The Kansas Reading Society

Heard about a Book...

2011-09-07T09:59:00.005-05:00

I heard Karl Marlantes, the author of Matterhorn (see May 7th), interviewed on NPR about his new memoir What It Is Like to Go to War, based on his own experiences in Vietnam.

From Goodreads.com:

From the author of the New York Times Bestseller Matterhorn, this is a powerful nonfiction book about the experience of combat and how inadequately we prepare our young men and women for war.

War is as old as humankind, but in the past, warriors were prepared for battle by ritual, religion and literature—which also helped bring them home. In a compelling narrative, Marlantes weaves riveting accounts of his combat experiences with thoughtful analysis, self-examination and his readings—from Homer to the Mahabharata to Jung. He talks frankly about how he is haunted by the face of the young North Vietnamese soldier he killed at close quarters and how he finally finds a way to make peace with his past. Marlantes discusses the daily contradictions that warriors face in the grind of war, where each battle requires them to take life or spare life, and where they enter a state he likens to the fervor of religious ecstasy.

Just as Matterhorn is already being acclaimed as a classic of war literature, What It Is Like To Go To War is set to become required reading for anyone—soldier or civilian—interested in this visceral and all too essential part of the human experience.

Favorite Bookstores...

2011-08-24T22:13:00.000-05:00

Cheryl is in Seattle and stopped by Elliott Bay Book Company.

Heard about a Book...

2011-08-20T15:02:00.000-05:00

I have seen this on the new book shelves at several bookstores—The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace.

From Goodreads.com:

In the early 1800s, a young Italian contessa, Carolina Fantoni, realizes she is going blind shortly before she marries the town's most sought-after bachelor. Her parents don't believe her, nor does her fiancé. The only one who understands is the eccentric local inventor and her longtime companion, Turri. When her eyesight dims forever, Carolina can no longer see her beloved lake or the rich hues of her own dresses. But as darkness erases her world, she discovers one place she can still see-in her dreams. Carolina creates a vivid dreaming life, in which she can not only see, but also fly, exploring lands she had never known.

Desperate to communicate with Carolina, Turri invents a peculiar machine for her: the world's first typewriter. His gift ignites a passionate love affair that will change both of their lives forever.

Based on the true story of a nineteenth-century inventor and his innovative contraption, The Blind Contessa's New Machine is an enchanting confection of love and the triumph of the imagination.

Favorite Bookstores...

2011-08-19T14:28:00.002-05:00

Stopped into the Dusty Bookshelf in Lawrence yesterday.

Heard about a Book...

2011-08-18T13:56:00.005-05:00

On Here & Now today, I listened to an interview with Wes Moore, the author of The Other Wes Moore that is turning out to be the freshman read this fall on many college campuses. He was very interesting and his book sounds very powerful.

From the author's website:

Two kids with the same name, living in the same city. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison for felony murder. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.

In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore.

Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?

That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that has lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices and the people in their lives would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.

Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a challenging and at times, hostile world.

Heard about a Book...

2011-08-17T13:01:00.005-05:00

I heard an interview on NPR with Alexandra Fuller about her new memoir Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness. She was very interesting and the passages she read were well written.

From the author's website:

In Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness Alexandra Fuller braids a multi-layered narrative around the perfectly lit, Happy Valley-era Africa of her mother's childhood; the emotionally frozen landscape of her father's English childhood; and the darker, civil war- torn Africa of her own childhood. At its heart, this is the story of Fuller's mother, Nicola. Born on the Scottish Isle of Skye and raised in Kenya, Nicola holds dear the kinds of values most likely to get you hurt or killed in Africa: loyalty to blood, passion for land, and a holy belief in the restorative power of all animals. A story of survival and madness, love and war, loyalty and forgiveness, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is an intimate exploration of the author's family.

Just Started...

2011-08-17T12:39:00.005-05:00

I've started the first book of the Outlander series, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

From the author's website:

In 1946, after WWII, a young Englishwoman named Claire Beauchamp Randall goes to the Scottish Highlands with her husband, Frank. She’s an ex-combat nurse, he’s been in the army as well, they’ve been separated for the last six years, and this is a second honeymoon; they’re getting re-acquainted with each other, thinking of starting a family. But one day Claire goes out walking by herself, and comes across a circle of standing stones–such circles are in fact common all over northern Britain. She walks through a cleft stone in the circle….and disappears. Back into 1743, where the first person she meets is a gentleman in an 18th-century army officer’s uniform. This gentleman, Jack Randall, looks just like her husband Frank–and proves to be Frank’s six-times-great-grandfather. Unfortunately, he also proves to be a sadistic bisexual pervert, and while trying to escape from him, Claire falls into the hands of a gang of Highland Scots, who are also trying to get away from Black Jack Randall–though for other reasons.

In order to avoid being handed over to Captain Randall, Claire is obliged to marry one of the young clansmen. So she finds herself trying to escape from Castle Leoch and her Scottish captors, trying to get back to her husband Frank, trying to avoid being recaptured by Captain Randall–and falling in love with Jamie Fraser, the young man she’s been forced to marry.

Just Started...

2011-08-13T10:29:00.002-05:00

For Cheryl's birthday, I gave her a novel recommended by Rainy Day Books, Beginner's Greek by James Collins.

From Goodreads.com:

Is love at first sight possible or just an old-fashioned romantic idea? And what if, to further complicate things, you meet the love of your life and then lose her phone number? Then what if, after the impossible happens and you find her again, she's now about to marry a roguish lothario who is also your best friend? The complications don't end there for Peter Russell, the winning hero of James Collins' charming, generous, and romantic first novel. Part modern-day Jane Austen, part Tom Wolfe, Beginner's Greek is a romantic comedy of the highest order, with characters who are perfectly, charmingly real as they swerve and stumble from fairy tale to social satire and back again.

Just Started...

2011-08-10T14:09:00.002-05:00

Cheryl just checkout Rescue by Anita Shreve. Cheryl says its good so far, a quick read.

From Goodreads.com:

A rookie paramedic pulls a young woman alive from her totaled car, a first rescue that begins a lifelong tangle of love and wreckage. Sheila Arsenault is a gorgeous enigma--streetwise and tough-talking, with haunted eyes, fierce desires, and a never-look-back determination. Peter Webster, as straight an arrow as they come, falls for her instantly and entirely. Soon Sheila and Peter are embroiled in an intense love affair, married, and parents to a baby daughter. Like the crash that brought them together, it all happened so fast.

Can you ever really save another person? Eighteen years later, Sheila is long gone and Peter is raising their daughter, Rowan, alone. But Rowan is veering dangerously off track, and for the first time in their ordered existence together, Webster fears for her future. His work shows him daily every danger the world contains, how wrong everything can go in a second. All the love a father can give a daughter is suddenly not enough.

Sheila's sudden return may be a godsend--or it may be exactly the wrong moment for a lifetime of questions and anger and longing to surface anew. What tore a young family apart? Is there even worse damage ahead? The questions lifted up in Anita Shreve's utterly enthralling new novel are deep and lasting, and this is a novel that could only have been written by a master of the human heart.

Just Started...

2011-08-05T14:17:00.002-05:00

From our favorite beach bookstore, Sundog Books, Cheryl bought Staying at Daisy's by Jill Mansell, one of the romance author's she follows.

From Goodreads.com:

If you're looking for a hotel where anything can happen, try staying at Daisy's...

Daisy MacLean runs the country house hotel owned by her flamboyant father, Hector. When she hears who's about to get married there, she isn't worried at all - her friend Tara absolutely promises there won't be any trouble between her and ex-boyfriend Dominic, whom she hasn't seen for years. But Daisy should be worried. Dominic has other ideas. And seeing Tara again sets in motion a chaotic train of events with far-reaching consequences for all concerned.

While Daisy spends the ensuing months doing battle with Dev Tyzack (Dominic's so-called best man), Tara battles with her conscience. Meanwhile, Hector's getting up to all sorts with...well, that's the village's best kept secret. And then Barney turns up, with a little something belonging to the husband Daisy's been doing her best to forget. That's the thing about hotels, you never know who you're going to meet. Or whether they're going to stay...

Favorite Bookstores...

2011-08-04T17:47:00.002-05:00

Hello old friend... Sundog Books, Seaside, Florida.

Just Finished...

2011-08-01T10:14:00.003-05:00

Jim just finished Just One Look by Harlan Coben, a "quick thriller."

From the author's website:

An ordinary snapshot causes a suburban mother’s world to unravel in an instant. When Grace Lawson picks up a newly developed set of family photographs, there is a picture that doesn’t belong—a photo from at least twenty years ago. In the photo are five people, four Grace can’t recognize and one that looks strikingly like her husband, Jack.

When Jack sees the photo, he denies he’s the man in it. But later that night, while Grace lies in bed waiting, he drives away in the family's minivan without an explanation, taking the photograph with him.

Not knowing where he went or why he left, Grace struggles alone to shield her children from Jack’s absence in the days that follow. Each passing day brings only doubts about herself and her marriage and yet more unanswered questions about Jack, along with the realization that there are others looking for Jack and the photograph—including one fierce, silent killer who will not be stopped from finding his quarry, no matter who or what stands in his way.

When the police won’t help her, and neighbors and friends alike seem to have agendas of their own, she must confront the dark corners of her own tragic past to keep her children safe and learn the truth that might bring her husband home.

Heard about a Book...

2011-07-19T15:03:00.003-05:00

Heard a radio caller say this was a great audio book—The Last Days of Ptolemy by Walter Mosley.

From the author's website:

At ninety-one years old, Ptolemy Grey is one of the world’s forgotten: by his family, by his friends, by even himself. Marooned in a cluttered Los Angeles apartment overflowing with mementos from his past, Ptolemy sinks deeper into lonely dementia and into a past that’s best left buried. He’s determined to pass the rest of his days with only his memories for company. Until, at his grandnephew’s funeral, he meets Robyn and experiences a seismic shift, in his head, his heart, and his life.

Seventeen and without a family of her own, Robyn is unlike anyone Ptolemy has ever known. She and Ptolemy form an unexpected bond that reinvigorates his world. Robyn will not tolerate the way he has allowed himself to live, skulking in and out of awareness barely long enough to cash his small pension checks, living in fear of his neighbors and the memories that threaten to swallow him. With Robyn’s help, Ptolemy moves from isolation back into the brightness of friendship and desire. But Robyn’s challenges also push Ptolemy to make a life-changing decision that will affect both of them: to recapture the clarity and vigor of his fading mind and unlock the secrets he has carried for decades.

Heard about a Book...

2011-07-12T14:47:00.003-05:00

I read several good reviews (Guardian News, The Independent, Seattle Post) about Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson.

From Goodreads.com:

'As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I'm still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me ...' Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love - all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine's life.

Heard about a Book...

2011-07-12T14:40:00.003-05:00

For you WWII buffs, A Measureless Peril by Richard Snow looks very interesting.

About the book:

Author Richard Snow tackles the longest battle of WWII, the Battle of the Atlantic, which ran from 1939 through 1945. The story of this aspect of the war gets short shrift in most WWII histories and documentaries despite being the one area where Germany came the closest to actually winning the war. Snow takes the reader from the difficult early days of the war when the Allies struggled to deal with the U-Boat menace that was sinking a shocking amount of tonnage meant for Great Britain and later the Soviet Union which the members of the Kriegsmarine called "The Happy Time" through the painful evolution in tactics, technology & broken German codes that finally allowed the Allies to end the threat posed by the U-Boats. Snow introduces us to the brave men of the Merchant Marine and those who sailed on the newly introduced Destroyer Escort (DE) class specifically built to take on the U-Boats as they escorted Allied convoys across the Atlantic. As noted, author Snow's father was one of those who served on a DE during the war and his personal story along with those of many others bring the needed human element to the narrative of this battle. These stories bring home just how hostile the Atlantic was for the men on both sides of the fight as the ocean didn't play favorites. This work wasn't intended as a serious, in-depth study of tactics and strategy but Snow does provide a good overview to put these personal stories in context of the times these battles were fought. Those who desire to better understand the human toll taken by this battle would be hard pressed to find a better book from where to start as Snow's writing is readily accessible without the prerequisite need for extensive knowledge of this theater.

Heard about a Book...

2011-07-08T13:57:00.003-05:00

I'm hearing good things about The Hypnotist by Swedish writer Lars Kepler (The Independent, The Daily Beast). Might be the next Stieg Larsson...

About The Hypnotist:

A triple homicide has Sweden on edge, and with the killer still at large, Detective Inspector Joona Linna’s only lead is one of the intended victims—the boy who saw his family killed before his eyes. But severely wounded and in a state of shock, he’s in no condition to be questioned.

