2014: Spring Books to Read

2014: Spring Books to Read

Fiction:

Acts of God by Ellen Gilchrist (The human race. You have to love it and wish it well and not preach or think you have any reason to think you are better than anyone else. Amen. Good-bye. Peace…   Master short story writer Ellen Gilchrist, winner of the National Book Award, returns with her first story collection in over eight years. In Acts of God, she has crafted ten different scenarios in which people dealing with forces beyond their control somehow manage to survive, persevere, and triumph, even if it is only a triumph of the will.   For Marie James, a teenager from Fayetteville, Arkansas, the future changes when she joins a group of friends in their effort to find survivors among the debris left when a tornado destroys a neighboring town.   For Philipa, a woman blessed with beauty and love and a life without care, the decision she makes to take control of her fate is perhaps the easiest she has ever made. As she writes to Charles, her husband and lifetime partner, “Nothing is of value except to have lived well and to die without pain.”   For Eli Naylor, left orphaned by a flood, there comes an understanding that sometimes out of tragedy can come the greatest good, as he finds a life and a future in a most unexpected place.   In one way or another, all of these people are fighters and believers, survivors who find the strength to go on when faced with the truth of their mortality, and they are given vivid life in these stories, told with Ellen Gilchrist’s clear-eyed optimism and salty sense of humor.   As a critic in the Washington Post wrote in reviewing one of the author’s earlier works, “To say that Ellen Gilchrist can write is to say that Placido Domingo can sing. All you have to do is listen.

Alena by Pastan (“Last night I dreamed of Nauquasset again.” Fans of Daphne du Maurier’s timeless Rebecca will revel in this contemporary homage to her gothic masterpiece. Though updating the characters—the Max de Winter stand-in is gay; and the modern Mrs. Danvers, a business manager—and the setting, the narrative’s excruciating tension hovering beneath the surface remains the same. When the unnamed narrator, a naive young art historian and lowly museum assistant, is offered a position as the curator of a trendy Cape Cod museum, she jumps at the chance. However, all is not as golden as it initially seems at the Nauquasset (the Nauk). Bernard Augustin, the museum’s brooding owner, and the rest of the employees seem to be mired in the past, as the memory of Alena, the previous curator, who vanished more than two years ago, still holds sway over the Nauk and its staff. Trying to exert her own authority and creative vision amid an ongoing investigation into Alena’s mysterious disappearance, she is thwarted at every turn by the phantom presence of her predecessor. –Margaret Flanagan, From Booklist)

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates (One game. Six students. Five survivors. It was only ever meant to be a game. A game of consequences, of silly forfeits, childish dares. A game to be played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal, more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, 14 years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round.   A gripping psychological thriller, partly inspired by the author’s own time at Oxford University, this is perfect for fans of The Secret History, The Bellwether Revivals, and The Lessons. Clever, dark, and compulsively readable, this is an ideal book group title: who knows better than your best friends, what would break you? The author’s background in puzzle writing and setting can clearly be seen in the plotting of this clever, tricksy book that will keep readers guessing to the very end.- Amazon & BookBrowse)

Boy, Snow, Bird by Oyeyemi (An Amazon Best Book of the Month, March 2014: After escaping the cruel wrath of her abusive father, Boy Novak finds comfort in a small Massachusetts suburb and a widower named Arturo, whom she later marries. Boy is quite taken with Arturo’s daughter Snow, but it’s the daughter she has with Arturo that complicates their quiet lives–Bird’s birth reveals that both Arturo and Boy are light-skinned African-Americans passing for white. Harkening back to the great passing narratives, like Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition and, most notably, Passing by Nella Larsen, Boy, Snow, Bird is about both the exterior and interior complexities of racial identity. The perception of Arturo and Boy’s race and social class is threatened by Bird. But it’s the psychological conflicts that are the most devastating. Arturo was raised with “the idea that there was no need to ever say, that if you knew who you were then that was enough, that not saying was not the same as lying.” Is passing dishonest if it isn’t an active decision? Boy, Snow, Bird is a retelling of Snow White, and the wit and lyricism of Helen Oyeyemi’s prose shares the qualities of a fable. But this novel isn’t content to conclude with an easy moral. In fact, Oyeyemi complicates the themes she establishes. Her writerly charms shouldn’t be taken for granted; the beauty of her writing hides something contemplative and vital, waiting to be uncovered by readers. –Kevin Nguyen/ Amazon)

Circle of Wives by LaPlante (When Dr. John Taylor is found dead in a hotel room in his hometown, the local police find enough incriminating evidence to suspect foul play. Detective Samantha Adams, whose Palo Alto beat usually covers small-town crimes, is innocently thrown into a high-profile murder case that is more intricately intertwined than she could ever imagine. A renowned plastic surgeon, a respected family man, and an active community spokesman, Dr. Taylor was loved and admired. But, hidden from the public eye, he led a secret life—in fact, multiple lives. A closeted polygamist, Dr. Taylor was married to three very different women in three separate cities. And when these three unsuspecting women show up at his funeral, suspicions run high. Adams soon finds herself tracking down a murderer through a web of lies and marital discord. With a rare combination of gripping storytelling, vivid prose, and remarkable insight into character, Alice LaPlante brings to life a story of passion and obsession that will haunt readers long after they turn the final page. A charged and provocative psychological thriller, A Circle of Wives dissects the dynamics of love and marriage, trust and jealousy, posing the terrifying question: How well do you really know your spouse?- Amazon)

Family Life by Akhil Sharma (Hailed as a “supreme storyteller” (Philadelphia Inquirer) for his “cunning, dismaying and beautifully conceived” fiction (New York Times), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice “as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky” (The Nation). In his highly anticipated second novel, Family Life, he delivers a story of astonishing intensity and emotional precision.   We meet the Mishra family in Delhi in 1978, where eight-year-old Ajay and his older brother Birju play cricket in the streets, waiting for the day when their plane tickets will arrive and they and their mother can fly across the world and join their father in America. America to the Mishras is, indeed, everything they could have imagined and more: when automatic glass doors open before them, they feel that surely they must have been mistaken for somebody important. Pressing an elevator button and the elevator closing its doors and rising, they have a feeling of power at the fact that the elevator is obeying them. Life is extraordinary until tragedy strikes, leaving one brother severely brain-damaged and the other lost and virtually orphaned in a strange land. Ajay, the family’s younger son, prays to a God he envisions as Superman, longing to find his place amid the ruins of his family’s new life.  Heart-wrenching and darkly funny, Family Life is a universal story of a boy torn between duty and his own survival.- Amazon)

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue (Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heatwave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman called Jenny Bonnet is shot dead. In thrilling, cinematic style, Frog Music digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue’s lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other. BookBrowse)

The Martian by Andy Weir (Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him? Amazon)

Mind of Winter by Laura Kasischke (On a snowy Christmas morning, Holly Judge awakens with the fragments of a nightmare floating on the edge of her consciousness. Something followed them from Russia. Thirteen years ago, she and her husband Eric adopted baby Tatty, their pretty, black-haired Rapunzel, from the Pokrovka Orphanage #2. Now, at fifteen, Tatiana is more beautiful than ever – and disturbingly erratic.   As a blizzard rages outside, Holly and Tatiana are alone. With each passing hour, Tatiana’s mood darkens, and her behavior becomes increasingly frightening… until Holly finds she no longer recognizes her daughter. BookBrowse)

