Read Around the World

Susan Jacoby - Mad as Hell and Not Having It!

2012-02-16T10:18:00.000-05:00

I first met Susan Jacoby through Bill Moyers' show on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/now/society/jacoby.html
He had a penchant for in-depth interviews with brilliant women like Ms. Jacoby and another one of my favorite straight talkers, Kathleen Hall Jamieson. His decision to retire has left a deep hole in quality television programming, though I've heard rumors that he may return.

Susan Jacoby is an eclectic writer whose essays and non-fiction have appeared in every major publication in the country. An avowed atheist, she received international kudos for her 2004 book about the myth of our country's supposed Christian foundation, Freethinkers, A History of American Secularism. She must be apoplectic over the rhetoric coming from our current crop of Republican candidates! While Gingrich can be written off as simply crazy, Santorum should truly be terrifying to any thinking woman.

Being a "baby boomer" seems to be a dirty word lately, at least as we are differentiated from my parents' "greatest generation," but talk of aging, retirement, health issues, and quality of life are weighing heavily on my mind as I consider the next phase of my life. Thus, when I saw that I could download Ms. Jacoby's latest eye-opening look at the "new old age," I grabbed it for the ipod. Such an irony that I listen as I walk my three mile route knowing full well that all that exercise will not protect me from the ravages of time and genetic inheritance!

Never Say Die, The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age will not be an easy book to swallow for those of my contemporaries who really believe that vigorous exercise, good nutrition, and crossword puzzles will keep them vibrant into their nineties and beyond. Not so, say the studies. They don't hurt of course, and they make us feel good, you know, all those burgeoning endorphins, but if one falls and breaks a hip, his quality of life will rapidly decline no matter how many fruits and vegetables he's ingested!

Ms. Jacoby is justifiably angry at the massive media conspiracy, along with AARP and the drug companies that blast the airwaves, magazines and newspapers with pictures of beautiful senior citizens, perfectly coiffed, healthily tanned (an oxymoron?), hefting their clubs and rackets, sipping champagne, and looking like they're having the times of their lives. She mentions study after study that prove out the obviously huge disparity between health care options for the wealthy vs. for the rest of us. Women, in particular, she notes, will live longer but with decreasing assets and many, many, will live out their days in abject poverty.

Though Ms. Jacoby gives huge praise to President Obama's health care initiative, discusses the efficacy of stem cell research, and is politically left of center, she doesn't spare compliments for those on the right who have stepped up to increase awareness of diseases that devastate families from all ends of the spectrum. All the money and education in the world will not spare some of us the heartbreak of Alzheimer's disease and she thanks Nancy Reagan for bringing this disease into the forefront of our psyches.

On a personal note, Ms. Jacoby speaks eloquently of her life partner, a brilliant, witty wordsmith who, as he succumbed to this disease, found himself unable to express even the simplest emotion. She talks too, of the enormous strain of caregiving, the ferocious cost of long term care insurance, and the injustice of losing one's assets to nursing care.

No, this book is not a cheerful read, but I think that it's necessary for those of us in what she refers to as "young old age," to get our heads out of the sand and recognize the facts. Like another one of my favorite angry women, Barbara Ehrenreich, Susan Jacoby splashes a healthy dose of cold water on the myths being perpetuated by the media, the exhorbitant amounts of money being spent to stave off the aging process, and the skewed results of many long-term drug trials that imbue families with false expectations. (just read about aricept)

There are many lessons one can take away from Never Say Die but the simplest and the oldest is one of pure common sense. Live each day as if it's your last. One day it will be.

And so...A Trick of the Light

2012-02-12T13:35:00.000-05:00

At the risk of repeating myself, I'll mention again that I think the term "cozy" is outdated as a genre descriptor. While it may have applied to Louise Penny's first or second novels about the little Canadian village of Three Pines, the term is no longer appropriate. There is nothing "cozy" about Ms. Penny's Armand Gamache series of 7 sophisticated crime novels (number 8 is in the hopper for August release) and she continues to reap accolades from reviewers worldwide.

I have to admit that I have not read these novels in order (sorry Cath) and I realize now that I did myself a disservice because much of the back story in the latest book revolves around an horrific accident that happened in the previous one in which Chief Inspector Gamache and his loyal second in command, Jean Guy de Beauvoir, were ambushed in a warehouse shootout, each suffering serious injuries.

PTSD affects each sufferer uniquely. For Jean Guy it means obsessing over the video of the catastrophe, leaked to the press and now viral on the Internet. He watches it over and over and over again, reaching a dangerous conclusion that we worry may affect his previous father/son relationship with Armand. To add to this complication Jean Guy, when facing death, realized that he needed to make some major life changes, one of which was to admit to himself that he was and always has been in love with Armand Gamache's daughter Annie.

Penny expertly juggles several disparate threads over the course of her novels. One of those threads that comes to the forefront in this book is that of the strained marriage of Peter and Clara Morrow. They are both artists living in Three Pines, but Clara has always subsumed her artistic endeavors, relinquishing her time and talent to Peter's, which is considered to be more saleable. Unspoken resentment and jealousy curdle below the surface when Clara, who's been sculpting and painting in obscurity for 25 years, is suddenly "discovered" and given a one woman gallery show of her own.

But as the glowing reviews and calls of congrats roll in the following day, the joy is drained from Clara's sense of accomplishment by the discovery of a body with a broken neck lying among the flowers in her garden. The Surete de Quebec takes up residence in Three Pines to begin the investigation and, in the process, readers are treated to a fascinating look inside the competitive, nasty, world of artists and galleries.

Ms. Penny excels at psychologically astute characterizations, from the seemingly unimportant background characters like the wonderfully drawn poet and town crank, Ruth, to the owners of the local B & B, to Clara and Peter, Gamache, his wife, Beauvoir and Beauvoir's mentee, agent LaCoste. She builds the suspense slowly but deftly until the reader is so invested there's no chance of leaving her books unread. She buries enough red herrings to throw even the best armchair detectives off base. In other words Louise Penny is a master of chiaroscuro. (look it up, I had to!)

Visit her website at www.louisepenny.com to get a full sense of all seven books in the series and treat yourself so her blog posts to get a full sense of the delightful woman who writes them.

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

2012-02-10T17:23:00.000-05:00

Were you a Girl Scout? If so, then you'll remember the old song that we learned to sing in a "round." One is silver and the other gold. Today I had a golden day, the annual birthday lunch with my college roommate, Cathy Jones. We are Aquarians. Isn't everyone? Since she moved to Bonita Springs from Maryland several years ago, we have made this an annual event. Normally it involves The Grape at Coconut Point and multiple glasses of wine. The joy of golden friends is that no matter how long it's been since you've seen eachother, you take up right where you left off.

It's what they call "season" in Southwest Florida and the place was jammed, unlike our lovely mid-summer meetings when we have the place to ourselves. Therefore, the louder we got the more the folks at other tables turned to look at us and listen in on the conversation. By the time we were ready to go we had been offered high fives from quite a few delightful strangers. They asked us how long we'd known eachother. Hmmm, we met in 1966 and became roommates in 1967. We still talk books. Need I say more?

So we're comparing notes and I told her that yesterday was one of those golden days at the library where I actually had the opportunity to do what I was born to do. Thirty three men and women joined me for the book discussion of Stewart O'Nan's Emily Alone, in my opinion one of the loveliest books ever written about aging and friendship.(previously reviewed here) Not all agreed. And that's good. We like controversy in our book discussions. Of course, I told Cath she had to run out and get it immediately! She told me that I had to read Louise Penney - IN ORDER!

And there you have it. Forty five years and this is why we'll always love each other. I just finished Louise Penney's A Trick of the Light this morning. What a kick! I suspect I'm the most fortunate girl in the world. I'll tell you all about Ms. Penney on Sunday.

Writer's Block, But...I have a QR Code!

2012-02-06T15:50:00.001-05:00

Apologies to my readers as it's been almost a week since I've written and truly, I miss it! The problem was that I had received a new book from Library Journal to read and review and I found myself, for the first time in the 5 years I've been reviewing for them, having trouble knowing quite what to say and how to say it. Can a reviewer have writer's block? I'm not sure but I'll tell you, it was an awful feeling.

The odd thing is that I did like the book, I'm sure it's an important book, and I hope it will get wide readership. Thetitle is Second Person Singular, written by a multi-award winning but controversial Arab-Israeli author. Of course, I always do my due diligence, so I had read interviews with the man and articles, some of which were relatively recent and from American sources. Anxiously, I sent it in today, the deadline, though I probably could have had an extension, I honestly didn't think it would help. The novel will be out in April. We'll see how it does then.

Meanwhile, Don found a website where I could create a QR code. You know, like you'd use in Target. So, how cool am I? One can scan my QR code and pop right up at my blog! You would almost think I'm a real techno-geek, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. My friend Jessica had to figure out how to load it into the blog and even she, the one we always turn to for all things computer related, hasn't been able to make it more discreet. It rather hits you in the eye when the page opens. We're working on it. Patience please.

Other than the paint thegarage floor project,(don't ask),which may take longer than I thought because Don, thank goodness, enjoys doing things right or not at all, I've been struggling with the latest novel by one of my favorite authors Penelope Lively. I'm not sure if it's the book or if it's me but I can't seem to concentrate on it and she's normally so wonderfully witty and dry. My kind of humor. How it all Began will be reviewed here soon. Maybe after the garage is a lovely shade of khaki?

Next up, Louise Penney's A Trick of the Light. I'm walking like crazy as I listen and learn all about modern art and meet up with my old friends from Three Pines. My next book discussion will be Ann Patchett's State of Wonder which is beckoning to me right now. Can't wait to delve into it.

Deon Meyer - Back to Africa

2012-02-01T22:31:00.000-05:00

With all my reading experience - does that sound conceited - sorry but, let's face it, it's what I do - I should have read a little further before I took home Deon Meyer's Blood Safari. I planned to listen in my car to a quick, down and dirty police procedural, kind of a South African Ed McBain, like the previous Meyer books that I've written about here in this space. The reason being that when you're wending your way through the nightmare mess of construction, tourist traffic and mania on the roads in Southwest Florida in the winter, you don't want to have to concentrate too much.

Big mistake! Meyer's new novel is a stand alone, not one of his wonderful Bennie Griessel murder mysteries. This is not a complaint, just an observation. I should have luxuriated with this book and given it the reading time that it deserved. This novel is a huge departure with a different, more complicated focus than his previous works. Yes, there's a mystery, and some murders, but there's so much more at work here involving the ferociously complicated issues that seem to dog South Africa.

Meyer uses a story about a missing man, Jacobus LeRoux, who simply dropped out of sight in the Kruger National Park twenty years ago, and his sister, Emma, who never really believed he was dead, to lay out a sinister tale of racial tensions, environmental devastation, and political intrigue. If one is not familiar with the situation in South Africa, this novel will sound way over the top. I've learned from our own Afrikaans guide through Kruger that everything Deon Meyer says is true.

Emma is a business woman living the lonely but uneventful life of a successful white person in Cape Town when her home is broken into and her life threatened by an unknown gang of intruders. Because she can afford to, she hires a quirky body guard called Lemmer, another lonely, silent, man with a past, who only wants to do his job and get the hell home. When Emma tells him that she has reason to believe that her brother Jacobus is actually alive, he goes along with her to the lowvelt, to Kruger, to watch over her as she investigates.

Slowly he learns that Emma is not the spoiled little rich girl he had imagined but rather, a woman of passion and substance. It's not long before Lemmer is intricately involved in the search for Jacobus, rattling chains in the local police department and tangling with a strange environmental group that works the Kruger.

For someone who has recently returned from this area, the scenes are perfectly constructed. Meyer describes the airport in Nelspruit exactly as I saw it when I stepped off the plane. When Emma and LeRoux enter the park at one of the many entrances I could actually remember our own early morning arrival at the south gate. But it's his characterization of the people that is even more spot on.

The tensions between the whites, the Africans, and the Afrikaaners is always an undercurrent. No one is quite comfortable yet with the post-Apartheid world and his or her place in it. A simple accent can brand one as an insider or not. Familiarity with a tribal language is always suspicious.

Criminal activity is rampant in Kruger Park and there is plenty of blame to be spread around. For years the elephants were slaughtered for their tusks, now it's the rhino whose horns are sold on the black market for their properties as an aphrodesiac. Before Paul Kruger "donated" this land to the country for a national park, it belonged to the native Africans who still hold to their rituals and tribal customs.Those who were run off now have family making claims for retrieval of their lands under the post-Apartheid government. Resentment leads to political involvement, money exchanges illegally, and often, murder ensues.

Meyer has crafted in Blood Safari a most sophisticated, involved novel that's well worth the slow build up. His understanding of the complicated history of South Africa and that history's impact on the people who live and love and want to stay in this country they so care for so deeply is on display at every turn. Informing without lecturing, Meyer shines a light on a struggling democracy that can't shed its past no matter how hard it tries.

Audrey Schulman-A Blast from the Past

2012-01-28T09:08:00.000-05:00

Many years ago when I worked on our county's bookmobile I was fortunate enough to have a mentor who was always pushing me to broaden my reading horizons. It was a glorious couple of years as I was studying for my masters degree while working with someone whose whole raison d'etre seemed to be to build up my self esteem and convince me that I could do anything that I chose to do. (he was right!)

Mr. Smith would never miss an opportunity to hand me a book about strong women, fiction, non-fiction, biographies. One of the memorable books he asked me to read was The Cage by Audrey Schulman. Billed as a "feminist adventure story," this literary thriller was about a nature photographer and a crew who ventured into the arctic to study polar bears.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my package from Library Journal last month and saw that I'd been sent a new novel, her first in over ten years, by Ms. Schulman. I couldn't wait to jump right into Three Weeks in December which should be released any day now. My review was published in the January issue of Library Journal but, to my dismay, I can no longer link to reviews as it seems they are adding a layer of security to their website while they roll out a new and complicated "look."

So, rather than reinvient my own wheel, I'll tell you that I absolutely loved this novel. Here is a copy of my review:

The abundance of Africa has made the continent ripe for exploitation, but among those who arrive there with less than honorable intent, some will become so enthralled with the land and its inhabitants that they cannot, will not, leave. In 1899 Jeremy, an engineer from a line of Maine homesteaders, hired on with the British to supervise the construction of a railroad that would carve its way through East Africa, paving the way for English settlers while carelessly displacing the indigenous people. One hundred years later Max, an ethnobotanist chosen by a “big pharma” corporation, travels to a gorilla research facility in Rwanda to test and return with a rare vine that could become a medical miracle. In alternating chapters, Ms. Schulman weaves two mesmerizing tales based upon historical fact, enlivened by fully formed, sympathetic characters. Jeremy feels compelled to prove his manhood when his encampment of Indian workers is threatened by a pair of aggressive lions, while Max immerses herself in the silent world of the endangered gorilla families. Verdict: Ms. Schulman (The Cage, A House Named Brazil) treats readers to a visceral cornucopia of senses, taking readers from the plains of Kenya to the mountains of Rwanda. Teaching without preaching, the author speaks to the dichotomy between the preservationists and the destroyers of Africa’s resources. She’s also written an ode to the wonder of silence.

Coming soon from Europa Editions. Look for it!

Mothers and Daughters, An Eternal Struggle?

2012-01-25T12:54:00.000-05:00

My mother did not live long enough for us to become friends. I suspect that subconsciously, I consider this the one tragedy of my life. It certainly must be working on me because I think about it more and more as I age. I think about how remarkable she was, so ahead of her time, yet circumscribed to some degree by the times in which she lived.

After listening to an interview with Diane Keaton on NPR I knew that her memoir Then Again would speak to me. Not your average celebrity tell all with the requisite nasty secrets unveiled, Ms. Keaton has instead risen above the fray and written an homage to her family and, in particular, to her mother.

Since Keaton and I are contemporaries, our mothers faced similar situations as parents, stay at home moms, raising their kids in the '50's. Bright, educated and stifled, they budgeted wisely, sent the hubby off to work, and spent quality time with the children. But under the surface they were chomping at the bit to be freed up to explore their own talents.

Diane's mother took up photography, collage, and journaling, the results of which are shared in abundance throughout this book. My mother went back to teaching the moment we three kids were in school. The classroom was always her natural habitat.

Keaton's memoir is bittersweet as she recounts her decision at the age of fifty to open herself to the commitment of parenting, adopting her little girl Dexter, just as her mother begins the slow, agonizing slide into dementia and finally Alzheimer's disease. That's not to say that this is a depressing book by any means. In fact, it's a lovely examination of a family that grows closer with age and distance, and four siblings who owe their wonderfully disparate successes to the woman they called Mom.

Oh What Tangled Webs We Weave......

2012-01-21T16:26:00.000-05:00

....when first we practice to deceive. Living a lie must be one of the most soul killing things a person can do. The excitement may be sexy and stimulating for a while but the day arrives when you must realize that the walls will come tumbling down. And no, I'm not speaking of that slimey Newt Gingrich.

In this case I'm speaking of the bigamist James Witherspoon who is at the heart and soul of an eminently discussable book that I just finished called Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones. Ms. Jones has an impressive array of degrees and awards to her credit yet, once again, I had not heard of her until I caught an interview on the Diane Rehm show. It makes me wonder why women of color aren't always reaching a larger audience, but I guess that's the subject of another blog all together.

This novel is so readable yet so deep in its examination of the hidden knowledge in relationships; what makes them tick, why some last and others don't, how much deception can be overlooked and what has to come to light. You might think that no one could get away with having two complete families, living three miles apart in the same town, but you'd be wrong. In fact, it happened in the little town in Massachusetts where I lived during my own marriage.

James is basically a good man - don't laugh. It's to Jones' credit that she makes no judgements and treats him fairly, even with empathy. His first wife, Laverne, was pregnant at the age of 14. He married her and, with the help of his mother Bunny and his best friend Raleigh, he managed to go into business for himself, work his way up the ladder, buy a home, and provide for his family, especially the love of his life, his daughter Chaurisse.

The only problem is that James was inexorably drawn to Gwendolyn, the mother of his other daughter, Dana Lynn, and didn't have the gumption to give them up, though he only saw them once a week on a "work" night.

Dana and her mother were well aware of Laverne and Chaurisse but, naturally, the reverse was not the case. James and Raleigh could have kept the secret forever if Dana had been a different kind of girl and Gwen had been a woman willing to be satisfied in second place. Tragically, that was not to be.

Jones ratchets up the tension slowly but surely, keeping her readers in a knot of anxiety, turning the pages like a person driving by a car wreck and trying not to look. I really enjoyed the way she put her writing chops on full display by using two very different voices to tell the story.

The first half of the book is Dana's tale. Her voice is bright, sophisticated, and just a little bit devilish as she stalks her sister, torn between desperately wanting a complete family and the love of a sibling with the natural jealousy that would come from having to share her father's love with this stranger.

Chaurisse, too, is a young woman whose loneliness and insecurity cause her to feel overjoyed but suspicious of the attention that Dana suddenly lavishes on her. Not blessed with Dana's good looks and straight A brains, she has to question why this young woman who's on her way to Mount Holyoke College is hanging out with her at her mom's hair salon.

There's so much going on under the surface of this novel, so much to talk about. Women and men, black, white, Asian, whatever....it really doesn't matter, does it? The complications of attraction go back to the beginning of time.
But there's also an especially sensitive look at the plight of African American women in particular. How they feel about themselves, how they're treated in society, what's presumed about them, what their definition of beauty is.

I found Silver Sparrow to be an enlightening, thought provoking read. So much so that it's on my short list for next year's book discussion.

Charles Frazier's Nightwoods

2012-01-16T17:19:00.000-05:00

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep..." What is it about the woods that sends one's imagination into overtime? I grew up living near, what seemed to a little girl, like a terrifying place with woods on three sides of a house way up on a hill. Yes, we had our worn paths to the neighbors' houses but, stray off the tried and true and where might you end up?

Left alone at night to babysit for my younger siblings, I was constantly looking out the dark windows, sure that someone was lurking, someone who meant us harm. Every little sound was evidence. And what would I do? Run off and leave them to fend for themselves? Wasn't I fortunate not to be put to the test!

In Charles Frazier's exquisite new novel, Nightwoods, the opposite seems to happen. The woods in this story become a haven for those in need and a fitting place to die if that's what's destined to be. Nature, in all its glory, reclaims what it must and shelters the rest. It's a place of healing for the damaged folks who seek its solace. It is described with such beauty and love that the reader feels that Frazier has put his heart into every word.

This novel worked its way into my head so slowly that I didn't see it coming. I chose it not having read any major reviews but simply on the basis that it was one of the few literary novels available for download to my nook. Once begun though, I read non-stop, fearful that it would disappear in an instant and leave me high and dry!

Certainly a dark novel, like most that I read, each character is wounded so deeply that one wonders how they will move on. Luce was abandoned by her mother, a woman just not imbued with the maternal instinct, her sister Lily ran off in a fever with a bad news boy, married him, had two kids and died at his hands, her dad, haunted by World War II, was lost in a buzz of drugs and alcohol.

Luce worked nights at the telephone company switchboard until she was sexually assaulted by someone she thought she could trust. From that moment she turned inward, away from the world and the despair she saw there. Luce went towards the woods, out of town and as far from civilization as she could, becoming a caretaker for the elderly owner of a decrepit lodge that once hosted the well-heeled swells escaping the city's heat for the clean, fresh lakes of the Appalachian mountains.

When Mr. Stubblefield dies Luce stays on, used to the anonymity of life in the woods and the solitary joy of her self-sufficient days. She has her one friend, Maddie, a fabulously tough old mountain gal who gives Luce a rooster or eggs now and then and offers small talk over coffee when its needed. The day that social services arrives with her sister's orphaned children in tow, Luce is as blindsided and speechless as are the little ones, Dolores and Frank. How can she possibly repair these two mute, damaged souls when she's just barely begun to repair herself?

Charles Frazier must know a great deal about the human spirit, the power of love, the karmic justice in the battle between good and evil. He lays it all out here for his readers in a powerful, succinct story that's been touted as a mystery but is oh so much more. Cold Mountain may have won the National Book Award but Frazier's writing chops are truly on display here in Nightwoods.

Michael Palmer - Not For the Squeamish

2012-01-13T12:29:00.000-05:00

Whew! I barreled through Michael Palmer's Oath of Office, scheduled for release next month, just in time for his second appearance at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival. (http://www.readfest.org/) If you're a political junky, thrill over gruesome medical details, or are a conspiracy theorist, this is the next great read for you!

Palmer introduces another compassionate physician, his alter-ego perhaps, in the super human form of Dr. Lou Welcome, a former alcoholic who's had his license to practice medicine in the E.R. reinstated. When not mending patients' bodies or working out in the boxing ring, a practice that will come in very handy when he finds himself on the wrong end of guns, knives, and even a combine harvester, Dr. Lou counsels and mentors other physicians with drug and alcohol addictions.