Desperate for information, Linna enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to hypnotize the boy, hoping for some insight on the killer. It’s the sort of work that Bark had sworn he would never do again—ethically dubious and psychically scarring—and when he breaks his vow and hypnotizes the boy, a terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl…

Heard about a Book...

2011-07-08T13:36:00.004-05:00

I follow several book and grammer twitterers (is that how you say people who twitter?), and Mignon Fogarty, A.k.A. @GrammarGirl, has a new grammar guide, 101 Misused Words You'll Never Confuse Again.

From Goodreads.com:

Millions of fans around the world write and communicate better thanks to Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, whose weekly grammar podcast has been downloaded more than 30 million times. Since her first book, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, hit the New York Times bestseller list, her grammar empire has expanded to boast more than 40,000 newsletter subscribers, over 75,000 Twitter followers, and thousands of loyal “devotees” worldwide. Now she’s focusing her attention on improving our vocabulary with a series of 101 Words books designed to appeal to the masses.

The series kicks off with Grammar Girl’s 101 Misused Words You’ll Never Confuse Again, an immensely usable guide that tackles those words that confound and confuse even the smartest of people. Nearly everyone has trouble remembering the difference between “affect” and “effect,” whether it’s “supposedly” or “supposably,” or which form of “hear” you use in “Hear, hear!” (Or is it “Here, here!”?)

Each word pair entry contains a straightforward explanation—complete with examples—to ensure (or is it “insure”?) readers will be confidently choosing “who” over “whom” or “uninterested” over “disinterested” with ease. Alongside these usage notes will be fun tidbits including famous quotes, sample crossword entries, and the memory tricks Grammar Girl is known for.

Just Started...

2011-07-06T11:35:00.005-05:00

Upon Paul's recommendation, Jim is reading The Last Stand by Nathaniel Philbrick, an account of the battle of Little Bighorn.

From the author's website:

Little Bighorn and Custer are names synonymous in the American imagination with unmatched bravery and spectacular defeat. Mythologized as Custer’s Last Stand, the June 1876 battle has been equated with other famous last stands, from the Spartans’ defeat at Thermopylae to Davy Crockett at the Alamo.

In his tightly structured narrative, Nathaniel Philbrick brilliantly sketches the two larger-than-life antagonists: Sitting Bull, whose charisma and political savvy earned him the position of leader of the Plains Indians, and George Armstrong Custer, one of the Union’s greatest cavalry officers and a man with a reputation for fearless and often reckless courage. Philbrick reminds readers that the Battle of the Little Bighorn was also, even in victory, the last stand for the Sioux and Cheyenne Indian nations. Increasingly outraged by the government’s Indian policies, the Plains tribes allied themselves and held their ground in southern Montana. Within a few years of Little Bighorn, however, all the major tribal leaders would be confined to Indian reservations.

Throughout, Philbrick beautifully evokes the history and geography of the Great Plains with his characteristic grace and sense of drama. The Last Stand is a mesmerizing account of the archetypal story of the American West, one that continues to haunt our collective imagination.

Classic...

2011-06-30T09:35:00.010-05:00

Today is the 75th anniversary of the publication of Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. It sold over one million copies in the first six months of publication and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. There is an excellent retrospective by NPR's Susan Stamberg on Morning Edition today.

About Gone With The Wind:

It is the spring of 1861. Scarlett O’Hara, a pretty Southern belle, lives on Tara, a large plantation in Georgia. She concerns herself only with her numerous suitors and her desire to marry Ashley Wilkes. One day she hears that Ashley is engaged to Melanie Hamilton, his frail, plain cousin from Atlanta. At a barbecue at the Wilkes plantation the next day, Scarlett confesses her feelings to Ashley. He tells her that he does love her but that he is marrying Melanie because she is similar to him, whereas he and Scarlett are very different. Scarlett slaps Ashley and he leaves the room. Suddenly Scarlett realizes that she is not alone. Rhett Butler, a scandalous but dashing adventurer, has been watching the whole scene, and he compliments Scarlett on being unladylike.

The Civil War begins. Charles Hamilton, Melanie’s timid, dull brother, proposes to Scarlett. She spitefully agrees to marry him, hoping to hurt Ashley. Over the course of two months, Scarlett and Charles marry, Charles joins the army and dies of the measles, and Scarlett learns that she is pregnant. After Scarlett gives birth to a son, Wade, she becomes bored and unhappy. She makes a long trip to Atlanta to stay with Melanie and Melanie’s aunt, Pittypat. The busy city agrees with Scarlett’s temperament, and she begins to see a great deal of Rhett. Rhett infuriates Scarlett with his bluntness and mockery, but he also encourages her to flout the severely restrictive social requirements for mourning Southern widows. As the war progresses, food and clothing run scarce in Atlanta. Scarlett and Melanie fear for Ashley’s safety. After the bloody battle of Gettysburg, Ashley is captured and sent to prison, and the Yankee army begins bearing down on Atlanta. Scarlett desperately wants to return home to Tara, but she has promised Ashley she will stay with the pregnant Melanie, who could give birth at any time.

On the night the Yankees capture Atlanta and set it afire, Melanie gives birth to her son, Beau. Rhett helps Scarlett and Melanie escape the Yankees, escorting them through the burning streets of the city, but he abandons them outside Atlanta so he can join the Confederate Army. Scarlett drives the cart all night and day through a dangerous forest full of deserters and soldiers, at last reaching Tara. She arrives to find that her mother, Ellen, is dead; her father, Gerald, has lost his mind; and the Yankee army has looted the plantation, leaving no food or cotton. Scavenging for subsistence, a furious Scarlett vows never to go hungry again.

Scarlett takes charge of rebuilding Tara. She murders a Yankee thief and puts out a fire set by a spiteful Yankee soldier. At last the war ends, word comes that Ashley is free and on his way home, and a stream of returning soldiers begins pouring through Tara. One such soldier, a one-legged homeless Confederate named Will Benteen, stays on and helps Scarlett with the plantation. One day, Will brings terrible news: Jonas Wilkerson, a former employee at Tara and current government official, has raised the taxes on Tara, hoping to drive the O’Haras out so that he might buy the plantation. Distraught, Scarlett hurries to Atlanta to seduce Rhett Butler so that he will give her the three hundred dollars she needs for taxes. Rhett has emerged from the war a fabulously wealthy man, dripping with earnings from his blockade-running operation and from food speculation. However, Rhett is in a Yankee jail and cannot help Scarlett. Scarlett sees her sister’s beau, Frank Kennedy, who now owns a general store, and forges a plan. Determined to save Tara, she betrays her sister and marries Frank, pays the taxes on Tara, and devotes herself to making Frank’s business more profitable.

After Rhett blackmails his way out of prison, he lends Scarlett enough money to buy a sawmill. To the displeasure of Atlanta society, Scarlett becomes a shrewd businesswoman. Gerald dies, and Scarlett returns to Tara for the funeral. There, she persuades Ashley and Melanie to move to Atlanta and accept a share in her lumber business. Shortly thereafter, Scarlett gives birth to Frank’s child, Ella Lorena.

A free black man and his white male companion attack Scarlett on her way home from the sawmill one day. That night, the Ku Klux Klan avenges the attack on Scarlett, and Frank ends up dead. Rhett proposes to Scarlett and she quickly accepts. After a long, luxurious honeymoon in New Orleans, Scarlett and Rhett return to Atlanta, where Scarlett builds a garish mansion and socializes with wealthy Yankees. Scarlett becomes pregnant again and has another child, Bonnie Blue Butler. Rhett dotes on the girl and begins a successful campaign to win back the good graces of the prominent Atlanta citizens in order to keep Bonnie from being an outcast like Scarlett.

Scarlett and Rhett’s marriage begins happily, but Rhett becomes increasingly bitter and indifferent toward her. Scarlett’s feelings for Ashley have diminished into a warm, sympathetic friendship, but Ashley’s jealous sister, India, finds them in a friendly embrace and spreads the rumor that they are having an affair. To Scarlett’s surprise, Melanie takes Scarlett’s side and refuses to believe the rumors.

After Bonnie is killed in a horse-riding accident, Rhett nearly loses his mind, and his marriage with Scarlett worsens. Not long after the funeral, Melanie has a miscarriage and falls very ill. Distraught, Scarlett hurries to see her. Melanie makes Scarlett promise to look after Ashley and Beau. Scarlett realizes that she loves and depends on Melanie and that Ashley has been only a fantasy for her. She concludes that she truly loves Rhett. After Melanie dies, Scarlett hurries to tell Rhett of her revelation. Rhett, however, says that he has lost his love for Scarlett, and he leaves her. Grief-stricken and alone, Scarlett makes up her mind to go back to Tara to recover her strength in the comforting arms of her childhood nurse and slave, Mammy, and to think of a way to win Rhett back.

Just Started...

2011-06-30T08:47:00.000-05:00

Cheryl picked up a pile of new releases at the library. I started The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse last night, and it's very good so far. Check it out.

From the author's website:

In the winter of 1928, still seeking some kind of resolution to the horrors of World War I, Freddie is traveling through the beautiful but forbidding French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. Dazed, he stumbles through the woods, emerging in a tiny village, where he finds an inn to wait out the blizzard. There he meets Fabrissa, a lovely young woman also mourning a lost generation.

Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories. By the time dawn breaks, Freddie will have unearthed a tragic, centuries-old mystery, and discovered his own role in the life of this remote town.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-23T15:40:00.003-05:00

I've read several good reviews about A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion by Ron Hanson (The NY Times, NPR, Oprah).

From Goodreads.com:

Based on a real case whose lurid details scandalized Americans in 1927 and sold millions of newspapers, acclaimed novelist Ron Hansen’s latest work is a tour de force of erotic tension and looming violence. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Ruth Snyder is a voluptuous, reckless, and altogether irresistible woman who wishes not only to escape her husband but that he die—and the sooner the better. No less miserable in his own tedious marriage is Judd Gray, a dapper corset-and-brassiere salesman who travels the Northeast peddling his wares. He meets Ruth in a Manhattan diner, and soon they are conducting a white-hot affair involving hotel rooms, secret letters, clandestine travels, and above all, Ruth’s increasing insistence that Judd kill her husband. Could he do it? Would he? What follows is a thrilling exposition of a murder plan, a police investigation, the lovers’ attempt to escape prosecution, and a final reckoning for both of them that lays bare the horror and sorrow of what they have done. Dazzlingly well-written and artfully constructed, this impossible-to-put-down story marks the return of an American master known for his elegant and vivid novels that cut cleanly to the essence of the human heart, always and at once mysterious and filled with desire.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-22T13:59:00.001-05:00

I heard about a new young adult trilogy—The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth. The first story was released in May, Divergent. It might be the next Hunger Games...

From the publisher's website:

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the literary scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

Just Started...

2011-06-21T15:28:00.003-05:00

Upon recommendation by Rainy Day Books and Pat & Steve, I have just started People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. So far, so good (see July 19th).

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-17T09:21:00.005-05:00

Another summer read mentioned on Talk of the Nation is the classic Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum, originally published in 1899.

About the book:

In 1895, Slocum set sail in his sloop, the Spray, on a voyage that was to take 3 years & earn him a place in history as the first man to navigate the globe singlehandedly. Here is Slocum's own story, told with the salt resilience of an old sailor.

From the Joshua Slocum Society International:

Nova Scotia born, with family roots in New England, Captain Slocum commanded some of the finest tall ships that ever sailed the seas. On April 24, 1895, at the age of 51, he departed Boston in his tiny sloop Spray and sailed around the world single-handed, a passage of 46,000 miles, returning to Newport, Rhode Island on June 27, 1898. This historic achievement made him the patron saint of small-boat voyagers, navigators and adventurers all over the world.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-16T15:38:00.003-05:00

Talk of the Nation today had a call-in segment on summer reads. The guest book critic Laura Miller agreed with a caller that Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran was a great mystery novel. AND according to the the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, its the first book of a future series. Check it out.

About the novel:

Claire DeWitt is not your average private investigator. She has brilliant deductive skills and is an ace at discovering evidence. But Claire also uses her dreams, omens, and mind-expanding herbs to help her solve mysteries, and relies on Détection — the only book published by the late, great, and mysterious French detective Jacques Silette.

The tattooed, pot-smoking Claire has just arrived in post-Katrina New Orleans, the city she’s avoided since her mentor, Silette’s student Constance Darling, was murdered there. Claire is investigating the disappearance of Vic Willing, a prosecutor known for winning convictions in a homicide- plagued city. Has an angry criminal enacted revenge on Vic? Or did he use the storm as a means to disappear? Claire follows the clues, finding old friends and making new enemies — foremost among them Andray Fairview, a young gang member who just might hold the key to the mystery.