“Mind of Winter is a tightly coiled story of suffocating love and undeniable horror. Its grip is remarkably chilling, masterfully poetic, and psychologically unrelenting.” – Ivy Pochoda, author of Visitation Street   ”If I could stand on a mountaintop and shout over the land, I would do it now: This book is magnificent! It’s a gripping psychological thriller, at once both charmingly domestic and flat-out terrifying. Laura Kasischke writes so well that she leaves me inspired and very, very jealous.” – Elin Hilderbrand, author of Beautiful Day…BookBrowse

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman ( it is the Mesmerizing and illuminating, story of an electric and impassioned love between two vastly different souls in New York during the volatile first decades of the twentieth century. Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.With its colorful crowds of bootleggers, heiresses, thugs, and idealists, New York itself becomes a riveting character as Hoffman weaves her trademark magic, romance, and masterful storytelling to unite Coralie and Eddie in a sizzling, tender, and moving story of young love in tumultuous times. The Museum of Extraordinary Things is Alice Hoffman at her most spellbinding- BookBrowse

Precious Thing by Colette McBeth (I know her inside out. I know what she’s thinking, I know what she wants. So I can’t give up on her, she knows I never will.   Some friendships fizzle out. Rachel and Clara promised theirs would last forever.  They met in high school when Rachel was the shy, awkward new girl and Clara was the friend everyone wanted. Instantly, they fell under one another’s spell and nothing would be the same again. Now in their late twenties Rachel has the television career, the apartment and the boyfriend, while Clara’s life is spiraling further out of control. Yet despite everything, they remain inextricably bound. Then Rachel’s news editor assigns her to cover a police press conference, and she is shocked when she arrives to learn that the subject is Clara, reported missing. Is it abduction, suicide or something else altogether?   Imagine discovering something about your oldest friend that forces you to question everything you’ve shared together. The truth is always there. But only if you choose to see it. In Colette McBeth’s Precious Thing. BookBrowse)

Redeployment by Phil Klay (An Amazon Best Book of the Month, March 2014: I defy any readers of Phil Klay’s stunning Redeployment to a) put it down and b) limit the number of “wows” they utter while reading it. These twelve stories, are all about the Iraq War or its aftermath; they are so direct, so frank, they will impress readers who have read all they care to about the war as well as those who thought they couldn’t stand to read about it at all. The strength of Klay’s stories lies in his unflinching, un-PC point of view, even for the soldiers he so clearly identifies with and admires. For example, one veteran tells a guy in a bar about a particularly harrowing war experience. When the stranger, moved, declares his respect for our troops, the soldier responds, “I don’t want you to respect what I’ve been through. I want you to be disgusted.” Klay is fearless; he eviscerates platitude and knee-jerk politics every chance he gets. “[A fellow soldier] was the one guy in the squad who thought the country wouldn’t be better off if we just nuked it until the desert turned into a flat plane of grass,” he writes. These stories are at least partly autobiographical, and yet, for all their verisimilitude, they’re also shaped by an undefinable thing called art. Phil Klay is a writer to watch. –Sara Nelson/ Amazon)

Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Book Review:“[Klay captures] on an intimate scale the ways in which the war in Iraq evoked a unique array of emotion, predicament and heartbreak. In Klay’s hands, Iraq comes across not merely as a theater of war but as a laboratory of the human condition in extremis. Redeployment is hilarious, biting, whipsawing and sad. It’s the best thing written so far on what the war did to people’s souls.

The Secret Life of William Shakespeare by Jude Morgan (There are so few established facts about how the son of a glove maker from Warwickshire became one of the greatest writers of all time that some people doubt he could really have written so many astonishing plays. We know that he married Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant and six years older than he, at the age of eighteen, and that one of their children died of the plague. We know that he left Stratford to seek his fortune in London, and eventually succeeded. He was clearly an unwilling craftsman, ambitious actor, resentful son, almost good-enough husband. But when and how did he also become a genius?   The Secret Life of William Shakespeare pulls back the curtain to imagine what it might have really been like to be Shakespeare before a seemingly ordinary man became a legend. In the hands of acclaimed historical novelist Jude Morgan, this is a brilliantly convincing story of unforgettable richness, warmth, and immediacy.Amazon & BookBrowse)

Young Adult:

Never Ending by Bedford (Shiv’s best mate, her brother Declan, is dead. It’s been all over the news. Consumed by grief and guilt, she agrees to become an inpatient at the Korsakoff Clinic. There she meets Mikey. Caron. The others. They share a similar torment. And there, subjected to the clinic’s unconventional therapy, they must face what they can’t bear to see.   Shiv is flooded with flashbacks, nightmares, haunting visions of Declan on their last, fateful family vacation in Greece. And with memories of Nikos, the beautiful young man on the tour boat. It started there, with him, beside the glittering sea…the beginning of the end- BookBrowse)

Side Effects May Vary by Julie Murphy (When sixteen-year-old Alice is diagnosed with leukemia, she vows to spend her final months righting wrongs. So she convinces her best friend to help her with a crazy bucket list that’s as much about revenge as it is about hope. But just when Alice’s scores are settled, she goes into remission, and now she must face the consequences of all she’s said and done.   Contemporary realistic fiction fans who adore Susane Colasanti and Jenny Han and stories filled with romance and humor will find much to love in this incredible debut- Book Browse)

Non Fiction:

The Blood Will Out by Kirn (In the summer of 1998, Walter Kirn—then an aspiring novelist struggling with impending fatherhood and a dissolving marriage—set out on a peculiar, fateful errand: to personally deliver a crippled hunting dog from his home in Montana to the New York apartment of one Clark Rockefeller, a secretive young banker and art collector who had adopted the dog over the Internet. Thus began a fifteen-year relationship that drew Kirn deep into the fun-house world of an outlandish, eccentric son of privilege who ultimately would be unmasked as a brazen serial impostor, child kidnapper, and brutal murderer. Kirn’s one-of-a-kind story of being duped by a real-life Mr. Ripley takes us on a bizarre and haunting journey from the posh private clubrooms of Manhattan to the hard-boiled courtrooms and prisons of Los Angeles. As Kirn uncovers the truth about his friend, a psychopath masquerading as a gentleman, he also confronts hard truths about himself. Why, as a writer of fiction, was he susceptible to the deception of a sinister fantasist whose crimes, Kirn learns, were based on books and movies? What are the hidden psychological links between the artist and the con man? To answer these and other questions, Kirn attends his old friend’s murder trial and uses it as an occasion to reflect on both their tangled personal relationship and the surprising literary sources of Rockefeller’s evil. This investigation of the past climaxes in a tense jailhouse reunion with a man whom Kirn realizes he barely knew—a predatory, sophisticated genius whose life, in some respects, parallels his own and who may have intended to take another victim during his years as a fugitive from justice: Kirn himself. Combining confessional memoir, true crime reporting, and cultural speculation, Blood Will Out is a Dreiser-esque tale of self-invention, upward mobility, and intellectual arrogance. It exposes the layers of longing and corruption, ambition and self-delusion beneath the Great American con. BookBrowse & Amazon)