When one of his biggest successes and a close friend, Dr. John Meacham, goes off the deep end, turning a pistol on his waiting room patients and then on himself, Dr. Lou is horrified and unwilling to believe that his old friend had relapsed. Something else must have been at play and, since he's been laid off at the counseling center, he has the time and inclination to investigate, discovering that several other horrific, unexplainable incidents have been going down in the D.C. bedroom community of King's Ridge, Va.

An alternate story line revolves around the coolest, ballsiest First Lady you'll ever meet. Dr. Darlene Mallory has put her career as a pediatrician on hold to stand by her man, Martin Mallory, the currently very unpopular president of the United States. But when Martin fires their childhood friend, Secretary of Agriculture Russell Evans, without even hearing his side of the tabloid story, Darlene decides to go "off the grid" to find out who wanted Evans out of the agricultural chairmanship and why.

As Lou and Darlene delve deeper into the mysteries surrounding their friends, they discover that their investigations begin to overlap. Just suspend disbelief and go for the wild ride as, with the help of a renegade Secret Service agent and an entomologist who specializes in African termites, Dr. Lou and the First Lady deal with a "deep throat" whistle blower, threats, and thugs, before ending up on the doorstep of William Chester, a wealthy and powerful corn producer who holds the town of King's Ridge in his economic grip.

Laced with descriptions of life-saving emergency room procedures and protocols, as well as a rather gruesome chapter involving a woman who performs her own liposuction - you'll never eat fatty foods again - Palmer's novel never lets you forget that the author is a physician first and foremost. Lou Welcome is the quintessential doctor, combining technical perfection with compassionate care for his patients and his family.

Oath of Office is billed as a pulse-elevating medical thriller. Don't worry Michael Palmer fans, it is all that. But at the heart of this disturbing novel is an important and timely message from the good doctor about the ethical decisions that are made in the upper echelons of government and in the corporate offices of agricultural conglomerates about the food we grow, produce, and eat. Gassing tomatoes may make them look pretty but how does that break down in our bodies? Irradiation and manipulating of plant DNA takes the danger to a whole new level. Imagine a day when your doctor admonishes, it's not healthy to eat your veggies."

Visit Michael Palmer's website to learn more about genetically modified foods and join a discussion of his book. www.michaelpalmerbooks.com

112 Books in 2012!

2012-01-11T10:25:00.000-05:00

I've never been a terribly competitive person. Sports? Just there for the exercise, not to come in first. Cards? Simply enjoying the company, unless there's $$ involved. But books? Now that's another story! How about you? How many do you plan to read this year? Is it a numbers game or do you just pick it up, enjoy it and put it aside? And, for that matter, when does trying to get the numbers begin to take away from the pleasure of the reading?

Me? I'm off to a great beginning this year with 7 titles under my belt already, not to mention the one that I cut loose on the first disc. My Nancy Pearl prerogative kicking in. Several glowing reviews led me to download In Zanesville by Joanne Beard. I should have known better as I'm a bit beyond "coming of age" novels but it was on plenty of "best of" lists so I gave it a whirl.

This novel was billed as laugh out loud funny but I'm afraid my sense of humor may be a tad different. This was more of a Glass Castle imitation and when the author had an abusive father force his son's hand into the blue flame of a gas stove burner, holding it there until the smell of roasting flesh caused his babysitter, the narrator, to sob out loud, I was finished. I have too many other choices. Just look at my kitchen counter!

I did finish Scott Turow's Innocent on my Nook before the library police took it away from me. I was totally enthralled with this book, couldn't put it down, until the author completely let me down on the finale. I wanted these people to be evil - or should I say - more evil. I'm listening to Last Man in the Tower. More on that later. And, finally, I'm almost done with Michael Palmer's new novel, Oath of Office, which I've promised to review here next. Very creepy folks.

For some reason, blogspot has been acting up for a couple of days and I don't seem to be techie enough to figure out why I keep getting a bright red message saying "an error occurred while saving." You may or not may not get to read my latest musings. If you do, why not let me know if you'd like to compete this year. Let's see who enjoys counting titles and who gets to 112 first. Talk to me!

Who is Yannick Murphy?

2012-01-08T12:02:00.000-05:00

Once again I've been totally blindsided by a novelist, much as I was by Lionel Shriver. Usually I read books by authors I'm familiar with but I kept shelving this little novella, The Call, and the cover well, yes, it called to me. Then I saw if on several "best of 2011" lists and discovered that we actually had a copy in our downloadable format. I read it on my nook in just a couple of days.

This novel, The Call, is so deceptively simple, you think that you're just reading a diary, kind of "a day in the life of a country veterinarian" type book - think James Herriott. Then suddenly, it takes such a turn that you shake your head in disbelief. Where is the author going you wonder? And then, when you find out? Frankly, I was awestruck.

The format of The Call may take a page or two to adjust to. Four seasons, daily calls to the veterinarian's home for his services; a goat needs help in the birthing process, a horse needs stitches, a dog is listless, a cow isn't giving milk.

Over the course of a year, readers are introduced to a glorious array of characters who people this small New England farm town. Especially poignant is the elderly woman whose sheep lives in the house with her, keeping her company much as a dog would. When she asks the veterinarian for help, it is for herself that she's really calling, simply needing some company or perhaps a caring prod to make that phone call to the doctor for her own checkup.

A reluctant hunter, the veterinarian takes his son Sam on his first foray into the woods for deer season, against the wishes of his wife, Jen. A shocking accident sends Sam to the hospital with a head injury and this light story morphs into something so much more, an investigation of guilt, vengeance, familial stress, and the hope that springs eternal in all of us. Through their reactions to Sam's predicament, Jen, her husband and their two little girls, come alive as individuals and as an unbeatable family unit.

I dare not tell you more about this book for fear of taking away the lovely suprises that Murphy reveals like a set of nesting dolls. What I do want to say is how stunned I was, at the conclusion of this book, to discover that the author is a woman. This fact somehow enhanced my appreciation of her skills, as she had so totally inhabited the character of the male veterinarian who narrates the story, to the point where I was actually getting angry at him/her for his/her off hand treatment of his wife. OK, agreed, that was a tough one to explain.

All I can say is I highly recommend giving this book a chance. I've only disclosed some of the surprises. Honest. It would make a fantastic book discussion and I will likely consider it for next year. Treat yourself to Yannick Murphy's website at: http://yannickmurphy.com/

Midnight Rising - Listening to History

2012-01-04T21:30:00.001-05:00

I know that I don't read as much non-fiction as I should, and I've often stated right here on this blog that I prefer to swallow my history couched in fiction. But....Tony Horwitz, like Erik Larson or Isabel Wilkerson last year, lends such vibrancy to our past in this detailed account of John Brown's life, in particular the attack on Harper's Ferry which would become a precursor to the Civil War.

I ask myself "what is a terrorist?" Does the end justify the means as Machiavelli opined? How many times in our scant 200 -and- some- year history have well-meaning people concluded that revolt is the only answer? John Brown became one of those men. So appalled and despairing of the cruelty of slavery, especially after the enactment of The Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Brown convinced himself and his followers that only action, rather than peaceful negotiation, would culminate in freedom for the African slaves forced into this country against their will as a boon to the southern economy.

The facts of the matter we may learn in school, but the telling by Horwitz adds a tremendously personal note to those facts. Brown, who had settled not far from my home town in Springfield, Massachusetts, had a small but important following in the free thinkers of the day. Emerson, Thoreau, the Alcotts, Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth were all part of the burgeoning abolitionist movement that was spreading throughout the northeast. In fact, the church where Brown worshipped was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

I especially enjoyed the way Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and husband of another Pulitzer winner, Geraldine Brooks, credited so many strong, courageous women, not the least of whom was Brown's wife Mary, with their steady devotion to the cause. By necessity Mary and her daughters-in-law had to stay behind at their farm in New York state, raising the children, doing without, seeing her sons and their husbands off to join Brown in his battles against the scourge of slavery, whether in Kansas or Virginia, where he raided the armory at the renowned Harper's Ferry.

Horwitz gives readers small but telling anecdotes, individualizing many of the men who followed Brown to Harper's Ferry and he also goes into minute detail about the Virginians who were being held hostage by Brown's men. Through their court testimony we learn that, while they disagreed with Brown and even feared his efforts to free and arm their slaves, they respected him for his gentlemanly treatment of them and for his seeming unwillingness to harm them unless in self-defense.

There is a dichotomy here between the way Brown saw himself and the way others saw him. Over the last century he has been villified as a domestic terrorist and hailed as a lone voice for the abolition of slavery. A maniacal firebrand or a Christ-like figure willing to sacrifice himself for the freedom of others? The truth is always somewhere in between, isn't it? It's true that "John Brown's body is mouldering in the grave," but his legacy of righteous anger, his desire to see all men truly free, and the courageous manner in which he faced his death sentence, are a testimony to the impact of his short time on this earth.

A New Year, A New Booklist!

2012-01-01T11:36:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone. Such a cliche yet.... 2012 sounds good to me. Ever the cockeyed optimist, I've scanned the headlines this morning, the world is in a mess, killing over religion, tribal warfare continues unabated, and yet I still have a deep seated notion that this year may bring some respite from the economic trials of the last several years.

Now if we could just fast forward to November and get this ridiculous election over with, let Obama get on with the sisyphian task of pulling our country out of the doldrums.....but oh yes, I'm here to speak about books, aren't I?

Let me begin the new year by saying that I believe Stewart O'Nan is probably one of America's finest novelists to have published in the last decade. I will kick off the year's discussion group at the library with his most recent novel, Emily, Alone, the wondrous sequel to his first novel about the Maxwell family, Wish You Were Here.

What does O'Nan write about, you may ask. My answer, everything and nothing. Remarkably, this is a novelist who can explain the entire human condition through the prism of one week with one family in one town. He excels at describing the minutiae of every day life in a manner than makes you want to smack your head and say "of course, that's it exactly! Why couldn't I think of that?" But we don't, which is why we are readers and not writers.

Emily is so familiar to me that I feel I've known her all my life. She is a kinder, gentler Olive Kitteridge; she is me, my stepmother Edith, my mother Penny, my sister Cynthia. She's a universal character captured so perfectly by O'Nan that I marvel at his powers of observation.

Many of my "regular" book club attendees have told me that they may not come to this discussion. They found the novel too depressing, they related too closely to this woman at the tail end of her life, planning for her demise. I'm amazed at these ladies. Rather than depressing I found this novel inspiring. I love Emily. I aspire to be like her.

Pushing 80, Emily still lives in her family home with her constant companion, Rufus. She misses her husband tremendously, speaks to him in a constant stream of consciousness that is entirely believeable and honest. Her discussions with her dog are even more spot on.

Her dearest companion, her sister-in-law Arlene, another independent senior , accompanies her to their friends' funerals, to the opera, to their "club," a throwback to past glory days. Even as they remind each other that their time is growing short, they manage to fill each day with worthwhile activity and joy in the little things, a good book, a radio show, a good meal, a cocktail.

Emily's relationships with her children, Ken and Margaret, have long been frought with anxiety. Unmet expectations are a normal part of the parent/child bond. What parent doesn't want more for their kids than they had themselves? What child doesn't sometimes feel that they've let their parents down? Underachieved? How many times do we bite our tongues to keep the peace at family gatherings?

Stewart O'Nan is a master. I don't know what else to say. I can't wait to have this discussion with my group, hoping I'm not a lone voice in the wilderness of appreciation of this low-key, understated talent. I'm already looking forward to his next release, The Odds, A Love Story, coming soon to a library, bookstore, kindle, nook, near you!

100 Books! Ta Da...A Goal I Almost Didn't Reach

2011-12-28T10:11:00.001-05:00

Now I know for sure why I'm a librarian and not an accountant. I rarely use an Excel spreadsheet at work and only use it personally for my "books read" list each year. I can't tell you how excited I was when I thought I had reached my goal of 100 books late Monday afternoon. As Don was pulling the champagne out of the refrigerator I went to the computer to enter my last title of the year, French Dirt.

I scrolled up to the top of the page and, to my horror, I realized that I had put the title of the excel document on line number 1 and then skipped to line number 3 to begin my list of books read! Can you imagine? I was two short of my goal! I almost didn't admit my folly but....at this point it had become a matter of pride and I was so discouraged. I had pretended I didn't care about the numbers yet as I closed in on the 100 mark I realized that I did care - deeply. There was only one thing to do.

Don came to the rescue. He actually read through all my blog posts for the year and found not two, but three titles that I had blogged about but failed to add to the list. His persistence got me over the top. Now that's what I call love.

So here's how I spent the holiday weekend - reading about a garden in the south of France, lifting my face every few minutes to gaze upon our own garden in the south of Florida. I never would have dreamed that I would derive such pleasure from watching seeds grow.

This absolutely delightful book by Richard Goodman about his year living in a wonderful old stone house in a 250 member village outside Nimes was the perfect antidote to all the dark, dysfunctional tomes I've been reading lately. How many of us don't wonder every once in a while what it would be like to just walk away from job, friends, family, and reinvent ourselves in a new place? Such a courageous move!

Goodman says he's been a city boy his entire life but the ad in the paper and his Dutch girlfriend called to him to try something new. Once in St. Sebastien de Caisson, a name he invented to protect the village from Peter Mayle syndrome, Richard found that if he wanted to relate to the townspeople he would not have to worry about speaking French as much as he would have to learn to speak "garden." Agriculture was his way into the closed village society and the size of your melons and tomatoes was much more important than the size of......well, you get the idea.

Goodman found the generosity of the townspeople to be overwhelming. Even as they teased that an American had no clue how to work with his hands, they lent him theirs in abundance. Land, water, seeds, hoes, trenchers, buckets, you name it. His new friends watched with fascination as Richard threw himself into his vegetable garden with a naive passion that endeared him to everyone.

His description of the air, the light, the smells of the land in the Vaucluse area of France is overwhelming. The joy of discovery at one's ability to coax food from the earth is such a difficult emotion to explain yet he does so with such verve or, as they say in France, joie de vivre. I can't say enough about this glorious piece of travel writing. It will always be one of my favorite genres.

Adding a postscript here, as Mr. Goodman has, by some wild mystery of the Internet, found my blog about his book and taken the time to comment - a compliment I'll never get over when it happens - I love writers! Thought I'd take a moment to add a link to his site in case you're interested in learning more about him and his writing. http://www.richardgoodman.org/

The Condition

2011-12-25T18:50:00.001-05:00

I wrote recently about Jennifer Haigh and her latest novel, Faith, which simply knocked me out. For that reason I made a concerted effort to go back and read at least one of her earlier books and decided on The Condition because I fancy myself an amateur doctor (tongue in cheek) and find all things medical absolutely fascinating!

The joke was on me. This book isn't actually about a medical condition at all even though Turner's Disease is the catalyst that brings down the house of cards the McKotch family has constructed. The actual condition is a disease of the soul that infects this family that, from the outside, appears to have it all. And this, after all, is the theme of Faith as well.

I often wonder who writes the jacket blurbs that are supposed to catch our attention and get us to pick up a book. The publisher? Have they even read their own authors? These little teasers often hold no relation to the story inside the covers.

Paulette and Frank McKotch have great pedigrees, three kids, perfectly spaced, she's from a long line of New Englanders, he's got the brains and the job that provides the life Paulette has come to expect. But one summer while vacationing on the Cape, a well-meaning in-law remarks on their daughter Gwen, in particular about her size.

The fact is that Gwen isn't growing like the other girls, no budding breasts, no maturing voice or filled out buns. Puberty had eluded her and no one had even noticed.

Frank is a scientist and goes at this problem from a researcher's point of view while Paulette puts her head in the sand, selfishly acting as if Gwen's "condition" is a reflection on her. The strain on the McKotch family begins to tear at the fabric of the marriage and quite honestly, neither Frank nor Paulette is a very sympathetic character, but readers will hang in there for the kids, Gwen, older brother Billy and baby Scott, whose lives and conditions of their own are revealed in varying chapters.

Jennifer Haigh excels at empathizing with families in crisis. Her writing may be painfully realistic but readers sense that she loves her characters with all their warts and wrinkles. She is a masterful storyteller of the human condition on a par with Jonathan Franzen in my opinion. The Franzen of Freedom that is, not of The Corrections.

Looking at my list of books read in 2011, I can see plainly that my taste veers way too much toward the emotionally draining side of the spectrum. Even my movie tastes are heavy going - Don and I saw The Descendents today and were not feeling the love. I may have to make a New Year's Resolution - something I don't even believe in - to read some light, uplifting books for a while. I finished Absolution for Library Journal, an outstanding, but angst filled debut whose review I'll finish up this week.

This morning I found just a glimmer of hope in the ending of Lloyd Jones' Hand Me Down World and this afternoon I whipped through another bummer called, unfairly, The Lover's Dictionary.

Tomorrow I will begin number 100, an upbeat non-fiction book called French Dirt , about a man who moves to a tiny village in France, possibly one of the ones Don and I biked through several years ago, and learns to love the people through working on their farms and falls in love with the country for the smell of the soil. Now that's something I can relate to!

Shadows in the Street

2011-12-21T21:23:00.000-05:00

I'm not normally a big fan of "cozy" mysteries, unless you're including The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency. I'm not sure I even care for that term. It just doesn't seem appropriate. And then too, one man's cozy is another's.......

Which is the case with Susan Hill. Several blogs I monitor have touted Hill as another Louise Penney, the woman whose star is skyrocketing with her Armand Gamache series of cozies that take place in Twin Pines, a little village in Quebec where there seems to be an inordinate number of murders. Now, I've only listened to one of Penney's titles so I won't make an unfair statement about the series but it just seemed a little too tame for me. I fully intend to try another in the new year.

In the meantime, though, I decided to give Susan Hill a try and began listening to The Shadows in the Street. This too is a series, perfect for those of you who love getting into a character and watching him morph into something other than what he started out as (think Harry Bosch). Hill's Simon Serailler mysteries take place in another peaceful little village, a cathedral town in England. Lafferton, like Twin Pines, is hardly the place where you'd expect to find much murder and mayhem. Maybe that's why readers love these books so much!

And mayhem there is, as one by one, various prostitutes' bodies begin to turn up strangled. The girls on the streets try to watch out for each other, helped by the do-gooders from the church and the lonely librarian who brings them hot tea and sandwiches each night. Some of them dream of getting out of "the trade," but they can't just stop working since they need the money to feed themselves and their kids. Hill, through her protaganists' situations, has a lot to say about the state of a society that can't or won't take care of the least of its brethren.

I think that what raises Hill's mysteries to the next level is that she really fleshes out the secondary characters with all of their foibles and flaws. In this episode there's a new dean at the cathedral, a political time bomb. He's accompanied by a wife, Ruth, who seems to be lacking any semblance of social skills. She quickly alienates other members of the various church boards and, quite suddenly, goes off the rails, disappearing for a few days and throwing off the investigation of the girls' murders. Ms. Hill provides a rather sympathetic examination of bi-polar disease and its effect on friends and loved ones.

There's also a lovely sub plot about the relationship of DCS Serailler with his family, in particular with his sister Cat, a recently widowed mother of three, and with his step-mother, a new addition to the family to whom he's previously been less than welcoming.

You know how sometimes you'll learn about someone or something new and then you see references to it over and over again? Does that happen to you? Well, it always does to me - especially working in a library. Sure enough, I just got to my Sunday's paper (yeah, it's Wednesday) and spotted Marilyn Stasio's column on crime in the Times book review mentioning the newest release in the Serailler series. Betrayal of Trust will be on the bookshelves soon.

And, if that's not enough, later in the day I read in Publisher's Weekly that a film is being produced based on one of her earlier novels, Woman in Black, starring none other than Harry Potter. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean Daniel Radcliffe. How much fun is that?

Meanwhile, I just received a new book from Library Journal, set in modern day Cape Town. I'm about 150 pages in and I must say that it's a deep, complicated novel that will take a lot of concentration on my part if I'm to give it a fair, honest review. I had hoped I could skate through a couple of easy books on my way to my goal of 100 but it looks like it's not to be. I'm so happy that all we've planned for the holidays is reading! Yup, I'm showing my age and I don't care who knows it.

Ali Smith

2011-12-18T15:37:00.001-05:00

Have you heard of her? No? Well, neither had I.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Smith

However, she is the author of my 96th, count 'em, book of the year. Don is quite confident that, if I ignore the yard, forget all movies even though the academy awards are coming up, allow the dust bunnies to accumulate under the bed, and utilize the upcoming holidays, I will reach my goal of 100 books read for 2011. Maryellen, laugh if you will, I know you're way higher than that but, for me, it's a record.

So back to Ms. Smith, a Scot who lives in England and has been on the shortlist for pretty much all of the prestigious British prizes for literature including the Orange Prize and the Man Booker. Described by The Guardian as "profoundly clever," Ms. Smith's extremely clever (in the best sense of the word) character, a precocious young lady named Brooke Bayaude, is perhaps the most delightfully impish, smart, deep-thinking young person I've met in a book in a long time. I wonder if she is Ms. Smith's alter-ego?

The novel, one of the year's best on every list I've seen so far, is called There But For The, and to tell the truth I almost gave it up because it was causing me to think too much! I had the feeling that the author was trying to make a point that was so far over my head that I just couldn't do the work. But I was 100 pages in and decided to relax and go for the ride. It has left me with a jumble of emotions and thoughts that may sound disjointed but I'll try to explain.

Ostensibly this novel has been touted as a book about a man, Miles Garth, who attends a dinner party at a posh residence as the guest of another man, Mark, whom he's only just met. At some point between the main meal and the dessert, Miles excuses himself, goes upstairs and doesn't return. It seems that he has locked himself in the guest room refusing to come out. Now you may ask, how does one build an entire storyline around this odd occurrence? And, of course, this is where the genius of the writer comes into play.

Over the course of 30 or 40 years this man, Miles Garth, has touched many lives, some fleetingly, others more deeply, as have we all whether we stop to think about it or not. Moving fluidly back and forth through time, using the metaphor of the atomic clock in Greenwich, Ms. Smith takes readers deep into the lives of some of those fortunate folks who have interacted with Miles. There are some "ah ha" moments and then there are questions that are never answered. There are moments of melancholy and beauty and some laugh out loud moments too.

And thankfully, there is Brooke, a child of such sensitivity and brilliance, such compassion and joie de vivre, that my heart lifted with every page she inhabited. Through Brooke the author shows us the utter foolishness of humankind. The greediness of Mrs. Lee, the hostess who parlayed Miles' disturbing disruption of her home life into a cottage industry of t-shirts, coffee mugs, and twitter feeds, and the general public who, as disenfranchised as the Occupy Wall Streeters, have camped for months under the window where Miles, now know as Milo, shows his hand once a day to accept the food offered up by pulley in a basket.

