The Mysterious Howling
By Maryrose Wood

A Whole Nother Story
By Dr. Cuthbert Soup

When You Reach Me
By Rebecca Stead

Sometimes you just want to feel like a kid again.  If you like gloomy mansions, governesses, orphans, and sly humor, try The Mysterious Howling.  If hilarious wordplay, Lemony Snicket, and The Mysterious Benedict Society are more your style, try the madcap romp A Whole Nother Story.  And if you want a nostalgic 1970’s-era time travel story, try Newbery-winner When You Reach Me.

Kathy Acker is a burning hot razor blade. She can disembowel you. She can purify you. Defining the aboutness of her books is a difficult task due to her aggressive methodology, but here goes: Blood and Guts in High School is nominally about Janie Smith, who begins life as a sex slave to her “father” in Mexico, only to escape (or be abandoned) to New York were she discovers true poverty and punk rock. From there, her life lapses through a dream sequence of enslavements and rebellions by and against various masters and complexes of power. She goes to Paris, and then north Africa, stumbling closer and closer to Egypt, the womb of Western civilization. Where she goes to die.

It’s the story of a woman’s body flung into textile mill of capitalism: body as natural resource, controlled by others. It is also a metaphor for being trapped in cycles of repetitive behavior due to our childhood experiences. Who can related to that? How ’bout everybody! Each episode has a dream-like repetitive quality reminiscent of the “psychodramas” of 1950s experimental films. Times merge. Every lover/father/hero/boss figure bleeds into the next, as if they are just a place holder in macrocosmic template. Even Acker/Janie’s literary outlaw hero Jean Genet loves/betrays her in equal measure. Seeking the secret to this cycle of use and abuse, birth and death, leads her to Egypt.  Perhaps she has to die to learn the secret. Perhaps she has to die to have any relief. Perhaps she has to die to be free.

Having no choice, being born into this organism/machine/economic-system/psycho-biological myth complex, Janie is more free/happier when she rebels, even if such rebellion is, literally, self-abortive. Doing what she wants with her body and mind always takes its toll. There are only so many natural resources to go around. Literally bleeding/bursting through the text is visual dream material. No matter how oppressive the physical circumstances, one’s inner life pulses on though it might be distorted, perverted, altered. Despite the roles we inhabit on our social relationships our inner life is always churning with psycho-mythic dough. Blood and Guts in High School exhibits Janie’s PTSD-suffering physical and mental state.

Acker is a sex-positive feminist and her words and pictures will affront some readers. Especially those feminists who feel her methodology is, well, self-abortive.  There is a large potential for misinterpretation, especially by men. This is why Acker’s work is dangerous. A female person, any person, can be silent (erased), or write (do) what they want and prepare themselves for the consequences. Of course the deck is rigged, the possible consequences are predetermined, so why not rip it up? The form of Blood and Guts in High School echoes it’s function. Acker writes:

As far as I know, “terrorists” are people who use chance methods to hurt people in a society in order to get the rest of that society to realize a particular political situation. I’m not sure you do that with books. I’ve never taken someone by chance and hurt them, or killed them, in a way that would wake a society up. What I did in Blood and Guts in High School was to attack a certain relation between a political situation and literature. It seemed to me that in high culture there were certain presuppositions behind high culture and these were political presuppositions that had a lot to do with class structure. What I was interested in was attacking the very close relations between a fairly rigid class and structure and high literature. I don’t think that’s terroristic. That is, I wasn’t kidnapping someone by chance. (Milleti, 2004)

The book is actually quite funny in parts, offering hilarious send ups of both Erica Jong and Nathaniel Hawthorne. To appreciate all these aspects you do actually have to read the book, as opposed to just flipping through the pages and scoffing at the “dirty” parts (much like librarians used to do with Mark Twain). Spoiler alert: the killer is you.

If you enjoy a challenging read like Blood and Guts in High School you might be interested in the Down the Rabbit Hole Book Club here at NPL. We read avant-garde texts, cult classics and literary graphic novels. Click the link for more info. Cut.

- Bryan

Milletti, Christina. ”Violent acts, volatile words: Kathy Acker’s terrorist aesthetic.” Studies in the Novel 36.3 (Fall 2004): 352(22).

The Vinland Sagas

The Norse colony in North America always fascinated me. Why not go right to the source? These documents were once thought legendary, then proved to be (at least partially) true by the archaeological record. Included in this collection of “Vinland Sagas” are the Book of the Icelanders and the Book of the Settlements, which chronicle of the colonization of Iceland; and the Greenlanders’ Saga and Eirik the Red’s Saga, which chronicle the colonization of Greenland and subsequent excursions to North America.

Written in 13th century, I was afraid these would be dry and boring, but boy was I wrong. They are full of personal details and fascinating anecdotes, only occasionally bleeding into the fantastical. There’s a lot killing and a lot ice. The texts are rich enough that we are transported into another world. A world that existed a millennium ago. We learn about what the Norse wore, ate, and worshiped. Most fascinating are the tensions between the traditional religion and Christianity. The conversion of Europe to Christianity happened so long ago, it is often just a line or two in a school book, but in these sagas we have records of what that conversion was like, the tensions it caused, and how communities dealt with said tension. Did I mention the killings and the ice?

Another surprise was that the Iceland sagas we’re often more interesting than the Greenland ones. In these we find majority of material about the pagan-Christian problem. Did you know there were people (not the Inuit) on Iceland before the Norse? Did you know Iceland had a parliamentary government centuries before other European countries? This is not to take anything away from the Greenland sagas. As is pointed out in the brief notes which accompany it, the Eirik the Red’s Saga is a masterpiece of European literature.

If you have a library card, Vinland Sagas is downloadable for free from Netlibrary with no DRM-restrictions. They are read by Norman Dietz and the inimitable George Guidall.

I can recommend two novelizations of the same material. The first, William Vollmann’s The Ice-Shirt, focuses on Eirik the Red’s daughter Freydis and her role in founding of the North American colony. This is the first of Vollmann’s Seven Dreams sequence which explores the European conquest of the North American continent. It includes ink drawings by the author and contemporary accounts of his travels through Greenland.

The second is the award winning Voyage of the Short Serpent by Bernard de Boucheron which imagines what the dwindling Norse colony on Greenland must have been like in the 14th century. You can read my original review here.

For those not book oriented there is Severed Ways, Tony Stone’s dreamy yet realistic portrayal of two Vikings stranded in Newfoundland. Even if your not interested in the Norse, this is one of the best, truly independent, American films I have seen in recent years.

None of these titles are for the squeamish.

- Bryan

I don’t know why everyone told me this was not a good book.  I almost didn’t read it because I didn’t want to waste my time.  And while this isn’t my mostest favoritest series by my mostest favoritest authors (for those, see my PNRUFy list), I’m still glad I picked it up.

SPOILER ALERT – If you’d like to remain blissfully unaware of any events in the book, please stop reading now, go check it out, peruse it, and then come back.  We’ll still be here.  For the rest of us who’ve read the thing or for those of you who like to read the back page first (gasp!), soldier on…

This is the tenth book in Harris’s popular Southern Vampire series, and I must admit that the last couple haven’t really floated my train (yes, I know that train’s don’t float, as a rule, but imagine how good something would be to make that happen!).  I’m not really sure why I’m not in love with Sookie and her world, but the books usually just leave me flat.

This one, however, I thought was better.  There wasn’t one big plot device that Sookie and pals had to overcome.  It was more of a regrouping after the last couple of death-defying endings.  I enjoyed seeing the characters go about their everyday lives for a change.  After all, you don’t have to have an apocalypse in every book, right?

It was good for Bill to get some page time – even if it wasn’t under better circumstances.  I have to say, True Blood has redeemed Bill a little bit in my eyes, but I am still an Eric girl at heart.  Which means, I’m very glad Sookie and Eric got to spend a good chunk of time together.  They still have a few issues to work through, but I am keeping my fingers crossed for those two crazy kids.

Ok, fellow PNRUFy freaks, here’s my call on this one.  Not the best book you’ll ever read, but definitely worth the couple of hours it will take you to get through it.  When you’ve finished, treat yourself by checking out a few episodes of True Blood (We just got in season two! Woohoo!). 

Happy Sookiefying (Sookiesizing?)

Amanda

The Cellist of Sarajevo
by Steven Galloway

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Canadian author Steven Galloway, is a brief novel of four ordinary people trying to maintain their humanity in the midst of war.

A young father meticulously makes his way through Sarajevo’s streets to bring back water from the brewery, the only safe source of water in the whole city, provided by springs deep beneath the earth. He loves his family. He wants to help his grumpy old neighbor lady. He keeps moving, one excruciating step at a time. Every intersection is perilous and snipers kill in an instant.

A man old enough to yearn for retirement finds himself toiling in the only bakery still operating in the city. He dreams of Sunday picnics and playing with grandchildren. Every day his walk to work is perilous. He is all alone in the city after his wife and son escaped on the last bus out of Sarajevo.

Amidst this danger, a cellist appears at 4pm daily on the spot where 22 people were gunned down standing in line for bread. He plays Albioni’ Adagio, a piece of music from 17^th century Venice discovered in the rubble of WW II’s firebombing of Dresden surviving that other terrible war. Is he playing for the dead or the living?

Arrow is the sharp shooter assigned to protect the cellist daily. Morally repulsed by this task, she was recruited for this duty against her will because she served on the university rifle team. Each of these characters yearns for normalcy and strives for humanity. This is an elegant and thought provoking little book.

- Phyllis

The Help

I like reading about the south.  It’s usually fiction and usually about the Civil War.  However, recently I’ve heard so many good things about Katheryn Stockett’s, The Help, that I decided to try it out – even though it’s set a century later than my favorite time period.  Thank you to everyone who told me to check out this book, because it was completely worth it.

The Help is about a handful of African-American maids and the white society ladies they work for in Jackson, MS during the racially-charged 1960’s.  I thought the characters were well developed and I really enjoyed how Stockett wove all the different story lines together.  Growing up in the racially-homogenous north (in a slightly more recent decade), we didn’t have help in the house, so I don’t know about the accuracy of the author’s portrayal.  All I know is that it was a good story and an enjoyable read – which is what I’m looking for in a book. 

Now, when you finish with The Help, I predicting that you’re gonna come in and say, “Amanda, I really liked this one.  What else you got like it?”  Well, because you asked so nicely, I am going to give them to you right now…no waiting.  I’ve got three books that I think are both very similar to, and as good as, The Help.

Book #1: The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder
by Rebecca Wells

I’ve told you about this little gem before.  Check out what I said here, and then feel free to jump into the fun. (Get it?  Jump in…because the girl of the cover is jumping…ha ha…but seriously folks…)

Book #2: Between, Georgia
by Joshilyn Jackson

I thought this one felt a lot like The Help. Not quite as racially divergent or controversial, but still a good, solid read.

 
Book #3: To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

Ok, I must admit I’m not the only one to make this comparison, but I do think it’s a good one.  Both of these are set in the south.  Both cover racial issues and civil rights tension.  And both are first major novels from their authors.   Mockingbird actually makes a few cameos in The Help, as the main characters read it.  One of my All-Time Top-Ten Reads (Ever!), you definitely can’t go wrong with this one.

So let’s get readin’, y’all.  (Sorry, that’s my best attempt at a southern accent…)

 Amanda

Peninsula of Lies:  A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love

What Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil did for Savannah, this story does for Charleston.  I’m not sure why this story never achieved the same level of bestsellerdom but it’s just as lurid and fascinating.

It is the story of Gordon Langley Hall, the only son of parents who were “in service” to British aristocrats. After making his way to America he somehow managed to inherit the personal fortune of elderly American heiress Isabel Whitney. Hall headed to Charleston where he embarked on a grand restoration of an antebellum home on Society Street, filling it with fine antiques and making a place for himself in Charleston society. Adding further to his celebrity status he somehow managed to publish a string of  biographies, including one of Lady Bird Johnson.

All of this is scandalous enough but the real story begins when he takes up with a much younger African American man, changes his name to Dawn and has a sex change operation at Johns Hopkins. Bear in mind this all took place in the late sixties and early seventies. Think of the gossip. But wait, there’s more. Dawn shows up with a baby. Author Ball is to be commended for sorting the truth in the midst of a Gordian knot of lies, deceits and conflicting stories in this entertaining read.