Congo: An Epic History of a People by David Van Reybrouck (Hailed as “a monumental history… more exciting than any novel” (NRC Handelsblad),David van Reybrouck’s rich and gripping epic, in the tradition of Robert Hughes’ The Fatal Shore, tells the extraordinary story of one of the world’s most devastated countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo.   Epic in scope yet eminently readable, penetrating and deeply moving, David van Reybrouck’s Congo: The Epic History of a People traces the fate of one of the world’s most critical, failed nation-states, second only to war-torn Somalia: the Democratic Republic of Congo.   Van Reybrouck takes us through several hundred years of history, bringing some of the most dramatic episodes in Congolese history. Here are the people and events that have impinged the Congo’s development – from the slave trade to the ivory and rubber booms; from the arrival of Henry Morton Stanley to the tragic regime of King Leopold II; from global indignation to Belgian colonialism; from the struggle for independence to Mobutu’s brutal rule; and from the world famous Rumble in the Jungle to the civil war over natural resources that began in 1996 and still rages today.   Van Reybrouck interweaves his own family’s history with the voices of a diverse range of individuals – charismatic dictators, feuding warlords, child-soldiers, the elderly, female merchant smugglers, and many in the African diaspora of Europe and China – to offer a deeply humane approach to political history, focusing squarely on the Congolese perspective and returning a nation’s history to its people. Bookbrowse )

Mother of God by Rosolie (For fans of The Lost City of Z, Walking the Amazon, and Turn Right at Machu Picchu comes naturalist and explorer Paul Rosolie’s extraordinary adventure in the uncharted tributaries of the Western Amazon – a tale of discovery that vividly captures the awe, beauty, and isolation of this endangered land and presents an impassioned call to save it.   In the Madre de Dios – Mother of God – region of Peru, where the Amazon River begins its massive flow, the Andean Mountain cloud forests fall into lowland Amazon Rainforest, creating the most biodiversity-rich place on the planet. In January 2006, when he was just a restless eighteen-year-old hungry for adventure, Paul Rosolie embarked on a journey to the west Amazon that would transform his life. Venturing alone into some of the most inaccessible reaches of the jungle, he encountered giant snakes, floating forests, isolated tribes untouched by outsiders, prowling jaguars, orphaned baby anteaters, poachers in the black market trade in endangered species, and much more. Yet today, the primordial forests of the Madre de Dios are in danger from developers, oil giants, and gold miners eager to exploit its natural resources.   In Mother of God, this explorer and conservationist relives his amazing odyssey exploring the heart of this wildest place on earth. When he began delving deeper in his search for the secret Eden, spending extended periods in isolated solitude, he found things he never imagined could exist. “Alone and miniscule against a titanic landscape I have seen the depths of the Amazon, the guts of the jungle where no men go, Rosolie writes. “But as the legendary explorer Percy Fawcett warned, ‘the few remaining unknown places of the world exact a price for their secrets.'”   Illustrated with 16 pages of color…BookBrowse)

The Price of Silence by William D. Cohan (Bestselling author William D. Cohan, whose reporting and writing have been hailed as “gripping” (the New York Times), “authoritative” (the Washington Post), and “seductively engrossing” (Chicago Tribune), presents a stunning new account of the Duke lacrosse team scandal that reveals the pressures faced by America’s elite colleges and universities and pulls back the curtain, in a riveting narrative, on the larger issues of sexual misconduct, underage drinking, and bad-boy behavior – all too prevalent on campuses across the country.   Despite being front-page news nationwide, the true story of the 2006 Duke lacrosse team rape case has never been told in its entirety and is more complex than all the reportage to date would indicate. The Price of Silence is the definitive, magisterial account of what happens when the most combustible forces in American culture – unbridled ambition, intellectual elitism, athletic prowess, aggressive sexual behavior, racial bias, and absolute prosecutorial authority – collide and then explode on a powerful university campus, in the justice system, and in the media.  What transpired at Duke followed upon the university’s unprecedented and determined effort to compete directly with the Ivy League for the best students and with its Division I rivals for supremacy in selected sports – most famously men’s basketball, where Duke has become a perennial powerhouse and the winner of four national championships. As Cohan brilliantly shows, the pursuit of excellence in such diverse realms put extraordinary strains on the campus culture and – warned some longtime Duke observers – warped the university’s academic ethos. Duke became known for its “work hard, play hard” dynamic, and specifically for its wild off-campus parties, where it seemed almost anything could happen – and often did.  Cohan’s reconstruction of the scandal’s events – the night in question, the local police investigation, Duke’s actions, the lacrosse players’ defense tactics, the furious campus politics – is meticulous and complete. Readers who think they know the story are in for more than one surprise, for at the heart of it are individuals whose lives were changed forever. As the scandal developed, different actors fought to control the narrative. At stake were not just the futures of the accused players, the reputation of the woman claiming she was raped, and the career of the local prosecutor, but also the venerable and carefully nurtured name of Duke University itself – the Duke brand, exceedingly valuable when competing for elite students, world-class athletes, talented professors, and the financial support of its nationally prominent, deep-pocketed alumni. The battle for power involved the Duke administration, led by its president, Richard Brodhead, a blazing academic star hired away from Yale; the Duke board of trustees, which included several titans of Wall Street; the faculty, comprising a number of outspoken critics of the lacrosse players; the athletes’ parents, many of whom were well connected in Washington and New York and able – and willing – to hire expensive counsel to defend their sons; and, ultimately, the justice system of North Carolina, which took over the controversial case and rendered its judgment.   The price of resolving the scandal proved extraordinarily high, both in terms of unexpected human suffering and the stratospheric costs of settling legal claims. The Price of Silence is a story unlike any other, yet sheds light on what is really happening on campuses around the country as colleges and universities compete urgently with one another, and confirms William Cohan’s preeminent reputation as one of the most lively and insightful journalists working today. Book Browse)

The Promise of a Pencil by Braun (Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just sixteen years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, “A pencil.”   This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of twenty-four. Using his unique “for-purpose” approach, he helped redefine the space in which business, philanthropy, and social media intersect. And a mere five years later, Pencils of Promise has now built more than two hundred schools around the world, proving that anyone can create a movement that matters.   The Promise of a Pencil chronicles Braun’s journey through more than fifty countries to find his calling, as each chapter explains the steps that every person can take to ignite their own passion and potential. His trailblazing story takes readers behind the scenes with business moguls and village chiefs, world-famous celebrities and hometown heroes. Driven by compelling stories and shareable insights, this is a vivid and inspiring book that will give readers the tools to unlock their own extraordinary journey of self-discovery.   If you have ever wanted a more purpose-driven life, if you have ever felt like you could become more than your current circumstances allow, it’s time to ask yourself, “What do I want most in the world?” And through the lessons shared in this book, turn those ideas into reality. BookBrowse, SF Chronicle, Amazon)

The Remedy by Thomas Goetz (In 1875, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accountable for a third of all deaths. A diagnosis of TB, often called consumption, was a death sentence. Then, in a triumph of medical science, a German doctor named Robert Koch deployed an unprecedented scientific rigor to discover the bacteria that caused TB. Koch soon embarked on a remedy – a remedy that would be his undoing.   When Koch announced his cure for consumption, Arthur Conan Doyle, then a small-town doctor in England and sometime writer, went to Berlin to cover the event. Touring the ward of reportedly cured patients, he was horrified. Koch’s “remedy” was either sloppy science or outright fraud.   But to a world desperate for relief, Koch’s remedy wasn’t so easily dismissed. As Europe’s consumptives descended upon Berlin, Koch urgently tried to prove his case. Conan Doyle, meanwhile, returned to England determined to abandon medicine in favor of writing. In particular, he turned to a character inspired by the very scientific methods that Koch had formulated: Sherlock Holmes.   Capturing the moment when mystery and magic began to yield to science, The Remedy chronicles the stunning story of how the germ theory of disease became a true fact, how two men of ambition were emboldened to reach for something more, and how scientific discoveries evolve into social truths. BookBrowse)