I was mesmerized by this novel, the way the author pulled me in against my will. I hope to begin the new year by going back and reading some of her previous work. Still, I don't think this is a book for everyone. It's so erudite that I'm convinced I would not even be able to lead a book discussion on it. I know that I've missed some very profound truths posited by this book and I'd love to hear a professor expound upon it at length but, hey, places to go, things to do, and book number 97 to begin this afternoon. Thanks for reading!

Andre Dubus III - A Townie?

2011-12-14T19:25:00.001-05:00

As much as I'd read about Dubus's autobiography, Townie, I wasn't sure if I could handle one more "dysfunctional family as means to fame and fortune" book. Jeannette Walls, Mary Carr, Alexandra Fuller, the list goes on and on. Once again, I'm chastising myself for my short sightedness. Townie is definitely deserving of a spot on my top ten list. I should have known better. This is the man, after all, who wrote the devastating House of Sand and Fog, a novel not easily forgotten.

Fair warning, Townie builds slowly, the members of the Dubus family are difficult to warm to, but the writing is so exquisite, so evocative, that you hold your breath in wonder. How many writers do you know who can create great literature out of a description of a stinking, steamy night, clearing, rinsing and washing dishes in a run down back room of a restaurant where the screen door slams open shut, open, shut, welcoming the flies that light everywhere except in the sticky strips that hang from the ceiling?

You know, I think that the publishers or editors or whomever it is that determines a book's title, might have hit on something other than the derogatory "townie." Because I attended a college that was in a run down city, (Troy, New York), much lovelier now I might add, I vividly recall the snob appeal of referring to locals in bars as "townies." Even then, I hated it, the way we thought we stood apart somehow from those who may or may not have had a way out - or, perhaps, didn't even want one! That's a concept we couldn't remotely grasp.

But Andre the third wasn't really a townie. His dad, the very well regarded short story writer, Andre Dubus Jr., taught at several small, liberal arts colleges, in fact, had a very prestigious career marred by his penchant for sexual liasons with his students (this was the sixties so believe me it was prevalent), a fondness for alcohol, and a habit of serial marriage which made it impossible for him to meet his financial responsibilities to his first wife and the four kids which included Andre. An irony not missed by this reader but forgiven by the much kinder writer, is that his profligate dad, apparently a devout Catholic, never missed a morning mass. The disconnect never ceases to amaze me.

The Dubus kids suffered, as more and more kids do these days, from hunger and a lack of supervision from a mom struggling through one menial job after another, exhausted trying to make ends meet. It's painful to listen to Mr. Dubus read his own story. Even his voice, which at first I thought was just too deadpan for the job, reflects the depression, the hopelessness with which he, his brother, an aspiring musician, and his sisters dealt with every day of their young lives.

As he grew older, Andre's hopelessness grew into a simmering rage, one that he writes about so insightfully that it is painful to read (or listen to as the case may be). He goes through a long phase of obsessive body building, bag punching, even training for the Golden Gloves, fighting with anyone who looks sideways at him in the dim, dank Boston bars where he and his cronies hang out, until he finally wears himself out. The anger dissipates as he begins to put pen to paper, surprising himself most of all with this need to set words on the page. How fortunate for us readers that Andre Dubus III discovered how to channel his energy and sense of social injustice into our favorite format. This is a beautiful, wrenching book.

The Most Beautiful Walk in the World

2011-12-11T15:22:00.000-05:00

Like Lot's wife, I have looked back with longing and regret as the train or taxi took me back to the airport and I had to leave a city feeling that I had barely touched its surface. Fortunately, since I didn't become a pillar of salt, I may one day have the opportunity to return to these places of wonder with more time to be a flaneur. What a fabulous word!

In other words, I may not be trying to pump every waking moment of an all too short vacation full of seeing everything that one "must" see. Rather, I will have the leisure to stroll aimlessly, to take the road less traveled, to peer down the alley, to tarry over window displays, to sit in a park and people watch - one of my favorite things to do.

Paris is one of those cities that beckons to me to return. So when I read about John Baxter's new book, subtitled "A Pedestrian in Paris," I made sure to order it the very next day. Oh yes, one of the perks of being one of the purchasers for our library branch is that I make sure we purchase what I like. After all, I'm a taxpayer too, n'est pas?

Baxter is such an easy man to spend time with. It's easy to see how he was able to make a go of a little bet to become one of the most popular Parisian walking guides. (http://johnbaxterparis.com/) He sees things as a writer does, his anecdotes of famous and infamous denizens of the Paris of the past are spot on and filled with little known details. If you've seen the fabulous movie, which I've mentioned previously here, Midnight in Paris, then you know of whom we speak.

An ex-pat Australian, Baxter married a French woman with whom he has a daughter. They've lived in Paris for over twenty years now and, reading this little gem of a book, one senses that not only has he not lost his passion for France but that it grows deeper each day.

Each little chapter - maybe 4 to 6 pages - is preceded by a timely quotation from famous observers of Paris life. Baxter proceeds to take us on one of his little walks through Montparnasse or the Marais, stopping for refreshment at some wonderful out of the way cafe where we can smell the aperitif and hear the friendly banter.

He describes Paris in each of her seasons, each lovelier than the next. Even sitting bundled up in a park in November Baxter finds beauty in the austerity of the light, the silhouettes of the buildings against the pinkish gray dusk. Walking through Paris, he says, is the difference between being there and being present. What a delightful distinction!

I admit that there are few cities that I don't enjoy visiting, but there are some that strangely call to you from the moment you arrive. Baxter says that this phenomenon is like love at first sight. Certainly Rome was one for me, Florence too, Washington, D. C. will always be one of those, but Paris, ahhhh Paris. I did not get enough. Reading John Baxter made me want to pick up the phone, dial up Air France, and book the next flight out. Which city was it for you?

Those Who Save Us

2011-12-08T07:15:00.001-05:00

I'd have eventually read this novel simply based on the title. Isn't it lovely? But a friend and active member of my library discussion group saw a paperback copy on the Friends of the Library sales rack and she handed it to me with a command. Read this book! I'm ashamed to admit that, for some time now, it's been in that growing pile of "books to read" that graces my less than generous kitchen counter. I'm slowly winnowing it down to make more room for Don's desserts.

Perhaps I've put this book on the back burner because it's another Holocaust novel and there's been so many of them. Still, Jenna Blum (http://www.jennablum.com/) takes a different tack and that makes all the difference doesn't it? Her novel toggles back and forth between 1940's Weimar, Germany, and 1990's New Heidleberg, Minnesota, examining the relationship between two complicated women, a mother and daughter, Anna and Trudy.

Trudy is a loner, unable to sustain relationships, not close with her mother, in fact, embarassed by her. Yet she's an overachieving college professor, respected by her co-workers, a teacher of German history who has gotten involved in a project much like NPR's StoryCorps. http://storycorps.org/

She interviews former German citizens about their remembrances of their lives in Germany during World War II, much like the Shoah Foundation interviews Holocaust survivors for their stories. In fact, Ms. Blum worked for the Shoah Foundation for several years leading up to the publication of this book and it shows. The irony is that, as Trudy delves more and more into these people's pasts, she hurts more and more from the realization that she knows nothing about her own mother's past, recalling nothing from her childhood except the nightmares that plague her.

We, the readers, of course, learn Anna's amazing story. We know about the illegitimate child she had by the Jewish doctor she had hidden in her father's house. We find out about the courageous Mathilde, a bakery owner who takes Anna in, employs her, and enlists her help in the Resistance. We watch in horror as the Obersturmfuhrer rapes, brutalizes and finally subdues Anna, a woman who will hold her head high against the ugly gossip of the townspeople, aware that she will do anything to keep her Trudy fed and alive.

Anna as an older woman is an extremely frustrating character. I'll have to admit that I didn't really warm to her very much because I wanted to shake her! I wanted for her to see how her daughter was suffering by being kept ignorant and how much more fulfilling their relationship could have been if only Anna could have opened up the way Trudy's subjects did. But then Ms. Blum managed to write a denouement that settled this conundrum satisfactorily, for me at least.

I have to believe that this would make an excellent book for discussion groups. The characteristics that I look for when I'm choosing our discussion books are all there. Interesting, complicated characters. Moral relativity. Nuance. People who have committed what some might consider immoral acts but for reasons that may justify them. This is a book about life in all its messy intricacies. Remarkably, it is a debut. Once again, I'm amazed at the talent out there.

Lists, Lists, and More Lists!

2011-12-06T18:13:00.001-05:00

My sister left a message on my answering machine last night. Did I detect a hint of gloating in her voice? She has read 104 books this year! What??? This is my job, it's what I do, it's how I roll. But I'm just pushing 90. Don, my number one cheerleader, says I'll hit 100 by December 31st (that was my original goal) but I'm not feeling it.

I only live 6 miles from work so it takes forever to listen to a CDBK unless I flat out make up errands. Of course, if I spend my time in the car then I'm not exercising, which means the book on my ipod languishes. Forget reading at work - I can't concentrate in our chatty-cathy lounge where the conversation tends to be about - you guessed it - work!! There is a picnic table where I often hide if the weather is amenable, but the ambiance leaves a bit to be desired. That damn dumpster!

Oh, what's a list-lover to do? Every blogger I monitor is coming out with his end of year personal bests. The New York Times printed their top 100 this past weekend. I was proud to note that, of the top 50 fiction titles, I had reviewed 8 or 9 for Library Journal. Many more magazines will be following up with their best of the year. I love it! The only reason I cared to learn Excel was so that I could keep track of books read, something I've been doing obsessively since this blog started in, I can't believe it, 2007!

How about you readers? Are you obsessive-compulsive about your reading? Do you worship booklists or is this just a librarian thing? I'd love to hear what's on your favorite books of 2011 list. I'll tell you mine. I feel that I can confidently say that nothing I have on tap for the next couple of weeks will take the place of these, the top 10 books that spoke to me on some deep level in 2011:

1. The Grief of Others, Leah Hager Cohen
2. The Submition, Amy Waldman
3. The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabelle Wilkerson
4. The Lotus Eaters, Tatjana Soli
5. Room, Emma Donaghue
6. The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright
7. To The End of the Land, David Grossman
8. Faith, Jennifer Haigh

9. Blame, Michelle Huneven
10. Three Weeks in December (not yet released), Audrey Schulman

The Sense of an Ending

2011-12-02T14:37:00.000-05:00

This new novel by Booker Award nominee (English literary prize) Julian Barnes has been receiving kudos everywhere I read about it, even from readers whose taste I truly respect. Linda, I'm talking about you. But.....this novel left me chilled. That doesn't mean that I don't recommend it to people because I want to hear why from those who were bowled over by it. I'm especially waiting to hear what my sister thought since, unbeknown to each other, we each started reading this book on the same day.

Personally, I have difficulty with unlikeable characters. If I can't tolerate their company I have to wonder how other readers can. Some novels can simply be appreciated for the quality of the writing, no matter how we feel about the narrator, which may be why so many readers are praising Barnes and his narcissistic storyteller, Tony Webster.

Middle-aged (aren't we all?), retired but active enough, divorced but on good terms with his ex-wife, who is actually quite a lovely secondary character, in touch with his daughter, Tony is brought up short when he receives legal notice that he's the recipient of a seemingly small yet potent legacy; the bequest is the diary of a college friend who committed suicide some time earlier. The odd thing is, and what gives the novel a frisson of suspense, is that this diary has been in the custody of a former lover's mother. Got that?

Tony, as those of a certain age tend to do, begins to re-evaluate old memories from his youth brought to the fore by these "remembrances of things past." He mulls over a weekend he spent in the country with this former girlfriend, Veronica, and her family, and the strange simpatico that he felt with his girl's mother. He relives his schooldays when he and his cadre enjoyed long, meandering, pretentious conversations about life, philosophy, and history, in that insufferable manner that only 20 year olds can.

Then, against his better judgement, and the warnings of others, he contacts Veronica, setting in motion a strange dance between the two, in which she refuses to be forthright and he continues to be obtuse. This examination of memory and time is a common literary conceit, one that especially fascinates me as my brother, sister and I have such extremely varying recollections of our childhoods even though there's only a 4 year span among the three of us.

So yes, kudos to Barnes for the gorgeous, concise (176 p.) language. Perhaps Tony Webster is meant to be unlikeable, or perhaps, the older I get the less willing I am to give fictional characters a second chance. There are too many others out there just waiting to meet me! As a matter of fact, I can't wait to tell you about the great book I just reviewed for Library Journal peopled with truly marvelous characters. More as soon as it's published.

George Pelecanos, I Love You Man But.....

2011-11-27T11:48:00.000-05:00

....you're killing me! I've been an avid follower for years George. I'll never forget the day the phone at my cubicle rang and when I picked up there you were on the other end just like any regular Joe. I was having heart palpitations! You graciously responded to my invitation to head south to our reading festival and what a great year that was! It was my first year with Don, who accompanied me to the Evening with the Authors reception just so that he could meet you.

Now, I know that you walk on the dark side but why'd you have to do those boys that way in The Way Home? I can't take it! I get that you write for The Wire, I get that life doesn't always have happy endings but someone, somewhere in DC must find redemption!

Readers, I can't say enough about George Pelecanos and his books. They're so much more than crime novels. They're a love offering to the District of Columbia for one thing, and for another, I see them as a paean to the human condition. Pelecanos throws in enough politics to keep me in his corner and one can hope that his heart felt cries for juvenile court reform are not falling on deaf ears.

I have several autographed copies of his books but I prefer to listen to Pelecanos because of Dion Graham. He's the perfect reader for these deep, dark novels. His voice is low, rough and sensual. He seduces the reader, lulling you in and then smacking you down with the overt violence that's generally at the core of these stories, the Sturm und Drang of life on the streets for kids released from juvenile lockup with no place to go, no one to believe in them.

The Way Home is a novel about a cadre of boys who served together in a juvenile detention facility for minor crimes, mostly the kind of drug use practiced by our last three presidents but hey - if you're a kid from the hood, you're going to do time. Chris Flynn doesn't fit the profile. Raised by loving parents, business owners, upwardly mobile types who work hard to give Chris the things and the future they never thought they'd have, Chris's parents agonize over where they went wrong.

They provide Chris and his buddy Ben with a second chance, honest work as carpet installers for Flynn Carpets. Chris and Ben have an easy rapport and camaraderie engendered by their shared past at Pine Ridge Detention Facility. But one day, while tearing up some old flooring, they discover a hidden bag full of money and old temptations gurgle to the surface.

If money is the root of all evil, you won't doubt it for a minute as you watch this cash become the catalyst for all of the horrific action that follows. It will test the already tenuous relationship between Chris and his dad Tom Flynn, force Chris's fiancee to question her trust in his innate goodness, and perhaps derail all the redemptive actions that these young men have taken on their way to a better life.

George Pelecanos is without peer, in my humble opinion, when we talk about literary crime novels. He gets better, deeper, more psychologically astute with age. Yes, you'll need to take a break now and then and read some fluff to help you down from the edge, but you'll find yourself going back. I can't wait for his latest to hit the streets. Watch for The Cut at a library or bookstore near you.

National Book Award Winner Jesmyn Ward

2011-11-23T10:12:00.000-05:00

This young woman is no stranger to awards. She has been a Stegner fellow at Stanford, a writer in residence at the University of Mississippi, and is currently a teacher of creative writing in Alabama, but still one has to wonder how someone so young could plumb the depths of despair that are so evident in her National Book Award winning novel Salvage the Bones.

This novel had been on my radar screen for a while and I started to read it before I realized that she was up for this prestigious award. I truly thought I would have to give it up because the writing is so raw, so gut wrenching that I just wasn't sure I could take it. Then, last week, Ms. Ward beat out even the much ballyhooed The Tiger's Wife (which I'll be discussing later this year at my library) and I knew that I would soldier on.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that it's a difficult book to read but that it's HARD to read if you get my drift. Other reviewers have stressed that this is a novel about Hurricane Katrina but it's far from that. Katrina is simply the catalyst for what I see as the true subject of this book which is love. Love in all its manifestations, family, friendship, passion, loss, memory.
Salvage the Bones is a Greek tragedy and in fact Esch, our narrator, reads the story of Medea and Jason throughout the novel, seeing herself as the victim, no, I shouldn't say victim, but vessel of an attraction, a hunger for love so deep that it burns her soul.

In Bois Sauvage, Louisiana, in the days running up to Katrina, the young people are oblivious to the media's warnings of pending destruction. Esch's family is barely scraping by, her father mourns the death of his wife in childbirth, barely holds a job because of the alcohol, ceding care of the baby to the other kids. Randall, a talented basketball player, has a slim chance of scoring a scholarship and getting out but he is also Junior's de facto parent.

Skeetah sublimates his need for the nurturing he missed by raising his pit bull, China, weaning her from her babies with a tenderness that tears at your heart even as he gambles on her ability in a fighting ring, a centerpiece so descriptive that any reader must turn his eyes away in horror at the unsettling violence. This is not a novel for the faint of heart.

I've never read a book like this. I gasp aloud at some of the metaphors, so apt, so perfectly placed. I rage against the poverty that ties this family to its home as the hurricane waters begin to rise. I agonize with Esch as she senses the life growing in her womb, frightened yet accepting of impending motherhood, beating back the rejection from Manny, the most likely father and the object of her outsized passion. In fact, this entire little novel (250p.) is outsized in its passion, which is why it deserves all the accolades that it gets.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2011-11-18T09:48:00.000-05:00

The old saying "you reap what you sow" can be interpreted in many different ways and I've been ruminating on all of them this week. Right now though, I'll tell you what it means to me in a literal sense. Two weeks ago a wonderful old Florida cracker arrived at my house with a truckload of "good" dirt, a caterpillar for spreading it around, and a head full of old fashioned knowledge about growing fruit and veggies in Florida. Within a few minutes both of my vegetable planters were overfull with abundance and I was dancing around with glee. I couldn't wait to get those seeds in the dirt!

There's an indescribable sense of satisfaction that I get while watching the garden grow. What a rotten kid I was! I can recall making such fun of my mother when she would get practically orgasmic with delight when her tomatoes began to ripen each summer. The August that we knew she was really sick with the cancer that would take her in just 6 weeks was the August that she didn't want her tomatoes and asked us to give them away. Now I harvest my own in her memory and hope that she knows.

So mom, here was the garden last Sunday:

And only 10 days later, check out the first stirrings of lettuce, collards, spinach, peppers and, you can just barely see them, tomatoes!

And watching over all this is the reason I won't give up my home and move into a condo until I can't stand up straight!

Jeffery Deaver Channels Ian Fleming

2011-11-16T11:06:00.000-05:00

Other authors have tried and failed but Jeffery Deaver has knocked it out of the ballpark with Carte Blanche; 007, an up to date look at Special Agent 007 (who will always be Sean Connery to me) working in a 21st century world. New enemies and new gadgets but the familiar snappy dialogue and interior musings of Bond as he takes on a false identity hoping to entrap a truly disgusting enemy, Severan Hydt, king of a waste disposal empire.

Now you may think that I'm prejudicial in favor of Deaver's perfect blend of old-style spy material a la Fleming with the new technology at Bond's disposal because of Deaver's wonderful appearance at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival a few years ago where he told us, admittedly after a few glasses of less than perfect pinot, that he had passed up the Virginia Festival of the Book in favor of our more fan-centered festival, and you'd be right.

Still, I'd be stunned and amazed if this new take on James Bond isn't parlayed into a film and what a fun film it would be. It has all the trademark elements that Bond aficionados expect. Flirtations with beautiful women, and a hint at a more serious relationship in the future, an enemy bent on the destruction of huge amounts of people simply because he has a fetish for dead bodies, and enough politically correct undercurrents to keep this reader fascinated.

Best of all, for me, is the fact that Deaver set the novel in South Africa, Cape Town mostly, and he brings the city to life while explaining to readers, without being didactic, how terribly obvious is the separation that still exists between those who live up on the hill and the workers who are down in townships grotesquely named things like "Primrose Gardens," a place where corrugated shacks with no electricity or running water pass for homes and the people are as disposable as the trash that Hydt compacts.

Toby Stephens deftly handles the reading of the audio book version that I'm listening to, not a simple task as he jumps back and forth between Bond's British upper-crust and the South African Afrikaans accent which is a cross between English, Dutch and German. I imagine the family of Ian Fleming, who chose Deaver to take on the Bond tradition, is thrilled with Carte Blanche, as fans of Fleming and Deaver should all be. Give it a whirl.

In the Garden of Beasts

2011-11-10T08:19:00.000-05:00

The subtitle of Erik Larson's latest book is "love, terror, and an American family in Hitler's Berlin." This is not just any American family though. This is the true story, something Larson excels in is writing non-fiction that reads like fiction, of the U.S. ambassador to Germany, William Dodd.

Appointed by Franklin Roosevelt after several other men turned down the position, Dodd was considered a fusty, old fashioned, tight fisted man, an academic from Chicago totally unsuited to the job. His penury, which today would be considered an admirable quality, made him the laughing stock of his staff and of the other dignitaries he interacted with. He actually walked to meetings rather than luxuriate in a chauffeur driven vehicle! He didn't have enough servants and he tried to live in Berlin on the ambassador's salary, about $3000 a year at the time.

I have to tell you, I must be the only person in the world who didn't think that Larson's big hit, Devil in the White City, an ugly recounting of a serial killer who stalked young women in Chicago while making a fortune from the building of the World's Fair, was a great read. What every book discussion group in creation saw in that book to talk about, I have no idea. But this one? Oh yeah!

I personally think that this book is by far the more interesting and sophisticated. It offers a great way to learn your history without falling asleep. It brings the run up to World War II alive to the reader through the eyes of a family that initially didn't believe there was anything to worry about as Hitler rose in prominence.
But gradually, through immersion in the lives of the German people, the socialites, the politicians, and the various branches of the police, Ambassador Dodd and his family began to sense with growing alarm the true evil that was burgeoning in their beloved Germany.

Larson has done a load of research, often quoting from diaries and letters of the many players who populate his book. I found Dodd's daughter Martha to be the most fascinating woman I've read about in forever. You couldn't make this up! The old saying "truth is stranger than fiction" certainly applies here.

The women in the book discussion I attended were non-plussed by what they perceived to be her indiscriminate sexual behavior. It's all they could focus on. What I loved watching was her talent at drawing so many different men and women into her orbit and mesmerizing all of them at the same time. A newspaper editor in Chicago, she obviously had the brains and looks to pull it off and the sense of freedom that being in a foreign country often proffers.

Hardly the swinging '60's, this was 1933 -35, Martha deftly juggled a former husband in the states with lovers from both the Russian embassy and the Nazi SS at the same time and managed to do it all under the ever watchful eyes of the of the government. She attracted all the writers and artists of the day to her home and participated in various discussion groups and socials where politics and the future of Germany were dissected and hashed over.

