?" - a lesson Gibson apparently took to heart, becoming one of the greatest, and most respected, sportswomen of her time. There's a useful timeline of Gibson's life (written on tennis balls!) at the end of the book. Greg Couch's paintings are a perfect complement to the text. Their energy and imaginative use of color and other elements add greatly to the book's appeal. Clearly, both the author and illustrator of this book had great affection for its subject.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib020.jpg" alt="nobib020.jpg" /><p>Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford by Peter Y. Sussman (2006)</p> <p>I sometimes think that the best way to get to know someone (other than, of course, actually getting to know them) is to read their correspondence - which is not to say that biographies and autobiographies are not useful, but biographies are filtered through the choices and interpretations of their authors, and even autobiographies are colored by how their authors want to be seen. But letters to family and friends are, so to speak, primary source material. It would be difficult to write a dull book about Jessica Mitford (nicknamed "Decca"), since her life was so event-filled, and both the biographies (a good one is Mary Lovell's The Sisters) and Decca's classic memoir of her early years, Hons and Rebels, are absolutely worth reading. But Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford, edited by Peter Y. Sussman, gives one a unique perspective on this funny, warm, intelligent, and thoroughly remarkable woman. Decca was born in 1917 into an upper class English family, but early on rebelled against her life of privilege and devoted herself to social activism - fighting fascism, supporting the civil rights movement, and, in general, doing good. She's probably best known in the United States, where she spent much of her life after the death of her first husband in the Spanish Civil War, for The American Way of Death, her exposé of the funeral industry. These letters - to her mother; her five sisters; Winston Churchill; her second husband, liberal San Francisco lawyer Robert Treuhaft; her daughter Constancia; friends ranging from Julie Andrews to Betty Friedan - cover her life from the 1930s through the early 1990s (she died in 1996). Vivid and entertaining, they bring their writer to life in an unstudied, unmannered way. Peter Y. Sussman is the very model of an editor; his introduction, footnotes, and brief essays at the beginning of each section give us just the right amount of context for the letters that we're going to read, without taking away any of the pleasure we'll have reading them. If nothing else, this book just may encourage you to forsake email and take pen in hand to write a letter to a friend.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4612 at Selections for October 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1384007.jpg" alt="1384007.jpg" /><p><a href="">Fun Home</a> by Alison Bechdel (2007)</p> <p>The graphic novel Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, is not just a fun read, it's a complex, self-aware, poignant, and sharply funny coming-of-age memoir, enhanced by rich, detailed drawings. Bechdel's story mainly revolves around her relationship with her father - an angry, small town intellectual snob who teaches high school English, runs the town's local funeral parlor (a.k.a "the fun home"), and sees himself as a modern day F. Scott Fitzgerald. As she navigates her way through adolescence, coming to terms with her sexual identity and her father's death, Bechdel discovers the dark reality behind her father's anger and finds in herself an uncomfortable (and disorienting) sense of sympathy for him. Bechdel views her life through the filter of literature and pop culture - she sees her childhood family as a real-life version of the TV show The Munsters; she finds herself inhabiting an Oscar Wilde-ian relationship with her actress mother; and throughout her life runs the myth of Icarus, illuminating the complicated dynamic of her relationship with her father. In the dedication, Bechdel thanks her mother and her brothers for not stopping her from writing this book. After just the first few pages of Fun Home, I knew that I wanted to thank them, too.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1189848.jpg" alt="1189848.jpg" /><p><a href="">A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You</a> by Amy Bloom (2001)</p> <p>Amy Bloom's A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You is a stunning collection of stories that are marked by strong and vivid writing and characters whose lives remind us that there's much still to be understood about ourselves and others. Exploring the dreams and desires of a variety of characters in language that makes the absolute most of every word she uses, Bloom places us inside these characters and at the same time provides enough context and perspective so that we can understand what makes them tick. She displays an enormous spirit of generosity for her characters (and, by extension, for us, the readers who identify with those characters). Bloom, a psychotherapist in "real life" (whatever that is!), is infinitely forgiving of the wrong turns that her characters make in their lives, of the pain they intentionally or unintentionally inflict on others, and their struggles to cope with the bad jokes that fate, or karma, or the way of the world, play on them. This is a collection of stories that will make you feel it's okay to be a flawed human being, to try to be better, but to understand that no one is perfect, and to forgive (in the best, most healing, sense of the word) yourself, and others.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1193214.jpg" alt="1193214.jpg" /><p><a href="">Grant: A Novel</a> by Max Byrd (2001)</p> <p>If you're a fan of historical fiction, don't miss Max Byrd's Grant, a novel about the 18th president of the United States. Interestingly, Byrd chose not to set his story during the Civil War, when Grant distinguished himself on the battlefields of Vicksburg and Richmond and ultimately accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox, or during his two presidential terms, which were marked by general ineptitude and scandals. Instead, Byrd's book opens five years before Grant's death in 1885 from cancer of the throat. Byrd mixes a large cast of real people with one central invented character. Nicholas Trist is a veteran of the Civil War who lost an arm at the battle of Cold Harbor (in which Grant was the commanding general); he's now a reporter for The Washington Post covering Grant's potential candidacy for a third term as President. Both professionally and socially, Trist interacts with the major political and literary lights of the time, including Mark Twain and Henry and Clover Adams, among many others. Byrd presents life in Washington in the 1880s as not being so different from today: high level love affairs, a generous portion of liars and scoundrels, as well as some genuinely devoted to public service. This is an outstanding historical novel, and readers who enjoy this will want to check out the author's novels about Presidents Jefferson and Jackson.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1390836.jpg" alt="1390836.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Corpse in the Koryo</a> by James Church (2006)</p> <p>Chances are, James Church's atmospheric (rather than fast-moving) novel, The Corpse in the Koryo, is the closest most of us will ever get to North Korea (and reading it will probably not encourage a visit). This is the first in a series of mysteries featuring Inspector O of the Pyongyang Police Department (the second, Broken Moon, is due out this month). Its pseudonymous author spent many years as an intelligence officer in the Far East and clearly knows all (or almost all) there is to know about North Korean society. After failing at what should have been a routine surveillance assignment, O, the grandson of a hero of the war against Japan, begins to suspect that he has been placed in the middle of a turf war between the country's military police and its intelligence forces - a war that somehow involves North Korea's ongoing and complicated relationship with Japan. And then, when a corpse turns up in the local tourist hotel, the Inspector realizes that his own survival is going to depend on figuring out who he can trust in a society where virtually nobody can be trusted. O is a complex character, a man who's loyal to his government, but is not blind to its flaws. He's decent, smart, pragmatic, a bit of a rebel, and a bit of a romantic, too - much like Lew Archer in the Ross MacDonald mysteries, or Arkady Renko in Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park series. Church fills his narrative with enough concrete detail to make the North Korean setting palpably real: a country where little works (the water taps are constantly broken) and domestic amenities are minimal at best; where everything one does that's not part of the tight code of acceptable behavior is reported to the authorities and becomes part of one's permanent record; and where an atmosphere of fear, deprivation, and mistrust pervades the lives of ordinary people. And I loved Church's descriptions. Here's how he depicts the voice of one of the bad guys in the novel: "Kim's voice emerged from inside a dark cave, where even simple questions were mauled and came out nasty," while North Korea itself is described as a place where "(A)nswers get twisted, or misinterpreted, or used as weapons." My one quibble with The Corpse in the Koryo is that it lacks a map. I found myself constantly checking an atlas to find out the locations of the different cities in North Korea that O is sent to at the seeming whim of his superiors.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1410161.jpg" alt="1410161.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Folded World</a> by Amity Gaige (2007)</p> <p>I'm always thrilled when a small, independent publisher brings out a book I love, so I'm very grateful to the folks at Other Press for publishing Amity Gaige's The Folded World this year. (This was my first introduction to the author, since I hadn't read her first work of fiction, O My Darling - a situation I intend to remedy as soon as possible.) In her newest novel, Gaige explores the ups and downs in the early years of a marriage. (This is Anne Tyler country, set not in Tyler's Baltimore but in an unnamed eastern seaboard city that sounds a lot like Boston to me.) Charlie grew up in a prosperous Midwestern family where he was securely enveloped by the love of his parents and grandmother, while Alice, who lived with her aloof mother (a librarian) in Gloucester, Massachusetts, found all her emotional sustenance in her compulsive reading. They meet, fall in love, marry, have twin daughters, and attempt to make a satisfying life for themselves. But Charlie, a dedicated social worker, finds himself torn between the needs of his clients and the needs of his young wife and family. In reading Charlie and Alice's story, I was struck by three things: Gaige's crystalline prose, the three-dimensionality of all of her characters, even the minor ones, and her ability to convey the darkness in the minds of Charlie's clients, who are suffering from schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. Gaige takes what is really a conventional plot (boy meets girl; boy marries girl; problems ensue) and offers us something very special indeed.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1410856.jpg" alt="1410856.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Kids' Book Club Book: Reading Ideas, Recipes, Activities, and Smart Tips for Organizing Terrific Kids' Book Clubs</a> by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp (2007)</p> <p>Any parent, teacher, or librarian thinking about starting a book club for kids or teens, or looking for good ideas to help an ongoing one work better, should find pretty much all they need in Judy Gelman's and Vicki Levy Krupp's The Kids' Book Club Book: Reading Ideas, Recipes, Activities, and Smart Tips for Organizing Terrific Kids' Book Clubs. They begin by offering tips to help you set up and structure various kinds of book clubs, including online book clubs and community reading projects, and discuss the benefits and challenges of each kind. They then consider different ways of choosing the books your group is discussing, what sorts of books make for a rousing discussion, and what kinds of questions to ask to encourage participation. My favorite part of the book is a list of fifty great books for kids to read and talk about. Among the books they recommend are Eleanor Estes's The Hundred Dresses, Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, Walter Dean Myers's Monster, Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah, Lois Lowry's The Giver, and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. For each book they include something about the author, a section called "Book Bites," with recipes for a snack that fits the theme of book (the ones for Ender's Game come from NASA--"Space Peanut Butter and Jelly Wraps," "Freeze-Dried Ice Cream Sandwiches" and "Orange Space Drink" - think Tang), activities specific to the theme of the book, and a great question to begin the discussion.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1379919.jpg" alt="1379919.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Janissary Tree</a> by Jason Goodwin (2006)</p> <p>Writers who attempt historical fiction set themselves the always challenging task of convincingly recreating the periods in which their books are set. For historical fiction to be successful, such a recreation must be detailed and vivid enough to enable the reader to fully enter a world of unfamiliar smells, tastes, sights, and sounds, and believe it's real. Writers of historical mysteries have the added challenge of coming up with a credible crime, a compelling crime solver, and a convincing narrative of crime solution, all without falling into the snare of anachronism. In The Janissary Tree, Jason Goodwin more than meets these challenges; the result is an uncommonly good read. (This is the author's first novel, after four well-reviewed works of non-fiction. It won the 2007 Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for Best Novel.) Set in 1836, less than a century before World War I would bring an end to the Ottoman Empire, the current Sultan is about to modernize the political system when a member of his harem and several army officers are murdered in a most grisly fashion. All signs point to the culprit being one of the Janissaries, an elite group of army officers that was all but eradicated by royal decree in favor of a new standing army ten years before Goodwin's book takes place. The only person the Sultan can trust to find the killer or killers is Yashim Togalu, who, being a eunuch, can go places ordinary men cannot - like into the women's side of the palace. Aided by friends, including the Polish ambassador (who the Sultan kept around because it annoyed his perennial enemies, the Russians) and a transvestite dancer/prostitute, Yashim uncovers layers of deceit to bring the truth to light. The fast-moving plot, likeable hero, and exotic setting add up to one rewarding read.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1185640.jpg" alt="1185640.jpg" /><p><a href="">English Passengers</a> by Matthew Kneale (2000)</p> <p>When I first tried reading Matthew Kneale's English Passengers (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2000), I couldn't get into it. When I went back to it a few months later and purposely slowed myself down, so that I could better appreciate the experience of reading a tale not only set in the 19th century but also written as though it were a 19th century novel, I absolutely loved it. Kneale's exploration of the events that occurred when the British first came to Tasmania is told through the experiences of more than twenty different characters. At its heart, it's the story of the destruction of the aboriginal culture in Tasmania, as seen through the eyes of Peevay, a young aboriginal, but it's also the story of the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, a deluded English minister who believes that the Garden of Eden was on Tasmania, and sets out to prove it, and the story of a rum smuggling sea captain from the Isle of Manx who, through a series of very funny calamities, is forced to take the aforementioned Reverend halfway around the world as he attempts to prove his theory. Along for the journey is a most unpleasant scientist, Dr. Thomas Potter, whose beliefs about the differences among races will strike most readers as simply odious. English Passengers is filled with humor and sadness and is a very nearly perfect first novel. If you decide to pick it up, get ready for a leisurely, thought-provoking, funny, and thoroughly engrossing read.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1412087.jpg" alt="1412087.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm</a> by Juliet Nicolson (2007)</p> <p>Juliet Nicolson's first book, The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm is an entertaining and informative exploration of a particular time and place. Among my favorite parts were her descriptions of the privileged lives of the upper classes, including richly detailed (and often very funny) accounts of the goings-on during their traditional "Saturday-to-Mondays" (it was considered déclassé to say "weekends"); the apprehensions of Queen-to-be May, as she approached her coronation (and name change) as Queen Mary, wife to King George V; Parliament's attempt to deal with the growing labor unrest among the working classes; the Liberal government's uphill struggle to remake the House of Lords in its own image; the appearance for the very first time of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes in London's Covent Garden; and much, much more. Names familiar and not-so-familiar appear here: Winston Churchill and his political sparring partner, F.E. Smith; racy novelist Elinor Glyn (the early 20th century's Jackie Collins or Sidney Sheldon); Leonard Woolf and his bride-to-be, Virginia Stephen, and other Bloomsbury dwellers (Nicolson is herself the granddaughter of two of the best known - Harold Nicolson and his wife, Vita Sackville-West); painter Augustus John; the heartbreakingly handsome poet Rupert Brooke; charismatic labor leader Ben Tillett; and Lady Diana Manners (famous primarily for being Lady Diana Manners, and thus, perhaps, the Paris Hilton of her day), among many others. What we know now, of course, is that the seemingly endless months of bright sunshine and above average temperatures were an ironic prelude to the horrors of World War I, which would begin a short three years later. Fans of the wonderful old BBC television series Upstairs, Downstairs will definitely enjoy Nicolson's character-driven social history. When you finish The Perfect Summer, you may want to check out these books: Nicolson's grandmother Vita Sackville West's novel The Edwardians, her father Nigel's memoir of his parents' marriage, Portrait of a Marriage, and The Children of the Souls, Jeanne MacKenzie's account of the best and brightest of the generation of young men who died during the war - Diana Manners plays a large supporting role here, as well. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1335078.jpg" alt="1335078.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Ivy Tree</a> by Mary Stewart (2007)</p> <p>Thank you, thank you, thank you, Chicago Review Press, for reissuing The Ivy Tree, by Mary Stewart. No one writes romantic suspense like Mary Stewart, and The Ivy Tree (which was originally published in 1961) is among my favorites of her many books. When handsome and more-than-slightly menacing Connor Winslow mistakes Mary Grey for his beautiful cousin Annabel Winslow, who disappeared nearly a decade before, he and his half-sister Lisa (who's not unlike Mrs. Danvers in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca) persuade the Canadian visitor to pretend to be the heiress herself. Annabel's grandfather is close to death, and Connor fears that the inheritance of money and their Northumberland home, Whitescar, will not come his way. He believes that if Annabel reappears, she will then inherit from her grandfather, Connor and Annabel can split the proceeds, and then the fake Annabel will simply disappear again. As secrets from Annabel's past slowly unfold, including the appearance of her married lover (now widowed and horribly scarred) and the real reason she left Whitescar, Mary begins to realize that Annabel's life is in mortal danger. This is a page-turner that, once finished, you want to immediately reread in order to savor Stewart's subtle clue dropping, as well as the fullness of the characters and her smooth prose. (If you like novels with an impersonation theme, don't miss Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey and the long out-of-print E. Phillips Oppenheim's The Great Impersonation, two other well-read books that I haven't been able to part with, despite the very limited space in my home library.)</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1178810.jpg" alt="1178810.jpg" /><p><a href="">I See the Rhythm</a> by Michele Wood (paintings) &amp; Toyomi Igus (text) (2005)</p> <p>The multiple-award-winning picture book I See the Rhythm combines dazzling paintings by Michele Wood and prose poems by Toyomi Igus to describe the development of African-American music, from the rhythm of its beginnings to the present. Long before the slave trade invaded the African continent, the oral tradition of Bantu, Yoruba, and Ibo griots (storytellers) was enhanced by the music they used to accompany their teachings and tales. Slave songs and spirituals led in the late 19th and early 20th century to the birth of the blues and the publication, in 1912, of "Memphis Blues," by the seminal African-American composer W.C. Handy. The blues led to ragtime, which gave way, in turn, to jazz (there's a whole section devoted to the women of jazz, including Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Sarah Vaughn, and Billie Holliday), and on to swing, be-bop (played by jazz hipsters like Charlie Parker who were not interested in the big band sound of swing), cool jazz (Miles Davis's music is the best example), gospel, rhythm and blues, soul music, rock and roll, 1970s funk (Toyomi writes about bands such as Earth, Wind and Fire and Kool and the Gang with these words: "With our Afro'd minds and sequined souls,/we have come to Earth to move, the music/to a new level./One nation/under a groove/nothing can stop us now."), and the latest incarnations of African-American music, rap and hip hop, which in a strangely appropriate way takes us all the way back to those African griots, chanting out their stories. There's also a very useful timeline that provides a historical context for the musical events described in the book. Although the picture book format suggests this is a book for young children, it's really aimed at anyone interested in music, from about age 11 up.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib016.jpg" alt="nobib016.jpg" /><p>The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin (2005)</p> <p>The 1920s and 1930s are known as the Golden Age of British mysteries, when now-classic writers such as Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, and Dorothy Sayers first crafted their meticulously plotted whodunits, in which seemingly impossible murders occur and the reader is challenged to figure out, as the detective protagonist uncovers the clues, who, in fact, did do it. The talent of those Golden Age writers was such that even though they hid nothing - the sufficiently attentive reader knows everything that the detective knows, at each point in the story - most readers are kept in suspense to the very end. (At least the first time through. I find these books so delightful that I read many of them over and over again. For me, they're the reading equivalent of comfort food.) The equally talented mystery writer Edmund Crispin (the pseudonym for Bruce Montgomery, a British composer), wrote mysteries in that grand old style during the 1940s and 1950s. His 1944 novel, The Case of the Gilded Fly, was reissued in 2005 by the wonderfully named Felony &amp; Mayhem Press, which describes itself as devoted to "bringing the best in bygone mysteries back to life." Murder Most Foul occurs in a theater company, and it's up to Oxford don Professor (of English) Gervase Fen to unmask the miscreant. The dramatis personae are introduced in the first chapter, as they all travel down to Oxford via train from London. They include Yseut Haskell, a wealthy conniver and mediocre actress; playwright Robert Warner, who once had a fling with Yseut but is now romantically involved with his current leading lady, Rachel West; Nicholas Barclay, dedicated drinker and devotee of all things Shakespeare; journalist Nigel Blake (who quickly falls in love with Yseut's half-sister, the beautiful and talented Helen); the aforementioned Helen; brilliant musician Donald Fellowes, who's besotted with Yseut; Jean Whitelegge, ditto with Fellowes; Oxford's Chief Constable, Sir Richard Freeman; Sheila McGraw, the theater's producer; and Fen himself. Within the next few days, three of these people will be dead. But who's responsible? Nearly everyone has a motive, but everyone definitely has an alibi. Crispin's mysteries are cleverly plotted and highly literate, with references to books, authors, and music sprinkled throughout. They're often humorous, and there are several recurring quirky secondary characters, such as the deaf and edging-toward-senility (or perhaps he's there already) Professor Wilkes, and Fen's long-suffering wife. Of my other two favorites by Crispin, one is in print (The Moving Toyshop) and Glimpses of the Moon, which is, sadly, not, but seems to be readily available in used copies.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4611 at Selections for September 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1200338.jpg" alt="1200338.jpg" /><p><a href="">My Dream of You</a> by Nuala O'Faolain (2002)</p> <p>In My Dream of You, her gorgeously written, thought-provoking first work of fiction, Nuala O'Faolain, an accomplished Irish journalist whose earlier book was Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman, explores the lives of two women living a century apart. Now nearing 50, Kathleen de Burca takes a leave of absence from her job when Joe, her best friend and a fellow travel writer, dies suddenly. She returns home to Ireland after 20 years of living in a dingy basement apartment in London and decides to write the book she's thought about for years: an account of the 19th-century case of an English landowner who divorces his wife when he discovers that she has had an affair with his Irish groom. These two stories of passionate women - Kathleen (who describes herself as someone who "believed in passion the way other people believed in God: everything fell in place around it.") and Marianne Talbot, who is willing to break long held taboos of class (and her marriage vows) in the name of love - offer O'Faolain ample room to delve into Irish history (especially the events of the potato famine) and the role of women in Irish society. She also gives us an utterly contemporary novel about love, family relationships, and responsibilities. This is an excellent choice for book clubs - begin the discussion by asking how many women would make the same decision that Kathleen ultimately does.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1221678.jpg" alt="1221678.jpg" /><p><a href="">Among the Missing</a> by Dan Chaon (2002)</p> <p>Among the Missing by Dan Chaon (pronounced Shawn) is a superb collection of a dozen stories on the theme of loss - of people, of places, of possibilities - and of the various ways we try to fill the emptiness at the heart of our lives. Often, while reading these stories, I was struck with wonder at how Chaon could so perfectly use language to evoke seemingly indescribable feelings - guilt, sorrow, love, hate, and a sort of existential despair. The stories here are uniformly strong, but among the best are "Big Me," in which a twelve-year-old boy believes that a new arrival in the neighborhood is himself - all grown up; the title story, about a family whose death by drowning in a Nebraska lake has a profound effect on a family living nearby; and, especially, "Here's a Little Something to Remember Me By," in which the disappearance of a fifteen-year-old boy reverberates throughout his best friend's life. Both Chaon's plots and elegant prose will stay with you long after you return Among the Missing to the library.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1395010.jpg" alt="1395010.jpg" /><p><a href="">Restless</a> by William Boyd (2007)</p> <p>Fans of John le Carré's spy novels and Alan Furst's historical thrillers will not want to miss William Boyd's Restless. In chapters that alternate between 1976 and the years leading up to World War II, Boyd introduces us to Ruth Gilmartin and her mother Sally. In 1976, Ruth is trying to finish up a graduate degree and raise a son on her own. One day, seemingly out of the blue, Ruth's mother hands her a manuscript that turns her world upside down. She learns that her mother, rather than being the contented, attractive, ÃƒÂ¼ber-Englishwoman she appears to be, was actually born in Russia as Eva Delectorskaya, and was living in Paris as an émigré in 1939 when she was recruited by British intelligence agent Lucas Romer (with whom she fell in love) to work for the British Security Organization, who used their New York headquarters to plant pro-British stories in the newspapers all over the world in order to pressure the U.S. into entering the war against Germany. In 1942 Sally left the shadowy world of intelligence, moved herself and Ruth to the outskirts of Oxford, and began leading a seemingly placid and exceedingly normal life. But now, in 1976, it appears that Sally's past is coming back to haunt her, and she begins to fear for her life. Boyd, author of many award-winning works of fiction, writes stylishly; his newest novel - in addition to being an engrossing story - raises the specter of how we can be deceived by even those who are closest to us, whether the ends always (or ever) justify the means, and whether a sort of restless paranoia is a sensible accommodation to the world we live in, whether it's 1939, 1976, or today.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1256257.jpg" alt="1256257.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Great Good Thing</a> by Roderick Townley (2002)</p> <p>Book lovers from the ages of 9 to about 12 (especially girls, but boys too) will be delighted by Roderick Townley's The Great Good Thing, which explores the relationship between readers and the books they love. (Adult readers may be reminded of Jasper Fforde's books featuring Thursday Next, which explore a similar theme, in a more manic and punny style.) The Great Good Thing opens with the intriguing sentence: "Sylvie had an amazing life, but she didn't get to live it very often." Sylvie is the heroine of a children's book, called - what else - The Great Good Thing, but she longs to do a really great good thing, not just live out her increasingly boring (and repetitive) life in the book she inhabits. In Sylvie's world, whenever a Reader opens the book all of the characters have to scurry back into place on the pages where they appear, so they're ready to speak their lines. One day, Sylvie breaks out of the story of the book she lives in and makes contact with the Reader, a young girl named Claire. This simple act of defiance offers Sylvie both great opportunity and great danger, as she ventures beyond the margins of the Book that had been her home into a world made up not only of Readers, but of Writers, too. Townley followed this book up with two sequels, Into the Labyrinth (Sylvie in the worldwide web) and The Constellation of Sylvie (Sylvie in outer space).</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1372113.jpg" alt="1372113.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Great Transformation</a> by Karen Armstrong (2006)</p> <p>Karen Armstrong's strength as a writer is that she's able to convey complex ideas about religious issues in a fascinating and thoroughly accessible, yet authoritative (but non-dogmatic), manner. All her books are well worth reading. The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions ranks, in my view, among her best. Focusing on the seven centuries between 900 and 200 B.C.E, a period the German philosopher Karl Jaspers refers to as the Axial Age, Armstrong argues, persuasively, that this was the critical period for the development of the central tenets of the world's major religions, including Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and monotheism, out of which grew Christianity and Islam. Armstrong believes that the political conflict and social upheaval of this period led to an emphasis by all the early sages of these Axial religions - men such as the Buddha, Confucius, Elijah and Jeremiah, and Socrates - on such social values as compassion, justice, and love - what Armstrong calls "disciplined sympathy" for others. Looking at each of these religions in turn (and pointing out that in fundamental ways they are remarkably similar), Armstrong suggests that religious faith can unite rather than divide people of disparate religious beliefs - a suggestion with obvious relevance for the fractious times in which we are now living.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1409466.jpg" alt="1409466.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Name of the Wind</a> by Patrick Rothfuss (2007)</p> <p>Fans of the epic high fantasies of George R. R. Martin or J. R. R. Tolkien will definitely want to check out Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicles: Day One. The story opens in a quiet inn, far from the large cities of the world that Rothfuss has conjured up for us. When a traveling historian/writer, known as Chronicler, stumbles on the Waystone Inn, he sees through proprietor Kote's disguise and recognizes him as Kvothe (pronounced more or less like "Quothe"), the most talented, and infamous, magician of his day. Kvothe begins to relate the story of his life, a rags-to-riches-to-rags story of murder and a desperate search for truth and knowledge through study of the arcane arts. One of the great pleasures of this remarkable first novel is the meticulously detailed unfolding of the tale of Kvothe's life. A true page-turner, with an engrossingly complex hero (or is he an anti-hero?), and set in a remarkably well-imagined world, this volume has set the standard high for the next two installments in a planned trilogy, Day Two and Day Three, due out, respectively, in 2008 and 2009. I can't wait.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1383447.jpg" alt="1383447.jpg" /><p><a href="">Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition</a> edited by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. (2007)</p> <p>On the occasion, in 2004, of the 200th anniversary of the historic and much written about expedition of Lewis and Clark, a leading scholar of Western history, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., lamented how little represented the Indian point of view was in the extant literature. In order to rectify the situation, he asked nine Indian writers to answer this question: What impact, good or bad, immediate or long-range, did Lewis and Clark's journey have on the Indians whose homelands they traversed? The resulting essays - diverse, compelling, and enlightening - make up Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition. The nine authors all come from different tribes, whose response to the coming of the white men of the Corps of Discovery varied from welcoming to hostile. Vine Deloria, Jr., a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, begin his essay "Frenchmen, Bears, and Sandbars," this way: "Exaggeration of the importance of the expedition of Lewis and Clark is a typical American response to mythology" and goes on to argue that the most important decision that Lewis and Clark ever made was to include Sacagawea in their travels. N. Scott Momaday, member of the Kiowa tribe and Pulitzer Prize winner (for his novel House Made of Dawn), agrees about Sacagawea's importance to the expedition, and part of his essay, "The Voices of Encounter," is written in her (imagined) voice. Other contributors include Debra Magpie Earling, of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Montana, who writes about her ancestors' visions of the coming of the white men, and newspaperman Mark Trahant (Idaho's Shoshone-Bannock tribe), whose essay, "Who's Your Daddy?," describes his attempt to prove or disprove the family lore that William Clark was his father's great-great-great-grandfather.