- Phyllis

But I’ve heard such good things about a few series, that I just decided to try a couple.  It’s not like it cost me anything but time (thank you, NPL!).  First up on the docket – my Harrys.  Harry Potter and Harry Dresden. 

The Harry Potter series  (by JK Rowling) is read by the illustrious Jim Dale who somehow manages to create a different timbre of voice for each of the myriad number of characters he presents.  I have read the print books numerous times and have the movies memorized, but it is still fun to hear them read to me in my car as I drive to work.  And somehow I manage to find something new every now and again.  The library has all the HP books on audio, so feel free to start listening today!

With Harry Dresden (by Jim Butcher), on the other hand, we were a little more selective in purchasing.  You can’t get the first couple of books on audio from us, but the back half of the series is just waiting on you to check them out.  This series is read by James Marsters – or Spike of Buffy fame, if you will.  He even uses his Spike voice when he reads Bob’s parts, which is awesome.  Marsters has that dry wit that totally works for Harry and I’ve long thought these two were a match made in heaven, and now I can see that I wasn’t wrong.  Good times.

I will admit that I have read all of these books before I listened to them, and I’m not sure I could tackle an audio book for a first “read.”  There are times when I find my mind wandering, which doesn’t matter so much if you already know the story.  Also, I can guarantee that the reason I like these so much is directly attributable to the reader.  If there was someone not quite as talented, that would be a complete turn-off for me (as would smelly feet and an overinflated sense of ego, but I digress…). 

After I finish with the Harrys, I’m going to listen to Paolini’s Eragon and Eldest to refresh my memory before I start Brisingr.  We’ll see how that works out with a new reader.   Fingers crossed…

So you may now consider me convinced (partially, at least) that audio books are good.  My name is Amanda, and I am an official audio book convert (more or less…).

Amanda

Maisie Dobbs

My favorite mysteries feature women detectives who rely on pure intellect to solve their cases. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Dorothy L. Sayers Harriet Vane come to mind. Add to this list Maisie Dobbs, nurse, veteran of the First World War, Cambridge educated, psychologist and private detective. This series by Jacqueline Winspear begins with Maisie Dobbs and continues with the seventh volume, Mapping of Love and Death, due out in March 2010.

Begin with this first volume, for background on how a bright working class girl developed into the remarkable Maisie. Starting out as a servant after the death of her mother, she is taken under the wing of Lady Rowan, the vivacious and progressive aristocrat who recognizes Maisie’s talent and sees she receives a first rate education after intense tutoring by her friend psychologist Maurice Blanche. During WW I Maisie finds herself a nurse in a field hospital in France where she treats victims of mustard gas and other horrific injuries before she and her fiancé, surgeon Simon Lynch are both injured themselves.

This war experience provides the foundation for all of Maisie’s work as a private detective, giving her compassion and understanding as she navigates the harsh realities of post war England when the tremendous death toll of the war left many damaged souls as well as social and economic devastation. Somehow, the conclusions she reaches while solving her cases move Maisie and her clients a little closer to healing the wounds of war. For mystery lovers who relish plowing through multiple volumes at once, this character driven series is a prize.

- Phyllis

My Soul to Take

Ah, teenage romance.   It’s fun for everyone.  Teens.  Vampires.  Bean Sidhes (also known as banshees).  In Vincent’s newest series, Soul Screamers, high school student Kaylee Cavanaugh is about to learn that things are not always what they seem.  Pretty girls around her keep dying, which is really freaking Kaylee out.  Literally.  She sees about-to-be-dead people and all she wants to do is scream.  Unfortunately, that’s what got her locked up in the psych ward.

But she can’t help feeling the way she does.  Turns out, Kaylee’s a bean sidhe.  Screaming around dead people is what she’s genetically programmed to do.   Doesn’t mean she has to like it.  Take the angst of Twilight, the female empowerment of Buffy, and add just a dab of that creepy I-see-dead-people kid from The Sixth Sense, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for with this one.

This series wasn’t quite as enjoyable as Vincent’s Werecats, but it did have its own unique take on banshee mythology.  A little predictable in places, Vincent’s left herself quite a few possibilties for future story lines. Before you pick up My Soul to Take, though, make sure you read the prequel, My Soul to Lose, which is a free download from Vincent’s website.  It’s short and if you don’t read it, you’ll be lost through most of the book.  Just FYI.

Alrighty.  Well, you better get reading.  After all, you’re not going to live forever…or are you? (insert evil laugh here)

Amanda

Ok, let me ask you something.  When was the last time you started to read a book on the same day you checked it out from the library?  Maybe you’re a better library patron than I am, starting each book responsibly, as soon as you get it home.  But me?  I have what some would call a massive To-Be-Read (from here on known as TBR) pile, and what usually happens is that the books I get from the library go on top (because they have to go back before the ones I bought, which I own in perpetuity) and hopefully I get to them before my third renewal runs out (yes, you get three!  Woohoo!). 

Except with this book.

On the Friday I checked this out (I remember it was a Friday because I had to watch Friday Night Lights before I could read), I went home, had supper, watched TV, and then started it.  Being the fourth book and final (gasp) book in this series, I couldn’t wait to see what happened to my beloved Spellmans. 

If you’ve never met the Spellmans, let me bring you up to speed.  A family of PIs, the five members (Dad, Mom, David, Izzy, Rae - in birth order) seem to spend more time investigating each other than solving local mysteries.  Lutz has a charmingly eccentric writing style that includes the use of humorous footnotes.  Here are the books you need to read sooner than later:

Without giving too much away, this last entry finds Izzy struggling to deal with her family while at the same time trying to maintain the family business.  Her friend Len is pretending to be a butler, Henry is pretending he likes her again, and good old Morty is pretending to like the great state of Florida.

Lutz hasn’t said definitively that she’ll never write another Spellman book, but if she does, I’m going to have to wait a VERY VERY long time for it (sigh).  And that makes me sad. 

What am I gonna do without my annual Spellman fix? Oh yeah, my massive TBR pile. That’ll work.

Amanda

Beautiful Losers chronicles a loosely knit group of “street” artists who conquered the commercial and fine art worlds. Featured artists include Ed Templeton, Geoff McFetridge, Shepard Fairey, Margaret Kilgallen, Harmony Korine and others, all of which embody a punk-DIY spirit. Most interesting is the connection between contemporary art and skateboarding. If you are snickering you’ll swallow it when you immediately recognize the work. These artists (some of them anyway) are paid large sums to sell you diet cola. As a teen, Templeton was my favorite skater. I never liked the lines of his paintings but thrilled over the lines he cut with his skate. In the interim, his work has grown by light years. N-ville’s favorite cringe monger H. Korine is mostly on good behavior, filming his talking head shots in Fannie Mae Dees Park. He laments the lowered crime rate. Tricky implications of outsiders becoming insiders are glossed over, but Beautiful Losers is an inspiring film that can enlighten people as to where the art and design that surrounds them originated.

I assume the title of the film, and the group show it accompanied, is borrowed from Leonard Cohen’s great novel of the same name. Do it… yourself.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a fan of the TV show Dexter (if you missed my previous thoughts, feel free to catch up here).  I’ve only got one more season to go before I am caught up with the general viewing public – so don’t spoil it for me.  (Yes, I heard what happens, but I’m still going to be surpised when the dark deed occurs.) 

While I’m waiting for the latest season to emerge on DVD, I thought I’d give the novels a chance.  I’m always curious to see how close the show/movie comes to the author’s original vision.  So to begin at the beginning, I picked up Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay.

Lindsay’s style of writing is good – narrative with just a hint of sarcasm.  It’s written in first person, much like the show is narrated with a Dexter voice-over.  We get all of the wonderfully macabre thoughts that flit across his brain.

Plotwise, the story is pretty similar to season one.  Bad guy is the same.  End result is slightly different – one character dies in the book that doesn’t die on the show and Deb has a different level of involvement with our villain, but the main objective is still acheived.

Since the endings were slightly different, I’m interested to see where book #2 goes, compared to season 2.  in fact, I may have to read all four books in the series (a fifth is coming out in September 2010). 

TBR pile: 429-1+4…  Will it never end?

Amanda

Reasons for and advantages of breathing

Mrs. Darcy and the blue-eyed stranger : new and selected stories

New stories from the South : the year’s best, 2009

- Beth

Chronic City
by Jonathan Lethem

Chronic City concerns Chase Insteadman, a washed-up-by-choice ex-child actor who lives off royalties and gourmet chow at Manhattan dinner parties. Though he has no paying roles, his life his is public theater as his fiance Janice is stuck in orbit above Earth in a failing space station. Her government censored love letters to him are published in the New York Times for all the world to read.  Succumbed to being the public’s emo boy, Chase’s life is revived when he meets Perkus Tooth, a washed-up-by-force counter culture film critic. Via Perkus, Chase also meets Richard Abneg, an ex-squatters rights advocate turned enforcer for the billionaire mayor, and Oona Laszlo, an ex-protege of Perkus, who now ghost writes celebrity biographies. Ironically, these are the most authentic people Chase knows in Manhattan.

Chase, Perkus and company sit in Perkus’ rent controlled apartment smoke up (the chronic of the title), chug coffee, and literally deconstruct the universe. On one level it is a bromance between Chase and Perkus. On another level it is an exploration of the relationship between mental space and physical space. As more plot altering truths about the nature of the city are revealed Chase’s life begins to solidify while Perkus’ begins to disintegrate. This where Philip Dick’s influence on Lethem comes into play. Reality is a pastiche. It can be cut and pasted, melted, recycled. It’s a dream Manhattan. It’s winter time all year. The skyscrapers on the cover are the tiny golden books compacted in your laptop– the things we write ourselves in and out of existence with– the things those who live who live further up town than us write us in and out of existence with.

Lethem has created an unclassifiable book that doesn’t fit in any easy categories. I loved it.  Chronic City recommend it to anyone that has ever sat around with friends geeking out over books, movies and music, and to anyone who fears they are slowly only living their life through the internet.

• Battlestar Galactica – if you haven’t watched BSG (the new series), you’re in for a wild journey.  Like Lost with great characters, intriguing mythology, mystery and suspense, but in Space!

• Are star-crossed lovers Sun and Jin or Desmond and Penny the reason you like to get Lost?  Read The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger or watch A Very Long Engagement starring Audrey Tatou.

• Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy – if you especially enjoy the philosophical side of Lost, Pullman’s novels will definitely fill the void.

• Rose and Bernard, although minor characters of the cast, have a huge following among Losties! For more retired persons/senior citizens on adventures, read The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian, or watch the Oscar-winning animated movie Up.

• The Prisoner – this amazing British TV series from the late 1960’s starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan will satisfy your need for deep intrigue and mystery.

• The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher – if you especially like Sawyer’s biting wit (and those nicknames!), you’ll dig this fantasy series featuring Chicago’s only wizard in the Yellow Pages, Harry Dresden.

• One of my favorite scenes on Lost occurred when Hurley declares a desire to write the script for The Empire Strikes Back and send it to George Lucas.  For more hilariously geeky conversations and lovable characters, don’t miss The Big Bang Theory.

• If you enjoyed Charlie’s flashback story about his band Drive Shaft, read about real rock stars in books like Hammer of the Gods, or watch music documentaries like The History of Rock n’Roll.

• My personal favorite suggestion to overcome Lost grief, and one I hope to someday achieve: travel to Hawaii and visit locations where Lost was filmed.

I wish I were finding this book (and its predecessor, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) twelve years from now. I love discovering a worthy series and then greedily reading all the titles one after the other, in order, of course! More’s the pity when you begin a series early on and have to wait a year between titles.

This second in the Flavia de Luce series is every bit as enticing as the first (read the staff review by Phyllis). We’ve come to adore our heroine Flavia, an 11-year-old chemistry savant with a penchant for poison and an encyclopedic memory for English literature and history. I’ve read criticism that the character is unbelievable in that regard, but my friend Ariel, a retired librarian with legendary recall, could easily have been Flavia in another life. And hey, it’s just a story, so lighten up!