Littered with memories of Claire’s years as a girl detective in 1980s Brooklyn, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead is a knockout start to a bracingly original new series.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-16T10:36:00.005-05:00

For music lovers, Out of the Vinyl Deeps, a collection of articles by Ellen Willis, edited by Nona Willis Aronowitz, looks very interesting. Willis was the pop music critic for The New Yorker in the late 60s and 70s. According to The New York Times Sunday Book Review, "...this selection of 59 articles, primarily from the late ’60s to mid-’70s, offers a fresh look at that era’s well-documented music."

From Goodreads.com:

In 1968, the New Yorker hired Ellen Willis as its first popular music critic. Her column, Rock, Etc., ran for seven years and established Willis as a leader in cultural commentary and a pioneer in the nascent and otherwise male-dominated field of rock criticism. As a writer for a magazine with a circulation of nearly half a million, Willis was also the country’s most widely read rock critic. With a voice at once sharp, thoughtful, and ecstatic, she covered a wide range of artists—Bob Dylan, The Who, Van Morrison, Elvis Presley, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joni Mitchell, the Velvet Underground, Sam and Dave, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Wonder—assessing their albums and performances not only on their originality, musicianship, and cultural impact but also in terms of how they made her feel.

Because Willis stopped writing about music in the early 1980s—when, she felt, rock ’n’ roll had lost its political edge—her significant contribution to the history and reception of rock music has been overshadowed by contemporary music critics like Robert Christgau, Lester Bangs, and Dave Marsh. Out of the Vinyl Deeps collects for the first time Willis’s Rock, Etc. columns and her other writings about popular music from this period (including liner notes for works by Lou Reed and Janis Joplin) and reasserts her rightful place in rock music criticism.

More than simply setting the record straight, Out of the Vinyl Deeps reintroduces Willis’s singular approach and style—her use of music to comment on broader social and political issues, critical acuity, vivid prose, against-the-grain opinions, and distinctly female (and feminist) perspective—to a new generation of readers. Featuring essays by the New Yorker’s current popular music critic, Sasha Frere-Jones, and cultural critics Daphne Carr and Evie Nagy, this volume also provides a lively and still relevant account of rock music during, arguably, its most innovative period.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-16T10:19:00.005-05:00

I heard an interview on NPR with Jamil Ahmad, the author of Wandering Falcon, a collection of stories about the tribal regions of Pakistan. I'm not sure it's my cup of tea, but he was a compelling interview.

About Wandering Falcon:

The boy known as Tor Baz—the black falcon —wanders between tribes. He meets men who fight under different flags, and women who risk everything if they break their society’s code of honour. Where has he come from, and where will destiny take him?

Set in the decades before the rise of the Taliban, Jamil Ahmad’s stunning debut takes us to the essence of human life in the forbidden areas where the borders of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan meet. Today the ‘tribal areas’ are often spoken about as a remote region, a hotbed of conspiracies, drone attacks and conflict. In The Wandering Falcon, this highly traditional, honour-bound culture is revealed from the inside for the first time.

With rare tenderness and perception, Jamil Ahmad describes a world of custom and cruelty, of love and gentleness, of hardship and survival; a fragile, unforgiving world that is changing as modern forces make themselves known. With the fate-defying story of Tor Baz, he has written an unforgettable novel of insight, compassion and timeless wisdom.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-15T14:14:00.003-05:00

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan was just positively reviewed in The New York Times Sunday Book Review and looks like it might be a good summer read. Check it out.

From the author's website:

For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano at night. Their beachfront property, won on a barroom bet after the war, sits on three acres of sand and pine nestled between stretches of rocky coast, with one tree bearing the initials “A.H.” At the cottage, built by Kelleher hands, cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and decades-old grudges simmer beneath the surface.

As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.

By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-15T11:15:00.007-05:00

PatB highly recommends a poet I have never read, Billy Collins. Pat has read several collections of his poems including Ballistics and Nine Horses. Collins is the author of eight collections of poetry. A distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York, he was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006. Here is a sample of his work:

I Ask You

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside—
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.

No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles—
each a different height—
are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt—
frog at the edge of a pond—
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-14T13:04:00.007-05:00

On Here & Now today I heard Jay Asher, the author of the bestselling young adult story, Thirteen Reasons Why. The story centers around a teen suicide, so parents may want to choose to read this story with their kids.

From the author's website:

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list. Through Hannah and Clay's dual narratives, debut author Jay Asher weaves an intricate and heartrending story of confusion and desperation that will deeply affect teen readers.

Reading List...

2011-06-14T12:29:00.004-05:00

From a new contributor, PatB has several recent books he has read in the last year or so that make a great summer reading list. Check them out (alphabetical by author):

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig
Man Walks Into A Room by Nicole Krauss
Resistance by Anita Shreve

About The Brief History of the Dead:

The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. They will reside in this afterlife until they are completely forgotten. But the City is shrinking, and the residents clearing out. Some of the holdouts, like Luka Sims, who produces the City's only newspaper, are wondering what exactly is going on. Others, like Coleman Kinzler, believe it is the beginning of the end. Meanwhile, Laura Byrd is trapped in an Antarctic research station, her supplies are running low, her radio finds only static, and the power is failing. With little choice, Laura sets out across the ice to look for help, but time is running out. Kevin Brockmeier alternates these two storylines to create a lyrical and haunting story about love, loss and the power of memory.

About The Dead Fathers Club:

Eleven-year-old Philip Noble has a big problem. His dad, who was killed in a car accident, appears as a bloodstained ghost at his own funeral and introduces Philip to the Dead Fathers Club. The club, whose members were all murdered, gathers outside the Castle and Falcon, the local pub that Philip’s family owns and lives above. Philip learns that the person responsible for his father’s death is his Uncle Alan. When Philip realizes that Uncle Alan has designs on his mom and the family pub, Philip decides that something must be done. But avenging his father's death is a much bigger job than he anticipated, especially when he is caught up by the usual distractions of childhood—a pretty girl, wayward friends, school bullies, and his own self-doubt.

Head about a Book...

2011-06-11T15:55:00.008-05:00

In an article on the Wall Street Journal web site about the difference between men vs. women readers, there was a father's day recommendation—I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. This story also comes recommended by Paul.

From Goodreads.com:

What if you were a 40-year-old housepainter, horrifically abused, emotionally unavailable, and your identical twin was a paranoid schizophrenic who believed in public self-mutilation? You'd either be a guest on the Jerry Springer Show or Dominick Birdsey, the antihero, narrator, and bad-juju magnet of I Know This Much Is True. Somewhere in the recesses of this hefty 912-page tome lurks an honest, moving account of one man's search, denial, and acceptance of self. This is no easy feat considering his grandfather seemed to take parenting tips from the SS and his grandmother was a possible teenage murderess, his stepfather a latent sadist, and his brother, Thomas, a politically motivated psychopath. Not one to break with tradition, Dominick continues the dysfunctional legacy with rape, a failed marriage, a nervous breakdown, SIDS, a car crash, and a racist conspiracy against a coworker--just to name a few.

A stretch, both literally and figuratively from his Oprah-christened bestseller, She's Come Undone, Lamb's book ventures outside the confines of the tightly bound beach read and marathons through a detailed, neatly cataloged account of every familial travesty and personal failure one can endure. At its heart lies Freud's "return of the repressed": the more we try to deny who we are, the more we become what we fear. Lamb takes Freud's psychological abstraction to the realm of everyday living, packing his novel with tender, believable dialogue and thoughtful observation.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-09T08:35:00.003-05:00

Father of the Rain by Lily King, just out in paperwork, is getting lots of praise (Washington Post, The New York Times, Oprah).

From the author's website:

In her most ambitious novel to date, critically acclaimed author Lily King sets her sharply insightful family drama in an upper-middle-class East Coast suburb where she traces a complex and volatile father-daughter relationship from the 1970s to the present day.

When eleven-year-old Daley Amory’s mother leaves her father, Daley is thrust into a chaotic adult world of competition, indulgence, and manipulation. Unable to place her allegiance, she gently toes the thickening line between her parents’ incompatible worlds: the increasingly liberal, socially committed realm of her mother, and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But without her mother there to keep him in line, Daley’s father’s basest impulses and quick rage are unleashed, and Daley finds herself having to choose her own survival over the father she still deeply loves.

As she grows into adulthood, Daley retreats from the New England country-club culture that nourished her father’s fears and addictions, and attempts to live outside of his influence. Until he hits rock bottom. Faced with the chance to free her father from sixty years worth of dependency, Daley must decide whether repairing their badly broken relationship is worth the risk of losing not only her professional dreams, but the love of her life, Jonathan, who represents so much of what Daley’s father claims to hate, and who has given her so much of what he could never provide.

Reading List...

2011-06-09T07:36:00.008-05:00

It's that time of year...Summer Reads! Here's a list of June releases I found from some top-selling authors--surely one of these books will end up on the beach with you! (alphabetical by author):

One Summer by David Baldacci
Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares
Against All Enemies by Tom Clancy
The Kingdom by Clive Cussler
Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver (see June 2nd)
Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich (a Stephanie Plum novel)
Folly Beach by Dorothea Benton Frank
Theodore Boone: The Abduction by John Grisham
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Now You See Her by James Patterson

About State of Wonder:

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett returns with a provocative and assured novel of morality and miracles, science and sacrifice set in the Amazon rainforest. Infusing the narrative with the same ingenuity and emotional urgency that pervaded her acclaimed previous novels Bel Canto, Taft, Run, The Magician’s Assistant, and The Patron Saint of Liars, Patchett delivers an enthrallingly innovative tale of aspiration, exploration, and attachment in State of Wonder—a gripping adventure story and a profound look at the difficult choices we make in the name of discovery and love.

Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but disappeared in the Amazon while working on what is destined to be an extremely valuable new drug, the development of which has already cost the company a fortune. Nothing about Marina's assignment is easy: not only does no one know where Dr. Swenson is, but the last person who was sent to find her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding her former mentor as well as answers to several troubling questions about her friend's death, the state of her company's future, and her own past.

Once found, Dr. Swenson, now in her seventies, is as ruthless and uncompromising as she ever was back in the days of Grand Rounds at Johns Hopkins. With a combination of science and subterfuge, she dominates her research team and the natives she is studying with the force of an imperial ruler. But while she is as threatening as anything the jungle has to offer, the greatest sacrifices to be made are the ones Dr. Swenson asks of herself, and will ultimately ask of Marina, who finds she may still be unable to live up to her teacher's expectations.

In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, and a neighboring tribe of cannibals, State of Wonder is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss. It is a tale that leads the reader into the very heart of darkness, and then shows us what lies on the other side.

About Folly Beach:

Home is the place that knows us best. . . .

A woman returns to the past to find her future in this enchanting new tale of loss, acceptance, family, and love.

With its sandy beaches and bohemian charms, surfers and suits alike consider Folly Beach to be one of South Carolina's most historic and romantic spots. It is also the land of Cate Cooper's childhood, the place where all the ghosts of her past roam freely. Cate never thought she'd wind up in this tiny cottage named the Porgy House on this breathtakingly lovely strip of coast. But circumstances have changed, thanks to her newly dead husband whose financial—and emotional—bull and mendacity have left Cate homeless, broke, and unmoored.

Yet Folly Beach holds more than just memories. Once upon a time another woman found unexpected bliss and comfort within its welcoming arms. An artist, writer, and colleague of the revered George Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward enjoyed the greatest moments of her life at Folly with her beloved husband, DuBose. And though the Heywards are long gone, their passion and spirit lingers in every mango sunset and gentle ocean breeze.

And for Cate, Folly, too, holds the promise of unexpected fulfillment when she is forced to look at her life and the zany characters that are her family anew. To her surprise, she will discover that you can go home again. Folly Beach doesn't just hold the girl she once was . . . it also holds the promise of the woman she's always wanted—and is finally ready—to become.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-09T06:22:00.001-05:00

I read a Library Thing interview with Caitlin Shetterly, author of Made for You and Me: Going West, Going Broke, Finding Home. She sounds very interesting.

From Goodreads.com:

Newlywed Caitlin Shetterly and her husband, Dan Davis, two hardworking freelancers, began their lives together in 2008 by pursuing a lifelong, shared dream of leaving Maine and going West. At first, California was the land of plenty. Quickly, though, the recession landed, and a surprise pregnancy that was also surprisingly rough made Caitlin too sick to work. By December, every job Dan had lined up had been canceled, and though he pounded the pavement, from shop to shop and from bar to bar, he could not find any work at all.
By March 2009, every cent of the couple's savings had been spent.