And it's through Martha, the most dazzled initially by Hitler's "new" Germany, that Larson proves how easily people could fool themselves into believing that the attacks on American Jews in Berlin were not truly racially motivated and that the whisperings of attempts to create an Aryan race were not really possible. Until, that is, the evidence becomes more obvious, the sounds of the jackboots more ominous, and the hateful speeches louder.

I've been listening to Larson's book on my ipod. It's been a boon to my health as I want to walk longer and farther even though I know the ending. I feel like Larson has allowed me to be a fly on the wall at the backdoor machinations of the politicians who jockey for position, each with his own agenda, our lives in their hands as they decide to go to war. Not much has changed.

I'm thrilled to tell you that Erik Larson will be attending the Southwest Florida Reading Festival in the Spring - good going Jess! Put it on your calendar. The man is a talent to be reckoned with. www.readfest.org

The Grief of Others

2011-11-07T18:20:00.000-05:00

Be not afraid of this title. This exquisite book, though about grief, will not cause you to grieve but to rejoice at the glory of the English language! Leah Hager Cohen is a name you may not find on the New York Times best seller list, a fact that will tell future generations a thing or two about our discernment as it applies to literary appreciation.
I don't recall how I first heard about her but I've been following her blog for several years now and have been brought practically to my knees in envy and appreciation of her skills.
http://loveasafoundobject.blogspot.com/

How many years has it been since you fell in love with an entire family? A fictional family, that is? Each member of the Ryrie family is so special, so distinct, so overwhelmingly lovable, even when he or she is acting distinctly unlovable. Ricky, John, Paul and Biscuit, then later Jess, could be any average American family in the burbs, a two income household in which the fact that Ricky earns considerably more as a financial analyst than does John who designs stage sets, causes some friction and resentment now and then.

What sets them apart is that it's been a year since the death of their newborn son and they have yet to talk about it. The corrugated box of ashes, tied up with string, has been relegated to a high shelf in the back of a closet. The fact of its being hidden there, though, does nothing to dispel the sense of lethargy, loss, anxiety, and despair that hovers over the Ryrie household.

Paul, as awkward a pre-teen as you've ever met, is being bullied at school. His once lanky frame has given way to pudginess and a raft of pimples as he tries to eat away his insecurities. Biscuit, at ten, is a little miss firecracker, too bright and sassy for her own good. Yet, in the year since the baby's death she has skipped school five times and, anathema to some of us, has stolen a book from the library. John and Ricky notice nothing. At best, they are only vaguely aware.

The tension in the air is so tangible that as I read I worried for the mental health of "my" family. Open up! Open up! I wanted to yell at them, to shake them, force them to look at these beautiful damaged kids crying out for a way to work through their own pain. And suddenly there were catalysts, new characters who would change the makeup of things, skew the emotions, throw everyone off balance, and I loved them too.

If you've been reading along here for a few years you know that I have a love/hate relationship with the word "luminous." I worry about its overuse, especially in book reviews. Nevertheless, I've racked my brain and I can find no other word that better describes the memorable feeling of reading a truly luminous novel such as this one. Just read this description of the newborn, Simon, from the first page of the book:

"His lips: how barely pink they were, the pink of the rim of the sky at winter dusk. And in the curl - in the way the upper lip rose to peaks and dipped down again, twice, like a bobbing valentine, and in the way the lower bowed out, luxuriant, lush, as if sated already from a lifetime of pleasures...."

I've never even held a newborn but I could feel and smell him with every fiber of my being as I read this paragraph. Ms. Cohen's entire novel is overflowing with glorious gemlike sentences. Please, do yourself a favor and download, purchase or borrow this book as soon as you can. Then let me know what you think.

Robert Macomber - Library Advocate

2011-11-04T09:24:00.000-04:00

Many years ago I read an article in the Fort Myers News-Press about a former sheriff's office employee whose love of sailing, charts, and history was taking him on a mid-life adventure, a career change of interest to me since I too was embarking upon a new career. Robert Macomber is a writer. I'm a librarian. Need I say more?

I've been following his trajectory from local author to internationally recognized purveyor of deeply researched maritime novels and fascinating guest lecturer for the Cunard line of cruise ships. His quarterly newsletter is one of my favorite reads.
http://www.robertmacomber.com/Scuttlebutt.html

Yesterday I attended the annual meeting of the Southwest Florida Library Network where Mr. Macomber was the guest speaker. He had just made a PSA for Florida libraries and was full of support and kind words for researchers of all stripes. More to the point though, was his deeply held belief that a free public library is, and always will be, a cornerstone of a democracy. I was very moved.

Bob Macomber has traveled the world. I believe he said he has done "eye ball reconnaissance" in over 70 countries since he began writing his Honor series of books about naval intelligence officer Peter Wake. He holds one in thrall when he talks about the smells of a market in Marakesh or the sounds one hears on the Mekong River at night. You can't make this up. It needs to be experienced in the flesh.

It reminded me of something I read and loved on Barbara Hoffert's Library Journal blog a few weeks ago, a quote from St. Augustine: "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
Military history, fiction or non, has never been my cup of tea. Yet I'm going to open myself up to a new genre, go outside my comfort zone, and read Bob's newest book in the series, Honor Bound (I understand that they can stand alone), which is centered in Haiti.

On another note, Thrity Umrigar has accepted an invitation to appear at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival in March and I had the opportunity to read and review her latest novel which will be released in January. I enjoyed The World We Found very much, as I have all of her books and look forward to meeting her soon. You can read my review at the link below: as always, scroll to the bottom.
http://bit.ly/oWU02K

Alice LaPlante's Knockout Debut

2011-10-30T16:58:00.000-04:00

Trust me, you will not be able to forget Dr. Jennifer White! This woman once excelled in her chosen field. As a renowned orthopedic surgeon who did not suffer fools gladly, she was a formidable presence in the OR, in the classroom, and even at home. She commanded respect and, no matter how brittle, she received love from her husband James, her kids Mark and Fiona, and a semblance of that complicated emotion from her best and only friend Amanda, a woman with whom she had a long-standing, prickly relationship, yet trusted with godparenting her children.

I speak of Dr. White in the past tense though Alice LaPlante presents Dr. White as the present tense narrator in her outstanding, unique, and yes, deeply disturbing debut novel, Turn of Mind. Dr. White suffers from early onset Alzheimers disease but is still able to live in her family home with a permanent care-giver as long as the money holds out and she behaves relatively well.

But readers learn, through Jennifer's stream of consciousness narration, that she is losing ground daily, a trait of early onset vs. the more dementia type alzheimer's which attacks later in life. What is sinister and devious about the disease is the roller coaster nature of conscious thought, capable of recalling exact details of long ago incidences yet unable to recognize Fiona or Mark when they come to visit. Her addled mind though, is still able to discern who means harm and who is caring or neutral in terms of her well being.

It's a remarkable, realistic, terrifying journey that LaPlante takes us on. The author's research into diseases of the brain must have been inordinately in-depth to create such a multi-faceted character, imperious, hard nosed, funny, and oh so sympathetic, even if we believe that she murdered her friend Amanda and surgically removed four fingers from one hand.

The police investigation of Amanda's death, with Dr. White at its core, is the ostensible subject of this book, but the subtext is what really keeps you reading late into the night. Family secrets are alluded to in snippets of Jennifer's memories, in the diary that visitors write in when they come so that Jennifer can keep a handle on her days, and in the tense conversations she often has with her troubled son Mark or with Fiona, who holds the purse strings.

LaPlante teaches creative writing at Stanford, no surprise there. She doles out clues, stirs in a few red herrings, throws us off the scent (though I managed to sniff it out), presenting us with a novel that's difficult to classify and all the better for that. It's a psychological thriller, a murder mystery, a character study, and a dysfunctional family drama, rolled into one knockout book. Unlike Lisa Genova's Still Alice, it isn't really about the disease per se, though it still convinced me to run, not walk, to a lawyer and get that will updated.

When She Woke - Be Very Afraid

2011-10-28T07:54:00.000-04:00

I was having such a love/hate relationship with this book that I almost cashed it in. I'm so glad that I didn't! Without a doubt, it's one of the most terrifying novels I've ever read. Though reviewers are saying it's supposed to be a modern day Scarlet Letter, I'm thinking that it's much more akin to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a book, I might add, that can still give me nightmares twenty some years after reading it.

Hannah Payne (initials H.P. like Hester Prynne) awakens in a hospital ward/prison as a "red." She is under 24 hour video surveillance by anyone in the entire country who wants to witness her shame and tragically, like a reality TV show, people do. She has been chromed.

You see, in the not too distant future - just imagine Rick Perry as your President - the United States (this particular novel begins in Texas) has become an evangelical Christian nation with laws that make Sharia look loosey goosey. The only problem is that the prisons are just too full and costly to maintain - sound familiar?
Criminals are treated with a drug that changes the color of their skin to match their crime. Hannah has had an abortion and to add to that sin, she has refused to give up the name of her lover or the doctor who took mercy on her and performed the procedure. Her red skin is now the outward symbol of her treachery, putting her at the mercy of vigilante groups like The Fist who can monitor her every move through advanced gps technology.

In this eerie time in our nation women are relegated to being seen and not heard. Their education consists of mastering the domestic arts, sewing, cooking, and raising a family. Their opinions are not solicited and, if offered, are ignored. Over a few generations, a woman might not realize what she's lost. But Hannah, who spends a horrifying few weeks in a halfway house undergoing "enlightenment" treatment, meets other women, in particular a college educated woman named Kayla, who offers her the possibility of another kind of life.

With the help of an underground railroad of activists called It's Personal, Hannah embarks upon a journey of self discovery, an awakening if you will, an arduous trip to safety and reversal treatment for her skin pigmentation. The question is, will she have the moral courage to proceed?

I just realized that I haven't yet mentioned the outstanding young author of this incredible novel, Hillary Jordan, whose first book, Mudbound, received all kinds of kudos. I suspect that, with this second endeavor, she has cemented her position as another one of these talented young writers who will be producing glorious works of literature for years to come.
http://www.hillaryjordan.com/

Europa Editions, You've Done it Again

2011-10-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

My love affair with this publisher continues unabated as they persist in putting out the loveliest looking books from Europe's best, I would guess, mid-list authors. No slam bam James Pattersons for Europa, no sir. The latest of their impressive releases is Laurence Cosse's An Accident in August, an absolutely stunning examination of the effects of guilt on the human psyche.

Like foreign films, these novels translated into English, are meant to be savored. They begin slowly and build gradually so that when you're hit between the eyes with the action it's shocking, unexpected and fabulous. This particular book would make a terrific movie. All the camera would have to do is follow Lou around for a week trained on her face. With the right actress for the role, the entire novel would be to told through her expressions.

Lou is a victim of Fate with a capitol F. At the wrong place, the entrance to the Alma tunnel in Paris, at the wrong time, the exact moment that Princess Di's Mercedes is barreling away from the hotel, her slow moving Fiat is clipped by the Mercedes as it rams out of control into a cement piling, resulting in the accident of the decade.
Lou is so stunned and shaken that she just continues to drive away, unaware of the famous victims she's abandoning in her wake, until the next morning, that is, when the media frenzy changes the direction of her life.

As Lou changes before our very eyes one wonders why her lover, Yvon, doesn't force her to unburden herself of the guilty load she's carrying. Cosse gets the reader inside Lou's head as she plots and schemes to cover her tracks and erase all evidence of her presence at the scene of the crash. One bad decision after another brought to my mind that old saying "oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive."

Cosse, whose A Novel Bookstore, I wrote about here last year, has outdone herself with this small but incisive character study that managed to shock me more than once by taking off in directions I never would have expected. This is a very satisfying read.

I'm sorry that I can't say the same for the madly far-fetched novel, The Informationist, which I also finished this week. Can someone who read this, Linda perhaps, tell me how early in the book you were able to surmise who the bad guy was? OK, admittedly, I stuck with it to its conclusion but Michael/Vanessa was without a doubt the most unbelievable character I've ever encountered in literature.

I almost laughed out loud at some of the deadly predicaments she managed to fight, slash, and shoot her way out of. Shades of 007 abound and the willing suspension of disbelief is a requirement if you intend to hang with Taylor Stevens to the end of this debut thriller. But don't take my word as the be all and end all, the Amazon reviewers went mad for this novel, comparing Michael Vanessa Monroe to Lizbeth Salander and pre-ordering the follow up due out in December.

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree....

2011-10-23T08:39:00.000-04:00

...of Forgetfulness. Not that long ago I raved here on this blog about Alexandra Fuller's story of her African childhood http://readaroundtheworld-sallyb.blogspot.com/search?q=don%27t+let%27s+go+to+the+dogs+tonight and now she's going to force me to do it again! I read the new book about her mother, Nicola Fuller, in a record two days and, though I was fully prepared to be appalled at the arrogance of these people who go into Africa and expect to make it their own with no concern for the people whose lands they are adopting, I was surprised and pleased to discover that Tim and Nicola Fuller did finally come to terms with the new Africa and made their peace with black rule.

Ms. Fuller had to face her mother's wrath after she opened her family up to criticism in Don't Let's go to the Dogs.... Her mom continues to refer to it as "that AWFUL book." Yet, Ms. Fuller's respect and love for her mother's resilience glows from every page of her latest reminiscences. Some of the stories I remembered from the first book. I knew that Nicola Fuller suffered from extreme bouts of depression and mania that caused her to over imbibe in alcohol. I knew that she was tough on every one around her, including her husband, daughters, and servants. Still, she never expected more of any of them than she expected of herself.

Under the tree of forgetfulness the now grown up Alexandra questions her larger than life mother Nicola about her dreams and regrets. Nicola Fuller's Scottish family had settled in Kenya during colonial rule. Africa was in her blood from a very young age so that the prejudices that she developed over time had trickled down through generations and would require time to dispel. When she met the like-minded Tim there was no doubt that they would settle on a farm in Africa despite the hardships, of which there were plenty.

Besides being a book about her mother, this is also a clear, understandable, brief history of the end of colonialism in parts of Africa. As a land owner in the former Rhodesia, Ms. Fuller's father was drafted into the army, often gone fighting for months at a time while Nicola kept the kids, the cattle and the crops under control, fending off stray soldiers who wanted them off what they considered their land.

Rhodesia eventually gained independence, becoming Zimbabwe, but still the Fullers would not be moved. "People often ask why my parents haven't left Africa. Simply put, they have been possessed by the land. Land is Mum's love affair and it is Dad's religion," says Alexandra, and though she currently lives in the United States, one senses that she too is constantly struggling against the pull of that continent. She has penned a beautiful love story to her parents and to the land where humanity began, a place that has mesmerized explorers for better or worse for centuries.

As someone who's recently returned from Africa and from weeks of talking with native Africans and Afrikaners like our guides Henk or the gun toting Max whose families have also lived in Africa for generations, I've tried to put myself in their shoes. I love my home, my little piece of land that I've cultivated and made my own over the past nearly thirty years.

The question is, would I feel justified in fighting for it if I was suddenly confronted by the unfortunate truth that this land belonged to the Seminoles, who were pushed further and further into the Everglades by northern developers generations ago. Hmmmm - it gives one pause, does it not?

Faith

2011-10-21T09:12:00.000-04:00

A five letter word so fraught with meaning that there are some who will refuse to even discuss it, faith is a powerful thing. What does it conjure up for you? As a kid being raised a Catholic, if we entertained doubts about the catechism and dared to openly question it, we were simply told that we had to believe, it was a matter of faith. When you're eight or ten years old that might be a good enough answer but as you mature you might think that it just doesn't fly. Personally, I'd prefer to entertain faith in the innate goodness of my fellow man, though that's been taking a beating lately too!

As it does in Jennifer Haigh's outstanding new novel, Faith. You don't need to be a Catholic, recovering, former, or otherwise, to appreciate Ms. Haigh's examination of the pedophilia scandal that's been plaguing the church for the past century, but it certainly added to the sense of familiarity I had while reading. You see, my Irish family had a deeply troubled priest in our midst so this novel really hit home.

Arthur Breen is a wonderfully complicated character, a popular and by all accounts successful priest, practicing (you've got to love that word) in a south Boston parish where his days are filled with hospital visits, council meetings, and long, comfortable silences with his loyal housekeeper and cook, Fran. But beneath this tranquil surface run longings and doubts long held in abeyance that bubble to the surface when Fran begins to supervise her grandson after school.

In 2002 in the Boston archdiocese all hell broke loose when it was discovered that abuse of children was running rampant throughout the priesthood and was being covered up by those in authority. Suspicion and accusations abounded in a "his word against mine" atmosphere that was difficult to counter. But this isn't really what Haigh's novel is about as much as it is the catalyst for a heartbreaking novel about family secrets, a failure to communicate, and that word again, faith.

When Arthur is accused of molesting Fran's grandson it seems an outrageous lie, especially to his mother, steeped in the rigors of Catholic tradition, and his half sister Sheila, the one person with whom Arthur can normally be himself. But when Sheila rises to his defense Arthur withdraws even from her, planting seeds of doubt that will plague her conscience as she tells the story in flashbacks.

Every single character in Haigh's brave, tragic novel is so nuanced, so believable, that I felt I knew each one of them. Their motivations, actions and reactions make perfect sense and I love that she doesn't judge them or make caricatures of them. From Arthur's half-brother Michael, former tough guy who married up and made good, to his once bullying step-father, now suffering from dementia, to Aiden's mother Kath, a barely recovering addict wounded over and over by wrong men and wrong choices, Jennifer Haigh has penned a novel that cries out to be a movie with the scope of Mystic River.

I hope that my customers at the library feel the same way since we'll be discussing this novel in a few weeks as our 2011-2012 season gets into full swing. I'll also be tackling Ann Patchet's new book State of Wonder, Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife, and Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Shin.

A Small Hotel

2011-10-19T08:04:00.000-04:00

One of those authors who's always been on my "to read" list is Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler. I'm glad that I didn't wait for retirement to get to him. Reviews, not to mention the cover, of A Small Hotel, beckoned to me. I finished it this morning and had to write immediately.

The Olivier House in New Orleans, room 306, has been a refuge for Kelly and Michael since their first encounter twenty years ago, a crazy Mardi Gras night when Kelly, disguised as Catwoman, strayed from her friends and wandered into a dangerous situation.
Michael could have come off as a caricature of the tall, dark stranger swooping in to rescue the damsel in distress but in Butler's capable hands it feels not only plausible but so right that he would take Kelly back to room 306 and offer to give her privacy for the evening until she regains a sense of safety and trust.

In fact, trust is a major player in this tight little novel of a relationship in which the words unsaid threaten to unravel the finely honed agreement between husband and wife, between father and daughter, that has been forged from one generation to the next. "I love you." Three little words fraught with meaning. Do we say them so often that they lose their power to convey their depth? Or do we withold the words to avoid losing ourselves in someone else?

Butler teaches creative writing at FSU, a coup for that university for sure! I read the first sentence of the book and was caught up in the pleasure of the words. "On the afternoon of the day when she fails to show up in a judge's chambers in Pensacola to finalize her divorce, Kelly Hays........" The entire novel will take place over the course of one evening in room 306 where Kelly will relive the highs and lows of her marriage to Michael, who is reliving the same, though he is in another hotel with another woman only fifty miles down the road.

This book, in only 239 pages, manages to beautifully convey the complications, the baggage we now call it, that we take from our childhoods, store away in our psyches, and unconciously unpack in our adulthood, thwarting our ability to make connections. When you think about it, it's a miracle that there are as many fulfilling relationships as there are out there and that we continue to try, in the face of daunting odds, proves the old adage that hope springs eternal. For more on Robert Olen Butler check out his website at
http://www.robertolenbutler.com/

Old Hippies Never Die.....

2011-10-16T17:38:00.000-04:00

......I'll admit that my memories of that first march on Washington in the late '60's have become somewhat jumbled up in my head with other memories of DC, where I spent lots of time and lived for the summer between my junior and senior years of college. What I do remember is the sincerity with which my buddies and I drove to Falls Church that spring where we were to all camp out, girls upstairs, guys in the basement, at the home of one of my college chums. Her dad was a colonel, having served in Viet Nam and recently returned to the U.S. We were there to march in hopes of ending this deadly, unpopular war that was threatening to take our brothers, lovers, and friends.

We were terrified of Col. Hamblen - he seemed so formidable - but I think often of what an intuitive and sensible dad he was. His daughter was pretty headstrong - why tell her and her crew what they can't do? In stead he welcomed us to take his hospitality and to join the march - perhaps a little part of him agreed with us? On another visit he invited us to the Pentagon for lunch - obviously pre-Homeland Security. I found his impressive obituary the other day and understood a lot. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/alhamblenjr.htm

We thought we were being careful, sensing that we were a part of something so much greater than ourselves, a turning point. Until the tear gas began to roll over us from up ahead. I can tell you that it only takes a second for panic to set in and chaos to reign.

Over the years I've been so fortunate to be able to travel to various dream destinations - dreams to me anyway - and it never seems to fail that I arrive just as something momentous is happening and I'm thrown back to the '60's and that pride that one feels for taking a stand. In Florence, in the middle of an anti-Bush rally, our tour company asked us to forgo the city as it wouldn't be safe for Americans. Andiamo, we replied, voting for Florence and maybe even to take up a banner!

In Paris a few years ago Don and I were out strolling one evening, drawn to the glorious sight of the illuminated tour Eiffel . As we neared we could hear low singing, chanting almost, and closer still, we saw hundreds of people with candles lit and swaying. You got it, a peace rally. C'est magnifique!

Athens? We arrived only a month after the worst rioting in years to see bank windows boarded up or taped, paint stains that had splattered the sidewalks. We spoke with locals who explained their anger to us and, as we generally do, we empathized with these people. The advent of the euro had not been the panacea the government had hoped for. The gap between the wealthy and the working poor was growing all too quickly.

So I wasn't even remotely surprised when we arrived in the Mpumalanga delta outside Nelspruit, South Africa, for our week long stay at a lovely lodge on acres of land basically in the middle of nowhere, to find that there would be no housekeeping service or food service that week as there was to be a strike! Yes! Right up my alley. I didn't need to ask why, (but of course Don did) you have to know how underpaid these workers are - I worked as a housekeeper myself back in the hard days. They were asking for a 50 rand per month increase, about $6.00. We wished them all the luck in the world.

All this was brought home to me the other day when I began to read about the movement Occupy Wall Street which is spreading across the country. My faith in Americans has been revitalized! I'm so happy that FINALLY someone is mad as hell and doesn't want to take it any more. I was working this past Saturday and will be for the next few but kudos to my buddies, my old hippies, who were in downtown Ft. Myers this weekend walking to Bank of America. I'll join you as soon as I can.