This time around, Flavia unravels two mysterious deaths in her village of Bishop’s Lacey–one in the present (well, in the 1950s present) and one in the past. Along the way, we meet Rupert the creepy but talented puppeteer, the aged singing and piano playing Puddock sisters, overbearing Aunt Felicity from London, and Dieter, an Anglophile POW from Hitler’s Luftwaffe.  And there are roles for our favorites from Sweetness, as well: Dogger the shellshocked gardener/butler; Mad Meg the town nutter; and, of course, Flavia’s mean sisters Feely and Daffy. By the end of the book, every human being in Bishop’s Lacey is suspect, including the sainted vicar, and it’s great fun to ponder along with Flavia even if you can’t do the chemistry.

My sole criticism is that the publisher cheaped out on the book’s manufacture. The cover illustration and title of Sweetness is charmingly printed directly on the book’s cover board, with no dust jacket, giving it an old-fashioned look and feel. Random House didn’t do a thing in the world with Weed’s binding, opting instead for a dust jacket design. So they’ve already spoiled the design of what deserves to be a very a collectible set. –Pam

Iceberg Slim’s has the dubious distinction of being the bestselling African American novelist in American history. The cultural impact of his novels Pimp and Trick Daddy would be hard to underestimate though this is probably more visible to Caucasians in cinema and music than fiction. With the explosion of urban fiction, Slim has engraved himself a permanent place in the cultural canon. One of Slim’s final novels, Mama Black Widow is the fictionalized autobiography of Otis Tilson, aka Sally, a drag queen surviving in early 1960s Chicago. I was drawn to Mama Black Widow being curious about the pre-Stonewall transgender experience. In that regard it is something of let down, but in other ways it is a Molotov cocktail.

The first fifty pages explode as Tilson’s heterosexual relationship falls apart and the Chicago race riots blossom around him. He runs through the chaos back to his Mama’s house. We soon realize their mother-son relationship is anything but healthy. Before we can learn more, the plot flashes back to Tilson’s childhood in the de facto slavery of the sharecropping South. Stop me if you have heard this one before, this is the one slow moment in the novel. Soon enough the family moves north to the slums of Chicago. Then the book falls into the urban fiction template Slim himself created: good girls gone bad,  bad boys getting worse, drama in the church, heinous crime, heinous injustice, seriously politically incorrect social attitudes and dirty sex.  Papa Tilson’s transition from patriarchal country preacher to disenfranchised manual laborer destroys him. Mama Tilson becomes the head of the family and makes sure bills get paid by any means necessary. The journey north seems to obliterate Mama’s moral compass even if there is always food on the table.

The plot roars along with the pace of the best pulp fiction. The catalog of nightmares that is Otis’ childhood rivals Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. Granddaddy of the Beats and Granddaddy of Street Lit have a lot in common. I kept thinking of Naked Lunch when reading Mama Black Widow. You need a strong stomach for both. Cringe-factor-ten and pedal-to-the-metal plot do not make up for the lack of character development in key instances. There is a big lacuna between Otis’ skewed childhood and his adult double life as a drag queen. We are not privy to when he realizes he is gay, or how he is initiated into the underground gay scene in Chicago.

Moral ambiguities abound in this book. Social hostility between blacks is a major theme. Mama Black Widow is much more a book about black on black crime than overt racism. Slim’s implied attitude towards homosexuality will also be a sticking point for many. Though the narrator is gay, this is not pro-gay novel. Every reader will have to decide for themselves what is art and what is trash; what is realism and what is exploitation. As if any of those categories are cut and dry. The library’s version of Mama Black Widow is a reissue under Norton’s Old School Books imprint. Any qualms a major publisher may have had about touching Slim’s work in the past has apparently been overcome by a chance cash in on the popularity of urban fiction. An artifact much too volatile for many to sit comfortably with, Mama Black Widow remains a dispatch from the margins between what is acceptable and unacceptable.

- Bryan

I bumped into this book browsing the new books at the main library and loved the cover so much I had to check it out. Well, let me tell you, it was fascinating. So who knew anything about the silver mines in Peru in the 17th century? Certainly not I—I must have been asleep when we went over Peruvian history in high school.

This is a very nice little mystery featuring Mother Maria Santa Hilda, abbess of a convent in the booming town of Potosi (upper Peru, part of Bolivia now). Mother Maria must prove that a wealthy townsman’s daughter did not commit suicide under her care at the convent in order to save herself from the fires of the Inquisition, brought all the way from Spain to the New World. The mystery is pleasant enough, but it’s almost a side story to the class and color wars, the horror of the silver mines, and the stories of the Spaniards who found themselves trying to recreate their former social system in the thin air of the Andes. The sidelines about the Church and Inquisition are worthy, as well. For those who love clerical mysteries (here’s a huge list of literary priests, pastors, rabbis, monks & nuns), this fits the bill.

The Words of Every Song
By Liz Moore

 April is poetry month, and I don’t know about you, but I like my poetry with a little bit of melody and here in Music City we’ve got some great songs that have both.  We’ve also got some good books about music.  Take, for instance, Liz Moore’s novel The Words of Every Song. This debut novel contains 14 short stories about various people in different aspects of the music business, and it mixes and matches characters together like a patchwork quilt. 

  The book’s title actually comes from the Leonard Cohen song, Teachers.  You know the one:

              I was handsome, I was strong
              I knew the words of every song
              Did my singing please you?
              No, the words you sang were wrong

Now I know none of you would ever get the words to a song wrong, but my all-time favorite messed-up lyric is CCR’s song “there’s a bathroom on the right.”  To this day, every time I hear it, I still sing it that way b/c I think it’s funnier. For more on this discussion, take a listen to our April edition of the Popmatic Podcast.  So what’s your favorite misheard lyric? 

Back to the book.  Moore is a wizard at weaving the various storylines and characters together, with major characters becoming minor characters, minor characters taking their turns in the spotlight, and surprise cameos throughout the book.  If you’re having trouble picturing this, think about how the movies Crash or Love Actually are structured.  You know, like in Love Actually, how Hugh Grant was the Prime Minister, but also Emma Thompson’s brother and then they all showed up at the kids Christmas pageant where someone was a lobster?  It sounds complicated, but it’s actually an interesting narrative technique, if you can keep all the people straight.

The other aspect of Moore’s writing that I enjoyed is her use of Flash Forwards.  For those of you not up on the Lost lexicon, a Flash Forward is the same as a Flash Back, except you see the future that hasn’t happened yet, but will, as opposed to the past you’ve already lived and know.  Normally this kind of thing bugs me, but for some reason it works in Moore’s book.  Maybe because we only get to see the characters for such a brief moment, that getting a little bit of future resolution to their story lines makes it easier to move on so quickly. 

Good read, great discussion starter.

  Amanda

Cyberpunk proper exploded and died in the mid-1980s with a handful of loosely associated authors. William Gibson’s Neuromancer, the Mirrorshades anthology, and the Cheap Truth fanzine were the cornerstones of the scene. Never before had a SF genre movement attracted as much media attention or ultimately have as much cultural influence (no  cyberpunk = no Matrix films).

This list includes edgy SF works that cyberpunk authors drew inspiration from, classic cyberpunk texts, and books by some of today’s best SF writers whose work evolved from the cyberpunk meme.

Check out cyberpunk books

- Bryan

Check out Novelizations of the Life of Jesus

- Bryan

Man In the High Castle
By Philip K Dick

Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
By Philip K. Dick

With the success of his recent novel Chronic City Jonathan Lethem seems everywhere these days. A huge influence on Lethem was novelist Philip K. Dick. Lethem edited Library of America’s  Dick reissues which became the best selling titles in the popular imprint .  It is a good time to find out what the fuss is all about and check out where Lethem got a lot of his inspiration. I want to talk about audio versions of two of Philip K. Dick’s most well known novels Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The latter being the basis for the film Blade Runner.

Man in the High Castle is set in a speculative future where the Axis powers have won World War II and the USA has been divvied up by her enemies. Japan occupies the West coast and Germany occupies the East. Set within the occupied Pacific states, the novel presents a cross section of the post war population: a high level Japanese bureaucrat with a taste for American antiques;  an antique dealer who tries hard to please his Japanese rulers; a working class counterfeiter of said antiques; and the counterfeiter’s ex-wife who lives off the grid in the small  rocky mountains towns. Through hints from a metafictional novel within the novel and use the Chinese I Ching oracle all the characters have slow revelations about not only the veracity of the antiques, but reality itself. By the end some characters can’t deny there must be another world where the Allies have won the war. It’s a complex book that will have you thinking until your brain sprouts new wrinkles.

It is also a short book and Dick packs far too much conceptual content inside such a meager page count (or disc count as the case may be). I’ve only listed about half the characters and ignored a number of subplots. None of the characters are really developed fully, and subtle philosophically ideas fly at you like tennis balls shot from a machine. It’s hard to keep up.

If ever there was a book that did not lend itself to audio version said book is Man in the High Castle. The reader Tom Weiner does his best, but really the material he has to work with is raw. Especially awkward is his rendition of Robert Childan, the conflicted antique dealer, who is constantly second guessing the social implications of his every action in the stilted phrasing of someone thinking to himself in a second language. Credit to Weiner to for capturing Childan’s false consciousness though.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a seemingly more straight forward affair. Weary, working class bounty hunter Rick Deckard must “retire” six Nexus One androids. He must do this because his electric sheep has ceased to function. He needs a load of cash to buy a real life animal to cure his wife’s depression and restore their place in the social hierarchy of their run down apartment complex. What we get is a hardboiled detective story that also causes us to question the role of television and religion in our lives, not to mention what we are willing to sacrifice or deny to remain happy, to ensure those we love remain happy.

What makes a good spouse? What makes a good lover? Deckard himself might be an android. God might be an android. If yourself and God and the lead character in the book you’re reading all androids what’s the difference between an android and a human?  What separates us from animals? What separates us from God? What separates us from… each other. This is a profound novel. It contains the best pitch for owning a pet goat I’ve ever heard.

Despite that characterization the plot is straight forward. Deckard goes after his androids one by one. Its a harrowing adventure that makes him question himself in very literal ways. The reader is forced to ask themselves the same questions. Having a single narrator lets us identify with Deckard more and it lets Dick flesh out the character far more than any of the cast of Man in High Castle. There is a moment in most Dick novels when reality falls apart. By making Deckard so real (forgive the pun), when this moment hits it is all the more effective. Similar moments in High Castle fall flat.

The book’s emotional resonance is helped by a tremendous reading by Scott Brick. Brick is kind  of the Matt Damon of American audiobook readers. He nails the haggard, arguably misguided, Deckard perfectly.  Brick’s Deckard is far more fragile than the Marlboro man portrayed by Harrison Ford in Ridley Scott’s film. Also spot on is Brick’s interpretation of the “special” J.R. Isidore, a man so lonely he’ll let himself he used by heartless robots just for a wee bit of friendship, or something like friendship. Brick  has narrated hundreds of novels and when asked what his favorite was he responded Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

It is strange a book as disjointed and uneven as Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award in 1963. Even then an alternative history novel in which Nazis win WWII was old hat. It was Dick’s epistemological acid hit that blew readers minds. Written four years later, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a far better read. I often wondered if Do Androids Dream was so popular because of its association with Blade Runner. Now I know it is one of Philip K. Dick’s best books. I highly recommend it in print form and CD read by Scott Brick. Man is High Castle is intellectually stimulating enough to check out, but I only recommend the CD version owned by the library to hardcore Dick fans.

- Bryan

[Editor's note: since the release of the film Blade Runner most editions of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? have been published using both titles printer on the cover, as does the version reviewed by Bryan. Searching the library catalog for either Blade Runner or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? will retrieve the audio book.]

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to tackle my ever-increasing to-be-read list.  You know, that mountainous pile of books you check out, but never seem to get to before they have to go back to the library? So far I’ve been making decent progress and one of the books on my lengthy list was Curtis Sittenfeld’s third novel, American Wife.  I’ve wanted to read this one since it came out, way back in September of 2008.

The book is supposedly inspired by the life of former First Lady, Laura Bush.  But if I hadn’t known that fact going in, I probably wouldn’t have picked up on it.  The plot follows the life of Alice Lindgren (aka Mrs. Bush) as she grows up and meets blueblooded party guy Charlie Blackwell. Instead of Texas, we’ve moved north to the great state of Wisconsin – where cheese is cheese.