So, a year after they'd set out with big plans, Caitlin and Dan packed up again, this time with a baby on board, to make their way home to move in with Caitlin's mother. As they drove, Caitlin blogged about their situation and created audio diaries for NPR's Weekend Edition and received an astounding response. From all across the country, listeners offered help, opening their hearts and their homes.

And when the young family arrived back in rural Maine and squeezed into Caitlin's mother's small saltbox house, Caitlin learned that the bonds of family run deeper than any tug to roam, and that, with love, she and Dan could hold their dreams in sight, wherever they were.

Just Started...

2011-06-08T13:49:00.005-05:00

At a garage sale, Cheryl picked up a paperback by a romance author that she had never read, Ciji Ware's A Cottage by the Sea. It looks like she has written six stories since 1989; they appear to be historical romance.

From the author's website:

A sweeping, romantic tale of modern day Britain colliding with the bawdy, eighteenth century world of a bold English heiress whose love story has echoed down through time. To Blythe Barton Stowe, a cunning cottage on the wild coast of Cornwall in the land of her forebears sounded like the perfect escape from the pain and humiliation of events in far off Hollywood that had ended her marriage, her career, and all but destroyed her self-esteem. But soon she seems to be reliving a centuries-old tragedy that once beset her namesake ancestress. Her landlord, the handsome owner of the shabby manor house on the hill, appears equally entwined in her destiny as they unearth one shocking family secret after another. Before long, Blythe concludes that her intriguing neighbor is more than just an impecunious British gentleman bent on saving his ancestral home, and she seriously begins to question whether the unbridled attraction she feels for the honorable Lucas Teague is strong enough to transcend time and place…

Reading List...

2011-06-07T13:49:00.012-05:00

Esquire.com (the magazine's website) has a feature called, The 75 Books Every Man Should Read, "an unranked, incomplete, utterly biased list of the greatest works of literature ever published"—it's a sideshow of the covers of these 75 books. I'm not going to list them all here (mostly because I'm lazy), but here are a few I've never heard of, or I've heard of and concur are great books (alphabetical by author):

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison
Plainsong by Kent Haruf (see February 9th)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (see January 25th)
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (see April 29th)
A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (see February 11th)
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

About A Sport and a Pastime:

A beautiful, lyrical tale of an ill-fated love affair set against the backdrop of small French towns, this stunning novel is observed through the eyes and imagination of a narrator who, in the story of Dean and Anne-Marie s relationship, captures some essential aspect of what it means to be truly alive.

About Legends of the Fall:

The publication of this magnificent trilogy of short novels — Legends Of The Fall, Revenge and The Man Who Gave Up His Name — confirmed Jim Harrison's reputation as one of the finest American writers of his generation. These absorbing novellas explore the theme of revenge and the actions to which people resort when their lives or goals are threatened, adding up to an extraordinary vision of the twentieth-century man.

About Slaughterhouse-Five:

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Don't let the ease of reading fool you—Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch-22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority.

Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy—and humor.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-06T14:16:00.005-05:00

When I read this recommendation for Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman, I thought, I might just like this book: Six Easy Pieces is billed as “essential physics explained by its most brilliant teacher,” and is marketed as physics for beginners, though it is not really physics for beginners, but extremely advanced physics explained conversationally, so that students with a working knowledge of the sciences will be intrigued and inspired by the majestic complexity of the discipline, even if they can’t grasp it yet.

From Goodreads.com:

Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher is a publishing first. This set couples a book containing the six easiest chapters from Richard P. Feynman’s landmark work, Lectures on Physics—specifically designed for the general, non-scientist reader—with the actual recordings of the late, great physicist delivering the lectures on which the chapters are based. Nobel Laureate Feynman gave these lectures just once, to a group of Caltech undergraduates in 1961 and 1962, and these newly released recordings allow you to experience one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest minds—as if you were right there in the classroom.

Reading List...

2011-06-06T13:47:00.004-05:00

Bailey received several books for her birthday (alphabetical by author):

Bitter End by Jennifer Brown
Shine by Lauren Myracle
The Chaos (Numbers) by Rachel Ward
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel

About Bitter End from the author's website:

When Alex falls for the charming new boy at school, Cole—a handsome, funny sports star who adores her--she can't believe she's finally found her soul mate...someone who truly understands her and loves her for who she really is.

At first, Alex is blissfully happy. Sure, Cole seems a little jealous of her relationship with her close friend Zack, but what guy would want his girlfriend spending all her time with another boy? As the months pass, though, Alex can no longer ignore Cole's small put-downs, pinches, and increasingly violent threats. As Alex struggles to come to terms with the sweet boyfriend she fell in love with and the boyfriend whose "love" she no longer recognizes, she is forced to choose—between her "true love" and herself.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-06T13:38:00.004-05:00

On The Diane Rehm Show today I heard an interview with Rosamund Lupton, author of her debut novel Sister. It sounds like a good book, check it out.

From the author's website:

Nothing can break the bond between sisters …

When Beatrice gets a frantic call in the middle of Sunday lunch to say that her younger sister, Tess, is missing, she boards the first flight home to London. But as she learns about the circumstances surrounding her sister's disappearance, she is stunned to discover how little she actually knows of her sister's life – and unprepared for the terrifying truths she must now face.

The police, Beatrice's fiancé and even their mother accept they have lost Tess but Beatrice refuses to give up on her. So she embarks on a dangerous journey to discover the truth, no matter the cost.

Just Finished...

2011-06-06T10:38:00.006-05:00

Jim just finished Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer, the story of the man who turned down a lucrative NFL career to join the Army and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Krakauer is a great writer—the first book I read of his was Into Thin Air where he went on an Mt. Everest expedition—I read it in a weekend, couldn't put it down.

From Goodreads.com:

Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the United States Army. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in southeastern Afghanistan.

Though obvious to most of the two dozen soldiers on the scene that a ranger in Tillman’s own platoon had fired the fatal shots, the Army aggressively maneuvered to keep this information from Tillman’s wife, other family members, and the American public for five weeks following his death. During this time, President Bush repeatedly invoked Tillman’s name to promote his administration’s foreign policy. Long after Tillman’s nationally televised memorial service, the Army grudgingly notified his closest relatives that he had “probably” been killed by friendly fire while it continued to dissemble about the details of his death and who was responsible.

In Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer draws on Tillman’s journals and letters, interviews with his wife and friends, conversations with the soldiers who served alongside him, and extensive research on the ground in Afghanistan to render an intricate mosaic of this driven, complex, and uncommonly compelling figure as well as the definitive account of the events and actions that led to his death. Before he enlisted in the army, Tillman was familiar to sports aficionados as an undersized, overachieving Arizona Cardinals safety whose virtuosity in the defensive backfield was spellbinding. With his shoulder-length hair, outspoken views, and boundless intellectual curiosity, Tillman was considered a maverick. America was fascinated when he traded the bright lights and riches of the NFL for boot camp and a buzz cut. Sent first to Iraq—a war he would openly declare was “illegal as hell”—and eventually to Afghanistan, Tillman was driven by complicated, emotionally charged, sometimes contradictory notions of duty, honor, justice, patriotism, and masculine pride, and he was determined to serve his entire three-year commitment. But on April 22, 2004, his life would end in a barrage of bullets fired by his fellow soldiers.

Krakauer chronicles Tillman’s riveting, tragic odyssey in engrossing detail highlighting his remarkable character and personality while closely examining the murky, heartbreaking circumstances of his death. Infused with the power and authenticity readers have come to expect from Krakauer’s storytelling, Where Men Win Glory exposes shattering truths about men and war.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-05T06:28:00.004-05:00

For Bailey's birthday, she will receive when it is released (July 12, 2011) the final installment in Maggie Stiefvater's Wolves of Mercy Falls Trilogy, Forever (the first two stories are Shiver, see February 11th, and Linger see July 21st). Bailey has enjoyed the first two books, and can't wait for the third just in time to read it at the beach!

From Goodreads.com:

In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. In Linger, they fought to be together. Now, in Forever, the stakes are even higher than before. Wolves are being hunted. Lives are being threatened. And love is harder and harder to hold on to as death comes closing in.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-02T14:29:00.003-05:00

There is a new authorized James Bond novel, Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver, a continuation of the most famous secret agent in the world created by Ian Fleming.

From the author's website:

"The face of war is changing. The other side doesn't play by the rules much anymore. There's thinking, in some circles, that we need to play by a different set of rules too..."

James Bond, in his early thirties and already a veteran of the Afghan War, has been recruited to a new organization. Conceived in the post-9/11 world, it operates independent of MI5, MI6 and the Ministry of Defense, its very existence deniable. Its aim: To protect the Realm, by any means necessary.

A Night Action alert calls James Bond away from dinner with a beautiful woman. Headquarters has decrypted an electronic whisper about an attack scheduled for later in the week: casualties estimated in the thousands, British interests adversely affected.

And Agent 007 has been given carte blanche.

Heard about a Book...

2011-06-02T12:59:00.007-05:00

Once again I've learn about another acclaimed series that I've never heard of—the Walt Longmire mysteries by Craig Johnson, a mystery series about a modern Wyoming sheriff. His latest novel is Hell Is Empty. The series includes these stories (in order of release):

The Cold Dish
Death Without Company
Kindness Goes Unpunished
Another Man's Moccasins
The Dark Horse
Junkyard Dogs
Hell Is Empty

About Hell Is Empty:

Well-read and world-weary, Sheriff Walt Longmire has been maintaining order in Wyoming's Absaroka County for more than thirty years, but in this riveting seventh outing, he is pushed to his limits. Raynaud Shade, an adopted Crow Indian, has just confessed to murdering a boy ten years ago and burying him deep within the Big Horn Mountains. After transporting Shade and a group of other convicted murderers through a snowstorm, Walt is informed by the FBI that the body is buried in his jurisdiction-and the victim's name is White Buffalo. Guided only by Indian mysticism and a battered paperback of Dante's Inferno, Walt pursues Shade and his fellow escapees into the icy hell of the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area, cheating death to ensure that justice-both civil and spiritual-is served.

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-26T14:17:00.006-05:00

In listening to a discussion of audio books on Talk of the Nation, one caller mentioned a "great book," not only the audio book production, but the novel itself. Published in 2006, The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai was reviewed well (NY Time s, NPR, The Independent) AND it won the Man Booker Prize!

From Goodreads.com:

"In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas, lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace from a world he has found too messy for justice, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge's cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are claimed by his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another, trying to stay a step ahead of the INS on an elusive search for a green card that "was not even green."" When an Indian-Nepali insurgency in the mountains interrupts Sai's exploration of the many incarnations and facets of a romance with her Nepali tutor, and causes their lives to descend into chaos, they are forced to consider their colliding interests. The cook witnesses the hierarchy being overturned and discarded. The judge must revisit his past, his own journey and role in their intertwining histories.

Just Started...

2011-05-24T08:49:00.008-05:00

I've been waiting for this in paperback and it was just released—The Passage by Justin Cronin one of the best selling novels of 2010. Cronin wrote two of my favorite novels in recent years—The Summer Guest (see February 10th) and Mary and O'Neil (see March 5th)—but this is quite a departure from that fiction, and has become an epic piece of science fiction.

From Goodreads.com:

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-20T11:29:00.006-05:00

Just out in paperback is Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne that received many accolades in 2010 (see January 23rd). I listened to an excellent interview with Gwynne by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. (Note: I bought this at Sundog Books on August 1st while at the beach.)

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-18T14:42:00.004-05:00

I heard on NPR about an interesting memoir, I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston, which takes its evocative title from a quote from Thoreau that hangs over Hong Kingston's desk. Some of the quotes from the book struck a cord: "Standing on top of a hill;/I can see everywhichway—/the long way that I came, and the few places I have yet to go." As she grows old, she notes the impulse to "save each scrap of moment" along with the desire for "poetry as it came to my young self/humming and rushing, no patience for chapter book," nor patience, either, for "the stupid, the greedy, the cruel, the unfair [who] have taken/over the world."

From Goodreads.com:

In her singular voice—humble, elegiac, practical—Maxine Hong Kingston sets out to reflect on aging as she turns sixty-five.

Kingston’s swift, effortlessly flowing verse lines feel instantly natural in this fresh approach to the art of memoir, as she circles from present to past and back, from lunch with a writer friend to the funeral of a Vietnam veteran, from her long marriage (“can’t divorce until we get it right. / Love, that is. Get love right”) to her arrest at a peace march in Washington, where she and her "sisters" protested the Iraq war in the George W. Bush years. Kingston embraces Thoreau’s notion of a “broad margin,” hoping to expand her vista: “I’m standing on top of a hill; / I can see everywhichway— / the long way that I came, and the few / places I have yet to go. Treat / my whole life as if it were a day.”