Trapped Under Sea: One Engineering Marvel, Five Men, and a Disaster Ten Miles Into the Darkness by Swidey (The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job—with deadly results A quarter-century ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for generations, coating the seafloor with a layer of “black mayonnaise.” Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as “beach whistles.”In the 1990s, work began on a state-of-the-art treatment plant and a 10-mile-long tunnel—its endpoint stretching farther from civilization than the earth’s deepest ocean trench—to carry waste out of the harbor. With this impressive feat of engineering, Boston was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. But when bad decisions and clashing corporations endangered the project, a team of commercial divers was sent on a perilous mission to rescue the stymied cleanup effort. Five divers went in; not all of them came out alive. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents collected over five years of reporting, award-winning writer Neil Swidey takes us deep into the lives of the divers, engineers, politicians, lawyers, and investigators involved in the tragedy and its aftermath, creating a taut, action-packed narrative -Amazon)

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The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

Aug18

OMG, run to the nearest store and buy this new young adult book. Hunger Games watch out, you have competition! The Testing by Charbonneau is set in a post apocalyptic United States, after The Seven Wars. The colonies are trying to survive and bring the charred earth back to life. In an effort to find the best in the population to lead the decimated country back to life, The United Commonwealth in Tosu City offers a University education to those students who demonstrate good grades, knowledge of the natural world and civic mindedness . Cia Vale’s home, Five Lakes Colony, has not had any students invited to test for the University since her father went away many years ago. Cia and her childhood friend Tomas are two of the lucky students chosen for this high honor of testing for college education, but only a few pass. Is Cia smart enough to go to college and have the right instincts to succeed? Her father has only a few memories of his Testing, but he gives Cia one piece of advice: Trust no one!”

I could not put the book down and found myself guessing as to what the stages of testing are testing for, as does Cia. The Testing candidates are “told in each stage of the Testing that the students who are unwilling or unable to do what is necessary to complete the Test maybe eliminated by their actions, by the Test, or even other testers”. Yikes! Best said by the author and Cia’s father: keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Good tip but not enough of a warning. Readers beware once you have read this book you will become a follower.

2013 Summer Bulletin of Best Reads

Jun11

2013 Summer Bulletin of Best Reads

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (set in Chechnya, it balances pain and suffering with sacrifice, loyalty and love- unforgettable characters. Havaa watches her father dragged off to the woods by soldiers who think he has helped the Chechen rebels. A neighbor retreats with Havaa to the hospital where the sole remaining doctor is working and the story unfolds)

Americanah by Chimamande Adichie ( the writer is a voice out of Africa telling in her new novel about exile, immigration and integration. Ifemelu decides to return to Nigeria after living in the States for 13 years as a blogger and on a fellowship at Princeton. She gives us a fresh and passionate voice on the subject of belonging)

The Blue Fox by Sjon (Set against the stark backdrop of the Icelandic winter, an elusive, enigmatic fox leads a hunter on a transformative quest. At the edge of the hunter’s territory, a naturalist struggles to build a life for his charge, a young woman with Down syndrome whom he had rescued from a shipwreck years before. By the end of Sjón’s slender, spellbinding fable of a novel, none of their lives will be the same. Winner of the 2005 Nordic Council Literature Prize—the Nordic world’s highest literary honor—The Blue Fox is part mystery, part fairy tale, and the perfect introduction to a mind-bending, world-class literary talent.- Amazon)

Children of the Jacaranda Tree By Sahar Delijani (A country divided by revolution a people united by love. Set in Iran Neda is born in Tehran’s Evin Prison, where her mother is allowed to nurse her for a few months before the arms of a guard appear at the cell door one day and, simply, take her away. In another part of the city, three-year-old Omid witnesses the arrests of his political activist parents from his perch at their kitchen. Set in post-revolutionary Iran from 1983 to 2011, this stunning debut novel follows a group of mothers, fathers, children, and lovers, some related by blood, others brought together by the tide of history that washes over their lives. Finally, years later, it is the next generation that is left with the burden of the past and their country’s tenuous future as a new wave of protest and political strife begins. Goodreads summary June newsletter)

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan ( One of Singapore’s richest bachelors invites his American born girlfriend to travel from New York to vacation in his native country- the opulence and craziness begins)

The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally ( Nurses in WWI) In 1915, two spirited Australian sisters join the war effort as nurses, escaping the confines of their father’s farm and carrying a guilty secret with them. Used to tending the sick as they are, nothing could have prepared them for what they confront, first near Gallipoli, then on the Western Front.Yet amid the carnage, Naomi and Sally Durance become the friends they never were at home and find themselves courageous in the face of extreme danger, as well as the hostility they encounter from some on their own side. There is great bravery, humor, and compassion, too, and the inspiring example of the remarkable women they serve alongside. In France, where Naomi nurses in a hospital set up by the eccentric Lady Tarlton while Sally works in a casualty clearing station, each meets an exceptional man: the kind of men for whom they might give up some of their precious independence—if only they all survive. At once vast in scope and extraordinarily intimate, The Daughters of Mars brings World War I to vivid, concrete life from an unusual perspective. A searing and profoundly moving tale, it pays tribute to men and women of extraordinary moral resilience, even in the face of the incomprehensible horrors of modern war.) Not released until August 2013

The Execution of Noa P.Singleton by Elizabeth Silver (described as an off kilter thriller, the story is about a young woman is on death row until a high power lawyer intervenes, the lawyer is the victim’s mother. Why is she helping her?)

Flora by Gail Godwin ( In “Flora,” an adult looks back at a summer set in the nineteen forties in southern Mountain City, the events of which still cause her remorse for her part in them. The only daughter of an alcoholic father, who has gone off for the summer on a mysterious job having to do with the war, ten-year-old Helen is left in the care of her cousin, Flora, who Helen regards as “simple-minded,” and who she alternately feels irritated by, and protective of. Helen’s mother is dead, her beloved grandmother has passed away, and two local cases of polio have been reported, causing her father (a polio survivor) to quarantine Helen and Flora in their remote house (once a halfway home for alcoholics and the mentally ill). Though she’s sophisticated for a girl her age, Helen still has plenty of childish self-absorption and informs a friend (with polio), “This is the worst summer of my life,” before wincing at her words. Distraction comes in the form of Finn, a young veteran who delivers groceries, and who’s waiting to see if his mental problems will keep him from being honorably discharged. She also filches letters her grandmother wrote to Flora, hoping for clues to family mysteries. To help fill her days (and reconstruct her family), Helen plots to have Finn board with them, but when her father does return, tragedy strikes in ways that none of them could predict.- Amazon)

Ghana Must Go by Talye Selasi ( Keweku has died and now we learn about his flawed past and his family from America he abandoned meets the family in Ghana “So Kweku Sai knows as he lies dying in his garden. He is a remarkable surgeon. He must have known he had had a cardiac event. He took no action in that golden 30 minutes between event and dying. And he was barefoot.” There are no wasted words in this extraordinary novel. Each thought and each word fits into the whole. Kweku is 58 when he dies. He has four children, an ex-wife and a new wife. Each of them comes to terms with his death in ways that are unexpected to them. Much bitterness has passed. He has taught himself and them that “loss is a notion. No more than a thought.” But the small moments that elude closing the door on a grief or a memory come to light. Review by Gremelspacher” @ Amazon)

Her Last Breathe: a Kate Burkholder Novel by Linda Castillo (A rainy night, an Amish father returning home with his three children, a speeding car hurtling toward them out of nowhere.  What at first seems like a tragic, but routine car accident suddenly takes on a more sinister cast as evidence emerges that nothing about the crash is accidental. But who would want to kill an Amish deacon and two of his children? He leaves behind a grieving widow and a young boy who clings to life in the intensive care wing of a hospital, unable to communicate. He may be the only one who knows what happened that night. Desperate to find out who killed her best friend’s husband and why, Kate begins to suspect she is not looking for a reckless drunk, but instead is on the trail of a cold blooded killer in amid the residents of Painter’s Mill. It is a search that takes her on a chilling journey into the darkest reaches of the human heart and makes her question everything she has ever believed about the Amish culture into which she was born.)