 It really is true what they say – the third time’s a charm because this is the third novel from Sittenfeld, and it’s my favorite. I couldn’t really get into her first release, Prep, and while I loved the first half of her second novel, The Man of My Dreams, I hated the back half. American Wife was good all the way through. I did have a couple spots in the middle where I started getting nervous – but that should be true for any good novel.  Some of the events were a little shocking, but I’ll leave those as mysterious teasers.  It would be interesting to know how many of the events mentioned really occurred and how many Sittenfeld created.

 I always have moments with this author where I feel like she’s in my head, and I’m sitting there thinking “I just had that same thought.”  I guess that means that I readily identify with her characters.  Sittenfeld graduated from the famed Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and I would classify her work as chick lit with a brain.  It’s not so much Joanie loves Chachi, as Joan magnanimously adores Charles. (If you’d like to hear more about the Iowa Writer’s Workshop or Curtis Sitenfeld, tune into this Popmatic Podcast.)

 Okay, so that’s one less book I have to find time to read in 2010.  Only 1,763, no 64, to go.  That doable, right? Right?

- Amanda

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

The story starts out in the 1960’s in La Luna, LA where we meet the Ponder family.  Calla Lily’s mother, or M’Dear as she called her, runs a beauty salon on the side porch of their house, where she dispenses love, wisdom, and healing.  Calla decides at a very young age that she wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps. 

Calla is no stranger to heartache, but somehow she always manages to get through it, with the help of her family, friends, and the always present Moon Lady.  As she grows, she moves to New Orleans to go to beauty school (because who didn’t want to be a hairdresser in the Big Easy in the 70’s?), always planning to return home to her beloved La Luna.

I’m not really sure what I expected when I started this book.  I read The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when it came out, and while I liked it, I didn’t think it was all that great.  I see reflections of the ya-yas in this one, but the story ends up being so much more complete. Without getting too spoilery on you, I thought the ending was going to take a more predictable path, and I was relieved when it veered away right at the end. 

Wells weaves a lush web full of relatable and lovable characters into an almost mythical setting, complete with fairy godmother in the Moon Lady who watches over Calla from above.  Life’s not always easy, but as Calla’s M’Dear used to say, “You can get through anything as long as you keep breathing.”  Just make sure you bring along some Kleenex.

- Amanda

Longest Series – local author, Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunters at 30 books/stories. Honorable mention to Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake books at 22 and Christine Feehan’s Dark series at 20.  For those REALLY long car trips, I’d suggest starting one of these.

Best Sidekick – Bob from Harry Dresden – he’s a talking skull who knows everything about everything.  Seriously, what else do you need and where can I get one?

Most Cliffhangery (This category is so frustrating that I had to invent a word for it) – Fever series from Karen Marie Moning.  You’ll scream. You’ll cry.  You’ll throw your book across the room (unless it’s a library book, then you’ll gently set it on the nearest table, lovingly brushing off any crumbs or lint, before you turn and punch the wall). Be warned – this one’s got at least one more book to go, and it’s not supposed to come out until December ’10.  Oh the humanity!

Wizard with the Biggest Hero Complex – Tie: Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden and John Pritkin from Cassie Palmer by Karen Chance. Harry’s never met a spell he wouldn’t try in the name of saving the world.  Pritkin would have had something quippy to say, but he’s already saved the world four times since we asked him for a quote.

Best Living Arrangements – The church in which Rachel and Ivy reside in Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan series.  A witch and a vampire living in a decommissioned church – you’d think it would be more peaceful.  Honorable Mention to Jean-Claude’s underground lair in Anita Blake and the Black Dagger Brotherhood compound care of the Warden.

Craziest Relatives – Tie: “Grandpa” Eddie from Julie Kenner’s Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom series and Niall, Sookie’s fairy great-grandfather, from Charlaine Harris’s True Blood-inspiring series.  One’s not related, one’s not human, but there’s still so much to love.

The Dr. Evil Award for Excellence in Villainy (I haven’t talked to Dr. Evil about this personally, but I’m sure he’d agree that these bad guys are worthy of being compared to someone who went to evil medical school) – Lilith from LA Banks’s Vampire Huntress series.  I mean, come on, she’s married to the devil – that’s evil. Honorable mention to Lash and the creepy baby-powder scented Lessers from J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood.

And there you have it.  The PNRUFy Class of 2010.  I was really hoping to see some Weather Wardens or Werecats in the lineup, but I guess there’s always next year. Agree or disagree with the winners – but either way, these books are all pretty good reading.  Happy PNRUFy-ing!

- Amanda

Ok, I need a hand count.  How many of you love Laurell K. Hamilton?  Alrighty, now how many of you hate her? Yep, that’s what I thought.  You’re either one or the other.  I happen to fall on the love her side of things.  LKH doesn’t write Great American Novels, but that’s partially why I like both her Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series so much.  They are pure entertainment.

Divine Misdemeanors is the latest Merry release.  **Spoiler Alert** With all the pseudo-climatic events of the previous book, Swallowing Darkness, I was surprised (pleasantly so) to find out that this one was even coming out. I was afraid that the series was ending.  DM’s dedication indicated that LKH had a hard time with the book, and it kind of showed. I’m sure it was difficult to find a new story path after tying up some of the previous threads so neatly.

Merry and the guys exiled themselves back to LA.  The Princess, Rhys, and Galen have gone to work for Merry’s old detective agency.  Doyle, Frost, Kitto, and several others, including former guards of Prince Cel,  set up house in Maeve Reed’s estate while she is in Europe.  In working with the police, Merry learns that someone is killing demi-fey, and she has to figure out how to stop it.

If you are fans of Darkness and Frost, this is not going to be your favorite installment.  The guys are there, but they are all work and no play.  Rhys and Sholto stepped up, though, and **Seriously, if you want to be surprised, stop reading!** it was nice to see Rhys get his own sithen (although, it’s an old apartment building? Gee, thanks Faery. You shouldn’t have…no really…). That should give LKH some material to work with to build some new story lines. Overall, though, DM kind of felt like a filler book. I hope LKH can find her way forward from here, because I really want to see what happens when the babies are born. Keeping my fingers crossed…

- Amanda

Home was only the third novel by Marilyn Robinson in thirty years. It was definitely worth the wait. Home chronicles the return of prodigal son Jack Boughton to the family farm in Gilead, Iowa. His aged father Robert, and Glory, Jack’s baby sister, now middle aged, anxiously await Jack’s return after twenty years of non-communication. Glory, a former school teacher, who by chance or unconscious design has slowly crashed back to Gilead to care for her fading father. That father, the Reverend Robert Boughton, spiritual lighthouse to the town of Gilead for much of his life, is now a wisp of his former self. He clings to life in the small hope he will once again meet  his estranged son. The Lord giveth; Jack returns.

Polite but unrepentant of his past transgressions, Jack torments his father by simply being himself, the black sheep of the family, also a drunk, and maybe a coward. Glory accepts Jack wholeheartedly, hardened liver and all, while the Reverend Boughton becomes tortured by his life’s one failure: his anti-social communist sympathizing son.

In case you are thinking you’ve heard this one before, you’ve never heard it by a writer as talented as Marilynne Robinson. In her hands the sleepy Boughton household becomes a boiler engine of psycho-spiritual pressure. The tension between father and son permeates the house like sunlight. Fate, sin, free will, and the capital “eff” Fall, are all weapons in the psychic warfare. Robinson illuminates both the positive and the negative nature of piety with clear effortless prose. If you are afraid this is just a book about a bunch of churchies in need of a little grease, all the characters have secrets and there is a surprise ending. The reader, and author, always know that rural Iowa in the late 50s is a serious bubble, outside of which are horrors that don’t permit the luxury of theological angst.

Literati may recognize the Boughtons and the town the Gilead as it gave the title to Robinson’s previous novel which earned her a Pulitzer Prize. Gilead and Home are companion pieces that take place in the same town at the same time but inside different households. I can’t recommend both novels strongly enough. On a personal note, Home is the last book I will get to read with the 2nd Wednesday Book Club, a reading group I’ve led here at the library for the past two years. To all my book club members, I thank you, and apologize for all the pretentious literary crap I’ve convinced  you to read. Though it is sad to have to move on, I am happy the last book we read together was one as powerful and meaningful to me as Home.

- Bryan

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It

This collection is showing up on a lot of Best of 2009 lists, and with good reason: the stories are intense and stunning.

Going Away Shoes
By Jill McCorkle

I openly admit loving all of the Dan Brown books. There, I said it. Well, maybe Deception Point was a little weak; being saved after skidding at high speed across an iceberg is soooo much more unlikely than falling from an exploding helicopter and landing unscathed on a roof, right? But I digress. The Lost Symbol has the baddest baddie of all time. He is creepy; he is relentless; he is tattooed over every inch of his body except a little blank circle on the top of his head. The Lost Symbol has, of course, the Masons. They fare very well in this novel, and it’s a lot of fun learning about their symbols and how prominently they (the symbols) figure in the architecture of Washington, D.C. And The Lost Symbol has noetic science (using scientific methods to explore consciousness/soul and its effects on the physical world), adding just the right amount of spooky-dooky to the mix. Formulaic? You bet. (The folks at Slate have created a very amusing Dan Brown sequel plot generator. Check it out.) Page-turner? Yesiree. Worth reading? Absolutely. Go on and read it–you know you want to!
- Pam

Set in the final chaotic days of WW II, the Emmerich family flees their prosperous farm, hoping to avoid the approaching Soviets. With them is Callum, a Scottish POW who worked on their farm and never went back to prison after the growing season and secretly in love with the Emmerich daughter. They journey through bitter cold and witness death and brutality along the way. They are joined by a young Jewish man who has managed to escape capture for 2 years by disguising himself as a German soldier. Paralleling their journey is that of a group of concentration camp prisoners marched west to an aircraft plant where they are fed only enough to stay alive. At the beginning of the book Frau Emmerich and her family are proud Nazis, enamored of Hitler and comfortable on their elegant estate. As they suffer and see with their own eyes the evil inflicted by the Nazis they realize what fools they have been. While the plot of this book centers around the horror of war, its strength lies in its hope for the future and a message that life goes on and that life is good.

- Phyllis

Canadian author Bradley brings us the first installment of this mystery series featuring precocious 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, the youngest of the motherless de Luce girls. They live at Buckshaw, the family’s crumbling manor house, along with their widowed father, his shell shocked valet Dogger, and Mrs. Mullet, their cook. Flavia silently observes those around her and stealthily plays tricks on her sisters. When a stranger is found dead in their garden, Flavia sets to work identifying him. She utilizes the Victorian era chemistry lab on the top floor of Buckshaw, the domain of a long dead relative. On her trusty bicycle, Gladys, Flavia wanders far and wide to solve the mystery which also involves a valuable Penny Black stamp belonging to her father. She exasperates local Police Inspector Hewitt but he is patient and wise in dealing with her and they make a great detective team. Set in the bleak period just after WW II, the story also offers a history lesson on the dramatic social changes that resulted from the war. A second story in the series, The Weed That Strings The Hangman’s Bag, is due in March 2010.

- Phyllis

Set during the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century, Sarah Carrier is the eldest daughter of Martha Carrier, a victim of those trials. Smart, independent and strong willed like her mother, 10-year-old Sarah is forced to betray her family to save her own life when neighborhood resentment, jealousy and misunderstandings lead to careless accusations of witchcraft. Leading to misery and death, this ugly episode in American history is illuminated by this story of family love and hate, loyalty and truth. The author is a 10th generation descendant of Martha Carrier. The audio edition is read by actress Mare Winningham.

- Phyllis

Moore explores thirtysomething angst while cleverly playing with language and conventions of plot, narrative, and character. This book will make you both laugh out loud and think deeply about the various paths a life can take.