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1416274.jpg" alt="1416274.jpg" /><p><a href="">The House That George Built: With a Little Help From Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty</a> by Wilfrid Sheed (2007)</p> <p>The only downside to The House That George Built: With a Little Help From Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty, Wilfred Sheed's witty and thoroughly delightful history of American popular music in the first half of the 20th century, is that it doesn't come with CDs attached. As exhilarating as it is to read the book, you want to listen to the music, too. Sheed describes his experience of writing this book as "wallowing in," rather than "working on" it. And oh my, his love of his subjects and their music shines through on every page. Sheed is the sort of literary craftsman that other writers must surely envy: time after time he comes up with the perfect description to capture the essence of the composers and musicians that he's profiling. In describing George Gershwin's seemingly inexhaustible generosity to fellow musicians, including Vernon Duke and Harold Arlen, Sheed writes: "It was as if George wanted all those great songs to be written by somebody, preferably by himself, of course, but not exclusively." Whether he's writing about Harold Arlen's manic-depression, the differences between writing music for Tin Pan Alley, Hollywood, and Broadway, or the genius of Hoagy Carmichael, Fred Astaire, and Duke Ellington, Sheed's insights and sparkling prose bring his subjects and their music to life. (Note to Random House: If this volume does well, how about a "Special Deluxe Edition" with CDs included?)</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1332334.jpg" alt="1332334.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios</a> by Yann Martel (2004)</p> <p>Yann Martel's The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios contains a novella (from which the title of the book comes) and three short stories, all of which predate the author's bestselling novel, The Life of Pi. While there's nothing at all shabby about the short stories, the novella is, quite simply, an awe-inspiring piece of writing. It's the sort of work that makes you marvel at the way language can be used, at the inventiveness of the author, and at how affecting a work of fiction can be. Two college-age friends, one of whom is dying from AIDS (caused by a blood transfusion required by an automobile accident), decide to make up (and relate to one another) a continuing saga of an imaginary family, the Roccamatios of Helsinki, whose lives are set against the major events of the 20th century. What we get, though, is not exactly the stories they relate to one another, but rather meditations on the background historical events, filtered through the present experiences of the two friends. Prepare to be blown away by Martell's novella. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1332349.jpg" alt="1332349.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Wedding of the Two Headed Woman</a> by Alice Mattison (2005)</p> <p>Alice Mattison is one of my favorite authors; few writers can match her talent at exploring complicated relationships, whether they're between friends, unmarried lovers, or, as in her splendid novel The Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman, a husband and wife. Nothing is simple, ordered, or even clear cut in 50ish Daisy Andalusia's life, although, ironically, her job is to organize other people's lives and belongings. When she falls more or less in love with Gordon, one of her clients, she finds herself torn between him and her husband, whom she also more or less loves. While arranging and organizing Gordon's desk, Daisy sees a newspaper article about a two-headed woman who marries two different men, and this becomes the subject of a play that Daisy's theater group puts on, which perfectly mirrors Daisy's own dilemma. Can adultery be compatible with a successful marriage? Just ask Daisy.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib014.jpg" alt="nobib014.jpg" /><p>Free Fire By C.J. Box (2007)</p> <p>Free Fire is C. J. Box's seventh mystery featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, and it's a doozy. In the previous book in this series, In Plain Sight, Joe (who once arrested a former governor for fishing without a license) lost his job and unhappily went to work as foreman of his father-in-law's ranch. Now Wyoming's unpredictable new governor, Spencer Rulon, asks Joe to investigate the shooting deaths of four Yellowstone National Park employees, in which the identity of the shooter is known (he's actually confessed to the crime), but various law enforcement agencies have told the governor that the shooter can't be prosecuted (the murders occurred in a section of the park where legal jurisdiction is unclear). But what's behind the murders? As Joe digs deeper into the case, he's ably assisted by his old friend, falconer Nate Romanowski, as well as by Yellowstone Park ranger Judy Deming. Long-time fans of the series may be a bit disappointed to find that Joe's wife and daughters only make a brief appearance, but will be interested to learn more about Joe's difficult relationship with his own father. As always in Box's mysteries, the dialogue crackles and the story moves along at a brisk pace, but what makes this series special is Joe Pickett himself - he's a fully developed, satisfyingly complex character, whose morality and code of behavior, as well as his deep love and concern for the environment, all too often put him at odds with the powers that be.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib015.jpg" alt="nobib015.jpg" /><p>The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan (2007)</p> <p>If what you're looking for is a good beach read, you can safely skip Richard Flanagan's deeply unsettling new novel, The Unknown Terrorist. However, if you're interested in first-class writing, a central character whose past and present will tear your heart in two, and a plot that carries you inexorably along to the last sad and awful climactic scene, this is definitely the book for you. In his previous novels, including Gould's Book of Fish, Death of a River Guide, and The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Flanagan has never shied away from depicting the wretchedness and sorrows of his characters' lives. But his newest novel ratchets things up considerably. The morning after a nightclub pole dancer known as "the Doll" picks up a man named Tariq and spends a cocaine-laced night with him at his apartment, she discovers her face splashed all over television and the newspapers: she's been linked to a group of terrorists rumored to be planning to bomb Sydney's Olympic stadium. As the media frenzy grows, egged on by a self-serving sleazebag television journalist, and as the police narrow in on her identity and whereabouts, the Doll tries desperately to figure out how to save herself. Should she turn herself in? Can she manage to leave Australia? Once you start this book there's no way to stop reading it, nor do you have any doubt in your mind that there is no way this can end well. You know, with the Doll, that she's "alone in a world without divine saviours, without rules, a world in which she could see nothing and everyone could see her...that her life was no longer what she made of it, but what others said it was." And, at that moment, we understand, as the Doll herself understands, her fate.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Sat, 01 Sep 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4610 at Selections for August 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1282542.jpg" alt="1282542.jpg" /><p><a href="">No Angel</a> by Penny Vincenzi (2004)</p> <p>The term potboiler has a clearly negative connotation (according to the website, it's defined as "a literary composition of poor quality that was written quickly to make money (to boil the pot)." I'd never defend poor quality, but I have no objection to a book written quickly to make money. (It can't make money unless it's an entertaining read, which is certainly a good thing, in my view.) In any case, I tend to use the term more to describe those sorts of books in which you're so engrossed in the problems and successes of the characters that you don't notice the time passing or the teakettle whistling; used thusly I can't think of a better term than potboiler to describe Penny Vincenzi's No Angel and its sequels, Something Dangerous and Into Temptation. Vincenzi, a major bestseller in Great Britain, has never quite reached that level of popularity in the United States, but once begun, it's hard to imagine many women being able to put these books down. What happens with me is that I sigh with regret as I finish one of her books, and have to resist (or not) opening another as quickly as I can lay my hands on one. Vincenzi writes old-fashioned sagas in the sense that the pleasures of each particular book are rooted in the strength of the story-telling about the lives and loves of its characters. No Angel is the tale of a strong-willed and hot-blooded upper-class young woman in England just before and after World War I. (And there's nothing like strong will and hot blood to make a good saga.) Lady Celia Beckenham decides to go against the wishes of her parents and marry the lower class Oliver Lytton, who actually works for a living at his family's publishing company. (Her parents accede to the marriage when she informs them that she is pregnant.) Once she gets the parenting thing down pat (with the help of servants), she decides to go to work in the Lytton family business. Complications ensue - not least the outbreak of World War I, which takes Oliver out of England for four long years. In addition to following Celia's story, readers are also made privy to the lives of a variety of secondary characters, including Oliver's sister; a dreadfully poor family whom Celia befriends; and the author with whom she desperately falls in love. The two sequels, equally as transporting as this book, focus on the next generation and carry the story through the twentieth century.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1229954.jpg" alt="1229954.jpg" /><p><a href="">American Chica</a> by Marie Arana (2002)</p> <p>I have to admit that I have a love/hate relationship with memoirs. I think self-indulgence is quite possibly the eighth deadly sin, and it's one that many memoirists fall prey to. Everyone's life is a story, of course, but does everyone have to get it published? I don't think so. However, I was reminded of how interesting and enjoyable a really well conceived and written memoir can be when I read Marie Arana's American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood. Arana, editor of the Washington Post Book World, explores the difficulties of growing up with parents of differing cultures - in her case an aristocratic Peruvian father and an American born mother. Arana's sense of being a hybrid, never to fully belong to either culture, is touchingly described. The deep cultural differences between her parents show up most clearly in the years the family spent living in Peru, where Arana's mother found it nearly impossible to fit in with her Latin in-laws. Arana's examination of her parents' marriage - they were seemingly unable to live together and unwilling to live apart - is quite moving. Of great interest, as well, is the Peruvian history Arana incorporates into the book. This is a lyrical, thoughtful memoir that would be a good choice for book groups.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1380867.jpg" alt="1380867.jpg" /><p><a href="">After</a> by Jane Hirshfield (2006)</p> <p>The poems in After, Jane Hirshfield's newest collection of poetry, reflect and refract on her Buddhist practice of many years. In these gorgeously wrought poems, each word somehow feels as though it were handmade for the particular purpose of being part of that particular poem. How we experience ourselves, how we experience the world around us, the actual sensations of being in the world, the language we use to describe our experiences, the death of friends, the very lives we choose to live - all these become part of Hirshfield's poems, transmuted, through her quiet genius, into something very close to wisdom. Start with the first poem, "After Long Silence," and the last, the luminous "It Was Like This: You Were Happy," which begins </p> <p> It was like this: you were happy, then you were sad, then happy again, then not.</p> <p> and ends</p> <p> Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad, you slept, you awakened. Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1414252.jpg" alt="1414252.jpg" /><p><a href="">Four Days to Glory: Wrestling With the Soul of the American Heartland</a> by Mark Kreidler (2007)</p> <p>Presidential caucuses aside, the state of Iowa is known for two things: corn and wrestling. In Four Days to Glory: Wrestling With the Soul of the American Heartland, Mark Kreidler explores the latter, and takes us into the lives and times of Jay Borschel and Dan LeClere, two high school seniors who, in 2006, are seeking to become state champions (in different weight classes) for the fourth consecutive year. In the more than 80 years of the existence of the Iowa State High School Wrestling Tournament, only 14 young men have won four individual state championships, and only once before have two wrestlers achieved that status during the same year. Being a four time champion ensures the kind of mythic status in Iowa that most people can only dream about. As one would expect, Kreidler gives us exciting descriptions of various matches Jay and Dan participate in during the season, culminating in those of the championship tournament itself, but this is, as is invariably the case with the best sports books, about more than the specifics of particular athletic contests. It's also about coaching and recruiting in high school and college sports, the challenges of being the parent of a young athlete who aspires to a championship level, and the culture of a sport that's defined by pain (both inflicting and receiving) and a sometimes fanatical self-discipline and willingness to accept deprivation, where success can be dependent on the luck of the draw, foregoing that order of fries at the drive-in, or not getting the cold that's going around, and in which, one false move, can, quite literally, lead to defeat. And finally, as a kind of extra added attraction, there is the fascinating presence of Dan Gable, the legendary Olympic gold-medalist who wrestled for Iowa State and coached the University of Iowa to 15 NCAA wrestling titles, whose reputation, long after he's retired from coaching, still plays a vital part in the lives of the boys on the mats who want to emulate his success.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1406824.jpg" alt="1406824.jpg" /><p><a href="">Stormy Weather</a> by Paulette Jiles (2007)</p> <p>Paulette Jiles's brilliantly evocative Stormy Weather takes readers deep into the heart of central Texas during the 1920s and 1930s. Mayme, Jeanine and Bea Stoddard, along with their mother, follow their charming and ne'er-do-well father Jack as he follows the oil strikes from one small town (Ranger to Conroe to Mexia to Manahans to Kilgore and on and on) to another. Jeanine, her father's favorite and gentle enabler "understood that her father slid from addiction to addiction, a shape changer, and nothing would hold in one place for long, and she knew this with a childlike combination of disillusion and forgiveness." He both shares with her his dream of one day owning a great racehorse and uses her as cover on the many evenings that he's out gambling, carousing, and drinking. When Jack Stoddard dies in jail, Elizabeth takes her daughters back to her long deserted childhood home near the Brazos River. Their resolve to stay and reclaim the wreckage wrought by time and weather is tested daily by their poverty, severe drought, and the fierce dust storms ("a deliberate, hurtful wind"). But in a novel that is essentially a tribute to the strength and resilience of its female characters, those challenges fail to break the spirits of the Stoddard women, or their determination to wrest success from disaster. Read this splendid novel in tandem with Tim Egan's The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1404480.jpg" alt="1404480.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Time It Takes to Fall</a> by Margaret Lazurus Dean (2007)</p> <p>Like many kids growing up around Cape Canaveral in the 1980s, with parents employed in one capacity or another at NASA, Dolores Gray is obsessed with space travel. For years, Dolores has kept notebooks filled with information about the various space programs, especially anything connected with her idol, Judith Resnik, one of the first women to train as an astronaut. As the shuttle program heats up and then falters in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster, Dolores encounters disaster in her own life: her parents separate. Her mother moves out of the house, leaving her father, her younger sister Delia, and 13-year-old Dolores to fend for themselves. Dolores is determined to understand the reasons behind both these events, the public and the private. Margaret Lazurus Dean's beautifully written first novel, The Time It Takes to Fall, successfully blends the personal experiences of the Grays with the public tragedy of the Challenger explosion, and in the process gives us an appealingly sensitive narrator in Dolores, and a peek behind the scenes at NASA.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1215318.jpg" alt="1215318.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Grand Complication</a> by Allen Kurzweil (2002)</p> <p>The Grand Complication, Allen Kurzweil's clever and often laugh-out-loud funny second novel, is ostensibly about the search for a watch supposedly made for Marie Antoinette. The main character is Alexander Short, a reference librarian in Manhattan who carries around a notebook tethered to his waist, just as the monks of old used to carry their journals around. His attachment (literally as well as figuratively) to girdling - obsessively writing notes on everything that occurs to him - is described by his "shrimp" (as Short's French wife refers to his therapist) as "a buffer against shame, offering the precarious semblance of order to an emotionally blocked, obsessive young adult male." Despite (or perhaps because of) being obsessive and blocked, he's hired by Henry James Jesson III, a wealthy bibliophile and aesthete, to research the whereabouts of the aforementioned watch. The search wreaks havoc on his relationship with his wife, who doesn't trust Jesson at all. The Grand Complication is an intellectual romp, filled with delightful wordplay, hilarious scenes set in the library (including a contest, "Class Struggle," to see who can attach the correct Dewey number to the most obscure subjects - the winner is invariably the building's janitor), a real life mystery (re the actual watch in question, which disappeared in Jerusalem in the 1980s and has never been found), and some wickedly entertaining characters. A must read (and perfect gift) for anyone who loves books, and most especially anyone who has lately despaired of finding an intelligent and humorous novel to read.