Iris Has Free Time by Iris Smyles ( hilarious story about a college graduate in NY trying to navigate internships, job interviews and men- lots of bravado in the face of slips)

Life after Life by Jill McCorkle (“In learning to die at the Pine Haven Retirement Home, people learn how they have lived”- SF Chronicle Book Review)

Maya’s Notebook by Allende (Maya’s Notebook is a startling novel of suspense from New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende.   This contemporary coming-of-age story centers upon Maya Vidal, a remarkable teenager abandoned by her parents. Maya grew up in a rambling old house in Berkeley with her grandmother Nini, whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after emigrating from Chile in 1973 with a young son, and her grandfather Popo, a gentle African-American astronomer.   When Popo dies, Maya goes off the rails. Along with a circle of girlfriends known as “the vampires,” she turns to drugs, alcohol, and petty crime–a downward spiral that eventually leads to Las Vegas and a dangerous underworld, with Maya caught between warring forces: a gang of assassins, the police, the FBI, and Interpol.   Her one chance for survival is Nini, who helps her escape to a remote island off the coast of Chile. In the care of her grandmother’s old friend, Manuel Arias, and surrounded by strange new acquaintances, Maya begins to record her story in her notebook, as she tries to make sense of her past and unravel the mysteries of her family and her own life. Per Amazon )

The Never List by Koethi Zan (In the early pages, two women are abducted. They awaken in a cellar, shackled to the walls with two other women. Three years later, our narrator escapes. The story picks up years after that and involves her abductor’s potential parole, the letters he is sending to her and his other victims, and a cult that would have fit right into a season of Dexter. The Never List reminds me of Chelsea Cain but not as gruesome, and Gillian Flynn without the sick humor. If you can have fun with an ugly, nasty story, check this out. You know who you are.- Book Passage)

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill ( thriller, horror about a child kidnapper and a spine-tingling novel of supernatural suspense from master of horror Joe Hill, the New York Times bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box and Horns.Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country. Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”   Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son. Horror- Amazon)

The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell ( Rose is a prudish police typist who transcribes crime confessions and then falls under the influence of a colleague, set in the 1920’s in NY)

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo ( 10 year old Darling goes from stealing fruit in Zimbawe to Michigan “where the weather makes like it wants to kill you”- a look at the immigrant experience)

You are One of Them by Elliott Holt ( 3 years after being assigned as a youth emissary to the USSR, 13 yo Jenny dies with her parents in a plane crash. Years later a friend travels to Moscow to see if it was a hoax)

The Woman Who Lives Upstairs by Claire Messud (this is a first rate psychological thriller that will keep readers spellbound, in the style of a classic Hitchcock film, right up until the final pages, where a stunning twist illuminates and clarifies the whole. Nora Eldridge, an elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, long ago compromised her dream to be a successful artist, mother and lover. She has instead become the “woman upstairs,” a reliable friend and neighbor always on the fringe of others’ achievements. Then into her life arrives the glamorous and cosmopolitan Shahids—and her life changes.)

Non Fiction

A Spoon Full of Sugar by Brenda Ashford (Brenda Ashford is the quintessential British nanny. Prim and proper, gentle and kind, she seems to have stepped straight out of Mary Poppins. For more than six decades Nanny Brenda swaddled, diapered, dressed, played with, sang to, cooked for, and looked after more than one hundred children. From the pampered sons and daughters of lords ensconced in their grand estates to the children of tough war evacuees in London’s East End, Brenda has taught countless little ones to be happy, healthy, and thoroughly well bred. In this delightful memoir, Brenda shares her endearing, amusing, and sometimes downright bizarre experiences turning generations of children into successful adults.- Amazon)

Anne Perry: Murder of the Century by Peter Graham (The spellbinding true story of Anne Perry, her friend Pauline Parker, and the brutal crime they committed in the name of friendship. On June 22, 1954, teenage friends Juliet Hulme—better known as bestselling mystery writer Anne Perry—and Pauline Parker went for a walk in a New Zealand park with Pauline’s mother, Honora. Half an hour later, the girls returned alone, claiming that Pauline’s mother had had an accident. But when Honora Parker was found in a pool of blood with the brick used to bludgeon her to death close at hand, Juliet and Pauline were quickly arrested, and later confessed to the killing. Their motive? A plan to escape to the United States to become writers, and Honora’s determination to keep them apart. Their incredible story made shocking headlines around the world and would provide the subject for Peter Jackson’s Academy Award–nominated film, Heavenly Creatures.

A sensational trial followed, with speculations about the nature of the girls’ relationship and possible insanity playing a key role. Among other things, Parker and Hulme were suspected of lesbianism, which was widely considered to be a mental illness at the time. This mesmerizing book offers a brilliant account of the crime and ensuing trial and shares dramatic revelations about the fates of the young women after their release from prison. With penetrating insight, this thorough analysis applies modern psychology to analyze the shocking murder that remains one of the most interesting cases of all time.)

The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel ( We all have heard about John Glenn and other astronaut heroes from the early space program, but the wives became instant celebrities and fashion icons…read about their lives together, as support, in tragedy, divorce, death and parties)

Cooked by Michael Pollan ( The book is divided into four parts: Fire, Water, Air and Earth, all a journey into four areas: Fire & cooking, Stews and Braises & Water, Air and the loaf of bread and fermented foods in Earth)

The Good Nurse : A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder by Charles Graeber (After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed “The Angel of Death” by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.

Cullen’s murderous career in the world’s most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, THE GOOD NURSE weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, betrayal and incompetence).

Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality by Jacob Tomsky (Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge. Offers easy ways to get what you need from your hotel- Amazon)

The Ordinary Acrobat: A Journey in the Wondrous World of the Circus, Past and Present by Duncan Wall (Wall decided to become a student at a prestigious circus and takes us with him into a world of imagination)

The Way of the Knife by Mark Mazetti ( the author takes us on an account of chasing terrorists throughout the world and Islamic countries- very intriguing)

Young Adult:

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (“Eleanor & Park reminded me not just what it’s like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it’s like to be young and in love with a book.”—John Green, The New York Times Book Review Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love—and just how hard it pulled you under. Eleanor is the new girl in town and her wild red hair and patchwork outfits are not helping her blend in. She ends up sitting next to Park on the bus, whose tendencies towards comic books don’t jibe with the rest of his family’s love of sports. They sit in awkward silence every day until Park notices that Eleanor is reading his comics over his shoulder; he begins to slide them closer to her side of the seat and thus begins their love story. Their relationship grows gradually–making each other mixed tapes (it is 1986 after all) and discussing X-Men characters–until they both find themselves looking forward to the bus ride more than any other part of the day. Things aren’t easy: Eleanor is bullied at school and then goes home to a threatening family situation; Park’s parents do not approve of Eleanor’s awkward ways. Ultimately, though, this is a book about two people who just really, really like each other and who believe that they can overcome any obstacle standing in the way of their happiness. It’s a gem of a book. –Caley Anderson/ Amazon)

Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner (What if the football hadn’t gone over the wall. On the other side of the wall there is a dark secret. And the devil. And the Moon Man. And the Motherland doesn’t want anyone to know. But Standish Treadwell — who has different-colored eyes, who can’t read, can’t write, Standish Treadwell isn’t bright — sees things differently than the rest of the “train-track thinkers.” So when Standish and his only friend and neighbor, Hector, make their way to the other side of the wall, they see what the Motherland has been hiding. And it’s big…One hundred very short chapters, told in an utterly original first-person voice, propel readers through a narrative that is by turns gripping and darkly humorous, bleak and chilling, tender and transporting. Repulsive but riveting per the teens I talked to)

Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith (In Wild Awake, Hilary T. Smith’s exhilarating and heart-wrenching YA debut novel, seventeen-year-old Kiri Byrd has big plans for her summer without parents. She intends to devote herself to her music and win the Battle of the Bands with her band mate and best friend, Lukas. Perhaps then, in the excitement of victory, he will finally realize she’s the girl of his dreams. But a phone call from a stranger shatters Kiri’s plans. He says he has her sister Suki’s stuff—her sister Suki, who died five years ago. This call throws Kiri into a spiral of chaos that opens old wounds and new mysteries. Like If I Stay and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wild Awake explores loss, love, and what it means to be alive.)

All summaries are from the book blurbs, Amazon, Independent Book Sense, Goodreads, newspaper reviews or by me.

Tracy Novick

2013 Spring Book List of Must Reads

Jun2

A tad belated… here is my list of my 2013 Spring Book picks to read. The summer list is coming in the next week.

2013 Spring Books

Fiction:

All that Is by Slater (From his experiences as a young naval officer in battles off Okinawa, Philip Bowman returns to America and finds a position as a book editor. It is a time when publishing is still largely a private affair—a scattered family of small houses here and in Europe—a time of gatherings in fabled apartments and conversations that continue long into the night. In this world of dinners, deals, and literary careers, Bowman finds that he fits in perfectly. But despite his success, what eludes him is love. His first marriage goes bad, another fails to happen, and finally he meets a woman who enthralls him—before setting him on a course he could never have imagined for himself. Romantic and haunting, All That Is explores a life unfolding in a world on the brink of change. It is a dazzling, sometimes devastating labyrinth of love and ambition, a fiercely intimate account of the great shocks and grand pleasures of being alive. )

The Aviators Wife by Benjamin (For much of her life, Anne Morrow, the shy daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, has stood in the shadows of those around her, including her millionaire father and vibrant older sister, who often steals the spotlight. Then Anne, a college senior with hidden literary aspirations, travels to Mexico City to spend Christmas with her family. There she meets Colonel Charles Lindbergh, fresh off his celebrated 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic. Enthralled by Charles’s assurance and fame, Anne is certain the celebrated aviator has scarcely noticed her. But she is wrong. In the years that follow, despite her own major achievements—she becomes the first licensed female glider pilot in the United States—Anne is viewed merely as the aviator’s wife. The fairy-tale life she once longed for will bring heartbreak and hardships, ultimately pushing her to reconcile her need for love and her desire for independence, and to embrace, at last, life’s infinite possibilities for change and happiness.

The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis (Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can’t say no when someone asks for help—even when she knows better. When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous project yet. Inside the locker is a suitcase, and inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive.    Is the boy a victim of child trafficking? Can he be turned over to authorities, or will they only return him to whoever sold him? When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy’s are in jeopardy, too. In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is trying to hunt him down.

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout (Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a Legal Aid attorney who idolizes Jim, has always taken it in stride. But their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan—the Burgess sibling who stayed behind—urgently calls them home. Her lonely teenage son, Zach, has gotten himself into a world of trouble, and Susan desperately needs their help. And so the Burgess brothers return to the landscape of their childhood, where the long-buried tensions that have shaped and shadowed their relationship begin to surface in unexpected ways that will change them forever. Good story telling, excellent character development.. enjoy her new work)

The Dinner by Koch (t’s a summer’s evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse — the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.)

Fever by Keane ( Keane’s novel fictionalizes the extraordinary life of Mary Mallon, an Irish immigrant who arrives in New York in 1884 and becomes a cook for a series of notable families. Only after the deaths of some of those family members is Mary informed that she is an asymptomatic carrier of Typhoid Fever. Labeled “Typhoid Mary” by the media, Mary is forcefully removed from her employment to an isolated cottage on North Brother Island in the East River, on the grounds of a hospital for patients suffering from tuberculosis. Citing public health concerns over Mary’s civil rights, she is summarily separated from society, isolated in an environment where samples of her bodily fluids are collected daily for further study. The blatant disregard of civil liberties aside, the immediate threat to public health illustrates the conflict between the law and the Department of health’s imperative to protect citizens from disease.

While Keane details the specifics of the case, it is her compassionate portrait of Mary that injects the novel with a perspective that might have gotten lost in the furor. Though her unique condition is explained to Mary scientifically, she never fully grasps the concept of herself as a carrier of death. It is this inner struggle, a combination of denial and rationalization, that allows Mary to perceive herself as victim of a zealous physician’s personal vendetta, the unfairness of her situation chafing in lieu of acceptance of her situation. After years of scrambling for security in New York City, Mary’s immigrant background influences her adaptation to a difficult new environment, survival crowding out any inclination to ponder appropriate choices over pragmatism, a chaotic romantic life with Alfred Briehof conditioning Mary to respond to instinct rather than logic. On the island, she seethes with rage over her loss of family, friends and lover, determined to stay out of the eye of authorities when set free reviewed by Luan Gaines, Amazon)

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson (What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula’s apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can — will she?

Darkly comic, startlingly poignant, and utterly original — this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.

The Memory of Love by Olsson (Fans of Astrid & Veronika and Chris Cleave’s Little Bee will be thrilled to read Linda Olsson’s third novel. Here is Olsson doing what she does best: illuminating the terrain of friendship and examining the many forms that love can take. Marion Flint, in her early fifties, has spent fifteen years living a quiet life on the rugged coast of New Zealand, a life that allows the door to her past to remain firmly shut. But a chance meeting with a young boy, Ika, and her desire to help him force Marion to open the Pandora’s box of her memory. Seized by a sudden urgency to make sense of her past, she examines each image one-by-one: her grandfather, her mother, her brother, her lover. Perhaps if she can create order from the chaos, her memories will be easier to carry. Perhaps she’ll be able to find forgiveness for the little girl that was her. For the young woman she had been. For the people she left behind.

Olsson expertly interweaves scenes from Marion’s past with her quest to save Ika from his own tragic childhood, and renders with reflective tenderness the fragility of memory and the healing power of the heart. Amazon)

Reconstructing Amelia by Kate McCreight (In Reconstructing Amelia, the stunning debut novel from Kimberly McCreight, Kate’s in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate. An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump. Reconstructing Amelia is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. But, most of all, it’s the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn’t save.

Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussman (Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summer heat, sunbleached boat docks, and midnight gin parties on Martha’s Vineyard in a glorious old family estate known as Tiger House. In the days following the end of the Second World War, the world seems to offer itself up, and the two women are on the cusp of their ‘real lives’: Helena is off to Hollywood and a new marriage, while Nick is heading for a reunion with her own young husband, Hughes, about to return from the war. Soon the gilt begins to crack. Helena’s husband is not the man he seemed to be, and Hughes has returned from the war distant, his inner light curtained over. On the brink of the 1960s, back at Tiger House, Nick and Helena–with their children, Daisy and Ed–try to recapture that sense of possibility. But when Daisy and Ed discover the victim of a brutal murder, the intrusion of violence causes everything to unravel. The members of the family spin out of their prescribed orbits, secrets come to light, and nothing about their lives will ever be the same.

Brilliantly told from five points of view, with a magical elegance and suspenseful dark longing, Tigers in Red Weather is an unforgettable debut novel from a writer of extraordinary insight and accomplishment.)

Wash by Wrinkle (In early 1800s Tennessee, two men find themselves locked in an intimate power struggle. Richardson, a troubled Revolutionary War veteran, has spent his life fighting not only for his country but also for wealth and status. When the pressures of westward expansion and debt threaten to destroy everything he’s built, he sets Washington, a young man he owns, to work as his breeding sire. Wash, the first member of his family to be born into slavery, struggles to hold onto his only solace: the spirituality inherited from his shamanic mother. As he navigates the treacherous currents of his position, despair and disease lead him to a potent healer named Pallas. Their tender love unfolds against this turbulent backdrop while she inspires him to forge a new understanding of his heritage and his place in it. Once Richardson and Wash find themselves at a crossroads, all three lives are pushed to the brink.)

Wool by Hugh Howey (In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.

His fateful decision unleashes a drastic series of events. An unlikely candidate is appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law, whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly her world is broken. The silo is about to confront what its history has only hinted about and its inhabitants have never dared to whisper. Uprising….book has great characters and difficult to put down)

Non Fiction:

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and Murder of a President by Candice Milliard ( Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, a renowned congressman, and a reluctant presidential candidate who took on the nation’s corrupt political establishment. But four months after Garfield’s inauguration in 1881, he was shot in the back by a deranged office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Garfield survived the attack, but become the object of bitter, behind-the-scenes struggles for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic brings alive a forgotten chapter of U.S. history.)

Elders by McIllvan (As a Mormon missionary, Ryan McIlvain spent two years ringing strangers’ doorbells, even as he experienced doubts about his own faith. McIlvain left the church in his mid-20s. His debut novel, Elders, is based on the experiences he had trying to convert people to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Elder” is the term used for a young Mormon on his mission. McIlvain is from a sixth-generation Mormon family. He was born in Utah and grew up in Massachusetts. He’s now living in Los Angeles and pursuing his Ph.D. in literature at the University of Southern California. McIlvain joins Fresh Air’s Terry Gross to discuss Elders, which follows a young American man and a young Brazilian man as they carry out their missions.

Frozen in Time by Mark Zuckoff ( Is a gripping true story of survival, bravery, and honor in the vast Arctic wilderness during World War Frozen in Time by ZuckoffI, from the author of New York Times bestseller Lost in Shangri-La. On November 5, 1942, a US cargo plane slammed into the Greenland Ice Cap. Four days later, the B-17 assigned to the search-and-rescue mission became lost in a blinding storm and also crashed. Miraculously, all nine men on board survived, and the US military launched a daring rescue operation. But after picking up one man, the Grumman Duck amphibious plane flew into a severe storm and vanished. Frozen in Time tells the story of these crashes and the fate of the survivors, bringing vividly to life their battle to endure 148 days of the brutal Arctic winter, until an expedition headed by famed Arctic explorer Bernt Balchen brought them to safety. Mitchell Zuckoff takes the reader deep into the most hostile environment on earth, through hurricane-force winds, vicious blizzards, and subzero temperatures. Moving forward to today, he recounts the efforts of the Coast Guard and North South Polar Inc. – led by indefatigable dreamer Lou Sapienza – who worked for years to solve the mystery of the Duck’s last flight and recover the remains of its crew.

A breathtaking blend of mystery and adventure Mitchell Zuckoff’s Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II is also a poignant reminder of the sacrifices of our military personnel and a tribute to the everyday heroism of the US Coast Guard.)

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright (an expose of Scientolgy, the scary thing about this book is that people believe in this constructed religion- the secrecy, power struggles and abuses in the religion. Hubbard is uncovered )

Gulp by Mary Roach (America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of—or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists—who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts. Like all of Roach’s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.)

Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani (A blazingly passionate memoir of identity and love: when a charismatic and troubled young woman dies tragically, her identical twin must struggle to surviveChrista Parravani and her identical twin, Cara, were linked by a bond that went beyond siblinghood, beyond sisterhood, beyond friendship. Raised up from poverty by a determined single mother, the gifted and beautiful twins were able to create a private haven of splendor and merriment between themselves and then earn their way to a prestigious college and to careers as artists (a photographer and a writer, respectively) and to young marriages. But, haunted by childhood experiences with father figures and further damaged by being raped as a young adult, Cara veered off the path to robust work and life and in to depression, drugs and a shocking early death. A few years after Cara was gone, Christa read that when an identical twin dies, regardless of the cause, 50 percent of the time the surviving twin dies within two years; and this shocking statistic rang true to her. “Flip a coin,” she thought,” those were my chances of survival.” First, Christa fought to stop her sister’s downward spiral; suddenly, she was struggling to keep herself alive. Beautifully written, mesmerizingly rich and true, Christa Parravani’s account of being left, one half of a whole, and of her desperate, ultimately triumphant struggle for survival is informative, heart-wrenching and unforgettably beautiful.)

Journey of the Souls by Newton (Journey of Souls is a controversial yet inspiring investigation of the big question we all face at one point or another: “What happens after we die?” To find the answer, Newton opens cases from his private practice in which he hypnotically regressed his clients to a point between lives–after death, but before birth. Not only does Newton grapple with reincarnation, the spirit world, and the nature of the human soul, he also tackles equally sticky questions such as “Is there a Heaven and Hell?” and “What are ghosts?” Readers with a penchant for skepticism will balk at the lack of physical evidence to back up the claims in Journey of Souls, but the book remains a reassuring voice, affirming that our existence is not limited to the boundaries of our mortal flesh. –Brian Patterson)

Ninety Days by Bill Clegg (Bill Clegg has a simple goal: stay clean and sober for 90 days. Six weeks out of his most recent rehab, he returns to New York and starts attending two or three meetings each day. It is in these refuges that he befriends essential new allies. At first, the support is not enough: Clegg relapses with only three days left. That’s when the battle to reclaim his life gets reignited. As any recovering addict knows, hitting rock bottom is just the beginning.)

Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander , M.D. (A SCIENTIST’S CASE FOR THE AFTERLIFE Thousands of people have had near-death experiences, but scientists have argued that they are impossible. Dr. Eben Alexander was one of those scientists. A highly trained neurosurgeon, Alexander knew that NDEs feel real, but are simply fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress.