On her journeys as writer, peace activist, teacher, and mother, Kingston revisits her most beloved characters: she learns the final fate of her Woman Warrior, and she takes her Tripmaster Monkey, a hip Chinese American, on a journey through China, where he has never been—a trip that becomes a beautiful meditation on the country then and now, on a culture where rice farmers still work in the age-old way, even as a new era is dawning. “All over China,” she writes, “and places where Chinese are, populations / are on the move, going home. That home / where Mother and Father are buried. Doors / between heaven and earth open wide.”

Such is the spirit of this wonderful book—a sense of doors opening wide onto an American life of great purpose and joy, and the tonic wisdom of a writer we have come to cherish.

Award Winning...

2011-05-18T14:05:00.005-05:00

Philip Roth is the winner of the Man Booker International Prize which is awarded for an achievement in fiction on the world stage. It is presented once every two years to a living author for a body of work published either originally in English or widely available in translation in the English language. It has previously been awarded to Ismail Kadaré in 2005, Chinua Achebe in 2007 and Alice Munro in 2009.

Roth's most recent book is Nemesis:

In the "stifling heat of equatorial Newark," a terrifying epidemic is raging, threatening the children of the New Jersey city with maiming, paralysis, lifelong disability, and even death. This is the startling theme of Philip Roth’s wrenching new book: a wartime polio epidemic in the summer of 1944 and the effect it has on a closely knit, family-oriented Newark community and its children.

At the center of Nemesis is a vigorous, dutiful twenty-three-year-old playground director, Bucky Cantor, a javelin thrower and weightlifter, who is devoted to his charges and disappointed with himself because his weak eyes have excluded him from serving in the war alongside his contemporaries. Focusing on Cantor’s dilemmas as polio begins to ravage his playground—and on the everyday realities he faces—Roth leads us through every inch of emotion such a pestilence can breed: the fear, the panic, the anger, the bewilderment, the suffering, and the pain.

Moving between the smoldering, malodorous streets of besieged Newark and Indian Hill, a pristine children’s summer camp high in the Poconos—whose "mountain air was purified of all contaminants"—Roth depicts a decent, energetic man with the best intentions struggling in his own private war against the epidemic. Roth is tenderly exact at every point about Cantor’s passage into personal disaster, and no less exact about the condition of childhood.

Through this story runs the dark questions that haunt all four of Roth’s late short novels, Everyman, Indignation, The Humbling, and now Nemesis: What kind of accidental choices fatally shape a life? How does the individual withstand the onslaught of circumstance?

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-17T12:47:00.006-05:00

Here is one of those "viral" Internet phenomena - two people wrote and illustrated a book, and put it on Facebook—Go The F*ck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach, illustrated by Ricardo Cortés.

From NPR's Here & Now:

What parent isn’t occasionally frustrated by their child’s bedtime antics? A new book by Adam Mansbach provides some comic relief. A pirated PDF version of the book titled Go The F**k to Sleep, has gone viral through email and Facebook — catapulting the book to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list, despite the fact that it won’t be released for sale for another month.

Reading List...

2011-05-13T13:15:00.005-05:00

Cheryl just checked these two new novels out of the library, Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks and The Land of Painted Caves by Jean Auel, the sixth book in her Earth's Children series.

About Caleb's Crossing:

In 1665, Caleb Cheeshah-teaumuck was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Here, Pulitzer Prize winner Brooks imagines that Caleb was befriended by Bethia Mayfield, whose minister father wants to convert the neighboring Wampanoag and makes educating Caleb one of his goals. Bethia, herself desperate for book learning, ends up as an indentured servant in Cambridge, watching Caleb bridge two cultures.

About The Land of Painted Caves:

In 1980, Jean Auel began her Earth's Children series with her novel The Clan of the Cave Bear. Now, more than 30 years and 45 million copies later, she brings this six-volume Ice Age epic to a reassuring conclusion with The Land of Painted Caves. In this evocative, carefully researched fiction, Cro-Magnon shaman Ayla and her heroic mate Jondalar struggle with environmental upheavals, and threats from wild animals and hostile hunters. Transcending difficulties, this loving, loyal couple find peace and respite in unexpected places and move resolutely towards a more secure future.

Just Started...

2011-05-08T08:19:00.003-05:00

Cheryl has just started The Sea Captain's Wife by Beth Powning, and says it's good so far.

From the author's website:

Growing up on the Bay of Fundy, Azuba Galloway dreams of going to sea. She watches magnificent ships slowly making their way into Whelan's Cove, the sense of exoticism bursting from their holds along with foreign goods. Years later when she meets a seasoned captain, Nathaniel Bradstock, and they fall in love, Azuba imagines an exciting life at sea with him. But Azuba becomes pregnant soon after they marry and Nathaniel, who knows too well the perils of life on a ship, refuses to allow Azuba to join him.

Days turn into weeks and months—voyages can take two, three years before the ship and crew make their way back to New Brunswick. When Nathaniel eventually does return, he discovers that a horrible mishap involving Azuba has caused a scandal and he is forced to take her and their young daughter aboard his ship. They set sail for London with bitter hearts.

Alone in a male world, surrounded by the splendour and terror of the open sea, the voyage will not only test her already precarious marriage, but everything Azuba believes in. With a sure hand, Beth Powning captures life aboard a sailing ship—the ferocious storms, the impossibly isolated ports of call, the grueling daily routine—and shows how love evolves even in the most extreme circumstances.

The Sea Captain's Wife is an awe-inspiring tour that captures the vigour of life, women at sea, in the Age of Sail and gives us an unforgettable young heroine who shows compassion, courage and love while under incredible duress.

Just Started...

2011-05-08T07:49:00.004-05:00

We went shopping at the big book retailer that is NOT in bankruptcy, and searched the just released tables. I bought The Great Lover by Jill Dawson, and so far so good—a very clever start with an exchange of letters between two old women who discover their pasts are linked through one man, the English poet the Rupert Brooke.

From Goodreads.com:

Nell Golightly is living out her widowhood in Cambridgeshire when she receives a strange request: a Tahitian woman, claiming to be the daughter of the poet Rupert Brooke, writes to ask what he was like: how did he sound, what did he smell like, how did it feel to wrap your arms around him? So Nell turns her mind to 1909 when, as a seventeen-year-old housemaid, she first encountered the young poet. He was already causing a stir—not only with his poems and famed good looks, but also by his taboo-breaking behaviour and radical politics. Intrigued, she watched as Rupert skilfully managed his male and female admirers, all of whom seemed to be in love with him. Soon Nell realised that despite her good sense, she was falling for him too. But could he love a housemaid? Was he, in fact, capable of love at all?

In a dazzling act of imagination, Jill Dawson gives voice to Rupert Brooke himself in a dual narrative that unfolds in both his own words and those of her spirited fictional character, Nell. A memorable tale of love in many guises, of heartbreak and loss, the novel brings Brooke vividly to life as it shows him to have been a far more interesting, complex and troubled figure than the romanticised version allows.

Award Winner...

2011-05-07T09:52:00.006-05:00

As usual with poets, I have read very few, but I need to check out this book—The Best of It: New and Selected Poems by poet laureate Kay Ryan, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize in poetry.

From Goodreads.com:

Kay Ryan’s recent appointment as the Library of Congress’s sixteenth poet laureate is just the latest in an amazing array of accolades for this wonderfully accessible, widely loved poet. Salon has compared her poems to “Fabergé eggs, tiny, ingenious devices that inevitably conceal some hidden wonder.” The two hundred poems in Ryan’s The Best of It offer a stunning retrospective of her work, as well as a swath of never-before-published poems & all of which are sure to appeal equally to longtime fans and general readers.

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-06T13:01:00.004-05:00

Amaryllis in Blueberry by Christina Meldrum looks like a good book—it's getting several good reviews.

About the book:

In the stirring tradition of The Secret Life of Bees and The Poisonwood Bible, Amaryllis in Blueberry explores the complexity of human relationships set against an unforgettable backdrop. Told through the haunting voices of Dick and Seena Slepy and their four daughters, Christina Meldrum's soulful novel weaves together the past and the present of a family harmed—and healed—by buried secrets.

Award Winner...

2011-05-06T12:29:00.011-05:00

Out in paperback is the National Book Award winner for fiction, Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon—worth a read!

From Goodreads.com:

Thoroughbred horse trainer Tommy Hansel has a scheme to rescue his failing operation by shipping four unclassed horses to Indian Mound Downs, run them in cheap claimers at long odds, and then get out fast before anyone notices. The problem is, at this rundown riverfront half-mile racetrack in the West Virginia panhandle, everybody notices from the start -? Kidstuff the farrier, track super Smithers, an old groom Medicine Ed, gypsy owner Deucey Gifford, eventually even the ruled-off bookmaker Two-Tie, and an ominous trainer, Joe Dale Bigg. But no-one factors in Hansel's go-for girlfriend, Margaret Koderer. Much like the beautiful, used-up, tragic creatures she comes to love, Maggie is almost a force of nature, an adventuress with enough personal magnetism to spin everyone's sure thing right back to the source of all luck.

Lord of Misrule is a darkly realistic novel about a young woman living through a year of horse racing while everyone's best laid plans go brutally wrong. With her first novel since her acclaimed Bogeywoman, Jaimy Gordon bears comparison to other great writers of the American demimonde, such as Nathanael West, Damon Runyon, and Eudora Welty.

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-06T11:19:00.005-05:00

I'm not sure where I first saw this book—The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone—but I'm reading reviews that say things like, "Reading Michael Malone is like listening to Mozart—his writing dances and sparkles,..." "...a fabulously entertaining novel," "...a perfect summer read!"

From Goodreads.com:

In small towns between the North Carolina Piedmont and the coast the best scenery is often in...the sky. On flat sweeps of red clay and scrub pine the days move monotonously, safely, but above, in the blink of an eye, dangerous clouds can boil out of all four corners of the sky…The flat slow land starts to shiver and anything can happen. In such a storm, on Annie Peregrine's seventh birthday, her father gave her the airplane and minutes later drove out of her life. Twenty years is a long time to be without a father, and, for Navy pilot Annie Peregrine-Goode, the sky has become a home the earth has never been. So when her father calls out of the blue to ask for a dying wish—one both absurd and mysterious—no is the easiest of answers. Until she hears that the reward is the one thing she always wanted … Thus begins an enchanting novel that bursts with energy from the first pages, and sweeps you off on a journey of unforgettable characters, hilarious encounters, and haunting secrets. The Four Corners of the Sky is master storyteller Michael Malone's new novel of love, secrets, and the mysterious bonds of families. Malone brings characters to life as only he can, exploring the questions that defy easy answers: Is love a choice or a calling?

Great Book...

2011-05-06T09:16:00.004-05:00

Another reminder from Pat for a book that's been out for awhile—"Everyone must read Mudbound!" by Hillary Jordan (see May 30th). Paul also endorses this story (see July 7th).

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-05T14:41:00.006-05:00

This book looks fascinating—Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku.

About the book:

Imagine, if you can, the world in the year 2100.

In Physics of the Future, Michio Kaku—the New York Times bestselling author of Physics of the Impossible—gives us a stunning, provocative, and exhilarating vision of the coming century based on interviews with over three hundred of the world’s top scientists who are already inventing the future in their labs. The result is the most authoritative and scientifically accurate description of the revolutionary developments taking place in medicine, computers, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, energy production, and astronautics.

In all likelihood, by 2100 we will control computers via tiny brain sensors and, like magicians, move objects around with the power of our minds. Artificial intelligence will be dispersed throughout the environment, and Internet-enabled contact lenses will allow us to access the world's information base or conjure up any image we desire in the blink of an eye.

Meanwhile, cars will drive themselves using GPS, and if room-temperature superconductors are discovered, vehicles will effortlessly fly on a cushion of air, coasting on powerful magnetic fields and ushering in the age of magnetism.

Using molecular medicine, scientists will be able to grow almost every organ of the body and cure genetic diseases. Millions of tiny DNA sensors and nanoparticles patrolling our blood cells will silently scan our bodies for the first sign of illness, while rapid advances in genetic research will enable us to slow down or maybe even reverse the aging process, allowing human life spans to increase dramatically.

In space, radically new ships—needle-sized vessels using laser propulsion—could replace the expensive chemical rockets of today and perhaps visit nearby stars. Advances in nanotechnology may lead to the fabled space elevator, which would propel humans hundreds of miles above the earth’s atmosphere at the push of a button.

But these astonishing revelations are only the tip of the iceberg. Kaku also discusses emotional robots, antimatter rockets, X-ray vision, and the ability to create new life-forms, and he considers the development of the world economy. He addresses the key questions: Who are the winner and losers of the future? Who will have jobs, and which nations will prosper?