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1414442.jpg" alt="1414442.jpg" /><p><a href="">True Notebooks</a> by Mark Salzman (2004)</p> <p>It's hard for me to imagine anyone not being immediately drawn into Mark Salzman's engaging and touching True Notebooks, the story of his experiences teaching creative writing at a detention center for "high risk" male juveniles outside Los Angeles. Many of these young men, who are in the detention center for serious crimes - robbery, rape, and murder, among others - are likely headed for a life lived largely in prison. Originally not thrilled about taking on this volunteer project (what could a white, middle-class writer offer to these young men of color? he hated the movie Dead Man Walking, despite never having seen it, etc.), Mark is convinced to do so by Sister Janet Harris, who coordinates the Inside Out Writers Program and is a tireless advocate for the young and incarcerated population at the center, as well as by the fact that he needs some background information to flesh out a juvenile delinquent character in a new novel he's writing. Readers come to know the young men who participated in Mark's writing group through their own words, and we also learn much about Salzman himself - someone who is humane, compassionate, and possessed of a great sense of humor. This is one of his best works yet, and a good stepping off point for checking out this always interesting author.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1411831.jpg" alt="1411831.jpg" /><p><a href="">Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations</a> by Georgina Howell (2007)</p> <p>Gertrude Bell has been called both the female T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) and the woman who invented Iraq. Both descriptions, as we learn from Georgina Howell's riveting biography, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, are justified by the facts of this remarkable woman's life. Born in 1868 to a wealthy British family, she had a life full of firsts for her gender: she was the first woman to achieve a First in Modern History at Oxford; the first to win a prize from the Royal Geographical Society; and the first female British Intelligence Officer. After graduating from Oxford she visited Tehran, and, much as T.E. Lawrence did, fell in love with the Middle East. She ended up devoting a good portion of her life to understanding its complexities and shaping its future. (She was also an intrepid mountain climber - there's a pulse-pounding account here of one of her ascents in the Alps - organized the care of the wounded in France during World War I, and, somewhat surprisingly, spoke out passionately against women's suffrage in England.) She taught herself to speak and read Arabic and Persian, and, in the years leading up to World War I, explored the desert terrain by camel, always accompanied by a devoted group of servants who toted along everything that might be needed by a proper British lady on such a journey, including pistols, a canvas bath, tea sets (one imagines they were Spode, or Wedgwood), evening gowns, fur stoles, and Zeiss telescopes to serve as gifts to the tribal leaders she met along the way. Following the War to End All Wars, she drew up, on behalf of the British government, the boundaries of a new country to be carved out of the sands of Mesopotamia, and picked Faisal, son of a tribal chief from Mecca, to be Iraq's first king. Howell, who clearly fell in love with her subject while she was researching and writing this book, has given us a compulsively readable (and information packed) account of the life of one of the most fascinating women of the last 150 years. It can be highly recommended for biography fans, history buffs, or any reader with an interest in the deep background of events playing out in the Middle East today. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1392276.jpg" alt="1392276.jpg" /><p><a href="">Tanglewreck</a> by Jeanette Winterson (2006)</p> <p>Sometimes the first line of a book just opens the door a crack - you have to jump right into the novel before it totally grabs you. Tanglewreck, Jeanette Winterson's enthralling first novel for kids eleven to fourteen, begins this way: "At six forty-five one summer morning, a red London bus was crossing Waterloo Bridge," - a fairly bland first line, at best. It isn't until you read on a bit that you get to these lines, the ones that grabbed me and wouldn't let me put the book down: "The bus and its passengers were never found. It was the first of the Time Tornadoes." What the reader soon discovers is that Time is behaving very strangely in London - it's slowing to a standstill and then speeding up crazily; the tornadoes (and disappearances) are happening with increasing frequency and intensity; and a wooly mammoth, long thought extinct, is seen near the River Thames. What - or who - is behind these unusual occurrences? Eleven-year-old Silver, whose parents and sister disappeared years before, lives with her cruel guardian, Mrs. Rokabye, in an ancient, sprawling mansion called Tanglewreck (which holds powers and secrets of its own). She discovers that an ancient and mysterious clock, The Timekeeper, is somehow at the heart of the time distortions. Whoever controls the clock, controls Time itself. And - to her peril - she realizes that two evil adults - Abel Drinkwater and Regalia Mason - are both desperate, for nefarious reasons of their own, to find the Timekeeper. Along with her new friend Gabriel, whose father had a long ago connection to The Timekeeper, Silver faces terrible dangers and difficult choices. Fans of some of the classics, old and new, of children's fantasy (Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, for two) will enjoy this as well.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib012.jpg" alt="nobib012.jpg" /><p>Dingley Falls by Michael Malone (2002)</p> <p>One of my favorite novels was written more than a quarter-century ago, and yet each time I reread it, which I do every couple of years, I fall in love with it all over again. Michael Malone has written many terrific novels, including Foolscap, Time's Witness, and Handling Sin, but for some reason it's Dingley Falls that I go back to, time and time again. For me, Dingley Falls is the ÃƒÂ¼ber soap opera as novel or novel as soap opera, take your pick. (This makes a lot of sense since for many years Malone was one of the writers on that ÃƒÂ¼ber television soap opera, One Life to Live.) It's one of those novels in which you're immediately drawn into the world the author has created, so that when the book ends - and it's not a short book by any means, thank goodness - you're left feeling bereft, as though you've somehow been banished from a familiar and well-loved place. The seemingly bucolic Dingley Falls, Connecticut (the sort of town in which being a nut and an egghead are nearly synonymous, the author tells us), is celebrating the 300th anniversary of the year of its founding, and strange events are occurring. Love is on everyone's mind, as are a series of very nasty anonymous letters, strange lights in the sky, and an uncommonly large number of deaths from heart failure. Evil is afoot in Dingley Falls, and no one is quite sure what to do about it, except, perhaps, for sixteen-year-old Polly Hedgerow, who's wiser than her years might indicate. The novel's a bit racy in places, with some scenes of somewhat raunchy sex occurring both behind both closed doors and in the woods surrounding the town, but Malone's descriptions are offered in such affable humor that it's all simply irresistible. And how could you not love a book that begins not only with a map, but also a four page alphabetical listing of all the characters, with short identifying phrases: Sidney Blossom - Town librarian and former hippie; Louie Daytona - Gorgeous bisexual sculptor and ex-convict befriended by Tracy Canopy; and Polly Hedgerow herself - a bookworm, gossip, and amateur sleuth.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib013.jpg" alt="nobib013.jpg" /><p>In Their Shoes: Extraordinary Women Describe Their Amazing Careers by Deborah Reber (2007)</p> <p>Teens thinking about their future (or, for that matter, adults looking for a career change) shouldn't miss Deborah Reber's In Their Shoes: Extraordinary Women Describe Their Amazing Careers. (Full disclosure: I am one of the women profiled in Reber's book - talking about the joys of being a librarian - but received no money for my participation or from sales of the book.) Through informal, chatty interviews, Reber offers insights into and highlights of the career choices and careers of an impressively diverse group of women. Even though all the subjects are women, their choices extend far beyond the "traditional" female careers of librarian, teacher, nurse: there's an architect, an educational psychologist, a museum curator, a director of a non-profit organization, a video game programmer, a firefighter, a yoga instructor, a sheriff, and a lieutenant in the Coast Guard, among many others, which makes this is a good selection for young career seekers of either sex.</p> Books books nancy pearl pearl's picks Pearl's Picks recommendations Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4609 at Selections for July 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1257189.jpg" alt="1257189.jpg" /><p><a href="">Hello to the Cannibals</a> by Richard Bausch (2003)</p> <p>In the tradition of A.S. Byatt's Possession, Richard Bausch's Hello to the Cannibals tells two parallel stories in alternating chapters, one set in the late 20th century and one a century before. The 19th century story is about the very real Victorian explorer, Mary Kingsley, while the contemporary tale centers on a fictional young woman. As a child, Lily Austin develops a fascination for the life and adventures of Kingsley. As an adult, Lily not only writes a play about Kingsley, but uses Mary's life as a measuring stick for her own. Although I loved Lilly's story, and hated to come to the end of each chapter about her, I was always eager to get back to Mary's life and read more about her experiences, both in London and while exploring West Africa. (There's a thrilling account of her beating off crocodiles who are attacking her small boat, as well as a lovely description of her trek up to the top of Mt. Cameroon - in full Victorian garb, despite the heat - where she left her calling card at the summit). This is a novel that may well lead you on a Mary Kingsley jag, and Bausch recommends three good ones in a note at the end of the novel: Katherine Frank's A Voyager Out: The Life of Mary Kingsley, Caroline Alexander's One Dry Season: In the Footsteps of Mary Kingsley, and Travels in West Africa, Kingsley's own account of her two trips to the Dark Continent.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1389431.jpg" alt="1389431.jpg" /><p><a href="">Library Lion</a> by Michelle Knudsen (2006)</p> <p>Everybody - kids and adults alike - who comes into the library knows that the head librarian, Miss Merriweather, cares a lot about quiet and decorum in her library. Everybody knows that loud noises and running are not allowed. Everybody knows, that is, except a lion, who wanders into the library one day, and becomes a regular visitor. After some unfortunate roaring, Miss Merriweather agrees to let him stay, as long as he promises not to break any of her rules. In fact, Miss Merriweather puts him to work dusting the shelves, licking the envelopes for overdue notices, and serving as a step stool for small kids needing to reach books on high shelves. But a day comes when the lion is forced to break the rules - and even Miss Merriweather has to admit that there are times when that's okay. In Library Lion, Michelle Knudsen's text and Kevin Hawkes' nostalgic acrylic and pencil illustrations combine to create a picture book treat for any library lover.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1413086.jpg" alt="1413086.jpg" /><p><a href="">An Eiger Obsession: Facing the Mountain That Killed My Father</a> by John Harlin III (2007)</p> <p>When John Harlin III was nine years old, his good-looking and fearless father, known among the Alpine mountain climbing community as Ã¢â‚¬Ëœthe blond god,' was killed on the north face - the direttisima route - of the Eiger, one of the Swiss Alps. Two thousand feet from the summit John Harlin II's rope broke, and he plunged over 4,000 feet to his death. Although he had always promised his mother that he wouldn't follow in his father's mountain climbing footsteps, Harlin III gradually realized that rock climbing and downhill skiing just didn't cut it for him, that nothing would satisfy him except to fulfill his father's dream of conquering the Eiger. In 2005, Harlin went back to Switzerland to succeed where his father failed. Of course, fans of mountain climbing memoirs, such as Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, will definitely want to read The Eiger Obsession: Facing the Mountain that Killed My Father as well, but readers who looking for a gracefully written account of a son growing up in the shadow of a father's expectations (that his father was dead made the expectations more intense rather than less) will also want to check out Harlin's book as well. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1403492.jpg" alt="1403492.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Watchman</a> by Robert Crais (2007)</p> <p>Dedicated fans of Robert Crais's thrillers know that his long time detective, Elvis Cole, usually takes center stage, but often turns for assistance to Joe Pike, former Marine and Los Angeles cop, now working as a gun for hire (for the good guys). In The Watchman, Crais's emotionally charged new mystery, Pike takes center stage for the first time. He's hired to protect a Paris Hilton type socialite who sees something she shouldn't have and, as a result, finds her life at risk. Soon after Larkin Barkley walks away unscathed from what seems to be a potentially serious automobile accident, it becomes clear that it was not an accident at all. Someone wants her dead, and soon. After Joe disposes of several would-be assassins, he calls upon Elvis to do the paper-chasing while he sets out to destroy the baddies. The suspense builds to a pitch that anyone who's jonesing for the sort of emotional roller coaster ride that thrillers can provide will appreciate, but those readers more interested in the emotional lives of their characters will not be disappointed here. I look forward to more Joe Pike novels from Crais.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1172429.jpg" alt="1172429.jpg" /><p><a href="">Ragweed</a> by Avi (2000)</p> <p>The very first line of Ragweed by Avi ("Ma, a mouse has to do what a mouse has to do") perfectly sets the tone for this very funny novel, which is aimed at 8 to 12-year-old readers. Ragweed, a young country mouse, leaves his (large) family behind and sets out to find adventure in the big city. He meets a group of mouse dudes and dudettes - green-furred Clutch (I'm thinking Courtney Love, here), Dipstick, and Lugnut, members of an ultra cool rock band (the B-Flat Tires), as well as Blinker, an escaped pet mouse trying to make it on the mean streets of Amperville. He also encounters extreme danger in the form of the wily Silversides, founder, president, and one of two members of F.E.A.R. (Felines Enraged About Rodents). Silversides and her vice-president Graybar will go to any length, sink to any depth, to get rid of their arch-nemeses, even to the point of destroying the Cheese-Squeeze club (!!!), where hip mice go to party. It takes all of Ragweed's native cunning, a good dollop of courage, and a fine mind to come up with a plan to foil F.E.A.R.'s Felines First brigade. This introduction to Ragweed, who reappears in Avi's award-winning novel Poppy, is a good choice for a family read-aloud.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1390755.jpg" alt="1390755.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Ghost at the Table</a> by Suzanne Berne (2006)</p> <p>The intricacies of family dynamics has always been a favorite subject of novelists - just think of the popularity of Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides or Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, to name just two examples. Suzanne Berne's newest novel, The Ghost at the Table, is a shining example of why both readers and writers find this topic so compelling. When Cynthia, the youngest of three sisters, grudgingly allows herself to be persuaded to come east from her San Francisco home to spend Thanksgiving with her sister Frances' family in Concord, Massachusetts, she doesn't expect to exactly enjoy herself. She agrees to go only so that she can do some research for the latest book in her series of fictionalized biographies of famous women told from the point of view of their unheralded sisters. But she's little prepared for all that will occur as the holiday unfolds. As Frances puts in place her plan for Cynthia to reconcile with their domineering and difficult father (whom Cynthia always felt murdered their mother twenty years before), old resentments flare up, long hidden memories bubble to the surface, and each sister has to come to terms with the emotionally charged terrain of the past. Berne's evocative writing and the fact that she offers no comfortable resolution to the sisters' relationship leaves lots to discuss about this novel. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1247776.jpg" alt="1247776.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Mulberry Empire</a> by Philip Hensher (2003)</p> <p>I think fans of historical fiction will love Philip Hensher's The Mulberry Empire: it brings alive a little known (at least to American readers) series of events; it's set in an exotic part of the world that's in the headlines today; and Hensher dexterously animates a diverse collection of real and imaginary characters. Set at the zenith of the British Empire, and the sense of national superiority that accompanied it, Hensher tells the cautionary tale of what's known as the First Afghan War. In 1839, the British sent nearly 50,000 troops to unseat Dost Mohammed, the Amir of Afghanistan, in order to replace him with someone more acceptable to one of their important allies, the King of the Punjab. Hensher explores these events from many different points of view, allowing readers to experience the wide-ranging effects of a country's overweening pride and sense of entitlement not just on the soldiers themselves, but also on the ordinary men and women whose lives, in a time of war, are inevitably shaped by events beyond their control. Another excellent historical novel that touches on the same topics is Susanna Moore's One Last Look.