- Jessica

Homer and Langley

By E.L. Doctorow

So shoot me, I’ve never read E.L. Doctorow before now. Guess I was in my feminist science fiction phase when Ragtime came out. No matter. Homer and Langley is a lovely novel. Considering the fact that the main characters are reclusive, hoarding brothers who live in shocking squalor, achieving lovely is no mean feat for the author. The novel is based on the true story of Homer and Langley Collyer, who repelled and fascinated New Yorkers until their deaths in 1947. This is the story of how the brothers, children of privilege, came to be thus. Told from Homer’s viewpoint, the story of Langley’s increasing eccentricity and Homer’s dependent complicity is told with kindness, humor, heartbreak, and love. Doctorow’s departure from actual history (he extends their lifespans by a good 30 years, and invents characters who float in and out of their lives) serves the story so well that you don’t mind at all once you’ve squared your confusion. And the author’s ability to humanize what must have been quite a freak show forces you to look a little differently at what you see on the nightly news.

–Pam

Little Bee

“And then the men came…” This is the recurrent opening to the story told by every traumatized refugee that Little Bee talks to while waiting in an immigration detention facility outside of London. The charming narrator of this original novel is sixteen-year-old Little Bee, who barely escaped from her Nigerian village with her life, after losing her family and home in a vicious attack. When released from detention after two years, she finds the one person in London she knows of — Sarah, a new widow who once met Little Bee during an ill-fated Nigerian vacation with her husband, two years earlier. The relationship forged by these two women (and one delightful little boy), the way they change each other, and their precariously intertwined fates, form a touching and compelling personal story set against a backdrop of an ocean of refugees moving around the globe in search of safe homes. Check this one out.

- Julie

The Song is You

by Arthur Phillips

In the past, I’ve read quite a few books by musicians, about musicians, or about music in general and none of them have ever quite done what I wanted them to. I can’t really describe what I’m looking for, being a musician myself, but this one has come the closest of any of them. Here’s a brief sample of what I mean:

A piece of music’s conquest of you is not likely to occur the first time you hear it, though it is possible that the aptly named “hook” might barb your ear on it’s first pass. More commonly, the assailant is slightly familiar and has leveraged that familiarity to gain access to the crisscrossed wiring of your interior life. And then there is a possession, a mutual possession, for just as you take the song as part of you and your history, it is claiming dominion for itself, planting fluttering eighth notes in your heart.

So anyway, our main character, Julian, is a music aficionado who always seems to be listening to his iPod. He has 8,146 songs at his disposal – ready for any occasion. One night, he’s out walking in New York and happens upon a new band with an inspiring young Irish singer. The girl is magnetic and Julian is immediately drawn to her and her music. Most of the book tells the story of how their lives intersect – or you know – don’t.

- Amanda

Some folks enjoy light reading in summer, but I save those extra daylight hours for the heavies. I’d been dying to read William T. Vollmann’s massive cold war epic Europe Central since it won the National Book Award in 2005. Well worth my wait, Europe Central is a work of art as brutal and heavy as the 88mm shells which litter its chapters. Which is not to say the story lacks moral delicacy. Tough times require tough… well you know. Vollmann utilizes prosopography to present a cyclical narrative that spans the German invasion of Russia to height of the Cold War in the 1970s. Equivalent German and Russian historical figures are paired and their psychological responses to fanatical ideology are contrasted in a mesh of recurrent tropes. The cast of characters includes German printmaker Kathe Kollwitz, communist documentarian Roman Karmen, Nazi general Friedrich Paulus, and Soviet general Andrei Vaslov (both of whom defect to enemy’s side when captured). Last but not least is Dimitri Shostakovitch, whose life and work epitomizes the moral ambiguities and ideological confusions at which Vollmann aims his bright spotlight. Even today musicologists debate the thematic intention of Shostakovitch’s body of work. The ambiguity exists only within the personal sphere, within the public sphere the result of hard line ideology is, of course, mass murder. Admist all this death, denial and despair transmuted there is also a love story. Vollmann casts Elena Konstantinovskaya as the love of Shostakovitch’s life. She is Shostakovitch’s mistress, not his wife and their relationship is idealized in is mind, crystallizing into a perfection which may or may not conform to reality to the reality of their relationship. His love for Elena, or the memories thereof, are like the political fantasies of Hitler or Stalin, i.e., unattainable.

The horror of the novel is nearly spoiled by the story of SS officer Kurt Gerstein who clandestinely tried to expose the Holocaust. This is the only section of the book that comes dangerously close to an elementary school morality lesson. Fortunately, at least on an aesthetic level, Gerstein’s end is as tragic as the rest.

You might be thinking, “Bryan, this book sounds terrible!” I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Nazi and Soviet culture, anyone interested in the history of the Eastern Front during World War II, and anyone interested in the life and music of Dmitri Shostakovitch. Though cast of characters is based on historical persons, Europe Central is a work of fiction and the primary reason to experience the book is the artistry of William Vollmann. His prose are precise and evoke a modernist tone. Recurring themes, repeated vocabulary, and chronological interlacing weave a snowy bloodstained tapestry across fifty years of heartbreak and political violence. Think of Europe Central as a photo negative to Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation, or a constructivist War and Peace.

- Bryan

Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field
by Melissa Nathan

A retelling inside a retelling. This book stays very close to the original storyline. It is a charming, fast read. Fans of Persuasion will also want to check out Persuading Annie, also by Nathan.

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
by Laurie Viera Rigler

This time-travel retelling, lands a modern-day Courtney in Jane Austen’s time. Sure, there’s a first edition of Pride and Prejudice on the bookshelf, but waking up in Regency England is quite a shock to our heroine.

Austenland
by Shannon Hale

Time-travel is problematic enough, much less time-traveling into a work of fiction. But what if you could visit a vacation spot that comes pretty close to the real thing?

Lost in Austen : create your own Jane Austen adventure
by Emma Campbell Webster

Pride and Prejudice meets the Choose Your Own Adventure novels of childhood. Try your hand at being Elizabeth. Will you end up married to the most eligible bachelor in England? Or will you get carried off by gypsies?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by Seth Grahame-Smith

What happens to a classic when you introduce Zombies? Maybe you’ve never wished for such a combo, but this book is not to be missed. Look out for Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters next!

The Angel’s Game

3 stars

A stylish, suspenseful read. Ruiz Zafon’s cinematic writing style evokes a gothic, Modernist Barcelona that both intrigues and frightens.

- Jessica

It All Started with a Dog
by Leigh Somerville McMillan

4 stars

- Cheryl

The Little Stranger
by Sarah Waters

This phenomenal haunted house story called to mind the best work of Daphne DuMaurier, Shirley Jackson, and Patrick McGrath.

Undress Me in the Temple of Heavenn
by Susan Jane Gilman

Ignore the ridiculous book cover and title and check out this gripping description of a trip to China gone horribly, horribly wrong.

- Beth

4 of 5 Stars

Though often cited as a prime example of literary science fiction, Ballard’s work reads more like horror. All of these stories are permeated with a feeling of oppression, anxiety, and nausea. Doubtlessly tagged sci-fi because so many of them are set in the future, but it is a near future, perhaps too near. The future of ours fears: environmental devastation, over population, total thought control by corporate governments, etc. If you’re bored already, think twice. Ballard’s scenarios are eerily plausible, their truth resonating beyond the novelty of their clever conceptions. Good reference points are the films 28 Days Later and The Children of Men. Ballard’s exception being there are no heroes in his world, no lights at the end of the tunnel. His vision is clinical, the results precise.

Though all the stories are equal parts terrifying and brain-teasing, the best are ones in which the central characters are given a slightly greater sense of humanity. “Voices of Time,” a personal favorite, concerns itself with a scientist who discovers the key to evolution, which also happens to be death toll for Homo sapiens. When said scientist’s mind begins to disintegrate as the process of evolution accelerates, he achieves a Zen-like inner peace. It is testament to the joy and beauty of letting go.

“Cage of Sand,” long regarded as one of Ballard’s masterpieces, explores the psychoanalytic motives of those left behind on an abandoned Earth. Rarely have the psychological implications of space travel been examined with such realism. The regret and self-deceit of the cast of stay behinds are the stuff of all great literature. The end of the collection consists of four chapters from his groundbreaking experimental novel, The Atrocity Exhibition. These represent Ballard at zenith. By decentralizing the voice of the narrator, Ballard finds a way to formally present ideas as characters without lapsing into snicker worthy sci-fi tropes. Are you paying attention, Philip K. Dick?

So what ideas are these stories about? Well, namely the psychosexual consumption of celebrities’ psyches and bodies by our collective conscious while unearthing the suppressed parallelism of the objective and subjective universe(s). In short, bodies and minds get turned inside out, both figuratively and literally, on a micro- and macroscopic scale. Not for children, not for the faint of heart, not like anything you’ve read before.

- Bryan

Peace Like a River

Wow! This book already seems like an American classic, and it’s only a few years old (2001). Listening to it was like traveling west, possibly back in time, following a dream. But in reality it takes place in current times, with a father, son and daughter traveling into the badlands in a search for the oldest son, who is running from the law. It is told in first person by the younger brother. Enger has woven a tale with threads of humor, poignancy, spiritual mystery, miracles and suspense; also with clever allusions to Zane Grey stories of the Wild West, complete with outlaws and heroes.

- Julie

The Red Tent

This is the imagined story of Dinah, one of the daughters of Jacob, sister to Joseph, and daughter to four mothers, from the Old Testament story. Dinah is actually mentioned only briefly in the Bible, when her rape is referred to, as the incitement to a major tribal battle. But Diamant has created a rich and moving tale focused on a strong woman who endured terrible tragedies and yet survived, gaining her strength from other women who taught her skills, rituals, and provided comfort via a female society separate from the dominant patriarchy of the times. The Middle Eastern music interspersed in the recording contributes to creating the atmosphere for this powerful story.

- Julie

The Bonesetter’s Daughter

Amy Tan has written a moving story based in part on her own mother and grandmother’s histories, and it is told from the points of view of Ruth, a first-generation Chinese-American who lives in San Francisco, and her mother, who has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In the process of reading her mother’s writings, Ruth learns truths about her mother’s life that had previously been untold, and gains a new empathy and respect for her. The Chinese-accented voices of Tan and Chen bring authenticity and emotional resonance to the recording.

- Julie

His Dark Materials

This theatrical production of this marvelous three-part fantasy has won awards and has many fans. This is a masterpiece suitable for most children aged 10+, as well as adults with imaginations, and it will carry you away to other times and lands, where magic, theology and physics intersect. The cast includes the author, Philip Pullman, and the drama that unfolds is intriguing, complex, suspenseful and utterly engrossing (drivers beware!).

- Julie

Now here’s a unique twist – a private investigator with Tourette’s Syndrome. Set in Brooklyn, this is a mystery tale told with pathos and self-deprecation by a native Brooklynite trying to resolve a crime and in the process uncovering a personal betrayal. If any book is a “must-listen,” rather than a must-read, this is it, as the narrator does a wonderful job portraying someone struggling to control his Tourette’s outbursts. Lethem’s power to evoke feelings is such that by the end of this noir story, I was ready to travel to JFK airport to get a particular kosher sandwich that is described in detail.

- Julie

Curry portrays the most dastardly villain to ever greet your ears in this wonderfully suspenseful and sinister (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) children’s series which is also suitable for adults who can suspend disbelief. Curry reads all the parts with considerable theatric skill. The first installment, The Bad Beginning, relates the tragic story of how three orphans ended up in the care of a terrible man who only wants their inheritance, but nevertheless it will leave you craving more, more, more distressing developments!

- Julie

Big Cherry Holler

This is the second of Trigiani’s charming Big Stone Gap series, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and it is a bit more serious in theme. Ave Maria is struggling with tensions in her 11-year old marriage, and after an exciting trip to Italy to visit her heritage with her daughter, she returns home reconsidering everything. Reader Grace Bennett’s Appalachian accent is perfect, as she creates nuanced changes in voice for different characters.

- Julie

This novel, an Oprah Book Club pick from years ago, was my absolute favorite of 2006. Mississippi author Melinda Haynes is a superbly talented writer and storyteller. The reader, Nana Visitor, captures the voices of so many characters that one forgets she is only one person. Set in Petal, Mississippi, late 1950’s, Mother of Pearl delves into themes of community, family, race relations, faith, love, and (especially) the mysteries of nature, the divine feminine, life and death – all the elements needed for a rich and captivating tale. The unique characters, reflected in some of their names – Even Grade, Joody Two Sun, and Valuable Corner – all face challenges. The absorbing plot matched the beautiful writing. If you are a fan of The Secret Life of Bees and wish there were other books like it, read this one!