Enright's The Forgotten Waltz

2011-10-13T08:16:00.000-04:00

Like a drug addict, book addicts have similar nightmares, that is, being somewhere without something to read! And so it was that, even though I had loaded my Nook with plenty of reading material, my deep seated fear of being without a book got to me. What if the battery life wasn't as long as advertised? What if our electrical adapter didn't work in the bush? I packed light, I'm getting really good at that, but what harm could it cause if I threw in just one paperback?

Thanks to my friend Jessica I had an autographed copy of Anne Enright's new book The Forgotten Waltz, so on a day of rest, when I needed respite from the heartbreak of The Warmth of Other Suns, I settled into another kind of heartbreak - relationships. Enright won a Booker Prize a few years ago so you know that the writing here is stellar. We settled in on our porch, periodically joined by the peacocks, Don making a spreadsheet of our expenses (thank goodness he enjoys that kind of thing!) and me to my novel. I couldn't put it down.

I've said this before and I have to say it again. How on earth do writers of distinction like Enright take the mundane happenings of anyone's everyday life and turn them into high drama, suspense, and raw, biting humor? How do they create characters so flawed yet so sympathetic? How do they take the "same old, same old" story of an affair and a divorce and elevate it to literature? I'm so envious!

Two sisters, Gina and Fiona, two men, Conor and Sean, both pairs as different in make up as any pair can be, are the central characters, but the heart of the story, the catalyst, is really Sean's strangely "different" daughter Evie. Because of Evie's misbehavior, because Gina needed to sneak away for a smoke, because Sean, too, was putting distance between himself and his wife Aileen, eyes met and an unspoken world of knowledge passed briefly between Aileen and Gina, then Gina and Sean.

It would be a few years before Gina and Sean would act upon their attraction, keeping the affair secret for as long as possible, but one knows these things don't often go unnoticed by those around us. What's interesting, in retrospect, is that the reader doesn't truly "get" the attraction between these two and at times Gina and Sean question it themselves. The more visceral feelings this reader got was for the discarded spouses, the innocent, almost puppy dog-like, loveable Conor, and the cold, suspicious, but knowing Aileen.

Their individual reactions as knowledge of the affair becomes clear are so palpably realistic that I shake my head in wonder. This novel is spot on in its depiction of a disintegrating marriage, the suspicions, the guilt, the crazy mad sex as Conor and Gina try desperately to recreate their initial attraction, then the unwinding of shared responsibilites, the house, the bank accounts, the families turning away in disappointment and disgust. It's all too sordid yet all too impeccably depicted.

Enright is brilliant! This novel is far from uplifting but, as literature goes, it's an inspiration.

The Warmth of Other Suns

2011-10-10T06:43:00.000-04:00

Isabel Wilkerson's (http://isabelwilkerson.com/) National Book Critics Circle award winning book was the perfect companion piece to my tour of South Africa. The irony of the fact that sanctions were placed on South Africa's Apartheid regime (by most civilized countries but notably NOT by the United States), while our own citizens were suffering under the more sinister, unspoken rules of Jim Crow, was not lost on me.

In fact, while I was drawn to and loved the quote from Richard Wright's Black Boy regarding the "warmth of other suns," I wondered toward the end of this phenomenal book whether or not Ms. Wilkerson was using the title sarcastically. The truth is that the families whose lives she scrupulously follows over a forty year time period were not welcomed with warmth as they migrated from the cotton fields of the south to the factories of the north. Because the prejudice was more nuanced than the do's and don't's of the south, they wounded even more deeply and were more difficult to navigate.

It's no mystery why Isabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. The Warmth of Other Suns reflects years of in-depth research yet there isn't a dry moment in this almost 600 page volume. For those who like to catagorize things, this is one of those "non-fiction that reads like fiction" type of books. It's one that needs to be read in sections and then put aside for a while for something lighter, then returned to. These stories are true and they're not easy to take.

How does one begin to tell the story of "America's great migration?" The subject matter is so enormous, the task of getting her mind around it must have been daunting. Ms. Wilkerson wisely chose to follow the lives of three disparate families as representatives of the whole, a theme that personalizes the struggle for readers the way no history book could. I'll admit to having had some knowledge of the flight of black families from the south as my friend Don's mother was one of those who followed an aunt from Mississippi to Los Angeles, California in the late 30's.

George Swanson Starling's story was the most eye-opening for me. A citrus fruit picker from Eustis, Florida, George was an early activist for better pay for field workers and, with a couple of years of community college under his belt, was seen as "too big for his britches." He chafed under the harsh treatment he suffered and knew himself well enough to understand that he'd end up at the wrong end of a rope if he didn't escape. Harlem was his destination.
Florida, I'm sorry to say, has an abominable history of civil rights violations, lynchings, and burnings of whole towns, just read about Rosewood, yet it doesn't often suffer the stigma of the so-called deep south of say Alabama or Mississippi.

Ida Mae Gladney had family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but put down roots in Chicago where the South Side was becoming home to a future black middle class like Michelle Obama's parents. Dr. Robert Pershing, a surgeon good enough to operate on soldiers during WW II, but not able to touch a white patient in his own hometown, Monroe, Louisiana, endured the humiliation of the cross country drive to California without the respite of a bedroom or a bathroom along the way, only to find that LA would not greet him with open arms. It took him several years to achieve his goals and bring his wife and children west to join him in the land of mild and honey.

These families are not set up as gods but are portrayed with all the warmth and humanity of any family just trying to do better than the previous generation. They give honest interviews and Wilkerson does not shirk from illuminating their weaknesses as well as their strengths. They are simply fellow Americans with all the foibles and nobility of each of us.

Please, do yourself a favor and delve into this incredible book. If we are ever to learn from our mistakes, avoid repeating a shameful piece of our history, or want to understand why some believe that reparations in the form of education or a leg up is due to the families of sharecroppers and former slaves, then books like Wilkerson's or Rebecca Skloot's Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks are must reading. It's easy to visit other countries and shake our collective heads at the rights violations that we see but it behooves us to remember that "he among us who is without sin can cast the first stone."

A Day Like No Other!

2011-10-08T16:56:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while you begin to feel your age and it really is so irritating, you know? I had planned this day for so long, knowing it would be a once in a lifetime deal (and it was), but make no mistake, I was not a happy camper with the weather! I’m in Africa, am I not? Where’s the heat?

Henk picked us up at 5AM for our trip to Skukuza Gate at Kruger Park. It’s a school holiday week here so he expected the lines to be long – they weren’t – and, because of the gray, drizzly, overcast, he told us we’d see a lot more animals – we did!

I’ll tell you that I’ve never been one for zoos or animal parks. I hated the circus as a kid, it terrified me, had a sinister feeling to it that I just couldn’t shake, and that watching Water for Elephants on the plane over here did nothing to dispel! Seeing caged or impaired movement in the animal kingdom goes against nature and causes me to be too depressed to enjoy it. Whenever I hear of an animal retaliating against its keeper I do a silent fist bump.

So it is with great joy that one experiences the animals in the wild in a paradise like Kruger, an animal refuge as large as the state of Israel. It’s difficult to comprehend. Even with an experienced guide like Henk your head is on a constant swivel, straining into the veld to catch a movement. One can only marvel at the creativity of mother nature and the way she shields her charges from harm, their coats of many colors blending so well with their surroundings and changing with the seasons.

An elusive Kudu spotted by Don. My favorites, I thought were the giraffes until we spotted the herd of zebra!

But then how can you resist the Impalas who rove in large groups for protection, I’m sorry to say that mother nature has determined that they are the weakest link in the wild and are there to feed the more aggressive animals, in particular, the lions (of which we only spotted one elusive guy resting on a rock).

We left this area of the Kruger around 2 in the afternoon to meet up with a character right out of a novel. A rifle toting tracker, Magda, who prefers to be called Max, was to take us on the next leg of our day, to a private game reserve within Kruger where we would transfer to open top Land Rovers for a four hour game drive that would place us right in the middle of the animals’ territory. This was to be the highlight of our day – why oh why did it begin to rain with a vengeance? The temperature dropped to about 50 something and all I could think of were Ann’s last words to me as I left for vacation, “don’t come back sick.”

The Physical Beauty of South Africa

2011-10-07T09:03:00.001-04:00

After a lay-a-bout day of rest we got up early for our first of two full days that we had booked with Henk and Lizelle Gous, an extremely hard working couple who run Sundowners Tours. Henk was oddly apologetic that some other people were going to be joining us but we were thrilled when we saw it was the four young women we had met the previous day as they rode horses through the compound. You could just tell right away that they were going to be fun!

What can I say about Henk? He’s been extremely helpful and professional with us but – if we were back in the States – we would not likely be friends. In Florida you’d refer to him as a “good old boy,” (God, Guns, Family) and he now and then slipped and let certain prejudices surface “the Indians always do this, or Muslims are taking over.” Somehow it’s easier to ignore these comments or try to understand where he's coming from but you can see that the rift the will always be here between the blacks and the Afrikaners, a divide that’s been hundreds of years in the making.

We took off on our Panorama Tour to see the beauty of the African countryside and found the beauty in our traveling companions as well, four single gals who work for the government pension office in Pretoria. Mathilde, especially, was so well-read and informed, that we learned more from her over the course of the day about the political situation here in SA and how young people see the future of their country than I think we had up to this point.

In the meantime, Henk had the chance to share his obvious love and pride in his country and we got to see it through his eyes. Blyde River Canyon, a place that could pass for a miniature Grand Canyon, the Three Rondovals, a mountain range of mysterious formations, and God’s Window, a secret place where the clouds come down to cover the view one moment and retreat the next to reveal a breathtaking sight.

And yes, it was cold and cloudy! Who knew you’d be cold in Africa?

If there’s one thing that white and black agree on, sadly, it’s the massive corruption in the current South African government. How does a man like Jacob Zuma, who spent time as a political prisoner on Robben Island for speaking out for the underserved, end up ignoring them for his own enrichment? That’s a tough thing to swallow. How tragic to hear 35 year old Mathilde, a woman who must remember the horrors of Apartheid, posit that perhaps the country would be better off returning to it. What could she mean by that? Thankfully, I later chatted with Thulia, only ten years younger, who sees nothing but a positive, co-operative government in her future. My hope is with the young!

Wet and Wild Sudwala Welcome

2011-10-07T08:40:00.001-04:00

Friday we vacated the understated luxury of An African Villa, www.anafricanvilla.com for the puddle jumper that would take us up to Nelspruit and our week of rest at the Sudwala Lodge, a glorious piece of property about an hour from several gates to Kruger National Park. While waiting to board the plane in Joburg I noticed a woman in full black chador, nothing visible but her deep brown eyes and amazingly smooth young woman’s hands, engrossed in a dog eared paperback that I assumed (you know what they say about those who assume) was the Koran. What a laugh I had at myself when I found her sitting next to me on the flight. The book that had her so intent? Danielle Steel!

After grocery shopping, we’re in a self catering unit but there is a restaurant on premise, we settled in with Henk from Sundowners-Tours to plan our week. Yes, we wanted a safari in Sabie Sands and yes, we wanted a day in Kruger, but we also wanted to be sure that we could just sit around and read. Our chalet is about a half mile walk to the restaurant and, though it was pouring down a much needed rain, we set out for a hot meal. Sadly, the restaurant had closed, only a few staff members sitting outside waiting for their rides home.

As we began the return trek the thunder and lightning stepped up their commotion and suddenly we were thrust into utter darkness. Not a light to be seen anywhere throughout the compound. We had yet to reconnoiter or to remotely have familiarized ourselves with the grounds and I immediately went into full panic mode. Don, with the calm of a pilot who suddenly loses his instruments, found our way back by stopping, waiting for a lightning strike, and then walking until another one guided us safely home. We found out later than the emergency generator goes off at 10 pm. In other words, most folks should have been in bed, not out looking for food!

Speaking of food, and wine, or was I speaking of wine? Americans can do VERY well here with the exchange rate. On average, 80 rand = one U.S. dollar. We have yet to pay more than ten bucks for any meal and the food is outstanding everywhere we go. Wine? A normal bottle of the local pinotage, quite a bit stronger than our pinot noir grape, runs three to four dollars. A splurge might go as high as $7!

The windows here are all floor to ceiling wood framed glass, the roof is faux thatch because the baboons ate the real thatch roofs! They try very hard to give one an authentic feeling of being outdoors and within nature. They needn’t have worked so hard. This is what greeted us Saturday morning after our good night’s sleep Friday:

Deon Meyer's Cape Town

2011-10-03T07:24:00.000-04:00

A very different picture emerges when you read the dark thrillers of Deon Meyer. He recently appeared at a reading festival in Cape Town which we missed by just a few days. That was a disappointment! Still, I had made sure to download at least one of his novels to have with me while visiting this city that seems to have a noir underbelly which is only alluded to by your shopkeepers and hoteliers.

Devil’s Peak is a tough read for those who may not have started at the beginning of the series. Benny Griessel is an Afrikaaner, an intuitively astute detective on the verge of collapse. He is a raging alcoholic and at the beginning of this story, he has been kicked out by his wife Anna and given an ultimatum, 6 months to get it together if he wants his job and family back. I don’t think I’ve ever read such a compelling, devastating description of what goes on in the mind of a person whose only reason for existence is the next drop of alcohol.

There are two cases going on in the novel, one is being told in retrospect by Christine, a young, single mom who has turned to prostitution to support herself and her daughter Sonia. Her reasoning is clear-eyed and sensible but she didn’t bank on Carlos Santenegra, a proud drug baron whose possessiveness and jealousy moves him to begin stalking her, beating her other clients, and finally asking her to move into his Camps Bay compound where she’ll be monitored 24/7 by his henchmen.

On the other hand there is an ongoing situation involving a vigilante killer who employs an unusual weapon, an old-fashioned, assegai, warrior’s spear. Benny is in rehab, only 9 days sober, but has been assigned to head up this investigation, to resentful doubts from his co-workers. An additional concern is that many on the department believe that the murderer is doing the right thing, targeting pedophiles and baby killers whom the laws can’t seem to convict.

These two stories move toward each other at a compelling speed until you simply can’t put the book down. Underlying the traditional police procedural is Meyer’s nuanced take on post-Apartheid South Africa. He manages to show readers the tenuous truces that have been made between blacks, coloreds, and Afrikaaners while allowing his characters’ actions to also explicate the simmering resentments still there beneath the surface.

Cape Town - First Impressions

2011-10-03T07:21:00.000-04:00

My first impression of Cape Town was that I could have been in any city in the United States - perhaps that’s why so many Americans who come to South Africa rave over its beauty. It better fits their comfort zone. For me, after Senegal and Joburg, I kept wondering, “where are the Africans?”

I soon found out. As we drove in from the airport our guide tried to avoid talking about the corrugated iron shanty towns that sit in the bowl of this glorious city surrounded by mountains and the sea. One million souls subsist in these places that are truly indescribable to someone who hasn’t seen them. No slum in the United States would look like this. It seems that, after the end of apartheid in the ‘90’s, the new government promised to build housing for all those who had been disenfranchised, but they couldn’t possibly provide housing for so many.

The majority of these people were denied an education or a means to make a living so, even in new housing, how would they provide food for their families? We’ve been told by various taxi drivers and guides so many tragic stories unknown to most of the world. In this case, people rented their new government provided homes in order to earn enough money to get by, continuing to live in the shacks.

On the waterfront, named ironically for previous oppressors of the African people, you can purchase souvenirs at the very finest name brand stores. You’ll also find Sotheby’s for real estate sales, Dior for fashion, and fine wines and beers. 100 yards away you may decide to board the catamaran that will take you to another world, Robben Island, home of political prisoners accused of treason by the apartheid government for “plotting” to take back their country.

Most readers will know the most famous prisoner held in cell #7, Nelson Mandela, and will be appalled at the size of the cell, the austerity and loneliness of the island, the bone chilling cold, a wind that never rests, the work in the mines and the cruelty that segregated even the prisoners into blacks and others. Blacks received fewer grams of food. More horrific than what you see on Robben Island is the fact that you are being lead on your tour by former prisoners.

Our guide told about the time the world finally received news that people were being mistreated here. A delegation of journalists were sent by the BBC to verify the reports. Prisoners who were formerly clothed in ragged shorts, not even underwear or socks, were given warm, full length farmer’s jeans and jackets to wear for the photo shoot. The second it was over, so was their comfort.

Yes, I am getting an education. As I’ve written previously, this is why one travels. But please, don’t think it is all so horribly depressing. It has been an eye-opening adventure, the best of which is the people we have met. All Don has to do is ask an open ended question of a cabbie, a tour guide, a person sitting next to us on a boat or bus and it’s fabulous! It’s like speaking to living encyclopedias. We share, we spar, and we understand another’s point of view. At the end of the day, we sit over our wine and meal , discussing what we’ve discovered, what we didn’t expect, what was a revelation and we marvel at all that we have in common with the rest of the world.

We are now spending a week unconnected to the world, no phone, no Internet, just days of listening to the wildlife and reading. Wait until I tell you about today!!

Are you out there readers?

2011-09-29T16:39:00.000-04:00

I've been sending emails and updates from all over Africa and haven't heard from ANY one. Are you out there? Are you reading? We are heading for Nelspruit in the morning and may be incommunicado while out in Kruger Park. Is anyone listening? Am I writing into the wilderness? Hoping to hear from someone soon. This isn't easy, blogging at the end of a twelve hour day. Just let me know, OK?
Respondez-vous s'il plais. Then I'll tell you about our fabulous meal at Rick's American Cafe tonight. Were we in Morocco? No, it just felt like it.

Education, the Way up and out

2011-09-28T03:36:00.000-04:00

We have been staying in a suburb of Johannesburg called Melville. Apparently at one time, this was an uppercrust white area, "up on the hill," but now is a bohemian gathering place for students from the nearby main campus of the University of Johannesburg. Used book stores abound along with plenty of wine bars. :-)

The interesting thing is that security is so very tight. One doesn't feel afraid or exposed walking around the area yet the houses are like armed fortresses. One can barely see or appreciate the beauty behind the walls. What this tells us, of course, is that the ever widening gap between the haves and have nots is alive and well. How to change this? Education is the answer. And so, we made our way to the university to walk the campus and talk with students and professors alike.

Naturally our first stop was the library where we announced ourselves at the reference desk and had a chat with Tyson, a master degreed librarian who did a search for Don who's looking for some books on pre-colonial Africa. Up to the sixth floor we went dodging students every step of the way. There was such a vibrant atmosphere there, every table and computer being used, but the books were is such sad condition, ancient, falling apart and falling over from use. We thought immediately of Better World Books and wished that we could designate some of our Florida discards to this school.

Grad students in the history department - a rainbow nation. These folks will stay in school as the job prospects are less than rosy, as in the states. They tutor and work on advanced degrees. They tell us that there is very little written about pre-colonial Africa as the students don't see the "relevance" to their current lives. We tell them that if they don't learn from the past they're bound to repeat it. I suddenly feel very old.

Johannesburg-Day 2

2011-09-26T06:25:00.000-04:00

A day of rest today emotionally and physically as we ponder all that we've seen so far. Our South African guide, Linda, picked us up at 7:15 yesterday morning for our tour of Soweto, the Hector Peterson museum, Nelson Mandela home and the overwhelming - I'm using that word a lot lately - Apartheid Museum which I find very similar in set up and thought to the Holocaust museum in DC.

Linda was an extremely politically astute young man and seemed to feel free to talk with us openly about his thoughts on the past and the current climate in South Africa. We were the only ones with him and I'm sure Don's questions provoked him to open up.
He took us by his father's home in Soweto and, much to our surprise, especially Don's who was here in the '80's, his Soweto neighborhood was similar in value and appearance to my own Florida neighborhood. Not all is as you see on the news and we discussed at length how the media has an agenda that not everyone has the ability to see through.

That's not to say that there isn't extreme poverty because there is. The government is doing its best to build new housing where once there were only corrugated iron roofs and cardboard sides. Water and electricity are slowly being brought to the worst areas so that the women won't have to walk with their jugs to the local fountain and carry the water back to their homes on their heads. This is still prevalent in many places,

Originally developed as migrant housing - sound familiar? - these worst areas of Soweto segregated males and females in long dormitory like areas where they were forced to sleep up to 12 to a room. They came to work in the gold mines for which Johannesburg is famous, for a salary of about 10 cents a day, or was it a week. Upon leaving the mines at night, they were stripped naked and searched to insure that they hadn't confiscated any small pieces.

Only minutes away is a booming city that could be New York or Chicago with high rise towers, hotels and world class restaurants. We are staying in an outlying area called Melville which is very young and hip, home to a branch of the U. of Johannesburg, where we'll be walking to this afternoon as, naturally, we must check out the library and the local bookstores.

It's truly mind boggling to think that it's only been less than twenty years since apartheid was the law of the land here in South Africa. The Apartheid Museum should probably be an all-day experience with a break for lunch. I had read that one would need a minimum of three hours to see and absorb it all. We were only halfway through in two.

When we got our tickets, I was given the non-white entrance and Don was given the whites only entrance ticket, a clever trope that tries to get you into a segregated state of mind. It wasn't quite horrific enough though. We met inside to begin the run up to the historical events that shaped the separation of the races in South Africa, a shame from which I'm not sure they can ever recover.
Truth and Reconciliation can only go so far when an entire people has been deliberately kept unemployed and uneducated. We asked our young guide how he saw the future for his generation of black South Africans and his reply echoed much of my same thoughts. Though one cannot exist in a constant state of negativity - he prefers to make lemons from lemonade - he does not believe that his generation has made enough progress. It is very disheartening.

Meanwhile, yes, I'm finding time to read and will report on books eventually. Meanwhile, stick with me as I continue my little travelogue of our eye-opening adventures in Africa. Everywhere we go we find wonderful, interesting folks to talk with. Last night, while looking for a quiet supper destination, we ended up exchanging cards with an art gallery owner from Ethiopia and getting book recommendations from a feminist performance art producer attending a local conference. Go figure!

Senegal, Initial Impressions

2011-09-22T16:29:00.000-04:00

I don't have the time right now to do full justice to all that I'm thinking and feeling about my first days in Africa - Don and I are having wine and cheese in our room and talking about our day. Since over 90% of Senegalese are Muslim and do not drink, we will not dishonor our hostess, the proprietor of our bed and breakfast, by drinking in the common areas. She is preparing dinner as I type - and an excellent cook she is!

We have seen so much in just two days and I'm overwhelmed by how safe I feel, how lovely the smiles, how fascinating the people, not to mention educated. They may not have college degrees but we haven't met anyone who can't speak a minimum of three languages and smatterings of more. I'm ashamed that I can barely summon my high school French, the main language of Senegal, in which to communicate.