Then, Dr. Alexander’s own brain was attacked by a rare illness. The part of the brain that controls thought and emotion—and in essence makes us human—shut down completely. For seven days he lay in a coma. Then, as his doctors considered stopping treatment, Alexander’s eyes popped open. He had come back. Alexander’s recovery is a medical miracle. But the real miracle of his story lies elsewhere. While his body lay in coma, Alexander journeyed beyond this world and encountered an angelic being who guided him into the deepest realms of super-physical existence)

Quiet by Susan Cain (In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts–from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves)

The Still Point of a Turning World by Elizabeth Rapp (Like all mothers, Emily Rapp had ambitious plans for her first and only child, Ronan. He would be smart, loyal, physically fearless, and level-headed, but fun. He would be good at crossword puzzles like his father. He would be an avid skier like his mother. Rapp would speak to him in foreign languages and give him the best education. But all of these plans changed when Ronan was diagnosed at nine months old with Tay-Sachs disease, a rare and always-fatal degenerative disorder. Ronan was not expected to live beyond the age of three; he would be permanently stalled at a developmental level of six months. Rapp and her husband were forced to re-evaluate everything they thought they knew about parenting. They would have to learn to live with their child in the moment; to find happiness in the midst of sorrow; to parent without a future.

The Still Point of the Turning World is the story of a mother’s journey through grief and beyond it. Rapp’s response to her son’s diagnosis was a belief that she needed to “make my world big”—to make sense of her family’s situation through art, literature, philosophy, theology and myth. Drawing on a broad range of thinkers and writers, from C.S. Lewis to Sylvia Plath, Hegel to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Rapp learns what wisdom there is to be gained from parenting a terminally ill child. In luminous, exquisitely moving prose she re-examines our most fundamental assumptions about what it means to be a good parent, to be a success, and to live a meaningful life.

Wave by Deraniyagala (On the morning of December 26, 2004, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived. In this brave and searingly frank memoir, she describes those first horrifying moments and her long journey since. She has written an engrossing, unsentimental, beautifully poised account: as she struggles through the first months following the tragedy, furiously clenched against a reality that she cannot face and cannot deny; and then, over the ensuing years, as she emerges reluctantly, slowly allowing her memory to take her back through the rich and joyous life she’s mourning, from her family’s home in London, to the birth of her children, to the year she met her English husband at Cambridge, to her childhood in Colombo; all the while learning the difficult balance between the almost unbearable reminders of her loss and the need to keep her family, somehow, still alive within her.)

With or Without You by Ruta (With or Without You is the story of Domenica Ruta’s unconventional coming of age—a darkly hilarious chronicle of a misfit ’90s youth and the necessary and painful act of breaking away, and of overcoming her own addictions and demons in the process. In a brilliant stylistic feat, Ruta has written a powerful, inspiring, compulsively readable, and finally redemptive story about loving and leaving.)

Young Adult Literature

5^th Wave by Rick Yancey (The only hint you have that this book is marketed for young adults (age 12 and up) is that its protagonists are all young. Or maybe that the prose is so lean, no extra words or verbal flourishes, but then, prose should be lean in an action thriller like this, which is certainly what The 5th Wave is.

This is the story of how the few remaining earthlings finally fight back. The provenance stretches back to 1898, and H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. These aliens are no E.T’s, looking to bond with humans on their way back to their own safe haven. The aliens want to exterminate the humans. The story that follows is intense, exciting and filled with surprises. Yancey carries it off quite well and his heroine, 17-year-old Cassie, is one we can identify with. The next Hunger Games… I highly recommend it!)

Every Day by David Levithan (Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl. There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone he wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.  With his new novel, David Levithan, bestselling co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, has pushed himself to new creative heights. He has written a captivating story that will fascinate readers as they begin to comprehend the complexities of life and love in A’s world, as A and Rhiannon seek to discover if you can truly love someone who is destined to change every day.

The Program by Suzanne Young In Sloane’s world, true feelings are forbidden, teen suicide is an epidemic, and the only solution is The Program. Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane’s parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they’ll do anything to keep her alive. She also knows that everyone who’s been through The Program returns as a blank slate. Because their depression is gone—but so are their memories.

Under constant surveillance at home and at school, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can. The only person Sloane can be herself with is James. He’s promised to keep them both safe and out of treatment, and Sloane knows their love is strong enough to withstand anything. But despite the promises they made to each other, it’s getting harder to hide the truth. They are both growing weaker. Depression is setting in. And The Program is coming for them.

Recommended by…. Tracys2cents@wordpress.com

All the above summaries are from Book blurbs, Book Sense, Amazon or by me.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

May25

The 5th Wave is an action thriller. The story reminds me of The Host meets I nvasion of the Body Snatchers causing War of the Worlds and the result is a intense, clever and exciting book. The Aliens announce their arrival on Earth with the 1st wave by shorting out the electricity on earth- no cars, no phones, no lights only darkness. The next wave creates tsunamis and coastal populations die. As the waves of attacks continue, we are introduced to the remaining earthlings, survivors who are fighting back.

The story is not just about fighting back but keeping a promise. Cassie, the 17 year old heroine, makes a promise to her younger brother before they are separated to come back for him and with cool determination follows through in spite of the danger to find her brother and keep the promise. Cassie is a strong character, she is tough, scared, sentimental and lost, but she does not give up! These aliens are no E.T’s, not looking to bond with humans or negotiate, but take control of Earth for their own purposes. Humans are to be exterminated. The story that follows is gripping with surprises. Yancey does a good job and his heroine, Cassie, is one we can identify with. Though this is considered young adult fiction, it definitely engages the adult reader. The next Hunger Games… I highly recommend it! Tracy’s 2 cents.

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

Feb23

Never Fall Down is a young adult book based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, a child of war from Cambodia to a man of peace. Patricia McCormick has written other powerful books about tough subjects for young adults such as Sold, about a girl sold into prostitution in Nepal. Never Fall Down is the painful story of an ordinary boy in Cambodia who barely survives the Killing Fields by the Khmer Rouge as a child soldier. He survives by his wits, luck, and the credo: never fall down. Arn is separated from his family at the beginning but before he loses them his Aunt advises him: “Do whatever they say. Be like the grass. Bend low, bend low, then bend lower. The wind blow one way, you blow that way. That is the way to survive. No crying. Cry only in your mind”. ( Never Fall Down, p. 37)

Arn survives by pretending to know how to play an instrument,the Khim, and thus, play the revolutionary songs to entertain the soldiers. He survives to witness the genocide of his people. His story is told in sparse, child-like, new to english style which is very effective as I felt like he was speaking his story. Arn does survive and make it to America but with consequences. McCormick does not polish his words, descriptions or story, an effective tool in conveying the truths of the Killing Field. The writing can be read by young adult but the content is disturbing. That said, I will have my 12, 13,16, & 19 year olds read this story without apology and then recommend it to my adult friends…followed by The Shadow of the Banyan Tree by Vaddey Ratner. Tracy’s 2 cents.

The Fault in Our Stars

Feb18

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. See what John Green has to say about his book.

It is a young adult book but easily read by adults, should be read by adults. The story is about teenagers who meet in a cancer support group- Hazel Grace (terminal) and Augustus Waters (80% chance of survival). The dialogue is near perfect, the storyline riveting, and their friendship amazing. It is insightful and echoes with all the themes that saturate our lives: how to leave your mark on this world, will we be remembered, the need to be valued, how to live and die. Hazel has used up her “wish” but Augustus will share his and they are off on an adventure with twists, laughs and tears. I can’t stop thinking about this book!

Busy Tracy with her 2 cents

Tracy's 2 Cents

Category Archives: Young Adult