- Julie

Water for Elephants

I have a strong feeling that this audio book will be my favorite of 2007! Water for Elephants was a marvelous tale all the way through to the last page, without lagging once. There are two narrators, who are both top notch, each performing the voice of the same man, Jacob Jankowski, at two very different ages.

The story, told in flashbacks, is of his stint as the veterinarian for a struggling traveling circus in the 1930s, and it is packed with drama, action, romance, and especially, circus lore. There is a menagerie of animals to tend to, and Jacob, who unknowingly hopped a circus train after dropping out of Cornell in despair when his parents died, faces a steep and fast learning curve to understand the strictly enforced class strata and the unwritten rules governing the circus community. While trying to fit in to such an unfamiliar environment, he also finds himself falling in love with a very special elephant, and then, with the performer Marlena, whose paranoid and sadistic husband is the equestrian director.

Marlena and Jacob share a strong empathy for the animals, which are often neglected or abused, and they take risks to protect them as the tale unfolds. When the story reached its very satisfying and surprising conclusion, I was sorry it had to end. I will be spreading the word about this one. Gruen has a new novel coming out in October.

- Julie

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories

This collection of stories from a Chapel Hill, NC native is my pick for the most impressive debut of 2009. Fans of Raymond Carver, Jean Thompson, and George Singleton, take note.

- Beth

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
By Wilson, Sloan

This quintessential look at 1950’s conformity could be described as a more hopeful Revolutionary Road.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By Pollan, Michael

The bestselling author of The Botany of Desire explores the ecology of eating to unveil why we consume what we consume in the 21st century.

The Waitress

The Appetizer

Katie has lofty career aspirations that seem to change almost hourly: writer, film director, teacher, educational psychiatrist. In the meantime, she’s waiting tables and waiting for “Mr. Right” to arrive out of the blue — which seems unlikely, considering her romantic track record is as pitiful as her job history.

The Main Course

Still, a girl can dream, even when she’s rushing a hot plate of linguini over to the nasty customer at table six. So when gorgeous, sensitive, perfect Dan Crichton asks her out, Katie’s over the moon. But once again, commitment phobia rears its ugly head and dinner turns into the Great First Date Disaster — and Katie’s ideal romance is over before the goodnight kiss.

The Just Desserts

Things are tough when a woman wants it all and will not settle — and has a little trouble making up her mind. But it’s about to get really complicated for the Queen of Complications.

The Bill

Not only is Dan coming back — as her new boss and engaged to someone else — but persistent Ex-Boyfriend #3 Hugh’s back too, with a vengeance. And suddenly there’s a lot more on her tray than even the most able food service professional could safely handle …

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

In this Jane Austen inspired comedy, love story, and exploration of identity and destiny, a modern LA girl wakes up as an Englishwoman in Austens time.

After nursing a broken engagement with Jane Austen novels and Absolut, Courtney Stone wakes up and finds herself not in her Los Angeles bedroom or even in her own body, but inside the bedchamber of a woman in Regency England. Who but an Austen addict like herself could concoct such a fantasy?

Not only is Courtney stuck in another womans life, she is forced to pretend she actually is that woman; and despite knowing nothing about her, she manages to fool even the most astute observer. But not even her love of Jane Austen has prepared Courtney for the chamber pots and filthy coaching inns of nineteenth-century England, let alone the realities of being a single woman who must fend off suffocating chaperones, condomless seducers, and marriages of convenience. Enter the enigmatic Mr. Edgeworth, who fills Courtneys borrowed brain with confusing memories that are clearly not her own.

The saga that launched Jakes’s bestselling career of is available once again. Phillip Kent, the illegitimate son of an English nobleman, embraces the ideals of the fledgling nation of America. Includes a new Introduction.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
By Tolle, Eckhart

Humanity now, perhaps more than in any previous time, has an opportunity to create a new, saner, more loving world. This will involve a radical inner leap from the current egoic consciousness to an entirely new one. In very practical terms, Tolle leads readers into this new consciousness to learn to live and breathe freely.

23 Minutes in Hell: One Man’s Story of What He Saw, Heard and Felt in That Place of Torment
By Wiese, Bill

I would give this book 5*. If you like inspirational books that give a unique perspective on a somewhat different subject matter than your typical inspirational books, you will like this one.

Heartsick
By Cain, Chelsea

Addicted to pain killers and still bound to Gretchen Lowell, the beautiful serial killer who had abducted and tortured him before turning herself in, even after she is incarcerated for her crimes, Portland detective Archie Sheridan is caught in another deadly duel with a vicious murderer targeting teenage girls, ambitious reporter Susan Ward, and Gretchen herself.

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War
By Bageant, Joe

Web columnist Bageant takes readers on a raucous tour through the taverns, churches, and double-wide trailers of the invisible working class–the very people who carried George W. Bush to victory–offering a vivid and sobering snapshot of a nation on the brink of catastrophe.

Still Alice

4 stars

This is a very eye opening and poignant story about Alice Howland, a 51 year old Harvard cognitive psychology professor who is renown for her work in linguistics. Married and with three grown children she faces a rapidly dwindling grasp on her mental prowess with the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Partially told from Alice’s point of view this debut novel is gripping and presents many startling and often subtle details that patients and those closely associated with someone with Alzheimer’s disease will certainly experience. Lisa Genova holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer’s Association, a background which clearly helped her writing shine with an eloquent authenticity. Heartbreaking and real.

- Phil

Someone Knows My Name

This beautifully-written novel, originally published in Canada as The Book of Negroes, has been chosen as the 2009 selection for Canada Reads.

The book opens in London, where a now-old Aminata Diallo is being courted by abolitionists to help plead their cause before Parliament. Through a series of eloquent first-person rememberings, we learn Aminata’s life story: her kidnapping from her African village of Bayo by slavers; her heartbreaking journey across the sea; her role on an indigo plantation near Charleston and subsequent travels. Set in pre- and post-Revolutionary America, this story is rich in historical detail, including the evacuation of free Blacks and slaves to Nova Scotia, a backhanded reward for remaining loyal to the crown during the Revolution. (The Book of Negroes is the account book into which their names were written before the evacuation.) This book is enjoyable on so many levels-as a work of literary fiction, as an exploration of hidden history, as a sweeping saga, and as a tale of semi-triumph. The author gives us a narrator who remains skeptical, defiant, ungrateful, and quite sure of her identity throughout this convincing and arduous yet lovely novel.

Pam

Summer at Tiffany

5 of 5

Julie and Romeo
By Ray, Jeanne

5 of 5

.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics
By Pessl, Marisha

5 Stars

American Gods
Gaiman, Neil

5 stars

5 stars, Jessica

The Help
By Stockett, Kathryn

5 stars, Karen

Corelli’s Mandolin
By de Bernieres, Louis

5 stars, Jessica

The Post-Birthday World

5 stars

Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster
By Thomas, Dana

5 stars

.

By George
By Stace, Wesley

5 stars

Captain’s Fury
By Butcher, Jim

5 stars

.

Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939
By Roiphe, Katie

5 stars
The Tender Bar: A Memoir
By Moehringer, J. R.

5 stars

4 stars, John

The Awakening
By Carroll, Michael

4 stars, John

.

The Tiny One
By Minot, Eliza

4 stars, Beth

How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time
By Jesella, Kara and Meltzer, Marisa

4 stars, Beth

Behind the Curtain: An Echo Falls Mystery

4 stars

The Last Summer (of You and Me)
By Brashares, Ann

4 stars

.

The Terror
By Simmons, Dan

4 stars

Indecision
By Kunkel, Benjamin

4 stars

.

Shortcomings
By Tomine, Adrian

4 stars

Firstborn
By Clarke, Arthur C. and Baxter, Stephen

4 stars

Bitten

If you like reading vampire romances, why not give werewolves a chance? Bitten is a sophisticated, sexy, fast-paced read, with a very interesting take on the werewolf mythology.

Salty
By Smith, Mark Haskell

3 of 5 stars I picked this one up because the main character is an aging rock star. My final take on this one in 3 words…Erotica for Dudes!

Winter of Artifice

Mostly consisting of the very psychoanalytic interior monologues, this trilogy of novelettes is best when narrative takes a back seat to pure poetry. Though nothing much happens, the lace-like intricacy of the language is to be admired, as well as the crystalline disentanglement of murky relationships between human psyches. Very sensual and decadent, Nin is an aesthete’s dream. In the finale, “The Voice,” form and function merge perfectly as one character is himself a psychoanalyst. The mystical affirmation of being that closes the volume is worth the price of few hours on the leather couch.

I just discovered this author and his detective series featuring Elvis Cole. This one is a stand-alone title centering on a physically and psychologically traumatized female bomb squad expert-turned-detective who teams up with an ATF agent who is in a similar state of recovery, as they chase down “Mr. Red”, bomb making fanatic extraordinarie. The setting is L.A., and the action is fast, the plot is gripping, and the character development makes you care what happens.

- Julie

A Fraction of the Whole

This Booker Prize nominee is hilarious, extremely well-written, and wise; misanthropic but hopeful.

The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order
By Wickersham, Joan

This memoir by a daughter trying to come to terms with her father’s suicide is this season’s The Year of Magical Thinking.

Swallow the Ocean: A Memoir
By Flynn, Laura

Set in 1970s San Francisco, “Swallow the Ocean” is a searing, beautifully written memoir of a childhood under siege and three young girls determined to survive despite their mothers mental instability. In luminous prose, this memoir paints an intimate portrait of what might have been a catastrophic childhood.

Cassandra at the Wedding
By Baker, Dorothy and Eisenberg, Deborah

Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley: brilliant, nerve-wracked, gay, and miserable. Returning to her family ranch in the foothills of the Sierras for the wedding of her identical twin to a nice doctor from Connecticut, she is hell-bent on sabotaging the wedding.

Work Shirts for Madmen
By Singleton, George

Art and alcoholism collide.

.

Throw Like a Girl
By Thompson, Jean

From the celebrated author of “Who Do You Love” comes this collection of 12 new stories that take dead aim at the secrets of womanhood, describing the change from youth to experience in taut, moving prose.

- Beth

Unkempt

5 stars

Black Swan Green
By Mitchell, David

5 stars

.

Arthur & George
By Barnes, Julian

5 stars

The Circus in Winter
By Day, Cathy

5 stars

.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
By Roach, Mary

5 stars

]]> http://offtheshelf.nashvillepubliclibrary.org/2009/07/21/book-review-5-star-picks-from-beth/feed/ 0 http://offtheshelf.nashvillepubliclibrary.org/2009/07/21/book-review-summer-people/ http://offtheshelf.nashvillepubliclibrary.org/2009/07/21/book-review-summer-people/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:54:23 +0000 Jenny http://offtheshelf.nashvillepubliclibrary.org/?p=715 Summer People
By Brian Groh

Nathan Empson has just accepted the most unusual summer job of his life. In exchange for serving as a “caretaker” for Ellen Broderick, the eccentric matriarch of an exclusive coastal community, he’ll earn a generous paycheck and gain access to one of the last bastions of old New England wealth. But not everyone in town is welcoming–or even civil. And while he discovers companionship with a philosophical, ex-punk Episcopalian pastor, and more than companionship with the alluring nanny to the pastor’s children, Nathan finds it increasingly difficult to ignore his employer’s unnerving behavior. With each escalating mishap, a new aspect of Ellen’s colorful past comes to light, exposing the secret lives of her old friends, flames, and enemies, as well as the story behind a scandalous incident Nathan must prevent her from repeating.

Charlotte, a thoroughly unpleasant Manhattan model, is back visiting in her small, detested Illinois hometown when she is involved in a catastrophic car accident. Plastic surgery following the wreck leaves her face unscarred but completely unrecognizable. How does a woman who has gotten by her entire life on appearances deal with having her identity taken in an instant?