What struck me immediately was how much construction is going on here. If some of our unemployed contractors came over here they could likely make a fortune. New apt. buildings are going up all over where there has never been residential construction before.
On the other hand, in residential neighborhoods, all the streets are sand. Garbage pick up is free for all people but you must sign up and, since many don't, young boys in horse drawn carts, will go around and pick up trash for a few cfa - one u. s. dollar being 500 cfa. A half hour cab ride into the city runs under 5 bucks! The traffic though is mind boggling. We have swerved for goats in the capital city!

Today we went to Goree Island which some of my readers may not know about. That is a blog of its own and will come after I've percolated what I've seen, as my friend Andrea would say. It's the site of a holocaust that we don't study about in the history books - the site of the death of over 6 million Africans at the hands of the Europeans who had nothing on Hitler.

When we get to Johannesburg I will try to take a day to post some photos of our guides, Sineta George, the owner of the b and b, and some of the landmarks that we've seen. There are rolling black outs with the electricity and I want to recharge the batteries.

One More Before I Go

2011-09-20T10:52:00.000-04:00

It seems as though I've been listening to this book forever, which means I've been slacking off on my exercising. However, after 11 discs, I'm finally completely enthralled by Julie Orringer's remarkably sophisticated debut novel The Invisible Bridge. I've read other reviews and have found that many agree with me that the first 100 pages or so were difficult to latch on to. I now know why.

Ms. Orringer had to lay out her plot with a perfectionist's detail in order for the rest of the novel to move forward. She needed to allow the reader to become totally invested in the characters before she brought down the full wrath of Hitler's army on them.

I've always been a bit of a fanatic about the World War II era, reading all that I could get my hands on. One faction of that time that I didn't have as much knowledge about was the Hungarian side of the equation. When Andras Levi manages to leave his family in Budapest for the famed Parisian school of architecture, one would think that he had the world as his oyster. For a few years of poverty stricken student life, shared with a cadre of friends in equally straightened circumstances, he would earn a bright future.

But timing is everything. It's the 1930's and the sinister rumblings of war are everywhere. Andras and his friends are Jewish and argue daily about what that will mean to them in the future. Optimists like Andras fail to see the writing on the wall until it's almost too late. Others leave Paris for America, or back to Hungary, hoping to avoid a war that is inevitable.

Underlying the historical nature of this huge novel is a love story - or several love stories really - though the focus is on Andras and his Klara, an "older" woman, 32 years old, raising a headstrong teenage daughter. Klara Morganstern has a mysterious backstory that readers will guess at pretty easily but it serves as the final push when Klara is deciding whether or not she can trust Andras with her love and her future.

I'll admit to losing patience with Klara and Andras at first as the story revolved solely around their angst . I wanted to shake them and say, "look around you at what's happening. How can you think that your petty concerns can top what's happening in the world?" But then, of course, I realized that that's just the point, isn't it? And how perceptive of Orringer to get that. Even as our present world seems to be chaotically falling down around us, we continue on with our daily routines, our lives and loves, because what else can you do? How human we are!

I am now completely invested in the future for these wonderful, fully realized characters. The only reason I'm not walking and listening this morning is that it's dreary and rainy here in Maryland and it's almost time to jump in the shower and double check the suitcases. We leave for the airport at 1. As the plane wings its way to Africa I'll be back with Klara and Levi, feeling the pit in my stomach as they realize that the winds of war are upon them and that their lives will be forever marked by it.

Once again a novice writer has knocked it out of the ball park, Where do they come up with their ideas? How do they discipline themselves to sit and put these ideas to paper? How to take a subject as old as the hills and make it fresh and new? It's amazing! This novel would be an excellent companion piece to the non-fiction book about the run-up to war by Erik Larson and discussed at my library last week, In the Garden of Beasts.

An African Affair

2011-09-16T08:29:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not quite there yet and no, I'm not having an affair. I did however, wake up at 5-something this morning to finish Nina Darnton's espionage novel set in Lagos, Nigeria. Years ago my friend Maryellen and I attended a session of the Sarasota Reading Festival at which we met a writer we'd not heard of previously. His name was John Darnton and he was touting a book called The Darwin Conspiracy. I bought it and kept my eyes open after that for anything by him. I'm sure I blogged about his second novel Black and White and Dead All Over, a wonderfully snarky take on the newspaper industry from which Mr. Darnton is retired.

Imagine my surprise to see a new book come up for purchase by his wife Nina. No slouch, Mrs. Darnton was also a contributor to the New York Times, Newsweek and The Post and lived in Africa for five years. Unfortunately, she knows whereof she writes and it isn't a pretty picture. In Africa, as all around the globe, corruption runs rampant at the highest levels of government.
Whenever you have a country that's ripe for exploitation, and we all know of Nigeria's ravaged oil fields, you have power grabs, tribal warfare and the ubiquitous presence of the CIA. Oh, and that's not to mention the aptly named mercenary organization Solutions, Inc. (better known to us as, let's see, Halliburton, KBR)

Of course, this all makes for great fiction. If only it wasn't so true. I suspect that our protaganist, Lindsay Cameron, is Ms. Darnton's alter-ego. In Lagos because she landed a coveted interview with President Olumide, a man who has promised his people free elections and a democratic society, Lindsay takes up with James, a slick, clever, cool customer who is ostensibly a dealer in African art.

Lindsay is passionate about her work as a journalist and Darnton does a decent job of getting the reader to understand what it's like to get that adrenaline rush when pursuing a story. But her best creation is the sinister James Duncan. I didn't trust him from the moment he was introduced so I had to wonder, why did Lindsay? He never made direct eye contact - don't you hate that? He never directly answered a question. He was always disappearing for days or weeks at a time and his cell phone was always mysteriously "out of range." Hmmmmm He was often sexually unavailable. Now THAT doesn't seem right.

After an inauspicious beginning, this thriller picks up big time. As assassinations pile up and Lindsay is twice attacked and warned off her stories, the reader has a more and more difficult time trying to distinguish the good guys from the bad. Perhaps that's because no one is really innocent of the blood shed in these countries where everyone has his own agenda and loyalty to tribe trumps loyalty to country. What Ms. Darnton, to her credit, won't let the reader forget is the "collateral damage," the children and families of those caught up in the struggle for a better, safer life, a life I'm afraid that we still take for granted here in America.

This will likely be my last blog post before I head off to Africa to learn about it for myself. I'm hoping for good Internet connections and will try to find time to write and post photos of this huge adventure. If I run out of things to say - laugh if you must - I'll write about our upcoming book discussions at my library. In the meantime, my latest book review, a very disappointed look at David Guterson's latest called Ed King, is on the Library Journal website for your perusal. It was difficult to believe that this was the same man who gave us Snow Falling on Cedars. You know the drill, scroll down to "G."
http://bit.ly/q4gQRG

Addicted to Books!

2011-09-07T18:40:00.000-04:00

What happens when a book addict goes on vacation? Suitcases are weighed, every ounce is precious, we must leave room for gifts, but what if you're halfway through the second week and you, horror or horrors, run out of books? The advent of e-readers has gone a long way to solving this dilemma but it's so annoying to be told one has to shut off one's "electrical" device during take off and landing. In the middle of a good story? I don't think so!

So, what have I done as I prepare for this three week sojourn on another continent? Well, yes, I've loaded the Nook with an eclectic assortment of titles that includes African mystery writer Deon Myer, about whom I've blogged before, Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns, Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and an old one I always thought I'd like to read "when I had the time," Pillars of the Earth.

Even with these choices though, I still want to throw a couple of paperbacks in my carry-on. Decisions, decisions! Meanwhile, I just received a wonderful title from Library Journal to be read and reviewed before I head out. It's a new release - next January - by Thrity Umrigar who is going to join us at the Southwest Florida Reading Festival next March. http://www.readfest.org/
How perfect is that! Several years ago I hosted a book discussion on her novel The Space Between Us and it was simply wonderful. Now I'll likely get to meet her. Don't I have the best job in the world?

In the meantime I'm finishing up a little gem that I spotted on our donations shelf - another great perk. The cover caught my attention, then the authors, and then, best of all, the memoir takes place in Greece. Traveling with Pomegranates; A Mother and Daughter Journey to the Sacred Places of Greece, Turkey and France has been a lovely surprise. You'll remember Sue Monk Kidd from The Secret Life of Bees, beautiful novel, great movie adaptation.

This memoir details a trip that Sue took with her daughter Ann, a gift for Ann's college graduation and a gift for Sue as she faced a mid-life decision about the direction that she wanted her life to take, that is, to become a full-time novelist. It's also a deep, thoughtful look at the empowerment of women from a historical perspective but also in the here and now. While Ann contemplates the virgin queen Athena, Sue becomes fixated on the virgin Mary. While Ann suffers from a lack of confidence because she was rejected by her first choice for graduate school, Sue tells her husband that she needs to move from their life long home in order to be in a space conducive to her writing. Wow, if it were only that easy!

I'm really enjoying these two gals and hope that I can finish this book AND the LJ book before I leave. Everything else that I have checked out will have to go - including Alan Paton's Too Late the Phalarope that I had planned to finish before flying. Maybe that would be a good one to buy - I'll bet a classic like that will go for 99 cents. How sad is that?

The Lantern Shines on Provence

2011-09-02T07:32:00.000-04:00

Location, location, location is not just the mantra for real estate brokers - though I was one in a former incarnation - it is a major appeal factor for novel readers the world over. Harper Collins has been touting Deborah Lawrenson's The Lantern as one of their under the radar new releases this Fall and I decided to take a chance. Full disclosure, I had to override the sacred rule of fifty, hanging in there for about 100 pages before I was hooked, but then I was - hooked, that is.

Advertised as a modern take on the Daphne duMaurier classic gothic romance Rebecca, The Lantern especially glows in its description of southern France's exquisite Luberon region where the mas Les Genevriers holds the secrets of the Lincel family. This is the area of Provence where, five years ago, Don and I huffed and puffed our way from inn to inn on bicycles through the most glorious vineyards and lavender fields you could imagine. Lawrenson's obvious love of the region exudes from every page. I could practically smell the air all over again.

In alternating chapters, a tad confusing at first until you begin to get what she's about, Ms. Lawrenson slowly unveils the past, tying it to the present, through two narrators, the original owner of Les Genevriers, Benedicte Lincel, and the current residents, Eve and Dom.

Readers learn of the multiple tragedies that befell the Lincels, the suicide of the father, the struggles of Benedicte and her mother as they tried to work the family farm with help from transient tenants, the madness of the wayward brother Pierre, and the encroaching blindness of sister Marthe, a disability that she was able to parlay into an asset in the local perfumerie using her heightened sense of smell.

Eve and Dom meet in a cafe in Switzerland. Succumbing to "love at first sight," and, against her better nature, Eve throws off her work, family and friends, to follow Dom to the mas Les Genevriers, set in the lavender fields outside Avignon, where he will write music and she will pursue her reading and writing. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it? But, of course, if this is a gothic romance, we must throw in strange happenings at the mas, noises in the night, lights that come and go in the fields, odors that waft through the kitchen even when nothing is in the oven, and a mysterious neighbor bent on planting suspicion in Eve's over imaginative mind.

Their languid summer of lovemaking and exploration gives way to the autumn mistral. If you've ever seen the film Chocolat, you'll get a sense of the mystery of the winds that haunt the Provencal area as a precursor to winter's gloom. Eve, finally awakened from her reverie of infatuation, begins to question this man that she's thrown her lot in with. What happened to his first wife? Why won't he open up about his past? And, of course, as human nature is wont to do, the more she prods, the more he dissembles.

When a messy construction project to repair the swimming pool reveals the bones of not one, but two women, Eve believes that her worst suspicions have been realized. Want to know more? It's on the shelf at your local library, downloadable, and available to purchase! Now, will someone please tell me why I was up at 4:30 this morning - on my day off - finishing this book?

Michael Gruber's Good Son

2011-08-30T15:27:00.000-04:00

I once made an attempt at a Gruber novel, The Book of Air and Shadows, because he's such a well reviewed author and I do enjoy reading outside my comfort zone. Perhaps it was the reader, maybe my mind was elsewhere, but I didn't hang with it and now I'm thinking that I should revisit that error.

When I began listening to The Good Son I got the same sense of impatience, wanting the novel to catch me up in it immediately. I'm so unfair to a writer in that respect. When I decide on what to discuss for book groups, I always go for the book that grabs me from the first sentence. In Gruber's case, I'm pleased to say that I cooled my jets and waited patiently for the story to get me. It did.

This is an extremely complicated combination of espionage, psychology, philosophy, and history that affords the reader an opportunity to get inside the heads of the so-called terrorists practicing jihad in the Islamic world. Two story lines compete for your attention, one here at the National Security Agency in the U.S. and the other in a remote Afghan village where an international group of pacifists is being held in captivity, having been kidnapped on their way to a conference in Kashmir. A third angle, Theo, son of one of the captives and Army black ops specialist, acts as the bridge between the other two.

It might sound as if it stretches credulity but, in fact, it works amazingly well. The book is long and to some readers it may seem to drag in parts, but those criticized sections are the ones I found most fascinating. Gruber does an outstanding job of examining the psychology of captivity, delving deeply into the mystery of why some people handle torture and face death with such fortitude, humor and peace, while others unravel with frightening speed.

Strong women abound in The Good Son! Pakistani-American Sonia Leghari, Theo's mother, is a marvelous creation. A Jungian psychotherapist, a career she was drawn to after receiving treatment herself for a psychic breakdown, Sonia has known the horrific losses that result from endless war. A controversial figure in the states and the object of a fatwa in Pakistan, Sonia uses her exceptional skills among her fellow captives to try to begin to make sense of their incarceration and to gain the respect of their jihadi captors.

The unfortunate group is comprised of Muslims, Catholics, Quakers, and Atheists, a situation that lends itself to long conversations about the nature of god and religion, prayer, sin, and forgiveness. It's again to Gruber's credit that these meanderings are one of the highlights of this strange and wonderful novel.

Back at the NSA, he gives us Cynthia, a woman whose incredible skill with languages places her in the middle of an intercept that may or may not have to do with a potential nuclear attack, the development and movement of weapons, or the executions of the pacifist captives. In typical government fashion, she is shuttled to the side and warned off when she dares to express an opinion contrary to those of her superiors. Will she become a rogue agent? Go off the reservation, as they say?

And what of Theo? A Pakistani at heart, more at home in Lahore than in DC, Theo is still getting physical therapy to treat wounds from his last foray into a war zone. Will he be able to call in old markers from his years as a famed mujaheddin in the Afghan/Russian war in time to find and rescue his mother? Does he even want to? I'm not telling.

Should I Write About Mediocre Fiction?

2011-08-26T07:24:00.000-04:00

I'm just finishing up two disappointments and I'm torn between writing about them or just keeping silent. I feel like a party pooper for saying something but then, I've read, one needs to keep updating one's posts or folks lose interest. Now, if I could be snarky in a Maureen Dowd kind of way, it would be worth your reading time but I can't do that to these two novelists who made an effort but simply didn't connect with me. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't connect with you.

Continuing my love affair with Paris, I just finished French Lessons by Ellen Sussman. She has a gorgeous website - http://www.ellensussman.com/ - and her rendering of Paris is perfect, but her characters fall kind of flat. Perhaps the problem is that we don't get to spend enough time with them to form an opinion. The novel is written in three vignettes, each involving a French tutor and his/her student, over the course of one day, as they stroll through the streets of the city, practicing their language skills and, mostly, thinking about sex.

Chantal - really? Is ANYone named Chantal? Nico and Philippe are the three tutors. Involved in a love triangle, things become more complicated when each of them is assigned to a student with romantic problems of his own. Josie, gobsmacked by the sudden death of her married lover, Riley, a young mother of two so frazzled that she no longer feels attractive to her workaholic husband, and Jeremy, an introverted architect who has followed his actress wife to Paris for a shoot, feeling totally out of his element. As the day in Paris progresses, each of the six reveals a bit of himself to the other until the question becomes who is teaching whom?

Meg Wolitzer's The Uncoupling is a modern telling of the Lysistrata tale, a plot that should have been hilarious but just ends up feeling rather melancholy. If there's anyone who isn't familiar with the classic Aristophanes play, Lysistrata is a powerful woman who convinces the other women of Greece to forsake all sexual relations with their partners until the twenty year Peloponnesian Wars are ended. It's a fall -out -of -your chair funny play - in the right hands - with a deadly serious message.

Wolitzer sets her novel in a small town in New Jersey which could be Anytown, USA. She is known for her keen observations of family relationships and some of her books are considered good crossover reads for teens. In this case a new drama teacher has come to town and Fran Heller is, well, a hell-raiser. She decides to stage the rather sophisticated Lysistrata as her major senior play, casting the lovely Marissa Clayborn in the title role.

What Ms. Heller hasn't counted on is Marissa's interest in an older man, a disfigured Iraq War veteran who opens her eyes to life and its cruelties outside of her idyllic small town. Marissa decides to stage a sleep-in, moving her bed to the lawn of the high school and exhorting the women of the town to give up sex until the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are ended. Since she refuses to leave her bed, she abdicates the pretend role of Lysistrata for the actual one.

Simultaneously, a mysterious cold spell overcomes the women of the town and they very suddenly lose all interest in sex, much to the shock of their husbands and lovers, who as yet have made no connection between the play and the drop in libido. This strange phenomenon overcomes everyone, those like Dory and Robbie Lang, the happiest and closest of all the couples in town, popular English teachers that everyone aspire to be like, as well as the cheating school principal and his wife, afflicted with chronic fatigue, and the Langs' daughter Willa, in her first serious relationship with Eli Heller, the dramatist's son.

There's a lot to work with here. The plot line had great potential and I'm having trouble trying to diagnose what went wrong. Maybe if any of you readers have dipped into this book you can tell me what I'm missing. In the meantime, I'm off in search of the next great read.

Mr. President, How about the Library!

2011-08-24T18:47:00.000-04:00

OK, this isn't my original thought but when one of my favorite bloggers, retired library director Will Manley, brought it up on his website the other day I immediately fist pumped, "right on!" Sounds to me like he's kind of where I am with our president right about now - trying desperately to hang onto a thread of hope that he'll become the man we thought he was. http://bit.ly/o4nVmS

It's all about perception after all. Rather than go get his summer reading from the charming little Martha's Vineyard bookstore, how about taking Michelle and the girls to the public library. I happen to know that the Mass. library system is much less sophisticated than ours and could certainly use the great PR. Such a small thing, but wouldn't it remind folks that they don't need to BUY their books. When I mentioned this to Don the other night he absolutely forced me to go to the computer to fire off an email to the White House. Which I did.

Last night I had a great talk with my sister Cynthia in Massachusetts - she who keeps me informed about the dearth of materials in Mass. libraries. We got on a tear comparing notes on what we'd been reading lately. When I mentioned that I was getting ready to begin Lucky Jim, she went crazy. Said it was one of her favorite books of all time. Who knew? I told her that I probably wouldn't have even thought about it if I hadn't been following the National Book Critics' summer blogging contest about the best academic comedy ever.
http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/

While many of the entrants mentioned my all-time favorite, Richard Russo's Straight Man, the hands down winner was Kingsley Amis's Jim. I'll let you know what I think if I can ever find time to sit down and savor a book from start to finish!

So Cynthia got this great idea which actually played right into a similar thought that Don has had for me to promote books and my blog. She opined about how much fun it would be to have a radio show - I'm thinking Click and Clack - where we just hang out for 15 minutes or half an hour and chat about books off the cuff. We would take calls from the audience of course. I'd LOVE it. Having done my thing on WGCU last year, I must admit that it's much easier chatting in a studio on a radio show than it is to be on TV. I'm already thinking of a name for our show. We could begin it using You Tube and our computers. Maybe Skype? Nancy Pearl does it - why can't I?

If You Can't Say Something Nice....

2011-08-18T14:29:00.000-04:00

...don't say anything? There are times when saying nothing is not an option so I faced a real dilemma with this last book I read for Library Journal. The book, it which can not yet be named, was by an Australian writer with a great reputation - awards galore - but throughout my reading I felt uncomfortably annoyed. I felt like the writer was toying with me. He even says at one point that reviewers of his previous works have fallen into three catagories, one of which was basically those who didn't "get it." Hmmmm - I'll admit, I didn't.

Naturally one WANTS to love a new book. I approach each one with joy and expectation. Not to mention the fact that if I ever want to be quoted in the New York Times Book Review I'll need to lavish praise. Sadly, not many of the novels I review make it that far, though most of them are stellar. Two such novels, each outstanding in its own very disparate way, made it into the August issue of LJ. http://bit.ly/mTzzh2

Remember to scroll down as reviews are in alphabetical order. The first one I've spoken of here already. It is Crossbones by Farah. After checking that one out, scroll on down to Perrotta, Tom, for my review of The Leftovers, an exremely timely look at the aftermath of a possible Rapture. Hilarious but not unkind, sad but not maudlin, it's just perfect Perrotta. According to Early Word, there's already a film in the works or possibly even an HBO series.

OK, I'm guilty of taking the easy way out sending you to previously written reviews but I haven't finished anything lately. I'm in the middle of several books, none of which are grabbing me the way I enjoy being grabbed. I'm on a search. Any ideas? I'm halfway through The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer, a modern look at the infamous Aristophanes play Lysistrata. In the car I'm listening to a lengthy, slow moving novel called The Good Son by Michael Gruber. I think this will ultimately be satisfying as it combines all the elements I love: espionage, politics, and psychology. More to come on that.

By the bed I've been falling asleep to French Lessons by Ellen Sussman, simply because I fell for the cover.

So you see, I really have been trying!

The Paris Wife

2011-08-10T10:07:00.000-04:00

Once again a debut novelist has knocked it out of the ball park! Paula McLain's novelized story of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley is an amazingly realistic look at a young marriage facing enormous strains and slowly, inexorably, unraveling in front of our eyes. For anyone who's been in a doomed relationship this book will be hard going unless, as for me, there's plenty of distance. Maturity and years add perspective but the pain for Ernest and Hadley is raw, a compliment to the author.

Naturally this novel will be compared to Nancy Horan's Loving Frank. As a matter of fact, she is blurbed on the cover. I led a book discussion on Horan's novel but found this one to be much finer in the subtlety of the writing, the introspection of the characters, and the feeling of authenticity. It may begin a bit slower but it draws you in.

I have always been fascinated by the over the top, legendary quality of the mystique around Ernest Hemingway. I had read most of his work as a young woman and some biographical works as well, so I was already very familiar with his penchant for serial marriages, his extreme bouts of depression, the heavy drinking, hard living reputation. I thought he was a pretty childish, disagreeable man. In fact, he sounded an awful lot like my ex-husband!