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1350047.jpg" alt="1350047.jpg" /><p><a href="">Sunday Money: Speed! Lust! Madness! Death! A Hot Lap Around America With NASCAR</a> by Jeff MacGregor (2006)</p> <p><em>Sports Illustrated</em> writer Jeff MacGregor and his wife, photographer Olya Evanitsky, spent the entire 2002 racing season following the NASCAR circuit - and Sunday Money: Speed! Lust! Madness! Death! A Hot Lap Around America With NASCAR is the result. It's filled with colorful characters, and, as MacGregor describes races run at death-defying (and sometimes, sadly, deadly) speeds around an oval track, he generates excitement enough to satisfy even the greatest adrenaline junkies among us. It's also an entrée into a world whose appeal some find utterly mystifying. (Among whom I would have numbered myself. I'm not quite ready to go out to the track on a regular basis, yet, but I've certainly been watching a lot of races on television.) MacGregor includes the history of NASCAR (the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing), beginning when it was just a gleam in the eye of its founder, Bill France, to its years as solely the purview of gutsy speed nuts from below the Mason-Dixon line, up until today, with its broad appeal to Americans from all 50 states and all economic levels. He also acquaints readers with the big names in the sport, past and present, living and dead: Jeff Gordon, the various members of the Petty family, Dale Earnhardt, Tony Stewart, and others. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1348731.jpg" alt="1348731.jpg" /><p><a href="">Broken Verses</a> by Kamila Shamsie (2005)</p> <p>I'd never read anything by Kamila Shamsie before I picked up Broken Verses while browsing the fiction shelves at my neighborhood library, but I'm now one of her biggest fans. The novel takes place in Pakistan, just after September 11, 2001. For Aasmaani Inqalab Akram, who has just returned home to Karachi from the west to work at Pakistan's first independent television station, the city holds terrible memories for her. It's the place from which her mother Samina, a feminist and political activist, went missing 14 years before, two years after Samina's lover, Pakistan's best-known poet, disappeared, perhaps, as his friends and fans believe, murdered by a government displeased with his radical writings. But when Aasmaani receives a letter, written in a code known only to herself and the lovers, she begins to believe that The Poet is alive, and in communication with her mother. Artfully written, and with an unexpected but realistic ending, Broken Verses provides a penetrating look at the power of language and the risks of challenging the status quo in a repressive regime. It's an unforgettable read, and an excellent choice for book groups. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1405826.jpg" alt="1405826.jpg" /><p><a href="">Then We Came to the End</a> by Joshua Ferris (2007)</p> <p>Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End is one of those novels that slowly grew on me; I enjoyed it right from the beginning, but it wasn't until I turned over the last page that I was struck by just how good this first novel really is. The story begins as the economic boom of the 1990s is beginning to head south. The writers and designers in a rapidly failing Chicago ad agency are just waking up to the reality of a world marked first by austerity measures (no flowers in the lobby), and then layoffs and firings, which are known in the agency's parlance as "Walking Spanish down the hall," a reference to pirates' treatment of their prisoners (and a Tom Waits song). Told in the first persons plural (the "we" voice is my favorite narrative style when it's done well, as it is here), Ferris's novel is about work and identity - the extent to which we define ourselves by how we make a living - and how people behave (often badly) in the face of change, particularly change for the worse. There are the flying rumors, the infighting, the paranoia, and the incessant gossip around the water cooler about who's in and who's out, who's doing what to whom, who's going crazy, who's brought a gun to work, who's still showing up at the office even though he was fired weeks ago, whose marriage won't make it through the downturn, plus the endless pettiness. One unforgettable series of scenes involves the machinations the characters go through in order to capture a particularly coveted chair that belonged to one of the first people fired. But Ferris goes beyond the work setting in exploring how people cope with change. In one very moving section (for which he switches to the third person), he writes with compassion about the ramifications of one character's bout with breast cancer, leavening the inherent oppressiveness of the situation with humor. Reading Then We Came to the End made me feel good about the state of contemporary fiction.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib010.jpg" alt="nobib010.jpg" /><p>The Long Road Home by Martha Raddatz (2007)</p> <p>For the political junkies among us, it's been hard to miss Martha Raddatz - currently chief ABC White House correspondent - on radio and television talk shows discussing her important and affecting new book about the war in Iraq. The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family is a must read for those interested not just in politics and policy, but in the actual experiences of those fighting the war, and of their families. As Mark Bowden did in Black Hawk Down (the story of the 1993 mission by the U.S. Special Forces to capture two renegade Somalian army officers in Mogadishu, Somalia), Raddatz takes readers inside a mission that has gone horribly wrong. On April 4, 2004, a platoon of the First Cavalry Division arrives in Iraq and is almost immediately sent off on what everyone thought would be a routine patrol in Sadr City. Unfortunately, they found themselves ambushed by hundreds of militants from the Mahdi Army. As their comrades tried desperately to come to their aid, in too many inadequately armored trucks and too few tanks, they too were attacked. The final toll was 8 dead and more than 60 wounded. Raddatz cuts back and forth between the hour-by-hour unfolding of the firefight and attempted rescues (she includes some very useful street maps) and events at the homefront, mainly at Fort Hood, Texas, where the wives and families of the soldiers wait for word from, or news of, their loved ones. What makes this book so good is Raddatz's deep empathy and ability to convey the sacrifices these soldiers and their families make - on the battlefield and off - as the war continues.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib011.jpg" alt="nobib011.jpg" /><p>The City Is a Rising Tide by Rebecca Lee (2006)</p> <p>I read (and enjoy) a lot of novels that are pretty much all plot. In such books, events happen lickety-split, so you feel a need to turn the pages quickly (or they seem to be turning themselves) in order to find out what happens. They're entirely satisfying in the way that watching a good action movie - say, Die Hard - can be (perhaps snarfing down a gigantic tub of hot buttered popcorn at the same time). But I treasure the times that I come across an odd and charming book like Rebecca Lee's The City Is a Rising Tide in which almost nothing seems to happen, but I am so taken with the narrator's voice that I don't want to put it down. These sorts of books are a great challenge to book reviewers because their essence is so hard to capture in words, but here goes: Thirty-something Justine Laxness describes her long time, and seemingly hopeless, love for Peter, whom she met when she was a child in Beijing in the 1970s (her parents were missionaries there) and he was there as a member of President Nixon's staff. Now, she's employed by a non-profit agency that he runs. The agency newest project is to build a holistic retreat center for Americans near the Three Gorges Dam in China. More than any of the events that occur in the book - their plans for the center are foiled, Justine refuses to tell Peter any bad news, an old boyfriend reappears in her life - what this book is really about is undying, unrequited love, both the hope and hopelessness that shape Justine and Peter's lives.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Sun, 01 Jul 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4608 at Selections for June 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1185467.jpg" alt="1185467.jpg" /><p><a href="">Barrow's Boys</a> by Fergus Fleming (2001)</p> <p>The Original Extreme Adventurers: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude and Outright Lunacy by Fergus Fleming tells the stories of a diverse group of 19th century British explorers all sent out on their various journeys by a fascinating man named John Barrow, second secretary to the British Admiralty, who for over 30 years chose the best and brightest men from the British Navy to go out to the farthest reaches of the known world to bring back knowledge and riches for the glory of the British Empire. Brave (we might call them foolhardy) men such as John Franklin, James Clark Ross and William Edward Parry, among many others, discovered the magnetic north pole, charted hitherto unknown areas of the Arctic and Africa, endured nearly unimaginable hardships, and, if fortunate, returned to England to tell about their adventures, only to go forth again and again until their luck finally ran out. (Very few died at home, in bed.) Chatty, entertaining, and historically accurate, Fleming's book makes great reading for any armchair traveler or history buff.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1266614.jpg" alt="1266614.jpg" /><p><a href="">Monkeewrench</a> by P.J. Tracy (2003)</p> <p>One of the best mysteries I've read in many a year is P.J. Tracy's Monkeewrench. ("P.J. Tracy" is actually a mother/daughter writing team.) The plot revolves around a software company called Monkeewrench, whose newest computer game involves twenty murders - each more grisly than the last, with on-line players competing at each level to discover who the murderer is. But when a series of killings occurs in Minneapolis and an elderly couple is found murdered in Wisconsin, all mimicking events in the computer game, it becomes apparent that the killer must have some connection to the game itself. The denouement will come as a surprise to most readers (at least it did to me), and the authors have a real talent for creating three dimensional characters. The two most interesting, Minneapolis homicide detective Leo Magozzi and the paranoid and reclusive founder of Monkeewrench, Grace MacBride, are well worth getting to know, and the authors' skill is such that even the most minor ones become real to the reader.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1409438.jpg" alt="1409438.jpg" /><p><a href="">Un Lun Dun</a> by China Mieville (2007)</p> <p>As I read Un Lun Dun, China Miéville's satisfying first fantasy novel for teens, I could imagine that his literary influences might include Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and even J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Miéville conjures up a wonderful alternative world - both like and unlike London - where words are alive, houses are constructed from all sorts of material that's mildly obsolete in London (hence, "moil" houses), books talk, giraffes are far from gentle animals, wraiths abound, propheseers more or less correctly predict the future, and a dark cloud dreams of polluting the world into extinction. But wait - the prophecies proclaim that Shwazzy will arrive in the nick of time and save UnLondon from certain smoggy doom. Turns out that Shwazzy is really 12-year-old Zanna, who magically arrives from London with her best friend, Deeba (who adopts a cardboard milk carton in UnLondon and names it Curdle), and heroically undertakes to fulfill what's been foretold. But nothing happens quite as it's supposed to, and there are many scary encounters and death-defying adventures (as well as puns and other wordplays) before good prevails, at least for the time being. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1403535.jpg" alt="1403535.jpg" /><p><a href="">By the Time You Read This</a> by Giles Blunt (2007)</p> <p>In By the Time You Read This, Giles Blunt brings back his detective, Algonquin Bay, Canada, policeman John Cardinal, in what turns out to be his most personal case yet. Although you don't have to be familiar with the three previous novels in this series to enjoy Blunt's newest book, readers who have read them will know that Cardinal's wife has long suffered from manic depression. Early in this book she's found dead, a presumed suicide, just one of several that have recently occurred in Algonquin Bay. Against all the available evidence, Cardinal believes that his wife was murdered, and begins an investigation that will try the patience of his superior officers. Meanwhile, his partner, French Canadian Lise Delorme, is asked by the Toronto police department to help them track down a sexual predator who's posting disturbing (and illegal) pictures on the Internet. If you're looking for a police procedural series with a well drawn cast of characters whose plots revolve around frequently gruesome crimes, Cardinal's your man.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1350696.jpg" alt="1350696.jpg" /><p><a href="">Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed</a> by John Vaillant (2005)</p> <p>Deep in the woods of the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia stood an immense golden spruce, a 165 foot tall tree that for more than three centuries was an object of veneration for the Haida Indians and an awesome sight for anyone who was fortunate enough to see it. In a counter-intuitive move to protest the clear-cutting of old growth forests, Grant Hadwin, Canadian logger-turned-eco-terrorist, chopped it down, and then vanished from sight. (He's presumed dead, but no one knows for sure.) In telling Hadwin's story, John Vaillant expertly weaves together many strands and subjects, including the economics of the timber industry; the culture of the Haida, one of the First Peoples of Canada; and the development of the environmentalist movement. Not only is his book, Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed informative, but it reads like a thriller.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1283727.jpg" alt="1283727.jpg" /><p><a href="">Gloriana's Torch</a> by Patrick Finney (2004)</p> <p>Gloriana's Torch is the third of Patricia Finney's three novels set in late 16th century England, but you don't need to read the first two, Unicorn's Blood and Firedrake's Eye, to thoroughly enjoy this one. Finney vividly animates a complicated historical period, in which religious issues roil England (and, indeed, all parts of the known world), slavery extends its tentacles ever further into the European continent, and Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, is beset by threats to her rule both from within and outside England. The most immediate danger is that Philip II of Spain is intent on invading England and restoring a Catholic monarch to the throne. Two of the Queen's loyal subjects, David Becket and Simon Ames (both of whom figure prominently in the earlier novels) are caught up in the events of the day. Becket, still recovering physically and emotionally from his horrendous experiences as a prisoner in the Tower of London, discovers that large quantities of gunpowder destined for use against the invaders have disappeared. Has a traitor diverted them to the Spanish cause? Meanwhile, Ames is captured by the Inquisition in Lisbon while on a secret mission for the Queen, and is forced to serve as a galley slave on a boat in the Spanish Armada. Becket, Ames' wife, Rebecca, and her African slave, Merula (one of the best characters in the book) set out on the difficult task of rescuing him. Historical fiction doesn't come any better than this series; I recommend it highly for all fans of the genre. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1412046.jpg" alt="1412046.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Tough Guide to Fantasyland</a> by Diana Wynne Jones (2006)</p> <p>All fans of fantasy age 10 and up will enjoy reading Diana Wynne Jones's The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. With tongue firmly in cheek, Wynne Jones offers a clever and humorous encyclopedia of alphabetical entries relevant to the wide world of fantasy fiction. These range from Adept ("one who has taken what amounts to the Post-graduate Course in Magic") to Zombies ("These are just the UNDEAD, except nastier, more pitiable, and generally easier to kill."), with entries along the way such as Mountain Pass, Blocked ("The Rule is that any time you need to get from one side of the MOUNTAINS to the other, the pass across is blocked.") and Serious Soldier ("a rather boring Tour COMPANION"¦even better at his job than the FEMALE MERCENARY and speaks even less") and many many more. (Words in all capital letters in entries indicate that there's a separate entry in the book for them.) Each entry also includes symbols for easy identification of the various components readers of fantasy novels will find useful, such as Royalty, Religion, Battle and/or Fighting, and Transportation. I found myself chuckling throughout.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1397437.jpg" alt="1397437.jpg" /><p><a href="">In This Rain</a> by S.J. Rozan (2006)</p> <p>In her last two books, S. J. Rozan has abandoned her mystery series characters Bill Smith and Lydia Chin to write stand-alone suspense novels. Her newest stand-alone, In This Rain, takes place in and around the construction industry in New York City. (In addition to being an award-winning mystery writer, Rozan is an architect, so she knows whereof she writes.) It's a fast moving, hard-hitting, nicely complex thriller, filled with a whole host of interesting and realistic characters. Three years before the book opens, Joe Cole, former inspector for the city's Buildings Department, went to prison for a crime he didn't commit. Now, out on parole, he can only watch from the sidelines as deaths from accidents at construction sites begin to pile up. But are they accidents? Is someone sabotaging these multi-million dollar projects? Who? And why? Cole's former partner, Ann Montgomery, is determined to find the truth, and asks for Cole's help. They soon discover that the path to that truth just may involve some of the highest profile politicians in the city, and if they choose to proceed, they do so only at their peril. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1269741.jpg" alt="1269741.jpg" /><p><a href="">Ilium</a> by Dan Simmons (2003)</p> <p>Dan Simmons, one of the best novelists in the field of speculative fiction, deserves all the accolades that have been heaped upon him. Simmons' novels are engaging and thought-provoking, playing with the events of the past and speculating, in interesting ways, about possible futures. In Ilium, a complicated cliffhanger of a novel set hundreds of years in the future, a group of highly evolved beings - humans, but at the same time more than human - use Mars as their staging area to recreate Homer's Iliad, with themselves cast as the gods and goddesses of the epic poem. (They've even imported their own Homers, a group of humans from the past, who report on the events both on and off the battlefield.) Meanwhile, a team of robots from Jupiter (one a lover of Proust, the other more a fan of Shakespeare: their dialogue is priceless) is sent to Mars to investigate the resultant worrying increase in quantum fluctuations felt throughout space. At the same time, members of a small group of humans living on a now minimally populated Earth begin to question their own way of life. These three groups converge on Mars, and the novel concludes with an ending that's worthy of those Saturday afternoon serials staring Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, where you don't see how the good guys can get out of this alive"¦. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1366069.jpg" alt="1366069.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Great War for Civilisation</a> by Robert Fisk (2005)</p> <p>Thorough, intense, absorbing, graphic, magisterial, angry, overwhelmingly detailed, infuriating, depressing, stimulating, exhausting, and riveting are just some of the adjectives readers will find applicable to Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. It took me months to read, but it was worth every moment I spent with it. Fisk, a British journalist, is a war correspondent's war correspondent, and this book is the perfect choice for any interested reader willing to invest a lot of time and emotional energy in a political history of the modern Middle East. Early in the book Fisk says, "It is the fate of journalists to be in the right place at the right time, and, more frequently, in the wrong place at the wrong time." From a front row seat at the birth of Khomeini's Iran in the late 1970s to Abu Ghraib in 2003, from an early interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1993, when the leader-to-be of al Qaeda was describing himself as a construction engineer, building highways in Sudan, to reporting from Fallujah in Iraq, Fisk has been there, done that, met everyone who's anyone in the region, and written about it. Fisk doesn't equivocate regarding his views of the current crisis in the Middle East, or the many missteps he judges world leaders to have made from World War I to the present, but whether one agrees or disagrees with his analysis and conclusions, Fisk's clear exposition and deep understanding of the complex culture and history of the area make this an important contribution to an informed debate about the fate of the Middle East, and, as the title implies, of civilization as we know it.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib008.jpg" alt="nobib008.jpg" /><p>The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead (2000)</p> <p>Some books begin with such an imaginative premise that you worry they won't be able to live up to their beginnings. Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist fully delivers on the promise of its premise. Part science fiction, part noir mystery, Whitehead's novel creates its own world and its own genre. Set in an unnamed city filled with skyscrapers (made possible by the invention of the elevator - the history and technology of which therefore play a central role in its culture and this novel), Lila Mae Watson is the first black female elevator inspector. Not only is she set apart by her race and gender, but Lila Mae is among those inspectors known as "Intuitionists," who belong to the minority philosophical school which advocates judging an elevator's safety by instinct, as opposed to the "Empiricists," who depend upon scientifically derived checklists of elevator safety factors. As the novel opens, the Elevator Guild's elections are coming up, and both Intuitionists and Empiricists are searching for the lost writings of James Fulton, the father of Intuitionism, and his plans for the perfect elevator which will render all current vertical transport systems obsolete, and resolve the conflict between the two philosophical systems once and for all. As Lila Mae becomes involved with this search and all its ramifications, the novel explores race and gender issues relevant to 21st century American society. Whitehead's stylish prose will bring to mind the novels of both Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib009.jpg" alt="nobib009.jpg" /><p>As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem (1998)</p> <p>Jonathan Lethem's As She Climbed Across the Table is the story of a most unusual love triangle - one that involves a man, a woman, and a black hole. Particle physicist Alice Coombs has discovered a hole in the universe, which she and her colleagues have named Lack. Philip Engstrand, a social scientist whose academic interest is studying the behavior of other professors, is deeply in love with Alice, who returns his love until she falls for Lack"¦ This is a moving, intelligent, and often deeply humorous tale of the lengths Philip goes to in order to win back Alice from the most formidable of opponents - a being with no bad qualities, indeed, no qualities at all. Fans of Lethem's later novels will find that this early work offers many of the same pleasures as The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4607 at Selections for May 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1137362.jpg" alt="1137362.jpg" /><p><a href="">Manhattan Nocturne</a> by Colin Harrison (1996)</p> <p>Colin Harrison's third noirish thriller, Manhattan Nocturne, is a doozy. Tabloid columnist Porter Wren - married to a surgeon and father of two children he loves dearly - meets a beautiful woman at a party, who immediately asks him to investigate the death of her husband, a brilliant movie director. Since he's already fallen into lust with her, he naturally accepts the challenge, and just as naturally gets drawn into a far more complicated - and dangerous - scenario than he ever supposed was possible, even on the mean streets of the Big Apple. Brisk dialogue, an up close and personal look at the sleazy side of Manhattan, and an awfully likable narrator add up to one compulsive read.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1187962.jpg" alt="1187962.jpg" /><p><a href="">How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel</a> by Alain de Botton (1997)</p> <p>If you're in the mood for an off-beat, entertaining book, check out Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel, a brilliant homage to Marcel Proust's The Remembrance of Things Past in the guise of a self-help book. Using the tropes of literary criticism and biography, with tongue firmly in cheek, de Botton tells his readers - via Proust's writing - how to change their lives for the better. The book includes chapters such as "How to Suffer Successfully," "How to Be Happy in Love," "How to Open Your Eyes," "How to Express Your Emotions" and "How to Take Your Time." One of my favorite examples of de Botton's delicious sense of humor is from the chapter, "How to Be a Good Friend," in which he assures readers that tipping waiters 200% will ensure their friendship. But caveat emptor. As we learn from de Botton, ironically Proust himself was not the most psychologically healthy of individuals: he was a chronic hypochondriac and was frequently disinclined to get out of bed, hiding under the blankets rather than face the day (and his mother). Will reading this book change your life? Probably not, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Will you chuckle often, and painlessly learn a lot about Proust? Yes, indeed.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1193388.jpg" alt="1193388.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Shakespeare Stealer</a> by Gary Blackwood (2000)</p> <p>It might be hard to believe that knowing shorthand can change your life, even in the very early 17th century, but as Widge, the 14-year-old orphaned hero of Gary Blackwood's The Shakespeare Stealer, finds out, it just might. Widge learns a unique and cryptic form of writing from an unscrupulous clergyman, who himself uses it to quickly copy down the sermons of other ministers and pass them off as his own. When the minister apprentices him to a mysterious traveler, Widge learns that his new task is to go to London's Globe Theater and surreptitiously copy down every word of William Shakespeare's new play, Hamlet. But events don't go as planned, and Widge, even as he's growing close to the members of Shakespeare's acting troupe, realizes that he's going to have to deliver on his new master's orders, or else. The first of a trilogy (which should be read in order), this is a perfect book to offer budding actors and historical fiction fans between the ages of 9 and 12.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1400028.jpg" alt="1400028.jpg" /><p><a href="">Napoleon's Pyramids</a> by William Dietrich (2007)</p> <p>On the lookout for a book with a swashbuckling hero, an exotic setting, and pretty much nonstop action? You need look no further than William Dietrich's Napoleon's Pyramids. In 1798, dashing American Ethan Gage, a protégé of Benjamin Franklin's, wins an unusually inscribed medallion in a Paris poker game, and almost immediately finds his life in danger. Falsely accused of killing a prostitute, he's given the choice of going to prison or joining a group of learned men, or savants, whom Napoleon plans to take along with his army on his quest to conquer Egypt. Choosing the latter, he sets off on the adventure of a lifetime, marked by encounters with dangerous enemies and a beautiful Macedonian slave, and soon realizes that his medallion might offer the answer to the ancient mystery of who built the pyramids and for what purpose. Well-crafted historical fiction like Dietrich's is always a pleasure to read, because in addition to a good story you have the opportunity to learn so relatively painlessly. Dietrich includes much information on military and political history, the Freemasons, Egyptology, and mathematics, as well as introducing readers to a host of real characters (Napoleon being only the most famous), along with the ones he's invented; yet the solid research Dietrich obviously did in preparation for writing this book rests lightly on it, and the pages turn quickly from beginning to end.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1220637.jpg" alt="1220637.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Reconstructionist</a> by Josephine Hart (2001)</p> <p>How much do we ever understand the events of our own pasts? In The Reconstructionist, Josephine Hart shows us how in some sense we spend our adult lives rewriting (consciously or not) our childhood experiences. After the shocking murder of their mother, when Jack was 13 and Kate three years younger, brother and sister are sent from the family's home in Ireland to live with relatives in England - torn away from the home and the father they loved, who stands accused of the crime. Jack grows up to be a psychiatrist, helping other people to examine their pasts and reconstruct their lives, but cannot do the same for himself. He colludes, as well, in his sister's amnesia regarding the traumatic events of their childhood. When their father dies, and their former home in Ireland is put up for sale, Jack decides it's finally time to return and face the ghosts of his past - to reconstruct the truth from the unstable shards of memory. Hart's elegant writing and her deep understanding of human nature make this a very special novel, indeed.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1405002.jpg" alt="1405002.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial</a> by Susan Eaton (2007)</p> <p>For anyone interested in the state of public education in our country, Susan Eaton's The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial is a necessary read. Eaton, who is the former assistant director of the project on school desegregation at Harvard (where she received a doctorate in education policy), spent four years observing classes at the inner-city, all-minority, Simpson-Waverly Elementary School in Hartford, Connecticut. Interweaving the ongoing progress (or lack thereof) of Sheff v. O'Neill, a civil rights lawsuit originally filed in 1989 by a group of 19 schoolchildren and their families against the State of Connecticut in response to the de-facto segregation of Hartford's schools, with the story of one particular teacher and her students, Eaton shows us the depressing reality in which the "No Child Left Behind" law is played out. Readers will root for Ms. Luddy, and all the kids in her classroom, but most especially for Jeremy Otero, whom we first meet as an eight-year-old ecstatic about checking out a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from the library. Not since Jonathan Kozol's Death at an Early Age and Herbert Kohl's 36 Children - classics of the 1960s - has there been such a vital, informative, important book about public education in the U.S. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1408995.jpg" alt="1408995.jpg" /><p><a href="">Fowl Weather</a> by Bob Tarte (2007)</p> <p>It's clear that Bob Tarte, author of Fowl Weather, and his wife, Linda, aren't your run-of-the-mill animal lovers. They aspire to a level of devotion generally only found, at least among those who write about it, in the British, i.e., Gerald Durrell and James Herriott. The Tartes live in a small Michigan town near Grand Rapids, along with a veritable menagerie of animals. The cast of characters very helpfully listed at the front of the book includes a few of the two legged variety, but many more who have four legs or wings, and are feathered or furred. Whether he's engaged in a physical argument with a duck, dealing with a supposed master gardener who doesn't know flowers from weeds, hand-feeding a spider, trying to evade a pesky former classmate who somehow knows the fate of everyone in their elementary school (as well as unsavory facts about Linda's old sow, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle), or trying to cope with his dad's death and his mother's growing dementia, Bob's voice is self-deprecating, humorous, and completely believable.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1395052.jpg" alt="1395052.jpg" /><p><a href="">Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination</a> by Neal Gabler (2006)</p> <p>It's hard to grow up in the United States - indeed, the world - without having your life touched in some way by Walt Disney and his legacy. Whether it's through the Mickey Mouse Club, films like Snow White, Fantasia and Mary Poppins, or a trip to one of his theme parks, Disney's work and influence informs our imagination. Neal Gabler explores the man and the myth in what will surely be regarded as the standard biography for years to come in Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. Gabler portrays Disney as a compulsive perfectionist, a visionary who labored under the burden of his sky high expectations for both himself and the people who worked for him. From his early upbringing in middle America, to his first experiments with animation, to his final triumph in Hollywood, Gabler offers insight into the man and his work, including the fact that Disney was in the habit of personally acting out the various parts in his films to give his crew a sense of what he wanted in the final product; an early list of possible names for the seven dwarfs in Snow White (including "Blabby," "Flabby," "Burpy," "Wheezy," "Lazy," "Puffy," "Stuffy," "Baldy," and "Hickey" - who was to be afflicted with hiccoughs that showed up at inconvenient times); the reaction of Carole Lombard and Clark Gable at an early screening of Disney's first feature film (they both wept at the scene of Snow White being poisoned); and the bitter fight to unionize the Disney studio, which led to Disney's subsequent hatred of both Communists (he became a friendly witness for the early anti-communist government committees) and Jews. Gabler's book is a triumph of the art of biography. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1282146.jpg" alt="1282146.jpg" /><p><a href="">Sunshine</a> by Robin McKinley (2003)</p> <p>I have never been a fan of novels with vampires in them. In fact, until recently I'd never read horror fiction at all. (I've always felt that real life is scary enough before you add the supernatural to the mix.) But I've always loved the novels of award-winning fantasy writer Robin McKinley, and a friend whose book smarts I respected recommended McKinley's novel Sunshine, so I somewhat hesitantly picked it up and started reading. And I found that I couldn't put it down. Set in a world quite similar to ours in the time just after the Voodoo Wars, Rae Seddon, who's nicknamed Sunshine, is driving home from a baking stint at her stepfather's café when she's kidnapped by a group of vampires and locked in the ballroom of an old house. It soon becomes clear that she's apparently intended to provide the main course of a meal for their starving captive, another vampire, the powerful, handsome, and enigmatic Constantine. But Constantine, going against everything Sunshine thought she knew about vampires, resists his powerful urge to drink her blood, and the two form an uneasy alliance with him against their joint captors. Just in time, Sunshine discovers that she has apparently inherited the magical talents that run through the blood of her long absent father's side of the family, and she contrives to set herself and Constantine free. But now her troubles really begin"¦. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib005.jpg" alt="nobib005.jpg" /><p>The History of the Siege of Lisbon by Jose Saramago (1998)</p> <p>The hero of Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's The History of the Siege of Lisbon is a proofreader for a Lisbon publishing house. While Raimundo Silva is proofing a history of the 1174 siege of Lisbon by Moorish troops, he breaks the cardinal (if implicit) rule of proofreading by deciding to "improve" the text. He inserts the word Ã¢â‚¬Ëœnot' in a sentence, thus totally changing its meaning. Naturally his transgression is discovered, but his supervisor, rather than firing him, asks him to write a "what if" history, based on his changed sentence. Saramago is right up there with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie in his brilliant use of language, inventiveness, and wit. The density of Saramago's prose may present a challenge to some readers, but it's well worth the effort. Not only is the novel magically written, but it raises some wonderfully provocative questions about history and language, chief among them: Can recorded history, really, ever be anything other than a variety of fiction? (Of course, reading the novel in Giovanni Pontiero's excellent translation introduces as subtext a parallel question: To what extent are you reading the thoughts of the author and to what extent the interpretation of the translator?)</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib006.jpg" alt="nobib006.jpg" /><p>Kings of Infinite Space by James Hynes (1997)</p> <p>Maybe the best way to describe Kings of Infinite Space by James Hynes is to imagine Stephen King writing satirical fiction. The life of the main character, Paul Trilby, has never been the same since he drowned his wife's cat Charlotte in the couple's bathtub (the whole sad tale is one of the three stories in Hynes's Publish and Perish). Charlotte now haunts Paul, following him in ghostly form as he moves from place to place in a fruitless search for success and happiness. Paul, an aspiring college professor in Publish and Perish, finally ends up as a lowly, temporary technical writer at TxDoGS, a government services office in what seems to be Austin, Texas. A series of encounters with his weird coworkers (including the unnoticed-by-anyone-else dead body in the next cubicle) force him to choose between a life of ease at TXDoGS and an honorable but probably futile quest for a successful future - a dilemma worthy of Faust. Without giving away too much of the plot (except to say that it includes zombies and human sacrifice), it's probably best just to say that the cat, Charlotte, who's bent on revenge, continues to run Paul's life.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib007.jpg" alt="nobib007.jpg" /><p>The House on Boulevard St. by David Kirby (2007)</p> <p>Poet David Kirby's newest collection, The House on Boulevard St., includes both new poems and those selected from his earlier collections. Kirby writes what I call "kitchen-sink poetry." He's not a formalist or a lyricist, or any other "ist" or "ism" by which we traditionally label writers. His is a conversational, more or less stream of consciousness approach to his subjects (which are wacky in their own right); the poems, filled with specific detail, invite readers into often complicated and convoluted stories, and you can never predict from the opening lines just where the story is going to end up. They're suffused with humor, but they're not light verse. For anyone who feels baffled and/or put off by poetry, Kirby's the man to change your mind. You might want to start with these poems: "The Search for Baby Combover," "The Exorcist of Notre Dame," and "The Elephant of the Sea," which begins: </p> <p> Because I make the big bucks fooling around with words, in France sometimes I like to say "Sylvia Plath" instead of "s'il vous plait," as when I open the door for Barbara and say, "Apres-vous, Sylvia Plath!" But yesterday the lady in the boulangerie asked me what I wanted, And I said, "Une baguette, Sylvia Plath! Crap"¦"</p> <p>and goes on - with great panache - from there.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Tue, 01 May 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4606 at Selections for April 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1369544.jpg" alt="1369544.jpg" /><p><a href="">Icebergs</a> by Rebecca Johns (2007)</p> <p>Although the central metaphor of Rebecca Johns' first novel Icebergs may not be original (people are like icebergs, less than a quarter is visible; the rest remains hidden), it's still a solidly satisfying, quietly powerful, and deeply pleasurable read. When a World War II fighter plane crashes on the coast of Labrador in Newfoundland, Canada, only young Walt Dunmore and Alister Clark are left alive. The novel begins with their fight for survival in the wilderness, then, moves to after the war and the experiences of the Clark and Dunmore families in the American Midwest of the 1960s and 70s. Here's an example of Johns' writing style: "The only true war story, Sam's father told him, is one in which you are not the hero. It's never about what happened, but about the shock of finding yourself alive on the other side of it. It could be funny or it could be dead serious, but if someone tries to tell you how he blew away the enemy, if the guy shows off his scars and medals, then what he's telling you isn't true." Like that old metaphorical iceberg, there's much going on beneath the surface of Johns' muted, deceptively simple prose, as well as in the lives of her characters.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1392337.jpg" alt="1392337.jpg" /><p><a href="">World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War</a> by Max Brooks (2006)</p> <p>What if mankind's greatest foe turns out to be the living dead? That's the premise of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, a page-turning thriller by Max Brooks. The book is set up as a series of interviews with survivors of the Walking Plague, a potent virus that turns its victims into undead killing machines. Among the interviewees are the Chinese doctor who tried to save some of the first victims; an Israeli intelligent agent; a Tibetan smuggler; a trafficker of human organs whose work inadvertently spread the virus faster throughout the world; several politicians and soldiers; and more or less ordinary people who somehow survived those terrible war years. There are several pointed references throughout the novel to current issues of global politics and the state of the world today, and readers will recognize certain characters who seem to be based on real people, all of which gives the novel an immediacy and a patina of reality that it might not otherwise have.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1402608.jpg" alt="1402608.jpg" /><p><a href="">Anahita's Woven Riddle</a> by Meghan Nuttall Sayres (2006)</p> <p>One of the great gifts of literature is that it can entertain us, while at the same time expanding our world. A case in point is Meghan Nuttall Sayres's young adult novel, Anahita's Woven Riddle. It's the story of high spirited Anahita, a teenager who lives with her family, a tribe of nomadic weavers, in 19th century Iran. Needless to say, her father's plan to marry her off to the khan, or leader of the tribe - a much older man whose two earlier wives died under mysterious circumstances - doesn't thrill her in the least. Disdaining tradition (as teenagers are wont to do, even in 19th century Iran) she wants to choose her own husband, and devises a plan to do so. She will weave a riddle into her wedding carpet, and the man who comes closest to solving the riddle will win her hand. Despite the faraway setting, contemporary readers will identify with Anahita's relationships with her parents and her friends, as well as her strong desire to have a say in her own future. Sayres skillfully interlaces a lot of Persian history and culture, including information about the daily lives of nomads, Sufi poetry, and carpets and carpet weaving into Anahita's story.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1098409.jpg" alt="1098409.jpg" /><p><a href="">A Place of Greater Safety</a> by Hilary Mantel (1993)</p> <p>Probably many of us were assigned Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities in high school; quite likely a good number of those who were assigned it never read much beyond the oft quoted first sentence ("It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.") until later in life, if at all. It's undoubtedly still the best known novel about the French Revolution ever written and, like all of Dickens, well worth reading. But wait! With A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel offers us a brilliantly written contemporary novel covering the same events. This masterful retelling of the events of 1789 to 1799 is impeccably researched and compulsively readable. Mantel brings the major movers and shakers of the French Revolution - among them Danton, Robespierre, and Desmoulins - as well as their families, lovers, friends, and enemies to vivid life (including, in most cases, a vivid death). She shows how the idealistic rebellion against the monarchy descended into terror, lawlessness, and the ultimate corruption of those who came to power determined to make France more democratic. Fans of historical fiction won't want to miss this. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1225839.jpg" alt="1225839.jpg" /><p><a href="">Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family</a> by Patricia Volk (2001)</p> <p>In Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family, Patricia Volk delivers a hymn of love to both family and food. In a series of vignettes, Volk lovingly describes her adored extended family. There's her great-grandfather, who was the first to import pastrami to New York; her grandfather, who invented the wrecking ball; her mother, forever trying to improve her daughters ("Mom made me, and now she will make me better"); her magnetic father, who finally closed the last family restaurant in Manhattan; her longtime embittered aunt Lil, who embroidered a pillow with the phrase, "I've never forgotten a rotten thing anyone has done to me."; another aunt, known for her talent for mamboing, and more. Volk's family is sufficiently odd enough to engage anyone's attention, while her writing (she's also the author of a novel and two collections of stories) is both witty and tender. As I turned the pages of this lovely memoir, I found myself wishing that I, too, could be part of the whole Volk/Morgen clan.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1235696.jpg" alt="1235696.jpg" /><p><a href="">Ella Minnow Pea</a> by Mark Dunn (2001)</p> <p>Mark Dunn's first novel is the very imaginative and totally delightful Ella Minnow Pea. Nollop, an island off the coast of South Carolina, was home to the now deceased inventor of the sentence, "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog" - which those of us who are old enough to have formally studied what used to be called "typing" will recognize as the practice sentence in which every letter of the alphabet is used. That sentence is engraved on a monument the residents of Nollop have erected to honor their most famous native son. But one day the letter "x" falls off, and the town council decides that this is a sign that people on the island are now forbidden to use that letter in their speech or writing. As additional letters proceed to fall off, and more and more letters are designated off bounds, the islanders discover that communication is becoming increasingly difficult. In order for this nightmarish situation to end, someone must come up with another sentence of 32 letters or less, which makes use of every letter in the alphabet. Will they be able to do it? Can you? Dunn's novel is a testament to the glory of language and freedom of speech, presented in an amusing and yet cautionary manner.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1274811.jpg" alt="1274811.jpg" /><p><a href="">The True Account: A Novel of the Lewis and Clark and Kinneson Expeditions</a> by Howard Mosher (2003)</p> <p>Howard Frank Mosher's The True Account: An Account of the Lewis &amp; Clark &amp; Kinneson Expeditions tells the story of a Vermont ex-soldier named True Teague Kinneson and his nephew Ticonderoga, who race Lewis and Clark to the Pacific. Ticonderoga narrates their adventures, which include a run-in with Daniel Boone (who believes that True has jilted his red-headed, six foot, two inch daughter, Flame Danielle); an historic baseball game with the Nez Perce Indians; frequent death-defying escapes from dangerous situations; and their periodic meetings-up with the more famous pair of explorers (who often need to be rescued by means of True's ingenuity). Ti's descriptions of his uncle and their adventures across the Louisiana Purchase to the west are related with a straight face, but will leave the reader with anything but one - True, philosopher, inventor, classicist, and Ti's much loved teacher, dresses in chain mail, sports an Elizabethan codpiece, and wears a cap festooned with bells to cover the copper plate that protects the top of his head from further injury (he fell while he was celebrating with Ethan Allan after the victory at Fort Ticonderoga during the Revolutionary War), clashes constantly with the devil (whom he calls the Gentleman from Vermont), and carries his hemp habit across the continent, generously sharing his stash with all and sundry. Don't miss this gem.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1266417.jpg" alt="1266417.jpg" /><p><a href="">Gossip Hound</a> by Wendy Holden (2003)</p> <p>If you're in the mood for a few hours of light entertainment, take a look at Wendy Holden's Gossip Hound, a frothy contribution to the Bridget Jones/chick lit genre. Grace Armiger's life is plugging along, but not very satisfactorily. She works as a low-paid publicist at a British publishing company, where her thankless tasks include setting up interviews, signings, and readings for writers whose books no one wants to read, let alone buy; she doesn't much enjoy spending time with her boring politico boyfriend; and she's constantly trying to avoid, at all costs, her matchmaking mother. But when a famous movie star decides to sign up with Grace's employers, she thinks her problems just might be over. Alas - the author turns out to be a real skunk, and his novel's outlandish plot doesn't sound at all marketable. Will Grace ever find true love? Can she turn her job into something satisfying and meaningful (with a higher salary)? Although the ending is, of course, predictable, getting there is a great deal of fun.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1333730.jpg" alt="1333730.jpg" /><p><a href="">Birds Without Wings</a> by Louis De Bernieres (2004)</p> <p>Louis de Bernières, author of Corelli's Mandolin, sets his newest novel, Birds Without Wings, in a small coastal town in Anatolia, a region of Turkey, during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire just before, during, and after World War I. Told from the points of view of dozens of characters, including both men and women, rich and the poor, nobles and peasants, Christians and Muslims, Greeks and Armenians, all of whom have lived together for generations in peace, unnoticed and far from the seats of influence, until they're swept up in the maelstrom of war and become simply pawns of history, subject to the decisions of their misguided, incompetent, and dangerously power-hungry rulers. Alongside the story of the residents of this one small town, de Bernières tells the story of the rise of Kemal Ataturk, whose goal was to make Turkey a modern, secular country. These parallel tales play off one another brilliantly and together make for a particularly rich and satisfying novel.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1378086.jpg" alt="1378086.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Judgment of Paris</a> by Ross King (2006)</p> <p>Ross King's The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism is an illuminating history of a fascinating place and period: Paris, from 1863 to 1874. This was a particularly exciting time, because the French art world was torn between two extremes: the very precise, almost photographic and historically accurate paintings of Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, probably the best known (and certainly wealthiest) painter of his time, and the slowly growing Impressionist movement, led by Claude Monet and the artist King focuses on, Edouard Manet, whose masterpieces include his six-foot long painting of a French prostitute, "Olympia," and his mysterious "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe," which depicts an outdoor picnic attended by two men and an unclothed woman. Together, the two M's challenged the artistic status quo, painting ordinary people rather than historical subjects, outdoor scenes, and the effects of changing light on their subjects. But King, author of Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling and Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, works on a large canvas, so that readers become familiar with the politics, the literature, and the major players of the period as well.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib004.jpg" alt="nobib004.jpg" /><p>Dirt Music by Tim Winton (1998)</p> <p>Tim Winton is one of those writers whose books just keep getting better and better. Two of the Australian novelist's best books are Cloudstreet and The Riders. (The latter is a wonderfully infuriating choice for book clubs.) And his newest novel, Dirt Music, just might be his best book yet, in which the two main characters are haunted by their pasts. Fleeing her family and her job as a nurse, Georgie Jutland moves in with wealthy widower Jim Buckridge in his home on White Point, on the coast of Western Australia, recognizing the emptiness in her life but unable to rouse herself enough to do anything to change it. Then by chance (but somehow in Winton's novels you get the feeling that it's fate) she meets musician Luther Fox, whose lost his love of music when his family was killed, and who now ekes out a living as a poacher, threatened and despised by the townspeople. The feelings that spring up between Georgie and Lu are visceral, passionate, and ultimately dangerous, and their affair only comes to an end after an act of terrible violence. Luther disappears, and Georgie tries to track him down, following him along the coast and into the desert of Western and Northern Australia. This is one of those novels that will thrill readers looking for good writing, living, breathing, complicated characters, and a palpable sense of place, not to mention an engrossing story of loss and the possibility of forgiveness (for oneself and others) and grace.