All the while, Kaku illuminates the rigorous scientific principles, examining the rate at which certain technologies are likely to mature, how far they can advance, and what their ultimate limitations and hazards are. Synthesizing a vast amount of information to construct an exciting look at the years leading up to 2100, Physics of the Future is a thrilling, wondrous ride through the next 100 years of breathtaking scientific revolution.

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-05T14:29:00.006-05:00

This is probably not a book I will afford myself, a coffee table book called The History of Surfing by Matt Warshaw, but it's very interesting and the some of the photos are amazing.

About the book:

Matt Warshaw, former editor of SURFER magazine, knows a hell of a lot about surfing, and is up there with the most knowledgeable authors out there. After five years of research and writing, he has completed a totally unprecedented history of the sport and the culture it has spawned. With a voice that is definitive, funny, and wholly original, The History of Surfing is definitely worth a read.

Reading List...

2011-05-03T14:38:00.011-05:00

From Pat, some recent "good books":

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Matters of Faith by Kristy Kiernan
Hellhound on his Trail by Hampton Sides

About At Home: A Short History of Private Life:

From one of the most beloved authors of our time—more than six million copies of his books have been sold in this country alone—a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home.

"Houses aren't refuges from history. They are where history ends up."

Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to "write a history of the world without leaving home." The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.

Bill Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and he is a master at turning the seemingly isolated or mundane fact into an occasion for the most diverting exposition imaginable. His wit and sheer prose fluency make At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.

About Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter:

In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town.

More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.

Heard about a Book...

2011-05-02T09:19:00.006-05:00

I heard about an interesting book that is getting good reviews, Blood Work by Holly Tucker, "A riveting account of the first blood transfusion experiments in 17th-century Paris and London."

From the author's website:

On a cold day in 1667, a renegade physician named Jean Denis transfused calf’s blood into one of Paris’s most notorious madmen. In doing so, Denis angered not only the elite scientists who had hoped to perform the first animal-to-human transfusions themselves, but also a host of powerful conservatives who believed that the doctor was toying with forces of nature that he did not understand. Just days after the experiment, the madman was dead, and Denis was framed for murder.

A riveting account of the first blood transfusion experiments in 17th-century Paris and London, Blood Work gives us a vivid glimpse of a particularly fraught period in history – a time of fire and plague, empire building and international distrust, when monsters were believed to inhabit the seas and the boundary between science and superstition was still in flux. Amid this atmosphere of uncertainty, transfusionists like Denis became embroiled in the hottest cultural debates and fiercest political rivalries of their day. As historian Holly Tucker reveals, transfusion’s detractors would stop at nothing – not even murdering Denis’s patient – to outlaw a practice that might jeopardize human souls, pave the way for monstrous hybrid creatures, or even provoke divine retribution.

Taking us from the highest ranks of society to the lowest, from dissection rooms in palaces to the filth-clogged streets of Paris, Blood Work sheds light on an era that wrestled with the same questions about morality and experimentation that haunt medical science to this day.

Classic...

2011-04-28T13:18:00.003-05:00

It's Harper Lee's 85th birthday today, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird (see July 11th and March 25th).

Reading List...

2011-04-25T14:57:00.006-05:00

The summer readings lists are starting! Hurray! And from none other than Mr. Summer himself, Jimmy Buffett! Check out the Margaritaville Book Club (which really looks like another income source for margaritaville.com!).

A classic Jack London called On the Makaloa Mat looked interesting to me. It was published in 1919 and contains seven stories set in Hawaii considered his "island tales." And if you are an eBook reader, it appears this short story collection can be download free! (iBooks, Kindle).

Another interesting looking summer read is Journey Without A Map by Gardner McCay. During his final year, McKay gathered his notebooks together and began writing this memoir of a life so richly varied that it would seem contrived if it were a movie script. Dozens of handwritten diaries were augmented by events he'd written about previously. Both devotees of his short stories and plays as well as fans from his years as a television star will enjoy his unusual insights and even more unusual adventures.

Favorite Author...

2011-04-25T13:23:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite authors of children stories, Chris Van Allsburg, has a new book, Queen of the Falls. He writes and illustrates his stories, and his illustrations are wonderful.

About the book:

At the turn of the nineteenth century, a retired sixty-two-year-old charm school instructor named Annie Edson Taylor, seeking fame and fortune, decided to do something that no one in the world had ever done before—she would go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-23T12:45:00.004-05:00

For anyone who was a fan of the Little House On The Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, check out The Wilder Life, My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure.

From NPR's review:

Wendy McClure is an unsentimental writer, but she loves the Little House On The Prairie books. No, she really loves them. She loves them so much that she bought a butter churn on eBay. And she churned butter—you know, just to see. She took off on a trip with her heroically game boyfriend (who's charming in part because he doesn't insist on making a point of how heroically game he is), and they visited historic places where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived, and museums and pageants and kitschy stores where she's still beloved. The Wilder Life is a book of stories about these adventures, and unlike a lot of similarly structured books in which writers appear to be doing unusual things just to write books about them, McClure essentially uses the opportunity to write a series of thoughtful essays about memory at different levels. There's the tiny, very specific theme of her particular childhood love of the Little House books, but as she immerses herself in those memories, it pulls back to become a book about the way all of us relate to stories we hear as children, and about the way nostalgia operates unpredictably and sometimes painfully, and ultimately even about our false cultural memories of a romantic pioneer past that only sort of happened.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-23T10:48:00.006-05:00

I am seeing several good reviews about Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott (NPR, NY Times).

From Goodreads.com:

Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent-she aced AP physics; athletic-a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared.

But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.

Reading List...

2011-04-18T14:50:00.006-05:00

The 2011 Pulitzer Prizes winners were announced today. The Fiction winner is A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (see July 14th). The General Nonfiction winner is The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee (see November 18th).

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-14T09:56:00.005-05:00

I listened to an interview on Talk of the Nation with Caroline Kennedy about a new book of poetry that she has edited, She Walks In Beauty. It's sounds like a very good collection. I think this excerpt from the book explain it best:

This book began around the time I turned fifty. Like my friends who had been there before me, I dreaded it for months, and was relieved when it was over and life seemed much the same as before. One of the nicest things that happened was that three friends sent me poems to mark the occasion. One poem was about love, one helped me cope with loss, and the third spoke to ways of being. I kept them and passed them on to others when the time seemed right. To me, that's the gift of poetry — it shapes an endless conversation about the most important things in life.

Creating an anthology of poems centered around the stages of a woman's life still seems like an unlikely project to me. I have shied away from the personal genre of literature, and never thought that growing old would be something I would do. Perhaps that's because, in my family, my cousins and I still refer to our parents' generation as "the grown-ups," although most of us are in our fifties. But there seemed to be something profoundly different about hitting the middle-age mark — a sense of accomplishment, an emotional reckoning, and a feeling of renewed possibility about the future. All that, and a tiny terror of sliding down the hill into a crumpled heap of old age. Working on this book reminded me that the personal is universal, being a woman is a profound part of who I am, and sharing experiences and emotions is the best way we can help ourselves and others.

Approaching middle age made me appreciate my deep connection to the women I have grown up with, worked with, and whose children have grown up with mine. We have learned what is important, we can look back as well as forward, and we have the chance to weave the choices we have already made into the changes we want to bring into our lives. Reading poems can help bring clarity and insight to emotions that can be confusing or contradictory.

Women have always been at the center of poetry — throughout history we have been its inspiration, and more recently, women are the authors of the most profound poetry of our time. One of the oldest known poets in the world is a woman — Sappho — and her fragments of verse are as emotionally piercing today as the work of many modern writers. The love poetry of medieval troubadours, Renaissance playwrights, and Romantic poets (almost exclusively men) celebrated female beauty and mystery; conquest, heartbreak, and desire. In the twentieth century, women poets gave voice to the pain and joy, relationships and loneliness, the work and the life of women. In today's world, as women struggle to balance work and family, to be good mothers and friends, to care for our children and our parents, poetry can help us accept our limitations, and inspire us to overcome them. In a world where language is too often used to manipulate, poems can help us find our authentic voice.

The book is divided into sections that seem broad enough to encompass the milestones in a woman's life — "Falling in Love," "Breaking Up," "Marriage," "Motherhood," "Death and Grief" — but they are intended as helpful, if arbitrary, dividers. Other sections are about some of the things that make us happy, like "Friendship" or "Beauty." My favorite section is the one titled "How to Live." It includes the poems that started this book, and many others, each containing wisdom that has helped me on my own journey.

Collecting these poems reminded me that when I was younger, I thought my task was to forge ahead and succeed as an individual. But growing older has helped me realize that our success lies in our relationships — with the family we are born into, the friends we make, the people we fall in love with, and the children we have. Sometimes we struggle, sometimes we adapt, and at other times we set a course for others to follow. We are all leaders and followers in our lives. We are constantly learning from and teaching one another. We learn, too, that the most important work is not done by those who seem the most important, but by those who care the most.

Women have always been the weavers of the world, literally and figuratively. We weave people together, we weave the experiences of life into patterns, and we weave our stories into words. Poetry has been one of the ways we do this. Poems distill our deepest emotions into a very few words — words that we can remember, carry with us, and share with others as we talk and weave the cloth of life.

Excerpted from She Walks In Beauty by Caroline Kennedy. Copyright 2011, Caroline Kennedy. Published by Hyperion. All Rights Reserved.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-12T13:40:00.002-05:00

This looks like an interesting book—Fire Season - Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors.

From the publisher's website:

A decade ago Philip Connors left work as an editor at the Wall Street Journal and talked his way into a job far from the streets of lower Manhattan: working as one of the last fire lookouts in America. Spending nearly half the year in a 7' x 7' tower, 10,000 feet above sea level in remote New Mexico, his tasks were simple: keep watch over one of the most fire-prone forests in the country and sound the alarm at the first sign of smoke.

Fire Season is Connors's remarkable reflection on work, our place in the wild, and the charms of solitude. The landscape over which he keeps watch is rugged and roadless—it was the first region in the world to be officially placed off limits to industrial machines—and it typically gets hit by lightning more than 30,000 times per year. Connors recounts his days and nights in this forbidding land, untethered from the comforts of modern life: the eerie pleasure of being alone in his glass-walled perch with only his dog Alice for company; occasional visits from smokejumpers and long-distance hikers; the strange dance of communion and wariness with bears, elk, and other wild creatures; trips to visit the hidden graves of buffalo soldiers slain during the Apache wars of the nineteenth century; and always the majesty and might of lightning storms and untamed fire.

Written with narrative verve and startling beauty, and filled with reflections on his literary forebears who also served as lookouts—among them Edward Abbey, Jack Kerouac, Norman Maclean, and Gary Snyder—Fire Season is a book to stand the test of time.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-12T12:27:00.004-05:00

This looks good and is getting lots of coverage—The Peace Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen.

From BookPage:

Willa Jackson may have moved back home to Walls of Water, North Carolina, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be there. She handily isolates herself running a shop along the touristy strip of town that specializes in organic sportswear. In her neatly arranged (and boring) life, Willa hardly has to see any of the girls she went to high school with, including most especially Paxton Osgood, a rich do-gooder whose uppity fakeness and manicured nails set Willa’s teeth on edge.

Unfortunately for Willa—but fortunately for readers—her past refuses to stay tucked away. The renovation of an old mansion, the Blue Ridge Madam, causes Willa’s and Paxton’s paths to cross at last. In a twist too zany to be believed outside of the genre of Southern fiction, the women’s grandmothers were the dearest of friends and harbor a horrible secret, which has remained hidden beneath the peach tree in the garden: It’s the body of a dead man, and the two old women know how it got there. As the young protagonists unfold the mystery, they are offered a chance at friendship that neither realized they needed. Along the way they become entangled in new romances and create a few secret-worthy stories of their own.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-08T11:08:00.003-05:00

I love baseball books and this looks like a great story—Bottom of the 33rd by Dan Barry.

From the publisher's website:

On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. What began as a modestly attended minor-league game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings became not only the longest ever played in baseball history, but something else entirely. The first pitch was thrown after dusk on Holy Saturday, and for the next eight hours the night seemed to suspend its participants between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys—the ballplayers; the umpires; Pawtucket's ejected manager, peering through a hole in the backstop; the sportswriters and broadcasters; a few stalwart fans shivering in the cold.