To Ms. McClain's credit, she paints him in a much more sympathetic light without excusing or paintbrushing his foibles. What I didn't remember is that he was only 21 years old, emotionally devastated by what he had seen and the injuries he had suffered in the war. Hadley was a twenty nine year old small town girl who was beginning to think her life was passing her by. Anxious for a new adventure, a rebel of sorts, she believed in Hemingway's talents, supported him financially and psychologically, and loved him unconditionally.

Paula McClain sets readers smack dab in the middle of 1920's Paris and the rich but decadent lives of the artists, writers, and hangers on who lived and partied there. It would be a miracle if any of the children of these unions came out unscathed! Our behavior today seems nearly puritanical compared with the antics Scott Fitzgerald described in The Great Gatsby. If you haven't seen the wonderfully quiet Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris, it provides a perfect companion piece to The Paris Wife.

There have been many artists whose reputations for over-the-top ego have been part and parcel of their reputations for literary output. So much has been written about them that another non-fiction book may have been redundant. But in a novel the author has more room to play, to surmise, to intuit and yes, to invent. Ms. McClain's invention is surreal in its authenticity.

Oh, just got a bizarre new book from Library Journal that I'll have to get into this weekend so I may be incommunicado for a week. Don't give up on me!

Why we Travel

2011-08-08T17:52:00.000-04:00

For quite some time now The New York Times has been running a Sunday column titled "Why We Travel." I've been impressed and heartened by some of the deep felt sentiments accompanying the photographs that have come in from readers all over the world. I look forward to sending some of my own. (see the link here): http://nyti.ms/jwPOIB

Having grown up in a small New England town and then raising my stepdaughters in an even smaller one, I was often dismayed to discover how little intellectual curiosity there seemed to be among the denizens of these burgs to explore, to reach out, to understand different cultures and places, to learn. When it came time for me to go to college I couldn't wait to get out of dodge. My kids, on the other hand, had no desire to leave their comfort zone. I was totally flummoxed.

Some of my favorite reads are travel books, thus the moniker "read around the world." I've had the overwhelming good fortune to land in a career that has allowed me to keep my eyes on the prize. I save money for one thing, after food and housing of course, and that is travel. So I was speechless the other evening when I mentioned to a person of influence in my library world that I was leaving next month for Africa. He looked me dead straight in the eyes and asked "why?"

I tried to read between the lines and see if that was a joke. Sadly it was not. I'm inept when it comes to cocktail party repartee and, though I'm seldom at a loss for words with my friends, I'm afraid I didn't have the quick comeback that I should have used. I managed to explain that I travel to learn, to grow, but failed to remind this supposedly bright person that Africa is the cradle of civilization from whence we all emanate. Long before there were Christians, Muslims and Jews trying to anihilate each other, there was life on this continent and I want to feel it in my very being.

I remember standing at the Forum in Rome where Caesar spoke and simply crying. I couldn't believe that I was actually there in such an historic location, walking where these people I knew from history (and Shakespeare) had actually stood. It's an overwhelming sensation, one that I won't stop seeking until I run out of money and stamina.

A perfect example of how we stretch our boundaries with travel is the email relationship I've forged with Sineta George, the owner of the bed and breakfast where we will stay in Dakar, Senegal. She's been reading my blog and even asked if she could use a quote of mine on her website. I was thrilled. For over a year now we have exchanged information and photos. The day we arrive, we will already be friends.

Don had a thank you letter from his granddaughter recently. She just graduated from UCal with a degree in Cultural Anthropology and he had helped send her to Sorrento, Italy to attend a dance workshop this summer. It was her first time out of the country, an experience she described beautifully as "freeing." This twenty one year old could teach some of our older, wiser brethren a lesson in opening minds.

Oh, Alice Hoffman, Why so Dark?

2011-08-05T11:47:00.000-04:00

I know it, I know it, you're not supposed to make assumptions about writers based on their subject matter though we do it all the time, especially in book group discussions. In my continuing quest to catch up on all of the Alice Hoffman novels I've missed, I listened to The Story Sisters over the past couple of weeks and, oy vay, this is her darkest one yet. I, at least, can't help but wonder what was going on in her head or heart when she wrote this tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. It's so relentlessly depressing.

All the elements are there for the asking; the parents' divorce with the dad getting so caught up in his new life that he forgets his three daughters, the mother, Annie, so centered on her own pain that she totally fails to see her daughters' strange behavior, the girls, Elv, Meg and Claire, living in a fantasy world where no one can hurt them, speaking their own invented language, burying themselves in their loss.

And then the catalyst for Elv's unraveling, which we learn about in doled out little bits of information throughout the novel, not really quite understanding the evil that's been done. Elv, kidnapped, molested, sacrifices herself to save her younger sister Claire, who can never bring herself to talk about that fateful day. When Elv returns home she is astounded that her mother can't intuit what has happened. When Annie seems oblivious, Elv begins the long years of acting out that will all but destroy the fragile Story family.

Cutting herself, by the very nature of the act, a cri de coeur for attention, goes unnoticed. Sneaking out at night, promiscuity, drugs, anti-social behavior, all result in Elv's being sent away to an institution for incorrigible teens, and adds up to a tale of hopelessness that any good reviewer simply can't recommend. Why would you want to spend time with these people? Perhaps it all goes back to my earlier question - why do we read? Perhaps, in this case, it's to say, "there but for the grace of god, go I."

Though some remnant of salvation evolves in the end, I just don't know that it's worth the wait. Ms. Hoffman's writing is, as always, that beautifully overused word, "luminous." That will never change. Next up, The Paris Wife. Too bad, we all already know how THAT worked out!

Sandra Brown, Yes, Sandra Brown

2011-08-01T20:50:00.000-04:00

A typical Monday at my library means that friends and co-workers are like ships passing in the night. Scores of book carts are waiting to be shelved. Meetings and programs are lined up from dawn til dusk. You better hope nothing goes wrong with the lights, the AC, bugs of any kind, plumbing, you get the picture. So, it was delightful that my pal Andrea and I passed each other in the circulation office; she coming off the desk, me going on. She had a Jude Devereaux paperback in hand and asked me on the QT if she should think any less of her doctor for reading Devereaux.
Cracked me up. My immediate, snobby reaction was, hell yeah. Then I rethought the fact that I was planning to blog about Sandra Brown tonight and squashed that snobby voice in my head. No, Andrea, your poor doctor is probably stressed to the max and needs escapism in the evening. She agreed and we both felt good that we had addressed our elitist attitude toward literature. With whom will I play these little pas de deux when she is gone?

I wrote the other day about why we read but one of the motivations I forgot to mention was peer pressure. There's nothing like having someone whose opinion you respect ask you if you're familiar with such and such a book and having to hang your head in shame. Of course, librarians have the perfect excuse. We DON'T HAVE TIME! But when two members of our book discussion group both said that they wanted to talk about Sandra Brown's novel Rainwater, I'll admit I looked at them with crooked eyebrows.

Still, I remembered when Ms. Brown and her husband attended our reading festival several years ago and I had the honor of introducing her to the crowd. We were surprised and disappointed at the attendance, maybe 200 people in a room that holds 500. She was undaunted and unfazed. She gave a beautiful, heartfelt presentation talking more about the joy of writing than about any one particular book. Check your local catalog if you doubt her prolific output. She had a fan in me forever.

Rainwater is not her usual genre. As a matter of fact, Booklist calls it a huge leap from Ms. Brown's romantic suspense. One might even call it a parable since it has elements of a biblical tale of good vs. evil, a David vs. Goliath if you will. In a small Texas town, Gilead, during the depression years, a young Ella Barron, abandoned by her husband, perhaps over the birth of their son with a rare form of autism once called "idiot savant," (think Dustin Hoffman in Rainman), struggles to make ends meet as the owner of a rooming house.

The local doctor asks Ella if she'd be willing to take in an old friend of his who's looking for a peaceful place to rest while he's being treated for a terminal disease. David Rainwater is like no other man Ella has ever met. As you read you must keep reminding yourself that we're back in the early 1930's, that morees are different from today's and that Ella's reputation depends upon her circumspection in her interactions with any of her boarders. She fights hard, stubbornly against her attraction to Mr. Rainwater.

Mr. Rainwater, ever the gentleman, isn't having it. He takes an interst in Ella's son, an instance that starts the ball rolling for Ella to see him as more than just a withdrawn little boy who throws tantrums. Researching his disease, she finds that Solly may have more going on in his head than anyone would have believed and begins to hope that he will one day be able to learn, to be on his own, maybe even to thrive.

Beyond the personal story of Ella and David is the backdrop of troubling times where once comfortable farmers are losing their lands to foreclosure, their crops to the dustbowl, and their animals to a government program that pays the farmers to destroy their cattle even though people are starving in the shanties on the edge of town. Racism is in full bloom and the good old boys who make up the police department are threatened when a new charismatic black minster comes to town with an uncanny ability to instill pride and hope into those who have had little of either.

David Rainwater is a man with, it would seem, little to lose. He invests himself in the townspeople's struggles, he organizes what might now be called neighborhood watches, he stands against the cruelty of the government men and the local bullies who would keep food from the mouths of the starving children.
Yet all while it's happening the reader has a constant feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Hoping against hope we understand that it will take a tragedy of epic proportions to set the town of Gilead right. I won't peek at the ending, though I want to very badly. Kudos to Sandra Brown for a thoughtful novel with enough twists to keep this fussy reader on edge.

Why We Read

2011-07-29T22:36:00.000-04:00

An interaction with a customer at the reference desk yesterday started me thinking about reading tastes, how they change (or do they?) over the years, why we began reading, why we read now, and how and what we'll read in our futures. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that if you're presently following this book blog that you're already a book junkie with an insatiable desire to read books and to read about books - even if you never choose to open any that I might recommend.

So this woman came up with a copy of a Wilbur Smith novel and wanted to know if I'd ever read him. Of course, I did my famous bait and switch dance and admitted that no, I hadn't read Wilbur, but that I've heard wonderful things about him. She didn't really care if I'd read him anyway, she only wanted to know what the next title was in that particular series, which was easier to discover than it's ever been since Jessica showed us what great info Wikipedia has on reading in a series. Sorry reference librarians but it's true! Google it! Ha.

Anyway, I was thinking "what if she'd asked me what I was reading now?" She'd have probably looked at me like I had three heads. The answer is Jane Gardam. The title, Old Filth. Fess up, how many of you have read her? Heard of her? Well, you know. I hadn't either. But, as I follow about 30 other book blogs written by some pretty amazing amateurs, and then read how many review magazines and websites, certain names come up again and again and one's curiosity gets the best of them.

Gardam is in that cadre of marvelously dry, witty, British women that my sister, my mother and I would read. I'm thinking Anita Brookner, Margaret Drabble. She's been shortlisted for or has won all the prestigious British awards, the Whitbread, the Man Booker, the Orange Prize, but still it seems that these types of authors get no respect in this country. Of course, she's also published by Europa editions with whom you know I'm having a cover love affair.

Old Filth is an insider nickname for a very sad old man by the name of Edward Feathers. I say sad in that his successful life as a barrister has left him wealthily retired, widowed, and alone, back in England after years in Hong Kong. He and his wife Betty were childless and one gathers that there's an interesting back story to that situation which will eventually come clear. Though married for over fifty years they seem to know nothing about each other. At least he knows nothing about her. A follow up book, The Man in the Wooden Hat, is written from Betty's perspective and I can't wait to get into that!

The irony is that Eddie's life was, in fact, amazingly full, but his attempts at connection were thwarted by bad timing and worse luck. Born in Malaysia where his parents were stationed at the height of The Raj, think of the wonderful Raj Quartet, Eddie was motherless within a few hours of his birth. His father, a shell shocked WW I veteran who was barely holding it together before the death of his wife, refuses to acknowledge his son, so Eddie is happily left to be loved by the wet nurse and her family.

As he approaches school age though, father decides that Eddie should be sent back to England to be educated and the scenes of his removal from the indigenous family that he's attached himself to are heartrending. Ms. Gardam has a gorgeous way with words but, even more, a razor sharp insight into the effects of British imperialism on those who had to live through it on both sides of "the pond."

Her novel throws a clear-eyed light on the British private school system as Eddie thrives in his studies and makes fast friends, until World War II intervenes.

So why does this book appeal to me? Why am I also currently listening to - don't faint now - a Sandra Brown novel? Why am I putting off the only book on my kitchen counter that everyone is talking about - The Paris Wife? And we're back to the first question, why do we read? Sometimes it has to be to learn how a great writer puts words together on the page and comes up with critical acclaim. Other times it's just to travel to a new place in a different time. Often it's just to relax after a particularly painful reading experience. Perhaps the more astute question is "how can we not read?"

Fun Cleaning Nabokov's House

2011-07-27T11:09:00.000-04:00

Run, don't walk to your nearest library or bookstore and grab a copy of this laugh out loud entertaining debut novel by Leslie Daniels. I read it in a weekend and have been talking it up to all of my friends who have trouble sleeping at night. I simply marvel at authors who can come up with a subject that hasn't been done again and again and again.Or, I should say, a new twist on a subject that has been done again and again.

Barb Barrett is a woman you just can't help but root for. She's smart and snarky and sensitive and poignant, a perfect blend of most of us. When her husband says something that gets on her last frayed nerve, she doesn't think twice about grabbing her two kids and walking out the door. That's the problem, not thinking twice, not planning, not understanding that she's the city girl, the outsider in a small upstate New York town where the soon to be ex knows everyone and knows how to manipulate the system to his advantage.

By the time he takes her to the cleaners and the kids with him, Barb is in a funk so deep that you think she'll never be able to drag herself out of bed. But you'd be wrong. One day, living out of her car, she parks outside the kids' school yard to watch her little darlings at play and sees a perfect little yellow house with a for sale sign on it. Motivated out of her torpor, she makes a move to settle down and build a home for her children that will knock the socks off the snippy little social worker who is now sleeping with her ex-husband.

And then she finds the index cards. Hidden away in a drawer, an almost completed novel in the handwriting of one of the previous owners of the house, Vladimir Nabokov! The discovery boosts Barb's morale and sets in motion a series of hilarious events on her quest to earn enough money to go to court and win back custody of her kids.

Even though the plot is out of this world unbelievable, Daniels writes with such authenticity about small town life. Each character jumps off the page with recognition, from the concerned mail carrier whose wife just happens to be a publicist, to the washed up, middle aged sports icon who now runs the sharpest rowing crew at the local college. This book is filled with so much humanity, so much truth about the foibles, the best and worst in all of us.

I simply sighed with satisfaction throughout as Daniels hit me with one perfect metaphor after another. I'm envious and half in love with an author who can do this. Vladimir Nabokov isn't the only one who can pen a perfect novel! Learn more about Ms. Daniels: http://www.lesliedaniels.com/blog/

Oh Africa! When will they stop Pillaging You?

2011-07-24T08:56:00.000-04:00

If you thought that the BP blowout in the gulf of Mexico was damaging to our country, to tourism, to the economy, you have no idea how really horrific things could be. At least here in the United States we still have the wherewithal to rant and rave and pass laws that may put a damper on these global corporations that thrive on short cuts and irresponsibility.

But what happens if you don't have a voice? Many of you may have been introduced to big oil's influence in Africa, Nigeria in particular, when you read Little Bee. In that novel readers learned what happens to villagers who refuse to leave so that the oil companies can move in. Children are not exempt from the cruelty.

In a new novel by Nigerian author Helon Habila, called Oil on Water, this subject matter is ratcheted up by several degrees but with more nuance than Chris Cleave's book. Each character in this deceptively simple, highly accessible story has a kind of humanity to him that forces the reader to dig a little deeper in an attempt to understand how it is that African countries seem so ripe for exploitation.

Rufus is our narrator, a delightfully unassuming young man, recently graduated from journalism school and assigned to work with Zaq, a hardened, experienced but jaded reporter who was once Rufus's idol. In the Niger delta where Rufus and Zaq work and grew up, BP has gotten a strong toehold.

Empty promises are made by BP's London staffers, the villagers will all get rich, sharing in the fruits of their land. If the tribal chiefs refuse to work with the oil companies they simply disappear. Villagers are exiled to islands where they will starve before they can rebuild their lives, similar to what we did to our Native American tribes, except that this is happening today, right under our noses.
When the wife of the BP rep. in Port Harcourt is kidnapped, Rufus gets the assignment by default, two other reporters dealing with kidnappers were executed a few days before. It's the chance of a lifetime but he has to weigh the danger to himself since he is the sole support of his sister Boma, whose face was disfigured in a fire from an exploding oil rig.

As Rufus and Zaq try to infiltrate the various villages and remote islands where Isabel and her driver might be held, readers once again get a history lesson through fiction. From Rufus's journalist's eye we get an unflinching look at the militants', the villagers', and even the oil company's points of view. Reviewers say the Mr. Habila may have a screenplay in the works and I believe that this would work well in a Blood Diamonds kind of way. It's not an easy subject but we need to know what's going on outside of our comfy little corner of the world.

Amy Waldman's The Submission

2011-07-20T08:31:00.000-04:00

I read about this book about six months ago - somewhere - I can never figure out where I hear about these things that come up on my radar screen. Unsure of the protocol, I emailed Barbara Hoffert at Library Journal and asked her if I can request certain titles for review. Absolutely, was the answer. I knew that I wanted this one and was hoping that it would make a good book discussion title for next season.

Well, I got it, and it would! The problem is that it's almost too controversial. I just wasn't sure that I could handle it with my usual aplomb. Just how far did I want to push my customers out of their comfort zone? As the media keeps reminding us - over and over and over - it's been ten long years since that fateful day in New York City when we learned what it's like to be on the receiving end of a surprise attack. Ah, if only those young people sitting at computer stations at Langley running drones into people's homes thousands of miles away could recall how their parents felt on 9/11.

It's supposed to be a common truth that tragedy draws people together but on Sept. 11th the opposite happened. American turned against American in the worst possible way and the great divide that was wrought that day continues unabated ten years later. Did I read that Herman Cain, admittedly a long shot presidential contender, said this week that any town can refuse to allow a mosque to be built? Could they refuse to allow a church to be built? A synagogue? Hmmmm......

Ms. Waldman's novel, simply titled The Submission, comes out next month and brilliantly addresses our deepest prejudices. I couldn't put it down. The premise is that a contest is held for submission by artists and architects the world over to design a 9/11 memorial. Sitting on the panel is an array of professional critics, politically connected monied folks, and a widow representing the families who lost loved ones in the attack. The wrangling is ferocious, resentments and animosity run high - so what else is new? But eventually the committee defers to the widow and a winner is chosen.

Rather than reinvent the wheel I'll simply offer you the link to my starred review - hoo ha - that appeared in this month's edition of Library Journal. See for yourself if you don't want to run out and place this title on hold. As always, the reviews are alphabetical by author's last name so do scroll all the way down to "Waldman." http://bit.ly/rkwTWD

The Borrower - A Perfect Antidote to the History of Cancer

2011-07-17T17:07:00.000-04:00

Once again I've had my socks knocked off by a debut writer! Rebecca Makkai is no stranger to fiction, her short stories having been published in highly respected anthologies like Tin House and Ploughshares. Nevertheless, how does a young wife and mother find the time to write such a hilarious, insightful, original novel and then get it into the hands of a publisher at Penguin?

The first friend I want to share this with is Kathleen Wells. I could think of no one else but her as I followed the antics of Lucy, the bra-burning, left-leaning children's librarian who runs the youth services area of a small public library in Hannibal, Missouri. Ms. Makkai, through Lucy, touches on all the crazy goings on that people outside of the library world would never imagine in a million years actually happen on a daily basis in public libraries.

Lucy is kind of a loner. She has acquaintances, dates a bit - no one serious - and lives in a run down apartment over a theatre where an avant-guard troupe of actors rehearses and performs. But Lucy has a passion, for truth, justice, and freedom for all individuals and an equally passionate antipathy for the U.S.A. Patriot Act and what it means to librarians in particular. Lucy wasn't raised by Russian immigrants for nothing!

Lucy has some young patrons who stand out in her mind because of their quirky personalities or their sophisticated reading choices. Ian Drake is head and shoulders above the rest. The two seem to be soul mates despite the twenty year difference in their ages. Lucy can recommend anything to Ian and he gobbles it up. The further she stretches him the more he loves it, until the day Mrs. Drake arrives to lay down the law. There are certain books she believes are anathema and she hands Lucy a list of all the types of books Ian is no longer allowed to read. No witches, sorcerers, goblins, hobbits, in other words none of the great childrens' literature, you know, the books that expand your mind and help you soar.

Censorship is not in Lucy's vocabulary but even more upsetting is her new found knowledge, through the small town grapevine, that Ian's parents expect him to spend Saturdays with their evangelical Pastor Bob who specializes in "repatriating" young men who may be questioning their sexual orientation. Lucy seethes with rage. I feel her pain. Just read the article about Michele Bachmann's husband in today's New York Times and you'll see how prescient Ms. Makkai is. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/us/politics/17clinic.html?_r=1

So when Lucy comes into the library early one morning and hears the shuffling sounds of a mouse perhaps? she finds, instead, Ian Drake, backpack full and ready to run. What does she do? Of course, she thinks about doing the right thing, for a minute or two, but what is the right thing? The rebel in her decides she should save Ian from his family and off they go on the adventure of a lifetime. What happens along the way? Not telling. I read The Borrower in just 24 hours. I suggest you do the same.

Books I May Not Finish

2011-07-16T15:13:00.000-04:00

I am becoming much too impatient now that I'm in my '60's, especially with books. Anyone who's read this blog for a while knows that I'm a fanatic about espionage. I just love it. There will never be another BBC production as brilliant and frightening as MI-5. So I've been waiting for just the right time to tackle the latest from the "master" of espionage, John LeCarre. I'm five discs in, listening to Our Kind of Traitor, and I'm ready to scream, "move it along for crying out loud!"

Today I took my three mile walk and found my mind wandering constantly. This shouldn't happen with a good spy story, should it? Not ready to give up, I worked in the yard, weeding, trimming, until I began to feel faint and it thankfully began to rain. Still, the story isn't capturing my imagination. It was so well reviewed that I have to question myself but, really, it is simply too far fetched.

Imagine this: a British couple, upwardly mobile, he's an Oxford professor, she's a litigator, are on vacation in Antigua. The tennis pro fixes Perry up for a singles match with a Russian business man who has just purchased a home on the island. When they meet up at the courts Dimitri's body guards want to search Perry's tennis bag and make a big show of their secreted weapons. Gail, the lawyer, doesn't bat an eye. Oh really? For a tennis game? Would any normal couple just walk away? Not these two.

Eventually, after much dancing around the subject, Dimitri decides that he can trust Perry and Gail to take a message back to MI-6 in London, even though they are just good citizens and not in any way attached to the secret service or Scotland Yard. He wants to defect and hopes that Perry and Gail will pave the way. It seems that Dimitri has made his fortune in money laundering through British banks and is now ready to expose those that he dealt with along the way. Sounds like shades of Rupert Murdoch! Now there's a story.