A mystery man named Z, a tortured private investigator, a plain teenage girl also named Charlotte, a genius/weirdo who is obsessed with the Industrial Revolution and a shady internet project all contribute to that answer in this hard to categorize and equally hard to put down book. Hip and timely, this is a mystery, an edge-of-your-seat thriller, and an engrossing, ironic look at contemporary American culture all at once.

- Sarah

James Tate’s unusual poems are like tiny, surreal short stories. Give this a try even if you don’t usually like poetry.

Three Guys from Miami Celebrate Cuban: 100 Great Recipes for Cuban Entertaining
By Lindgren, Glenn ; Musibay, Raul; Castillo, Jorge

This is an indispensable party cookbook. The recipes for garlic shrimp, Cuban pizza, and chicken spread are absolutely not to be missed.

The Northern Clemency
By Hensher, Philip

This long, engrossing novel could be described as a British cousin of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections.

Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
By Harris, Mark

This absorbing look at the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1968 was my favorite nonfiction book of last year.

- Beth

The Crimson Petal and the White

If you, too, cannot resist a hefty, lushly-written, vividly detailed novel set in Victorian England, then this is the book for you. At well over 800 pages, it is not exactly a light read, but it is certainly a fascinating and involving one. The multi-dimensional plot centers on Sugar, a young prostitute of lowly social standing and grand aspirations, and William, the high-born, egotistical perfume magnate who proves to be the vehicle for Sugar’s ambitions. Filled with amazing historical details and brilliantly sketched characters, this is a great novel to settle in with for a (long) while.

- Sarah

Strange as This Weather Has Been

Set in present day West Virginia, Ann Pancake’s debut novel, “Strange As This Weather Has Been,” tells the story of a coal mining family–a couple and their four children–living through the latest mining boom and dealing with the mountaintop removal and strip mining that is ruining what is left of their mountain life. As the mine turns the mountains to slag and wastewater, workers struggle with layoffs and children find adventure in the blasted moonscape craters.

“Strange As This Weather Has Been” follows several members of the family, with a particular focus on fifteen-year-old Bant and her mother, Lace. Working at a “scab” motel, Bant becomes involved with a young miner while her mother contemplates joining the fight against the mining companies. As domestic conflicts escalate at home, the children are pushed more and more outside among junk from the floods and felled trees in the hollows–the only nature they have ever known. But Bant has other memories and is as curious and strong-willed as her mother, and ultimately comes to discover the very real threat of destruction that looms as much in the landscape as it does at home.

- Beth

Million Dollar Baby

Let’s welcome another mystery writer who takes us back to 1935, the time of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. You can visualize the movie version of this book with the dapper millionaire Creighton Ashcroft III coming to this small Connecticut village in his Rolls Royce impressing all the women except published mystery writer Miss Marjorie McClelland. Add one suicide of the past owner of Kensington House, the bones of the gardener, Park Avenue society plus a drop-dead gorgeous detective (pardon the term) and you have a rollicking tale that keeps you enthralled wondering who “done them in” and who gets the girl. You will be eagerly awaiting the next Marjorie McClelland mystery.

The Mayor of Lexington Avenue
by James Sheehan

This is a first novel for the author but you would never guess it. Sheehan offers a legal thriller with nostalgia, values, and the spice of a little romance. The mayor of Lexington Ave. is attorney Jack Tobin who, years later, repays his childhood best friend Mikey for protecting him when they were young. Mikey’s son is on death row, framed for murdering a woman 10 years before. While there is some predictability in the outcome of this novel, there are still a few surprises. It will keep you reading and guessing.

- Cheryl

The Thirteenth Tale

The author is obviously well-read in Victorian literature. This may first seem to be a booklover’s book but its gothic feel would also appeal to adventure readers.

Margaret Lea, the daughter of a book dealer, is invited to visit the well-known elderly author Vida Winter in order to write Miss Winter’s final “true” biography. This is odd that Margaret was chosen over existing authors or journalists, as Margaret has never read any of her books. Prior to her interview, Margaret decides to read The Thirteenth Tale which her father has in the safe with other rare books. The original book only had twelve tales when first published resulting in a corrected reissue as The Twelfth Tale.

The unfolding story of Margaret’s stay with Miss Winters has a taste of the writing of Bronte, Eyre, The Arabian Nights with a little DuMaurier as well. There is a continuing puzzle that is always missing a piece and this reader just knew what the missing piece was and yet… it is the twist at the end that gives this tale its mastery.

- Cheryl

The Voyage of the Short Serpent

This strange novella is not for the weak of heart. Set during the darkest of the dark ages, Voyage of the Short Serpent follows a Norwegian Bishop sent to the frozen wastes Greenland to reestablish Christianity (not to mention reinstate a tithe) on a colony which may or may not still exist. Equal parts historical realism and black comedy, Boucheron reveals the structural hypocrisy of the medieval church by mimicking the writing style of period. There are a lot of lists of polar horrors, many of which are laugh out loud funny. Considering Boucheron presents a dead on historical snapshot of medieval Scandinavia, flawlessly apes the literary diction of the era, and still manages to sustain a streak of rich satire throughout, it is no wonder the French Academy awarded Voyage of the Short Serpent its Grand Prix in 2004.

- Bryan

Good Times, Bad Boys

Looking for more chick lit? If not, read no further… Good Times, Bad Boys tells the story of Echo Brennan, a music journalist who lives with her depressed musician boyfriend Matt,who currently has a terrible case of writer’s block. (This is Music City, so I know there are girls out there who can relate!) Echo breaks it off with Matt, and manages to snag the interview that will get her the cover story. Things seem to be going great, but Echo can’t get over the fact that Matt is now dating a groupie. He has even finished an album of new material, inspired by the break-up. This book has a great cast of supporting characters, and one scene in particular will have you laughing so hard it hurts.

- Crystal

Slipknot

Greenlaw, one of my favorite “nautical authors” – writer of the excellent nonfiction The Hungry Ocean and The Lobster Chronicles, turns to the mystery novel genre here. But don’t fret – she sets it in Maine with many familiar trappings and terms.

This is a breezy, funny book filled with colorful characters and her trademark witty and droll observations. You’ll get to work alongside Jane Bunker, the frugal transplanted Miami detective now employed as a marine inspector in the usually quiet town of Green Haven. Her clashes and encounters spiral into a real convoluted mystery. Go Jane!

Promising debut fiction work which may become a series of sorts. I enjoyed it.

- Phil

L.A. Outlaws

I first discovered T. Jefferson Parker because he had won more than one Edgar Award for his mysteries. So far, all I’ve read have been utterly satisfying. He creates a strong sense of place, usually somewhere in California, and he delves into his characters’ psyches and emotions, which naturally enriches the storyline. L.A. Outlaws (2008) features a female masked bandit who adores stealing cars and robbing fast food joints, and whose alter-ego is a public school history teacher and mother, Suzanne Jones. Her bandit persona (she also donates generously to charities) intrigues the public, the media, and also a young L.A.P.D. cop who gets more involved with her than he should while trying to simultaneously unmask her and protect her. If you like well-written mysteries, try this author!

- Julie

Home to Harmony

This is the first book in the well-known “Harmony” series, a group of books about life in the quaint fictional town of Harmony, Indiana, complete with small town characteristics reminiscent of Garrison Keillor’s “Lake Wobegon.” Quirky behavior abounds as we follow Sam Gardner, pastor of the Harmony Friends Church (Quaker) and his interactions with parishioners and other townspeople. Gulley spins many poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, tales that are often touching and reveal much about this little town and its eccentricities. Having read all of this series, it is my view that this is the best of the lot. Some of the later ones get bogged down in Gulley’s social and political views. This one avoids all that. also written some entertaining non-fiction works such as Front Porch Tales that are worth a look.

- Ric

The Long Dry

The Long Dry is an accurate rendering of the intrinsic beauty and mysticism country life. There is tragedy, but all life is tragic whether of the urban or rural variety. The rural Welsh setting just makes me like this book more. Following one day in the life of a coastal family farm, we learn the joys, secrets and conflicting motivations of each family member. Jones keenly subverts Welsh mystical stereotypes by letting the chronologically disjunctive central tragedy reverberate through the present tense of the characters, creating an atmosphere of intense sadness which borders on piety. There are no wizards and faeries but there is pain and a stoic resolution which substitutes for understanding.

- Bryan

Freezer Burn

Joe Lansdale’s writing has been described as “10-alarm chili-pretty strong stuff.” Freezer Burn is no exception, so watch out, faint of heart! East Texas loser Bill Roberts is hiding the fact his mother’s corpse is rotting away so he can keep getting her Social Security checks. When he and a couple of friends decide to rob a fireworks stand, tragedy occurs. Bill ends up joining a traveling freak show, a perfect place to lay low from the authorities. The freak show cast of characters includes African-American Siamese twins, the bearded lady, a dogman, the ringleader who has a third hand growing out of his chest, and his blonde bombshell wife, whose freakiness is of a lustful nature… But when the freak show rolls into town, the biggest attraction is always the frozen man, who seems to cast a mysterious spell over all who see him. . Freezer Burn is essentially a southern gothic comic Shakespeare-style tragedy, which is a combination that only master storyteller Joe Lansdale can pull off. Read it with a tall glass of water handy (remember the chili description-it’s no joke!)

Lush Life

I’m a big fan of Richard Price’s style – full of natural street dialog and in this case, police talk as we cruise with the Quality of Life taxi in lower Manhattan in the wee hours. The plot revolves around the identity of a shooter outside a bar but what rings most true is the collision of events, dialogues and unraveling of stories as the book progresses. Price’s uncanny knack for details and personal styles and voices flows naturally. If you liked Clockers or the excellent Samaritan you should enjoy this one as well. Great on audio for a long trip– Bobby Cannavale is really good narrator, doing multiple voices convincingly!

- Phil

The Human Stain

I had never read Philip Roth before but considering his reputation I had high hopes when my book club decided to read The Human Stain. On the surface the novel is an indictment of political correctness, but as we read on we discover the true subject matter of the book is how secrets shape our psyches.

Each of the four main characters has a secret which has shaped the entirety of their adult lives. Roth examines the rich interior lives of each of the quartet. These portraits are as vivid and engaging in themselves as the plot which showcases volatile results of when such psychically potent lives mix. If you missed this one when it first came out a few years back, now’s your chance to read what will surely come to be considered one of Roth’s best.

- Bryan

In the Woods

I don’t usually read police procedurals, but the author’s beautiful writing style made this book a real pleasure for me. The story is suspenseful, the characters feel real and complex, and the dialogue is snappy and current. In addition, the landscape, the Irish countryside, is as beautifully drawn as the human characters, and also plays an important role. A sequel to this book, The Likeness, was recently released, and a third book is in the works.

- Liz

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less

Author Terry Ryan takes a nostalgic, touching look at her 10 children family growing up in northwest Ohio in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and in particular she focuses on her mother, Evelyn Ryan. It seems Evelyn had a unique knack for entering-and winning-many of the old “tell us why you love our product in 25 words or less” contests that companies used to run back then. In fact, such was her talent that she single-handedly saved the family from losing their home at least once, and twice she won a car and also a trip to Europe. Her winnings were made necessary because of an alcoholic husband who drank away much of his weekly paycheck.

Interspersed throughout the book are family life vignettes, some humorous, including a tale about a pet rooster that had its own way of keeping visiitors-and family-at bay when they wanted to enter or leave the house. The author gives many examples of Evelyn’s contest entries, and while some seem rather trite, they also demonstrate the determination of a woman dedicated to help provide for her family the best she could under trying circumstances. Two such examples are:

(The italics are what she wrote to complete an already existing start of an ad)

Dial Soap
“Dial is wonderful, colorful stuff
For amplest protection, Dial’s always enough”

Dr. Pepper
“The time of your life you can win
With Dr. Pepper, the flavor that’s in
It’s distinctive and bright, It’s lively and light
There’s no time like NOW to begin”

All in all, an entertaining read.

- Ric

Debate simmers as to whether Powys was a genius or a gasbag. I’m voting the former. Tragically he remains under read despite a scrumptious hardcover reprint campaign by Overlook Press a few years back. His contemporary Grail epic A Glastonbury Romance remains his most recognizable work. Superficially a retelling of the Grail legend set in modern day Glastonbury, the novel’s themes are so varied, its cast so vast, it transcends the schlocky King Arthur associations and represents a return to the all encompassing 19th century uber novels of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Proust. Powys is brazen enough to tackle such themes as fate vs. free will, deism vs. revelation, youth vs. age, heck, even free markets vs. labor.