With Bottom of the 33rd, celebrated New York Times journalist Dan Barry has written a lyrical meditation on small-town lives, minor-league dreams, and the elements of time and community that conspired one fateful night to produce a baseball game seemingly without end. Bottom of the 33rd captures the sport's essence: the purity of purpose, the crazy adherence to rules, the commitment of both players and fans. This genre-bending book, a reportorial triumph, portrays the myriad lives held in the night's unrelenting grip. Consider, for instance, the team owner determined to revivify a decrepit stadium, built atop a swampy bog, or the batboy approaching manhood, nervous and earnest, or the umpire with a new family and a new home, or the wives watching or waiting up, listening to a radio broadcast slip into giddy exhaustion. Consider the small city of Pawtucket itself, its ghosts and relics, and the players, two destined for the Hall of Fame (Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs), a few to play only briefly or unforgettably in the big leagues, and the many stuck in minor-league purgatory, duty bound and loyal to the game.

An unforgettable portrait of ambition and endurance, Bottom of the 33rd is the rare sports book that changes the way we perceive America's pastime, and America's past.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-06T13:10:00.004-05:00

This fantasy novel is getting good reviews—The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier (see NPR, The Kansas City Star, The New York Times).

From Goodreads.com:

At 8:17 on a Friday night, the Illumination commences. Every wound begins to shine, every bruise to glow and shimmer. And in the aftermath of a fatal car accident, a private journal of love notes, written by a husband to his wife, passes into the keeping of a hospital patient and from there through the hands of five other suffering people, touching each of them uniquely.

I love the soft blue veins on your wrist. I love your lopsided smile. I love watching TV and shelling sunflower seeds with you.

The six recipients—a data analyst, a photojournalist, a schoolchild, a missionary, a writer, and a street vendor—inhabit an acutely observed, beautifully familiar yet particularly strange universe, as only Kevin Brockmeier could imagine it: a world in which human pain is expressed as illumination, so that one’s wounds glitter, fluoresce, and blaze with light. As we follow the journey of the book from stranger to stranger, we come to understand how intricately and brilliantly they are connected, in all their human injury and experience.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-06T12:42:00.004-05:00

I thought I would mention a good book before the movie adaptation comes out in a few weeks that Cheryl and I both read. Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen was a very good story—you might want to read it before it hits the silver screen.

From the author's website:

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie.

It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-06T12:28:00.003-05:00

Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt sounds like an incredibly moving story...

From the publisher's website:

When his daughter, Amy—a gifted doctor, mother, and wife—collapses and dies from an asymptomatic heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, leave their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren: six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one-year-old James, known as Bubbies. Long past the years of diapers, homework, and recitals, Roger and Ginny—Boppo and Mimi to the kids—quickly reaccustom themselves to the world of small children: bedtime stories, talking toys, playdates, nonstop questions, and non-sequential thought. Though reeling from Amy's death they carry on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tender-hearted children through the pains and confusions of grief. As he marvels at the strength of his son-in-law, a surgeon, and the tenacity and skill of his wife, a former kindergarten teacher, Roger attends each day to "the one household duty I have mastered"—preparing the morning toast perfectly to each child's liking.

With the wit, heart, precision, and depth of understanding that has characterized his work, Roger Rosenblatt peels back the layers on this most personal of losses to create both a tribute to his late daughter and a testament to familial love. The day Amy died, Harris told Ginny and Roger, "It's impossible." Roger's story tells how a family makes the possible of the impossible.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-06T11:38:00.003-05:00

A new author to me has just release his fourth and widely acclaimed novel in paperback, The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee.

From Goodreads.com:

With his three critically acclaimed novels, Chang-Rae Lee has established himself as one of the most talented writers of contemporary literary fiction. Now, with The Surrendered, Lee has created a book that amplifies everything we've seen in his previous works, and reads like nothing else. It is a brilliant, haunting, heartbreaking story about how love and war inalterably change the lives of those they touch.

June Han was only a girl when the Korean War left her orphaned; Hector Brennan was a young GI who fled the petty tragedies of his small town to serve his country. When the war ended, their lives collided at a Korean orphanage where they vied for the attentions of Sylvie Tanner, the beautiful yet deeply damaged missionary wife whose elusive love seemed to transform everything. Thirty years later and on the other side of the world, June and Hector are reunited in a plot that will force them to come to terms with the mysterious secrets of their past, and the shocking acts of love and violence that bind them together.

As Lee unfurls the stunning story of June, Hector, and Sylvie, he weaves a profound meditation on the nature of heroism and sacrifice, the power of love, and the possibilities for mercy, salvation, and surrendering oneself to another. Combining the complex themes of identity and belonging of Native Speaker and A Gesture Life with the broad range, energy, and pure storytelling gifts of Aloft, Chang-Rae Lee has delivered his most ambitious, exciting, and unforgettable work yet. It is a mesmerizing novel, elegantly suspenseful and deeply affecting.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-06T10:51:00.003-05:00

I have read several good reviews about A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch (NY Times, The Guardian). It appears to be a very comprehensive look at Christianity's history and impact on society.

About A History of Christianity:

Christianity, one of the world’s great religions, has had an incalculable impact on human history. This book, now the most comprehensive and up to date single volume work in English, describes not only the main ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organization and spirituality, but how it has changed politics, sex, and human society. Diarmaid MacCulloch ranges from Palestine in the first century to India in the third, from Damascus to China in the seventh century and from San Francisco to Korea in the twentieth. He is one of the most widely traveled of Christian historians and conveys a sense of place as arrestingly as he does the power of ideas. He presents the development of Christian history differently from any of his predecessors. He shows how, after a semblance of unity in its earliest centuries, the Christian church divided during the next 1400 years into three increasingly distanced parts, of which the western Church was by no means always the most important: he observes that at the end of the first eight centuries of Christian history, Baghdad might have seemed a more likely capital for worldwide Christianity than Rome. This is the first truly global history of Christianity.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-01T11:39:00.003-05:00

There is a new series by Rick Riordan, The Heros of Olympus, and the first book, The Lost Hero, is in print. It is a continuation of the Percy Jackson stories (see February 11th, February 28th, March 29th, July 20th ) with new characters, but some of the old characters from Camp Half-Blood.

From the author's website:

Jason has a problem. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with a girl. Apparently she’s his girlfriend Piper, his best friend is a kid named Leo, and they’re all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids.” What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea—except that everything seems very wrong.

Piper has a secret. Her father has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he’s in terrible danger. Now her boyfriend doesn’t recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on?

Leo has a way with tools. His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and fine-looking girls. What’s troubling is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that a camper’s gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist they are all—including Leo—related to a god.

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-01T09:33:00.006-05:00

Here is ANOTHER series I have never read that has a new addition. The Kurt Wallander detective series by Swedish author Henning Mankell—The Trouble Man is his latest in the series and possibly his last as Kurt Wallander retires...

From Goodreads.com:

On a winter day in 2008, Håkan von Enke, a retired high-ranking naval officer, vanishes during his daily walk in a forest near Stockholm. The investigation into his disappearance falls under the jurisdiction of the Stockholm police. It has nothing to do with Wallander—officially. But von Enke is his daughter’s future father-in-law. And so, with his inimitable disregard for normal procedure, Wallander is soon interfering in matters that are not his responsibility, making promises he won’t keep, telling lies when it suits him—and getting results. But the results hint at elaborate Cold War espionage activities that seem inextricably confounding, even to Wallander, who, in any case, is troubled in more personal ways as well. Negligent of his health, he’s become convinced that, having turned sixty, he is on the threshold of senility. Desperate to live up to the hope that a new granddaughter represents, he is continually haunted by his past. And looking toward the future with profound uncertainty, he will have no choice but to come face-to-face with his most intractable adversary: himself.

Here are the Kurt Wallander novels in the order that the novels occur in the time line of the series:

1. The Pyramid
2. Faceless Killers
3. The Dogs of Riga
4. The White Lioness
5. The Man Who Smiled
6. Sidetracked
7. The Fifth Woman
8. One Step Behind
9. Firewall
10. Before the Frost
11. The Grave
12. The Troubled Man

Heard about a Book...

2011-04-01T09:14:00.006-05:00

Okay, here's another series I've missed in life with a 6th book, the Thursday Next series of stories by Jasper Fforde. Thursday Next is a literary detective from Swindon, England who can move back and forth between the RealWorld and the BookWorld, interacting with any character that's ever been written. She solves various book crimes, sucha as the kidnapping of Jane Eyre. His new book is One of Our Thursdays is Missing.

The Thursday Next novels:

The Eyre Affair
Lost in A Good Book
The Well of Lost Plots
Something Rotten
First Among Sequels
One of Our Thursdays is Missing

About One of Our Thursdays is Missing from Goodreads.com:

Jasper Fforde's exuberant return to the fantastical BookWorld opens during a time of great unrest. All-out Genre war is rumbling, and the BookWorld desperately needs a heroine like Thursday Next. But with the real Thursday apparently retired to the Realworld, the Council of Genres turns to the written Thursday.

The Council wants her to pretend to be the real Thursday and travel as a peacekeeping emissary to the warring factions. A trip up the mighty Metaphoric River beckons-a trip that will reveal a fiendish plot that threatens the very fabric of the BookWorld itself.

Once again New York Times bestselling author Jasper Fforde has a field day gleefully blending satire, romance, and thriller with literary allusions galore in a fantastic adventure through the landscape of a frisky and fertile imagination. Fans will rejoice that their favorite character in the Fforde universe is back.

Heard about a Book...

2011-03-30T19:35:00.003-05:00

I seen several reviews recommending The Paris Wife by Paula McLain about the love affair between Ernest Hemingway and wife Hadley Richardson.

About the book:

A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

Heard about a Book...

2011-03-30T19:09:00.006-05:00

I read a good review by Scott Ditzler in The Kansas City Star about a collection of "riveting" short stories—You Think That's Bad by Jim Shepard. "These 11 stories...each one shares the dark heart of the human condition at its core...Shepard reminds us that the short story is an art form unto itself, one that he has mastered in his own elegant and expansive way."

From the publisher's website:

Following Like You’d Understand, Anyway—awarded the Story Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award—Jim Shepard returns with an even more wildly diverse collection of astonishingly observant stories. Like an expert curator, he populates the vastness of human experience—from its bizarre fringes and lonely, breathtaking pinnacles to the hopelessly mediocre and desperately below average—with brilliant scientists, reluctant soldiers, workaholic artists, female explorers, depraved murderers, and deluded losers, all wholly convincing and utterly fascinating.

A “black world” operative at Los Alamos isn’t allowed to tell his wife anything about his daily activities, but he can’t resist sharing her intimate confidences with his work buddy. A young Alpine researcher falls in love with the girlfriend of his brother, who was killed in an avalanche he believes he caused. An unlucky farm boy becomes the manservant of a French nobleman who’s as proud of his military service with Joan of Arc as he’s aroused by the slaughter of children. A free-spirited autodidact, grieving her lost sister, traces the ancient steps of a ruthless Middle Eastern sect and becomes the first Western woman to travel the Arabian deserts. From the inventor of the Godzilla epics to a miserable G.I. in New Guinea, each comes to realize that knowing better is never enough.

Enthralling and unfailingly compassionate, You Think That’s Bad traverses centuries, continents, and social strata, but the joy and struggle that Shepard depicts with such devastating sensitivity—all the heartbreak, alienation, intimacy, and accomplishment—has a universal resonance.

Just Started...

2011-03-30T11:19:00.005-05:00

Cheryl has started a book just out in paperback that we noted last year (see May 5th), The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard. She says it's good and "suspenseful".

From the author's website:

Rose, Kansas, is a quiet town poised between the orderly and the unpredictable, where a terrible secret lies long dormant. . .until it vengefully stirs to life one fateful day. Young English teacher Jody Linder wakes up one morning to find her three intimidating rancher uncles on her doorstep. They bring shocking news: Billy Crosby, the man convicted of murdering her father—and presumably her mother’s killer as well—is being released from prison and coming back to Rose with his son, Collin, an attorney. Convinced of his father’s innocence, Collin provokes Jody to face the stunning mystery behind her tragic past. Enthralling, surprising, and beautifully textured, The Scent of Rain and Lightning blurs the boundaries between suspense and literary fiction.

Out in Paperback...

2011-03-30T11:01:00.004-05:00

Out in paperback and featured last year in this blog:

The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell (see February 18th)
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (see March 13th)
Solar by Ian McEwan (see April 2nd)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell (see July 3rd)
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls (see March 22nd)

Just Started...

2011-03-30T10:43:00.004-05:00

Cheryl bought me what is turning out to be a good book, Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West. It feels like Plainsong by Kent Haruf (see February 9th).

From Goodreads.com:

The small town of Willow Creek, Montana's high school basketball team has an abysmal streak of 0 wins and 93 losses. Their distant and haunted coach Sam Pickett dreads another season, but the arrival of two new students fills him - and the struggling town—with a surge of hope. Can Sam still inspire his team and resurrect his town?

Heard about a Book...

2011-03-29T15:33:00.007-05:00

On Fresh Air today, they interviewed Donovan Hohn, the author of Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea. It's a story about a container load of bath toys that were lost at sea and what happened to them. It was really a fascinating interview.