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib003.jpg" alt="nobib003.jpg" /><p>Racketty-Packetty House by Frances Hodgson (2006)</p> <p>There are some children who love playing with doll houses and whose most fervent wish is that the dolls in them could come alive. For those children, Racketty Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett is the perfect book to share. First published in 1906, it's recently been reissued with charmingly spirited illustrations by Wendy Anderson Halperin. When Tidy Castle arrives in Cynthia's bedroom, she moves her old and shabby dollhouse (which she calls Racketty Packetty House) and its inhabitants (the wonderfully named Meg, Peg, Ridiklis, Kilmanskeg, Peter Piper, and Gustibus) behind a door and out of sight. It takes a visit from a real princess (this is the Victorian period, after all, when there were many princesses around) and some help from Crosspatch, the queen of Fairyland (who tells the story), to give the old dolls and their home a new lease on life.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4605 at Selections for March 2007 <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1383454.jpg" alt="1383454.jpg" /><p><a href="">A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation</a> by Catherine Allgor (2006)</p> <p>I have a distinct memory of reading about Dolly Madison in one of those orange covered books in the "Childhood of Famous Americans" series when I was a child. I remember being totally fascinated with her romance and marriage to the much older James Madison, as well as her thrilling experiences during the War of 1812, in which she saved a portrait of George Washington from the burning White House. (I didn't know then that it was the famous portrait of Washington by Gilbert Stuart.) So I was thrilled to reacquaint myself with her life and times in A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation by Catherine Allgor. Madison was loved and admired by all (with the exception of her husband's political enemies) for the three decades she spent in the public spotlight; she was the first First Lady to carve out an important role for herself in the everyday workings of the new nation. Collaborating with her husband to bring the still fractious states (and their leaders) together, Dolley turned the White House into a salon, where men from all sides of the political spectrum, as well as foreign diplomats, kings, and potentates, could come together and, mellowed by good food and wine and an attractive and charming hostess, begin to work out their differences. She was a true partner to her husband - one political opponent believed that Madison never would have won the presidency without Dolley at his side. Allgor's lively biography brings this vivacious and intelligent woman back into the spotlight she so deserves.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1280276.jpg" alt="1280276.jpg" /><p><a href="">Uniform Justice</a> by Donna Leon (2003)</p> <p>Reading any one of Donna Leon's uniformly excellent mysteries - all set in contemporary Venice (Italy, not California) and all starring Commissario Guido Brunetti - will get you hooked. But one of my favorites is Uniform Justice, in which Brunetti is called in to a military school to investigate the apparent suicide of a young cadet. He discovers that young Ernesto Moro, rather than killing himself, was in fact brutally murdered. Was it payback for his doctor-turned-politician father's whistleblowing about the details of a military procurement scandal? Who knows more than they're telling? Who's covering for whom, and why? In this series of mysteries, Leon gives us a good cop working in a flawed, even corrupt, system, and offers American readers a view of Italy they're not likely to get elsewhere. There's also a wonderful cast of supporting characters, including both Brunetti's family (his wife Paola is interesting enough to warrant a book or two of her own), as well as his colleagues on the police force, such as the divine Signorina Elettra (who also deserves her own books). Fans of police procedurals will not want to miss getting acquainted with Donna Leon's mysteries. Incidentally, you don't need to read these books in any particular order.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1119520.jpg" alt="1119520.jpg" /><p><a href="">Guess How Much I Love You</a> by Sam McBratney (1995)</p> <p>Awwww. Sweet but definitely not sappy is the best way to describe Guess How Much I Love You. According to the publisher, Sam McBratney's picture book has already sold more than 13 million copies worldwide. It's easy to see why this lovely tale of the game a father and son play before bedtime resonates with families everywhere. Anita Jeram's engagingly tender watercolor illustrations lovingly depict Little Nutbrown Hare and his father, Big Nutbrown Hare, as they take turns telling each other how much they love each other. This is a perfect choice to read just before you tuck that little one into bed and turn out the light.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1392539.jpg" alt="1392539.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Echo Maker</a> by Richard Powers (2007)</p> <p>Most of Richard Powers's nine brilliant and meticulously constructed novels weave issues of contemporary science into the lives of his characters. (In The Gold Bug Variations, it was DNA; in Galatea 2.2, it was artificial intelligence.) In his newest novel, The Echo Maker, winner of the 2006 National Book Award, it's neurology and the mysteries of the brain. 27-year-old Mark Schluter (described by his sister, Karin, as someone who'd "long ago taken every wrong turn you could take in life, and from the wrong lane") wakes up from a coma with no memory of the automobile accident that caused it. He is also suffering from Capgras syndrome, which causes him to believe that Karin is a stranger impersonating his sister. In desperation, Karin turns for help to an Oliver Sacks-like neurologist whose fame rests on the popular books he's written about patients with brain injuries. Powers effectively communicates the pain and bewilderment she feels - how can you prove to someone you are who you say you are, when everything you give as evidence is construed as a more elaborate and insidious plot? As the story unfolds around these three main characters, plus a nurse's aide who probably knows more than she's telling, we are asked to consider just what a "self" is, and to what extent who we think we are is simply a creation of our minds. Book groups looking for a meaty, thought-provoking selection will have a stimulating time with Powers's latest work. </p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1405521.jpg" alt="1405521.jpg" /><p><a href="">American Born Chinese</a> by Gene Luen Yang (2006)</p> <p>Three different storylines are interwoven in Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel, American Born Chinese. They include the story of the over-reaching Chinese folk hero, the Monkey King; the story of Jin Wang, the American born Chinese of the title, a typical middle-school student except that he's one of the few non-Caucasians in his class; and the story of Danny, a white kid who's terribly embarrassed by his Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee (presented here as a racial stereotype, in both appearance, speech, and behavior, that's both painful to read and view). Yang uses his sensitivity to the difficulties of adolescence (he's a high school teacher in San Francisco) and his consummate skill as an illustrator - the drawings are sharp and distinctive - to bring these different strands together in a satisfying way. His book conveys an important message - be satisfied with who you are - in a sufficiently subtle and authentic way that teen readers won't be put off or feel they're being preached to. Yang's book was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature from the American Librarian Association.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1378787.jpg" alt="1378787.jpg" /><p><a href="">Man of My Dreams</a> by Curtis Sittenfeld (2006)</p> <p>Once I started Curtis Sittenfeld's Man of My Dreams, I was so charmed by the narrative voice that I could barely put the novel down. We first meet Hannah Gavener when she's 14, at the point in time when her mother has just decided to stand up to her controlling and unpredictable father. (Throughout the novel Hannah shares with the reader her observations about the experience of growing up in a dysfunctional family. She says, for example, "Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn't exist to accommodate have never believed you live under the shelter of some essential benevolence." I think anyone who's ever lived with a father anything like Hannah's will see the truth in that statement.) We follow Hannah through four years of college and beyond, watching as she struggles to figure who, exactly, she is, and what it is she wants. It's clear to her that she's not like Allison, her beautiful and intelligent older sister, or her boy-crazy, wildly attractive cousin, Fig. Why is she so dissatisfied with Mike, a young man who adores her? Why does she hold herself so aloof from her classmates and would-be dates, and why does she - it sometimes seems deliberately - choose to remain basically the same lonely, self-doubting kid she was at age fourteen? That the book ends with no satisfyingly complete resolution shows, I think, the author's respect for her readers.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1388738.jpg" alt="1388738.jpg" /><p><a href="">This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession</a> by Daniel J. Levitin (2006)</p> <p>For me, Daniel J. Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession was one of those books that - when you find it - you realize you've been waiting for it all your life. Here are the ABCs of music theory and appreciation, for those of us who know nothing about music, but know what we like. Finally, someone to explain to me why songs written in a major key tend to sound happy, while those in a minor key usually seem hauntingly sad (and what the difference is between a major and minor key, in the first place). Levitin, before he became a neuroscientist (he now runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University), was a session musician, sound engineer, and record producer, and he puts theory and practice together in a deft and fascinating manner. Beginning with the building blocks of music - tone, pitch, scale, timbre - he proceeds to provide us with answers to all sorts of questions that range from why bits of songs obsessively stick in our heads to whether or not a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it fall makes any sound. This is a book best read slowly, with a piano nearby, and an eclectically stocked music library, so that you have access to all the examples he uses, which span from Wagner to Miles Davis, from Liszt to Ludacris, and everyone in between.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1399094.jpg" alt="1399094.jpg" /><p><a href="">A Safe Place for Dying</a> by Jack Frederickson (2006)</p> <p>If you want to get in at the beginning of what promises to be a superior mystery series, check out Jack Fredrickson's first novel, A Safe Place for Dying. The main character, Dek Elstrom, is a down-on-his-luck and recently divorced private investigator. He's hired to find the facts of a case involving an explosion that destroyed a multi-million dollar mansion in Crystal Waters, a gated, heavily secured community on the outskirts of Chicago. (Coincidentally, it's the place where he lived with his very wealthy wife during their brief marriage.) When Dek starts digging, he uncovers clues that indicate that the roots of this crime lie more than 30 years in the past. In addition to Dek, who's satisfyingly complicated and comes with a solid back story, I look forward to getting to know more about Fredrickson's secondary characters as the series progresses.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1403799.jpg" alt="1403799.jpg" /><p><a href="">What Is the What</a> by Dave Eggers (2006)</p> <p>In What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, Dave Eggers has written what's best described as a fictionalized memoir. Based on what must have been hours and days and months of conversations with Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, and written in Deng's own voice, he describes how, as a youngster o the victims of the 1980s, he was swept up in the horrors of the Sudanese Civil War. When an Arab militia destroyed his Dinka village, he joined up with a group of other orphaned children, mostly boys, who attempted to walk to Ethiopia where they believed they would find peace and safety. (Unfortunately, that turned out to be just another unmet hope.) The tragic circumstances these children endured have been told in several works of nonfiction before, but having Deng relate, in an almost matter-of-fact tone, those nightmare-like experiences (where death - by starvation, via murderous adults masquerading as friends, from exhaustion, or being captured and killed by the wild animals who stalk them - is a constant companion) gives it an immediacy and potency that is unique among other accounts. Sadly, even when Deng and his compatriots are finally settled in towns and cities all over the United States, their troubles are not over. Readers of Eggers's own memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, will find that here he's subsumed his own strong personality and enormous talent for verbal fireworks into this truly heartbreaking and powerful story. All proceeds from the sale of this book will be divided among various foundations supporting Sudanese Civil War.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1379597.jpg" alt="1379597.jpg" /><p><a href="">The Abortionist's Daughter</a> by Elisabeth Hyde (2006)</p> <p>The Abortionist's Daughter by Elisabeth Hyde is the story of the death of a wife and mother who just happens to run an abortion clinic in a smallish Colorado town. Dr. Diana Duprey has made plenty of enemies in her day, including the head of the local anti-abortion coalition, and she's not getting along all that well with her husband or her teenage daughter, either. When she's found dead in the family's pool, though, it's going to take both sound reasoning and a bit of luck to figure out who was angry enough at her to actually kill her. Contrary to what one might expect, this is not a book about abortion rights; rather, it's an examination of mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, and love gone awry.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/1261204.jpg" alt="1261204.jpg" /><p><a href="">Dead Reckoning</a> by Helen Whybrow (2002)</p> <p>If you're interested in exploring the genre of armchair travel and adventure, Dead Reckoning: Great Adventure Writing from the Golden Age of Exploration, 1800 -1900, edited by Helen Whybrow, is the perfect place to begin. Whybrow has included excerpts from the writings of a diverse group of travelers, both the familiar (Meriwether Lewis, Charles Darwin, and Sven Hedin, among others) and the not so familiar (including Mrs. Alfred "Mary" Mummery, who climbed one of the most difficult mountains in the Alps with her husband in 1880, and Mary Kingsley, whose trip to West Africa in the 1890s included friendly encounters with cannibals, fighting off crocodiles, and summiting Mount Cameroon, where she left her calling card). Among other travelers whose tales we share are George Kennan (who nearly froze to death in Siberia), Mark Twain (in the American West); John Wesley Powell (on the Colorado River), Fridtjof Nansen (at the North Pole); Robert Louis Stevenson (journeying with a donkey in France); and Francis Parkman (on the Oregon Trail). There are thrills, chills, and excitement galore in these stirring accounts of men and women who roamed the world o'er.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib002.jpg" alt="nobib002.jpg" /><p>Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw: Travels in Search of Canada by Will Ferguson (2005)</p> <p>In Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw: Travels in Search of Canada, Will Ferguson writes about his native Canada with humor, affection, and occasional exasperation. He describes places and people from Victoria to Newfoundland, and includes tales of early explorers like Samuel Hearne, who, in 1770, walked from Prince of Wales Fort, on the shores of Hudson Bay, to the Arctic Ocean, and back again, a distance of some 5600 kilometers, looking for the Northwest Passage and copper (and finding neither). He also describes his own experiences watching polar bears from about as up close as anyone would want to get. Reading Ferguson's sometimes laugh-aloud essays is a good way to remind ourselves of just how vast and varied our neighbor to the north is.</p> <img style="float:left;padding:5px;" src="/sites/default/files/images/nobib001.jpg" alt="nobib001.jpg" /><p>Interface by Neal Stephenson (2005)</p> <p>Along with many superior science fiction novels (like Cryptonomicon), Neal Stephenson co-authored a few splendid suspense novels with J. Frederick George. Originally published in the 1990s under the name of Stephen Bury, they've been reissued with the real names of the two authors. You don't have be a conspiracy theorist to enjoy Interface - just liking fast-paced, more-or-less plausible political thrillers is enough - but it certainly helps in the requisite suspension of disbelief. A powerful group of financiers (i.e., sophisticated bad guys) from around the world decide they need to elect a U.S. president who will answer only to them. When genuinely likeable Illinois governor (and potential presidential candidate) William A. Cozzano has a stroke and is hospitalized, they seize their opportunity and have a microchip implanted in his brain that places him under their control. Will these miscreants get away with it? Will Cozzano be elected president? It's basically up to three people - Cozzano's daughter Mary Catherine, his best friend, Mel, and Eleanor Richmond, a spunky, plain speaking, down on her luck former bank teller - to foil their Manchurian Candidate-like plot. Or not.</p> Books books nancy pearl Pearl's Picks pearl's picks recommendations Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:00:00 +0000 cpl_admin 4604 at