Writing while in his sixties, he’d seen nough of life not to take particularly sides on any of these matters. He dutifully elucidates them. He uses a myriad of characters’ perspectives to meld a kaleidoscopic omniscience by expounding each character’s inner world in high literary prose. My favorite is the sadomasochistic Welsh antiquarian Mr. Evans, a character unabashedly based on Powys himself. Powys’ verbosity and over-top-characterizations make him a bit too much for some readers. Given the right mood his ornate style can be a refreshing break from the realism (i.e. blandness) of most contemporary prose.

If you are looking for arduous but rewarding literary mountain to climb, I highly recommend A Glastonbury Romance.

- Bryan

Oryx and Crake

Darkly funny and shocking, this is a bold and wonderful piece of speculative fiction. Narrated by “Snowman,” apparently the last human on Earth after some apocalyptic event, the novel is constructed as a flashback, looking back on the last days of humanity. Carrying hot-button issues from our world today, like social inequality, environmental destruction and genetic engineering, to a logical if completely over-the-top end, Atwood creates a truly frightening future that seems creepily plausible. Not for the faint of heart, this is nonetheless a fabulous pick for fans of speculative or science fiction, or for literary fiction readers.

- Sarah

The Ruins

Five Reasons you should read The Ruins by Scott Smith:

1. You wish a book existed similar to the TV show “Lost.”
2. You are searching for a horror novel that is both sophisticated and thought provoking.
3. You’ll read anything Stephen King has recommended.
4. You like books set in exotic locales.
5. You’re a reluctant reader, but are willing to take the word of your friendly librarian that this is a book you will not be able to put down!

P.S. I think it important to note this book will inspire you to learn a few helpful phrases in the native language of the Mayan people…

- Crystal

The ubiquitous blurb associated with Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano is “20th century masterpiece” but I tried to ignore this. If anything it put me off. The first few chapters struck me as pretentious. Four hundred pages dedicated to one day in lives of three characters is a bit much. (James Joyce happened already thank you very much.) Typically, I’m not into books where every drag of a cigarette is a revelation, because every drag of a cigarette is NOT a revelation. But poetry makes it a revelation, and that’s why life is a garbage heap and poetry is holy. So I ask Lowry, and others like him, why not just write poetry? Why fumble with the semblance of a plot?

Occasionally, the prose is stunning. Other times, it meanders but accurately captures the nature of daydreaming and everyday subjective monologue. Why fumble with the semblance of a plot? All these logorrhea-esque excursions are umbrella-ed under a very precise, symmetrical structure. The whole book is a poem with the Cabala as a skeleton. The initial chapters are a little tough to take because this structure is not immediately apparent. Like a difficult film, the editing slowly reveals itself, and what at first is a headache, becomes a rewarding, memorable aesthetic experience. There exist seamlessly congruent symbolic layers stacked atop one another: the over-arching Cabalistic framework, the Jungian/alchemical personal relations, and the contrasting poetic interludes of the three main characters’ internal thoughts.

So what’s this bugger really about? It is about drinking yourself to death in Mexico. It’s about the world being controlled by the Demiurge. The Consul, Hugh, and Yyonne are different aspects of the same person: ALL PERSONS. I get it. Quauhnahuac is the Center of the World. I get it. Like I said, Joyce happened already, but Lowry is far more cynical, and in the end, despite my initial impressions, the novel is more than just literature for literature’s sake. Under the Volcano was supposed to be the first of a trilogy mimicking The Divine Comedy. Volcano was the Inferno installment. Lowry prophetically fulfilled the nihilistic damnation portrayed in Volcano on a personal level, and cemented his personality cult.

Some have been critical of a lack of character development. It’s funny. By the end I was really in love with the Consul (who is largely based on Lowry himself). One thing he captures spot on is the feeling of just letting it all fall apart… on purpose. As I write this, I’m realizing the similarities between the lives’ and work of Lowry and Jack Kerouac. Of course, Under the Volcano crushes even my favorite Kerouac novels.

- Bryan

The Shadow of the Wind

The Shadow of the Wind captures the intrigue and hidden connections of Barcelona in 1945. The author was just thirty-nine when this became a block-buster in Spain. The voice of youth is embodied in the central narrator, Daniel, who confronts murder, magic, madness and doomed love.

Daniel enters into the underworld of Barcelona through the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel selects the book, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax. This begins his single-minded search for the true history of the author.

The Shadow of the Wind moves gracefully through the plot, transported by the unjaded quality of Daniel’s narration. The tragedy and darkness is offset by his relentless curiosity and interest in the forgotten author Carax. Also, Daniel’s is a poignant voice for he suffers the loss of his ability to remember his mother’s face. The quest will resolve this loss.

- Sally

Irene Nemirovsky, author of this great book, died at Auschwitz at the age of thirty-nine. Before she died she succeeded in capturing her personal experience as a Jew in France. She describes the 1940 exodus from Paris before the Nazi invasion and her subsequent life in a German-occupied French village.

The is an exceptional work due to Nemirovsky’s descriptive skills. She was already a successful writer living in Paris before the Holocaust engulfed her. Despite the overwhelming duress, her writer’s mind remained cool and reflective and continually absorbed by the subtleties of those who shared the same fate of war.

The following passage embodies this exceptional power of observation amid extreme fear and calamity:

“The entire village was waiting for the Germans. Faced with the idea of seeing their conquerors, for the first time, some people felt desperate shame, others anguish, but many felt only apprehensive curiosity, as when some astonishing new theatrical event is announced. The civil servants, police, postmen had all been ordered to leave the day before. The mayor was staying.” (page 89)

- Sally

Since I began working here in the Popular Materials department I’ve been searching for an example of the horror genre that would genuinely scare me, give me that thrill that hooked most horror junkies I know. I found such a thrill in Octavia Butler’s short form masterpiece Bloodchild.

The story expounds the tentative (and squirm inducing) symbiotic relationship formed between humans and a species of giant centipedes after humans have jettisoned Earth to find a new home. Some of us might be horrified by giant centipedes regardless, but what sets this story apart is that Butler simultaneously illuminates the emotional politics of all power relations: parasite / host, master / slave, parent / child, boss / employee. Bloodchild causes the reader to question why we do what we are told, what will we sacrifice for the tranquility of our children, and most importantly, what qualities make a person morally good. Prepare to have your skin crawl and question your own complicity in the structure of society.

Butler skillfully engages the reader, making us wonder what exactly is the relationship between the humans and the centipedes (I won’t give it away). Once it is revealed things really get juicy both literally and philosophically. Also included in this volume are a handful of Butler’s most acclaimed stories and personal essays. Each is accompanied by the author’s commentary as an added bonus.

- Bryan

A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates

One of the best biographies I’ve ever read, this beautifully written book examines the often tumultuous life of the underappreciated author of Revolutionary Road.  Also look for Blake Bailey’s upcoming biography of another literary icon of the 1950’s, Cheever: A Life.

Nothing That Meets the Eye: The Uncollected Stories of Patricia Highsmith
By Highsmith, Patricia

Although she is more famous for creating the character of Tom Ripley, Highsmith is the master of the precise, pessimistic short story.  Be prepared to be overcome with dread.

The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War
By Lebedoff, David

This is a very readable, sympathetic portrait of two men who at first glance seem like polar opposites.  Despite their flaws, the author portrays both Orwell and Waugh with affection and generosity.

The Woman in White
By Collins, Wilkie

Something about the holidays always makes me want to read classics.  This gothic mystery is impossible to put down.

- Beth

Fisherman’s Bend

Book two in Greenlaw’s Jane Bunker Mystery Series is another witty, compelling nautical drama set in Green Haven, Maine. You’ll enjoy the small towns’ many characters including Jane’s host couple the Vickersons, who always seem to be working on their all mussel cookbook, the in-your-face young waitress Audrey who knows all the news and many new characters like John Paul, the cryptic Native American possibly involved in a fisherman’s death.

Greenlaw, through marine inspector Jane Bunker, now also a deputy sheriff, keeps things moving along briskly and has a knack for surprises here, ending each chapter with a twist or revelation. Shades of an East coast Twin Peaks here in this sleepy fishing village where all is not what it first appears. A good read till the very end.

- Phil

Bad Monkeys

Imagine yourself at a dead end in life. Your job stinks. You can’t seem to get yourself off the couch. You’ve hurt someone you love. But what if you have a chance to redeem yourself by joining a secret organization that “erases” bad people? Are you with me? If yes, then I’ve talked you up to about page 30 in Bad Monkeys. But please, check it out, and read it from the beginning. The story is told by main character Jane Charlotte, who’s in an insane asylum, but the setting isn’t all that important. It’s why and how she’s there that counts! This book will especially appeal to fans of Christopher Moore, and Chuck Palahniuk.

Alex Award Winner – 2007

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

This is my new favorite book, after Infinite Jest and Ulysses. Experimental, beautiful, funny, and sad, this book perfectly embodies the power of the book as an art form. You could tell the same story as a movie (and there are film-like qualities to it with the use of photographs) but I would argue that it wouldn’t take your breath away the same way in any other format.

- Liz

Confessions of Max Tivoli

With an intriguing science fiction-like premise, and written in an accessible but literary style, Greer’s novel is memorable and truly unique. When was the last time you read a book in which the main character was born as a very tiny old man, and then proceeds to age backwards throughout his life, so that he dies seventy years later with the appearance of a newborn?

A big part of the novel is the bittersweet love story at its core. Max’s strange “condition,” and his unwillingness to tell others about it, naturally has a negative effect on his ability to sustain a romantic relationship. The benefit of his strange malady is that is allows him second and third chances with Alice, the love of his life; she doesn’t recognize him, years between their meetings, as the same man, aging backwards (who would?), The setting, turn of the century San Francisco, is also beautifully evoked. Highly recommended for anyone looking for gorgeous writing and an arresting premise.

- Sarah

It sounds like it has all the markings of a bad Lifetime movie: beloved, saintly, family-oriented sister contracts leukemia, while career-driven, cynical sister communicates with her throughout the illness with newsy letters detailing her exciting life as a Hollywood producer. I don’t know how this avoids saccharine sweetness, or how a novel about such disparate subjects as leukemia and Hollywood works, but it does. A sweet and heartbreaking but never cloying look at two totally different sisters, this is a light read with surprising depth.

- Sarah

This Is Not a Love Song

When I read reality-based fiction, I want the characters to be people with whom I’d like to go to my local coffee shop and share a deep caffeinated conversation. Sarahbeth Purcell’s new novel definitely includes my kind of people!

The stories of Julia and her best friend Delia are revealed through letters, diary entries, telephone conversations, and a few direct encounters. Purcell, being a local girl, has made Nashville the setting. Each chapter begins with a song title. Some are indeed real songs from the 80’s and 90’s, while some are song titles Purcell created to challenge her readers to a little music trivia game. If you’re familiar with the tunes, it clues you into what the characters are feeling.

This is a modern novel that deals with real problems, including depression, drug abuse, sexual abuse, and deadbeat parents. I think you’ll find there is hope for the two best friends to find love, in spite of all the dysfunction around them. Be sure to read Purcell’s first novel Love is the Drug.

- Crystal

If you happen to like the movies Beetlejuice or Night of the Living Dead, you’ll love this book. It’s the week before Christmas in the California town of Pine Cove, and all is definitely not well.

Young Josh Barker thinks he saw someone kill Santa with a shovel. Former B-movie queen Molly Michon is off her meds and hearing the voice in her head she calls “the narrator.” Lena Marquez has accidentally killed her ex-husband Dale Pearson. Mavis Sand, the foul-mouthed elderly owner of the Head of the Slug saloon is trying to plan a barbeque for the Christmas party, if El Nino doesn’t interfere. The Archangel Raziel has arrived to grant a wish of a child. And that’s just the tip of all that’s going on!

Christopher Moore has penned a wild and hilarious holiday tale that will have you laughing from the first page until the last. Don’t wait for the holidays to read this one.

- Crystal