From the author's website:

When the writer Donovan Hohn heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. Hohn’s accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories. Moby-Duck is a journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable.

Heard about a Book...

2011-03-24T15:30:00.007-05:00

Ian Rankin is famous for his series of 20 Inspector Rebus novels. Now Rankin has a new character to follow, Malcom Fox who works in the Conduct Department of the Edinburgh police, introduced in his new novel The Complaints.

From the author's website:

Nobody likes The Complaints - they're the cops who investigate other cops. Complaints and Conduct Department, to give them their full title, but known colloquially as 'The Dark Side', or simply 'The Complaints'. It's where Malcolm Fox works. He's just had a result, and should be feeling good about himself. But he's a man with problems of his own. He has an increasingly frail father in a care home and a sister who persists in an abusive relationship - something which Malcolm cannot seem to do anything about.

But, in the midst of an aggressive Edinburgh winter, the reluctant Fox is given a new task. There's a cop called Jamie Breck, and he's dirty. The problem is, no one can prove it. But as Fox takes on the job, he learns that there's more to Breck than anyone thinks. This knowledge will prove dangerous, especially when a vicious murder intervenes far too close to home for Fox's liking.

Just Started...

2011-03-24T15:16:00.003-05:00

After reading a couple of good reviews, I have started The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht. So far, so good.

From the author's website:

In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.

But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel.

Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weekly trips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,” Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories” of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.

Heard about a Book...

2011-03-24T12:58:00.007-05:00

On Here & Now today, Robin Young interviewed Zack Hample, a collector of baseballs and the author of The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, and Secrets Beneath The Stitches. It sounds like a pretty fun book!

About the book:

One of the simple joys of going to a baseball game is trying to snag a home run or a foul ball. But back in the day, fans had to give those balls back. You could even be arrested if you tried to keep one. That’s just one of the fascinating tidbits in the new book by baseball fanatic Zack Hample. It’s called The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, and Secrets Beneath The Stitches. You might say he’s obsessed with this subject. He’s collected more than 4,000 baseballs from dozens of major league parks.

Heard about a Book...

2011-03-21T13:42:00.005-05:00

I heard about an interesting interview on Here and Now with Paula Szuchman, one of the authors of Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes—Jenny Anderson is the other author. It sounded like it might just have some sensible advice to making a successful marriage. Check it out.

From the Spousonomics website:

Have you ever gone to the “dark place” after a fight about who does the dishes more often? Do you worry that your job is destroying your marriage? Have you ever sat up at night, remembering how much more fun married life used to be?

Enter Spousonomics, a book that offers a brilliant, fresh twist to standard relationship advice by showing how economics—yes, economics—is the key to a happy marriage.

Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, journalists from The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, present a radical new idea: Every marriage is its own little economy, a business of two with a finite number of resources that need to be allocated efficiently. With great wit, insight, and compelling stories from real-life couples, Szuchman and Anderson apply bedrock economic principles to some of the most common conflicts in domestic life. Some examples include:

Just Started...

2011-03-14T18:25:00.002-05:00

Cheryl picked up The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton at the library—it's pretty good so far.

About the novel:

On a farm in western Missouri during the first half of the twentieth century, Matthew and Callie Soames create a life for themselves and raise four headstrong daughters. Jessica will break their hearts. Leonie will fall in love with the wrong man. Mary Jo will escape to New York. And wild child Mathy's fate will be the family's greatest tragedy. Over the decades they will love, deceive, comfort, forgive—and, ultimately, they will come to cherish all the more fiercely the bonds of love that hold the family together.

CJ Says...

2011-03-11T12:35:00.002-06:00

It is with great sadness that I report that my mother-in-law, CJ, has passed away. Among many of the accolades I could list about her, she was a great reader. Next to my friend Tom, she was one of the best-read people I've ever known. She was a member of several book clubs and read several books a month. She always had a recommendation, and even if she hadn't read a book, she often knew something about it, something about the author, or someone who had read it. Here contributions to this blog will be greatly missed...

Heard about a Book...

2011-03-06T13:19:00.002-06:00

I've seen The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein everywhere—bookstores, racks at Sam's end caps at Target—though it looks like it might be heart-wrenching. Check it out.

From the author's website:

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn't simply about going fast. Using the techniques needed on the race track, one can successfully navigate all of life's ordeals.

On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through: the sacrifices Denny has made to succeed professionally; the unexpected loss of Eve, Denny's wife; the three-year battle over their daughter, Zoë, whose maternal grandparents pulled every string to gain custody. In the end, despite what he sees as his own limitations, Enzo comes through heroically to preserve the Swift family, holding in his heart the dream that Denny will become a racing champion with Zoë at his side.

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life...as only a dog could tell it.

Heard about a Book...

2011-03-05T12:36:00.000-06:00

I saw this at a book store and it looked interesting—The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna— found a some positive coverage. The novel was originally published in 1975 in Finland (Jäniksen vuosi).

About the story:

Vatanen, the journalist is feeling burned out and sick of the city. One summer evening while on assignment his car hits a young hare on a country road. Vatanen leaves the car to save the injured creature. This small incident becomes a turning point in Vatanen's life as he decides to break free from the world's constraints. He quits his job, leaves his wife, sells his possessions to travel the Finnish wilds with his new found friend. Their adventures take in forest fires, pagan sacrifices, military war games, killer bears and much more.

Heard about a Book...

2011-02-22T15:01:00.006-06:00

I have read several good reviews for 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.

From the publisher:

After Cass Seltzer’s book becomes a surprise best seller, he’s dubbed “the atheist with a soul” and becomes a celebrity. He wins over the stunning Lucinda Mandelbaum, “the goddess of game theory,” and loses himself in a spiritually expansive infatuation. A former girlfriend appears: an anthropologist who invites him to join in her quest for immortality through biochemistry. And he is haunted by reminders of the two people who ignited his passion to understand religion: his mentor and professor—a renowned literary scholar with a suspicious obsession with messianism—and an angelic six-year-old mathematical genius who is heir to the leadership of a Hasidic sect. Each encounter reinforces Cass’s theory that the religious impulse spills over into life at large.

36 Arguments for the Existence of God plunges into the great debate of our day: the clash between faith and reason. World events are being shaped by fervent believers at home and abroad, while a new atheism is asserting itself in the public sphere. On purely intellectual grounds the skeptics would seem to have everything on their side. Yet people refuse to accept their seemingly irrefutable arguments and continue to embrace faith in God as their source of meaning, purpose, and comfort.

Through the enchantment of fiction, award-winning novelist and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein shows that the tension between religion and doubt cannot be understood through rational argument alone. It also must be explored from the point of view of individual people caught in the raptures and torments of religious experience in all their variety.

Using her gifts in fiction and philosophy, Goldstein has produced a true crossover novel, complete with a nail-biting debate (“Resolved: God Exists”) and a stand-alone appendix with the thirty-six arguments (and responses) that propelled Seltzer to stardom.

Heard about a Book...

2011-02-21T13:20:00.004-06:00

I have read several reviews that the debut novel Swamplandi by Karen Russell is very good.

From Goodreads.com:

The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline—think Buddenbrooks set in the Florida Everglades—and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as the World of Darkness. Ava, a resourceful but terrified twelve, must manage seventy gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief. Her mother, Swamp landia!’s legendary headliner, has just died; her sister is having an affair with a ghost called the Dredgeman; her brother has secretly defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their sinking family afloat; and her father, Chief Bigtree, is AWOL. To save her family, Ava must journey on her own to a perilous part of the swamp called the Underworld, a harrowing odyssey from which she emerges a true heroine.

Just Started...

2011-02-17T09:45:00.005-06:00

Cheryl has just started Labor Day by Joyce Maynard, a gift from Paul at Christmas.

From the author's website:

With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills, New Hampshire, thirteen-year-old Henry -- lonely, friendless, not too good at sports—spends most of his time watching television, reading, and daydreaming about the soft skin and budding bodies of his female classmates. For company Henry has his long-divorced mother, Adele -- a onetime dancer whose summer project was to teach him how to foxtrot; his hamster, Joe; and awkward Saturday-night outings to Friendly's with his estranged father and new stepfamily. As much as he tries, Henry knows that even with his jokes and his "Husband for a Day" coupon, he still can't make his emotionally fragile mother happy. Adele has a secret that makes it hard for her to leave their house, and seems to possess an irreparably broken heart.

But all that changes on the Thursday before Labor Day, when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank approaches Henry and asks for a hand. Over the next five days, Henry will learn some of life's most valuable lessons: how to throw a baseball, the secret to perfect piecrust, the breathless pain of jealousy, the power of betrayal, and the importance of putting others—especially those we love—above ourselves. And the knowledge that real love is worth waiting for.

In a manner evoking Ian McEwan's Atonement and Nick Hornby's About a Boy, Joyce Maynard tells a story of love, sexual passion, painful adolescence, and devastating betrayal as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy—and the man he later becomes—looking back on the events of a single long, hot, and life-altering weekend.

Heard about a Book...

2011-02-15T12:32:00.003-06:00

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah (Geoffrey Strachan, Translator) is getting several good reviews. Check it out.

From Goodreads.com:

As 1944 comes to a close, nine-year-old Raj is unaware of the war devastating the rest of the world. He lives in Mauritius, a remote island in the Indian Ocean, where survival is a daily struggle for his family. When a brutal beating lands Raj in the hospital of the prison camp where his father is a guard, he meets a mysterious boy his own age. David is a refugee, one of a group of Jewish exiles whose harrowing journey took them from Nazioccupied Europe to Palestine, where they were refused entry and sent on to indefinite detainment in Mauritius.

A massive storm on the island leads to a breach of security at the camp, and David escapes, with Raj’s help. After a few days spent hiding from Raj’s cruel father, the two young boys flee into the forest. Danger, hunger, and malaria turn what at first seems like an adventure to Raj into an increasingly desperate mission.

This unforgettable and deeply moving novel sheds light on a fascinating and unexplored corner of World War II history, and establishes Nathacha Appanah as a significant international voice.

Just Started...

2011-02-15T11:50:00.003-06:00

Cheryl gave me Wingshooters by Nina Revoyr for Valentine's Day, recommend to her by Vivien Jennings at Rainy Day Books!

From the author's website:

Michelle LeBeau, the child of a white American father and a Japanese mother, lives with her grandparents in Deerhorn, Wisconsin—a small town that had been entirely white before her arrival. Rejected and bullied, Michelle spends her time reading, avoiding fights, and roaming the countryside with her English Springer Spaniel, Brett. She idolizes her grandfather, Charlie LeBeau, an expert hunter and former minor league baseball player who is one of the town’s most respected men. Charlie strongly disapproved of his son’s marriage to Michelle’s mother but dotes on his only grandchild, whom he calls Mikey.

This fragile peace is threatened when the expansion of the local clinic leads to the arrival of the Garretts, a young black couple from Chicago. Betty Garrett is hired as a nurse, and her husband, Joe, works as a substitute teacher at the elementary school. The Garretts’ presence deeply upsets most of the residents of Deerfield—especially when Mr. Garrett makes a controversial accusation against one of the town leaders, who is also Charlie LeBeau’s best friend.

In the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird, A River Runs Through It, and Snow Falling on Cedars, Nina Revoyr’s new novel examines the effects of change on a small, isolated town, the strengths and limits of community, and the sometimes conflicting loyalties of family and justice. Set in the expansive countryside of Central Wisconsin, against the backdrop of Vietnam and the post-Civil Rights era, Wingshooters explores both connection and loss as well as the complex but enduring bonds of family.

Heard about a Book

2011-02-14T17:57:00.003-06:00

For Valentine's Day, NPR reviewed this book, The Fermata by Nicholson Baker. Check it out.

From Goodreads.com:

The Fermata is the most risky of Nicholson Baker's emotional histories. His narrator, Arno Strine, is a 35-year-old office temp who is writing his autobiography. "It's harder than I thought!" he admits. His "Fold-powers" are easier; he can stop the world and use it as his own pleasure ground. Arno uses this gift not for evil or material gain (he would feel guilty about stealing), though he does undress a good number of women and momentarily place them in compromising positions--always, in his view, with respect and love. Anyone who can stop time and refer in self-delight to his "chronanisms" can't be all bad! Like Baker's other books, The Fermata gains little from synopsis. The pleasure is literally in the text. What's memorable is less the sex and the sex toys (including the "Monasticon," in the shape of a monk holding a vibrating manuscript) than Arno's wistful recollections of intimacy: the noise, for instance, of his ex-girlfriend's nail clipper, "which I listened to in bed as some listen to real birdsong."