I'm sorry, but there's been such a slow build up, so much back story, so much abuse of Perry and Gail to which they respond rather blandly that I believe I'm going to have to cut them loose. If any of my readers have finished this book and want to convince me that I should too, I'm open to hearing from you, please!

The only trouble is that our library's collection of downloadable audio materials is abominable. I've searched through the last 500 titles added to the catalog and found only 5 books that I'd be remotely interested in and two of those are by Alice Hoffman. I'm sure it isn't all our fault. I understand that there are some publishers who don't immediately offer their books in this format, but please, there are people with brains out there who would like to listen to something other than James Patterson.

The other book I'm currently listening to is The Emperor of All Maladies: A History of Cancer. I know, that sounds pretty depressing but actually it's fascinating. It's just so LONG! Publishers' Weekly calls this book "magisterial." People have written passionately about the author, Dr. Siddhartha Mukerjee, and the depth of compassion he shows for his patients, their families, and the researchers and organizations that work tirelessly to stop this malignancy in our lives. Is there anyone who hasn't been touched by this disease, which can be traced back to mummified remains in ancient Egypt?

And why, why, why can't we find a cure? Not an extension of life with bouts of radiation and soul deadening chemotherapy but truly, a cure. It seems impossible that we haven't, in light of all the other diseases we've been able to eradicate, even AIDS is coming close to having a vaccine. Perhaps Dr. Mukejee will address this in his voluminous work. I, for one, will need to take a break and intersperse my reading of this history of cancer with something a bit more light hearted before I can delve back into it again. Any ideas?

Learning History Through Fiction

2011-07-13T10:21:00.000-04:00

How many of you enjoyed history when you were in school? I have to tell you, I hated it! For one thing, I'm not keen on memorizing dates and names and secondly, I suspect that I didn't have the kind of professors who could make history come alive for me, make it relevant. The one exception to that was my Ancient History teacher in high school, Mr. Shedlock. He was a frustrated actor, you could tell, and he pranced around the room in such a way that had me in thrall to everything he had to say. To this day I'm drawn to Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Middle East.

I mentioned in passing last month that I had been introduced to a new author when I received a book from Library Journal called Crossbones. The writer, Nuruddin Farah, must be very well known to readers more astute than I because he's been short-listed for the Nobel in the past and some say it's just a matter of time before he wins. Now I'm one of his biggest fans.

The review for Crossbones has not been printed yet but I think I can say that it was very impressive. So much so that I decided to go back and read some of Farah's earlier work. I began with Links, the first of the trilogy that ended with Crossbones. I cared that much about the characters that I wanted to understand how they came to be "linked," if you will.

That brings me to learning about history through fiction. Farah is a Somalian immigrant, an English professor here in the United States, who holds onto his ties to Africa by also keeping a home in Cape Town. My knowledge of Africa has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years but I can tell, by some of the crazy comments made to me, even by family, when I tell them about my upcoming trip, that most Americans haven't a clue about this amazing continent.
Each country within Africa is as distinct as the United States is from any other country on our continent and Somalia is a land all its own.

Farah's love of his country comes through in every conversation he puts into the mouths of his characters, but it's a clear-eyed love, not a romantic one. He sees the troubles for what they are and is able to give readers an overview of the history of colonialism that plagues many countries in Africa. The Brits, the Italians and the Americans have all wanted something from Somalia, many countries have over fished the waters and taken the livelihood from the Somalian people. Civil War has plagued the country too, and various tribal regions fight against each other. The result, of course, is horrific for the regular citizens who only want the basics, to live in peace, have enough to eat, to love and raise their families.

Links is the story of two men, Jeebleh and Bile, who were raised together and spent years as political prisoners in Somalia. When released, Jeebleh fled to the United States where he married and is now raising a family. Bile stayed in Somalia with his sister and her daughter running a refuge for orphans. After Jeebleh's mother dies he returns to Somalia with trepidation, distrustful of everyone he interacts with yet anxious to reconnect with Bile and to build a small monument to his mother's memory.

Unfinished business meets Jeebleh at every turn. Youngsters armed with guns larger than they seem to be threatening on every street corner. Mysterious meetings with clan members stir up old resentments. Jeebleh is introduced to a young woman whose baby was torn from her arms by the up wash of an American helicopter during an attack on Mogadishu, a story that forces him to confront his mixed feelings of loyalty to country and family. Bile's niece has been kidnapped yet no one seems equipped to begin to try to find her. One gets the impression that Mogadishu's citizens are so beaten down by war and infighting that they are stuck in a depressed state of inertia and who can blame them?

I read this book in three nights and intend to continue with Farah's saga in the next novel, Knots, but first up I've gotten another treat from Library Journal. Yesterday I received the newest from David Guterson of Snow Falling on Cedars fame. Deadline is July 21st. I'm all over it!

Europa Editions - They've done it again

2011-07-10T12:27:00.000-04:00

I read on one of the many blogs I monitor that there's actually a fan club for Europa Editions gorgeous cover art and I must find out where on earth I found that information and join up. This is a book I heard good things about and decided to take a look at when I read that it's set in the hills above Viareggio in the over-sold region of Tuscany. It's a satire that pokes great fun at the Brits - not the Americans for a change - and a great change of pace for me as I read through Neruddin Farah's trilogy about Somalia.

The unfortunate Brit in this instance is Gerald Samper, a ghostwriter, though he hates that term, for some really awful, uninteresting people. Still, it pays the bills and look where it got him. He bought his coveted privacy from an Italian realtor who assured him that no one, but no one would find him at the top of the winding, grass road that led to this glorious villa overlooking the sea.
Oh, how wrong that was! Within twenty four hours of Samper's arrival he is accosted by Marta, a tenant in the supposedly unattended cottage on the property below him. Armed with a welcoming bottle of Fernet Branca, a drink I'll admit I've never heard of but that is, it seems, more potent that my favorite, grappa, she interrupts his painting and solitude with intrusive patter and an invitation to dinner.

What makes this book so funny and clever is that every other chapter is told by Marta. She revisits the happenings in the previous chapter told from Gerald's point of view and it's like playing that old kids' game telephone, reminiscent of the old Robbie Burns sentiment, O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us

Marta, you see, is a renowned music writer and is working on a score for an Italian film producer. She's as annoyed as Gerald is at the unwanted interruption of her solitude and finds Gerald's unbridled penchant for breaking into off key, very loud singing while he works on his villa, an insurmountable obstacle to her work. But clever Marta comes up with a means of using Gerald's quirk to her advantage and the more they try to avoid each other the more chance and bottle of Fernet Branca throw them together. Even halfway through this novel you just know where these two misfits are going to end up but it doesn't spoil the read at all. Laugh out loud fun!

Black Like Me

2011-07-06T08:44:00.000-04:00

When John Howard Griffin made the audacious proposal to his publisher over fifty years ago, many thought he had lost his mind. But he, and most especially, his family, had a thirst for justice that had to be quenched and the courage to follow it through. Griffin met with several dermatologists in New Orleans before settling on one who agreed to help him. You see, John Griffin, a white man from Texas, wanted to walk a mile in a black man's shoes, reporting on what it was really like to be a black southerner in 1959 in the greatest democracy on earth.

Holing up in a hotel room, he submitted to drug treatments, enhanced by hours under a sunlamp and a skin dye, that would eventually transform his melanin to a deep, rich brown. He shaved his head in order to hide the straight hair that might be a giveaway. It all sounds incredible but, in fact, it worked. Out he went into the streets of New Orleans that only a few weeks previously had welcomed him and his wallet with open arms. Now he had trouble finding a bathroom, a drink of water, or a seat on public transportation.

Traveling throughout Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, Griffin immersed himself in black life and quickly learned that there was a separate way of speaking and acting that had to be cultivated if he didn't want to incur the wrath of everyday white folks. Eye contact was to be avoided, a certain reticence in body language behooved him. Over the weeks of his experiment he became heartsick to his very soul at the unfounded hatred he encountered from people of his own race, so much so that he had to take a break from his life as a black man after only six weeks, visiting a Trappist retreat to pray and rejuvenate.

After only six weeks! Can you imagine? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in another's skin? I have to tell you that I had my consciousness raised fairly early in my life and I'm so grateful to my parents for allowing me the freedom to leave home and spread my wings.

In the summer of 1969, against their better judgment, they agreed to my moving from the idyllic Berkshire County town that Don is so in love with, to Washington, DC, for the summer between my junior and senior years of college. Jobless, but optimistic, four of us gals sublet an apartment on Connecticut Ave. and hit the pavement looking for work. My buddy Sandy and I ended up, after failing at selling encyclopedias door to door, training to waitress at a Howard Johnson's restaurant in the heart of the ghetto, an area that ended up on fire later that summer when injustice and resentment ignited a conflagration.

We were the only white people in the restaurant - customers or staff. We were the only white people on the bus that took us home, exhausted, greasy, disheartened, at the end of the day. We also knew that we only had to do this for a couple of months. The women, young and old, we interacted with every day had this work to look forward to for the rest of their lives. Did they resent us? How could they not? Did we feel it? Maybe so, it's hard to remember. I only know that I felt we deserved every bit of their contempt when we quit after a few weeks when a "friend of a friend" found us office jobs in the Interior Dept.

John Howard Griffin never really recovered from his experience back in 1959. If Black Like Me isn't still required reading for every high school kid today, it should be. This book isn't dated, not one iota. Though prejudice is much more subtle today it is still shockingly rampant and often comes from people and places one would least expect.

Griffin returned home to his family in Texas, published his articles, appeared on Dave Garroway and Mike Wallace, and was hung in effigy in his own hometown of Mansfield. His parents received death threats, he eventually had to move his wife and kids to a secret location, and finally ended up living in Mexico, almost one hundred years after the so-called Emancipation Proclamation.

We read for so many reasons but this is certainly one of them. We must read so that we never forget.

Atmospheric Disturbances

2011-06-30T08:47:00.000-04:00

There's a book by this title and it struck me as a great one but that's not what I'm writing about today. This is more about the "disturbances" that I'm feeling in my own life as a plethora of happenings combine this summer to force me to stop and think about life, the future, and the meaning of happiness.

It really began when a dear friend of mine - you know who you are - told me that she is retiring to begin the rest of her life elsewhere. Though I've known about this for a long time and have been expecting it, I've still been rocked by the implications. As my sister would say, it's all about me! I'm so very pleased for my friend but bereft for myself, even though it could just as easily have been me doing the leaving. Remember that old nostalgic song, "Wedding Bells are Breaking up that old Gang of Mine?" Of course, most of you don't, but it's that kind of poignant sentiment that's washing over me right now.

So, my buddy has been slowly divesting herself of meaningful little items in her home and I returned to work this week to find two lovely gifts on my desk. One, the seeds to the best tomatoes ever grown, which I'll attempt to replicate in the fall, and the other, an autographed copy of Maureen Corrigan's book Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading. I can't even remember where I got it or when, perhaps at our own reading festival, but books are meant to be shared and this one has now come full circle. I read the first chapter last night and couldn't help but laugh. It actually sounded as if I'd written it myself! Can't wait to finish my new Library Journal treat, Crossbones by the Somali-American writer Nuruddin Farah, so that I can delve back into Ms. Corrigan's.

Adding to this sense of loss was my trip to Massachusetts last week. As I always do on my annual trek, I took my Aunt Jackie to the family plot to "visit" the graves. I'm a doubting Thomas to say the least, so it's ironic that I take this so seriously. I don't believe in burial, why take up all that green space? I intend for my dust to go in my garden if I'm still in my house, otherwise, the sea is always a desirable spot. Still, it's disconcerting to read the dates on the gravestones, especially on my mother's, a vibrant woman who died so young, scarcely older than I am now. That will get your attention. It certainly caused me to ponder how much longer I'll be able to roll on this gerbil wheel called a work schedule.

Reading and writing are my salvation and the pride that I take in my reviewing for Library Journal is probably unseemly but, what can I say? It's so much fun to see one's words in print. The June 15th issue starred my review of Russell Banks' latest offering, The Lost Memory of Skin. This very depressing, disheartening novel (yup, right up my alley) was a difficult read but well worth it because it's based on a real situation in Miami, Florida, where sexual offenders, from unlucky Internet voyeurs to full blown pedophiles, who have been sentenced and served their prison terms, are released with nowhere to go. Talk about being set up for failure!

We say they've paid their debt to society yet they are pariahs. Not allowed to live within a certain distance from schools, playgrounds, libraries (yes, that bastion of freedom!), anywhere that kids might congregate, they are often left homeless. In Miami, and most likely many other cities in the U.S., they were relegated to a tent city, this one under the Julia Tuttle bridge. Read my review at:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/ljinprintcurrentissue/890746-403/fiction_reviews_june_15_2011.html.csp Scroll down to the author's last name "Banks."

Michael Connelly - Better Than Ever

2011-06-29T08:17:00.000-04:00

Back when Michael Connelly was gazing at the New York Times best seller list from afar he graced the Southwest Florida Reading Festival with his presence and was a big hit. Oh, wouldn't we love to get him back to Ft. Myers now. We'd be talking standing room only. Connelly has come so far as a writer and yes, I've blogged previously about his Harry Bosch series, but now I'm listening to a recorded version of the next in his Lincoln Lawyer series, certainly aided by the successful Hollywood production with Matthew McConaughey.

The Fifth Witness is a taut legal thriller based on the very timely theme of foreclosure fraud. Micky Haller, the lawyer who had fallen on such hard times that he worked out of the trunk of his car, a battered old Lincoln, is, like Bosch, a person who grows on you. Connelly humanizes his characters, letting us into their hearts and minds through their relationships with their kids. Haller is no exception. Divorced from the woman he still loves, he is a responsible dad with shared duties that he takes seriously even though his work has him mixing with some very bad dudes.

In this novel he is defending Lisa Trammel, a woman in a very typical situation in these trying economic times. Her husband has abandoned her and her son, the home they owned is in foreclosure and Lisa has become the spokesperson for a group that pickets daily in front of the big bank without a heart - think Wells Fargo - that is trying to get her out. When the CEO of the bank is found dead in the adjacent parking garage, bludgeoned to death by a hammer wielding assailant, Lisa seems to be the default suspect and is quickly arrested.

I swear, sometimes I think I could get a law degree by just reading legal thrillers and this one is no exception. Haller, aka Connelly, leads readers through the criminal court proceedings in fascinating detail. Every little sneak play between the offense and defense is explained, the subtle interaction between jury members and attorneys is on display. Haller keeps up a running commentary on his thoughts as he cross examines tough and not so tough witnesses. Best of all, he presents us with a defendant who isn't very likable, which is probably very often the case, but who is getting the best possible representation.

There are several red herrings thrown in to befuddle the reader and I'm still pondering whether my assumption about the real guilty party will end up being correct. I'm one drive up Route 41 away from the ending and can't wait to hop in the car and find out if my sleuthing talents are as good as I think they are. Connelly - always a satisfying read!

Houston, We Have a Problem

2011-06-25T09:50:00.001-04:00

Vacation is winding down and, Ann, don't read this, for the first time since I became a librarian, I am not ready to get back to work. Hmmm-added to that dilemma is the fact that my partner Don has fallen in love with my hometown, Great Barrington, where I generally have knots in my stomach all the time, while I feel at peace and at home at his place on the Chesapeake in Maryland. Is it as simple as a mountain person vs. a water person?

Last night we sat on his deck with our wine and cheese thinking guiltily about those who have so little while we have options galore. It certainly gives one pause to be so overwhelmed with abundance even if it did come as a result of hard work and not just a little good luck. So many people struggle for a lifetime and never arrive at a place of contentment.

This led me to mull over the room at the Norman Rockwell museum, where we were earlier this week, that housed his most famous series called The Four Freedoms. Created, sadly, as part of the war effort during World War II, Rockwell depicted, through powerful scenes from every day life, the freedoms Roosevelt, and every other president since, said that we were fighting for: freedom from hunger, from fear, freedom of speech, and freedom to worship (or not) as one pleased.

I've been to the Rockwell museum many times over the years and considered Rockwell a man who wasn't afraid to make a political statement through his art, but Don noticed right away that Rockwell's world was very white. When he engaged the docent in a conversation about this fact, the gentleman told us that The Saturday Evening Post, with whom Rockwell had a contract, did not allow him to show blacks in his paintings unless they were shown in a subservient position. Can you even imagine? To his credit, we were told that Rockwell eventually worked on commission for Look Magazine which had a more left leaning philosphy. It's amazing what you see when your eyes are opened.

And here's another thing I learned last week. Did you know that we have a place in Washington called The United States Institute for Peace? If you didn't, don't feel bad, neither did we. Walking around down in the district, we had come from seeing the almost finished contstruction of the new Martin Luther King, Jr, Memorial that will open officially in August.

We were lamenting the fact that almost all of our national monuments are dedicated to wars. Walking up by the State Dept. we came upon this architecturally outstanding building - all open fretwork and glass, soaring ceilings,and transparent walls. Sure enough, it was the Institute for Peace. When we got home we looked it up online to see what it actually does. You want to hear the laughable irony? The Board of Directors all seem to be members of the Dept. of Defense!

You may be asking yourself, well, ok, enough about the vacation, did she read anything? Yes, folks, I did. But, if I tell you, I'd have to kill you. Library Journal will get my review of Tom Perotta's funny, ironic, sad, thought provoking new novel, The Leftovers. On my walks I've been listening to Lisa Scottoline's Why My Next Husband will be a Dog, recommended by my former roommate Cathy.

Ms. Scottoline was a keynote speaker at our Southwest Florida Reading Festival a few years ago and she writes the same way she talks. No wonder I love Italians! She's so warm, funny, and wise. This book, unlike her mystery novels, is a compilation of essays that she and her daughter Francesca put together about life and family in the twenty first century.

Scottoline's love of her mother, her brother, and her daughter, and most of all, her pets, glows on every page and her comments about womanhood and all the vanities and trappings of keeping it together (spanx, makeup, gyms, hair color) are just hilarious. But the essay I loved best was the one about the graduation speech she gave to her daughter's class at Harvard.
While everyone else admonished the kids to go out and do, do, do - face the future head on, accomplish great things, she had the courage to tell them that they might want to slow down for a minute and savor the glory in each and every day. Advice we could all use.

Perfect Vacation Book

2011-06-19T20:46:00.000-04:00

Did I ever say that I was looking forward to a place in my life where I'd have more time to write? Was I fooling myself? In the past week I have been too mellow to even open this little notebook, let alone try to express myself! I had bunches of great photos to share but for some reason my cut and paste properties aren't working. I'm sleeping ten hours a night and right now Don and I are chilling on the deck of our B and B listening to the birds, admiring the mountain laurel on the cliff in the back, and enjoying having to wear sweaters!

I've just finished my first vacation book, a deeply insightful, long, slow novel about nothing and everything. Particularly appropriate for a woman like me who always believed "you can't go home again," Stewart O'Nan's Wish You Were Here, is, on the surface, a novel about one week in the life of the very complicated Maxwell family, gathered for the last time at the lake cottage that's been handed down through generations until the death of the patriarch, Henry.
Without getting any input from her kids, or from her wonderfully sensible sister-in-law Arlene, Emily has made the rather difficult, one might even say rash decision to sell the property, where the entire family has been coming to reconnect with each other for their entire lives.

Perfect on this 11th Father's Day without my dad, we learn about the kind, gentle Henry through the reminiscences of his widow Emily, who, though tough as nails, is still flailing without him, his son Ken desperately trying to take on his dad's mantle, and Henry's daughter Meg, the wild child whose life is a shambles.
Like so many families in the fifties and sixties, my own included, emotions were an unacknowledged undercurrent, rarely discussed. Questions went unanswered. Contrary to the false impression proffered by the writers of Father Knows Best, the family didn't always sit down and hash things out but instead, played avoidance games. Sadly, none of this was done in a deliberately hurtful way, it was simply the way stoic New Englanders rolled. But it did leave lasting scars.

Meg, Ken and Ken's wife Lise are each suffering from a sense of not having lived up to expectations. The implication is that Henry would never have let them feel his disappointment, whereas Emily is just more blunt and inquisitive. The more she pushes to understand what 's going on in her kids' lives, the more they hold back. Ah, human nature!

O'Nan's writing is just exquisite, there's no other way to say it. He's like a laser, focused on the little insignificances of daily life, turning each small incident into an ah-ha moment that each and every reader will identify with. Mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, daughters and mothers-in-law, each tiny snub, each phrase put or taken the wrong way, each time we choose to jump into battle or to let one go, is so perfect.

I've chosen to host a book discussion of O'Nan's newest novel, Emily Alone. Written ten years after this one, it is a sequel. All the reviewers say that the new book can stand alone but now that I've met the Maxwells, I honestly can't imagine not having known them back then. For any reader who will honestly admit that their family doesn't remotely resemble The Brady Bunch, this book's for you. A gorgeous study in the minutiae of every day life.

Steve Martin's Object of Beauty

2011-06-13T17:26:00.000-04:00

This may sound strange but I've had an affinity for Steve Martin since his days on Laugh In. Yes, I 'm dating myself. Even then I thought there was more to this man than meets the eye and when he delved into film I knew it was true. I'm not speaking of the silly comedic films but the more serious, and naturally less popular, like Pennies from Heaven. I wanted to know Steve Martin. I thought that he had a very romantic soul.

Then he began to write novels and, surprise for the reviewers, they were good. Once again, little humor came through but instead what I would call a poignant sadness or disappointment with life. This shouldn't really surprise readers as who can be sadder than a clown? I listened several years ago to Martin's autobiography and it was, indeed, quite depressing. It's the story of a man who is often misunderstood, one who wanted to succeed, to win over a cold, withholding parent, but never quite felt that he did. Sad indeed.

An Object of Beauty received mixed reviews but I'll admit I liked it. I won't rave simply because it isn't that kind of novel. It's a bit jaded because it's about people in the rarefied stratus of the art world who are just that. Enter one smart, sexy, amoral woman who knows what she wants out of life and just how to get it and you have Lacy Yeager, a gal you may not like but can't help but watch in awe as she proceeds to cleverly identify who she can ignore and who she must use to work her way up to her own East Side gallery.

Steve Martin is well acquainted with the fine art world. Considered quite an astute collector, his insider knowledge comes across wonderfully well in this novel. Reading it reminded me of being back in college with my first History of Art class.

Martin takes us through the back rooms at Sotheby's, to gallery openings uptown and downtown, explaining the difference, to the banquettes of the well known New York restaurants where the deals are hashed out and then teaches us about the rise of the Modernist movement, Warhol, deKooning, Pollack, and many names I'm ignorant of. He shows how buyers can be manipulated into thinking they're getting a deal and then the deal becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and the value of the "object of beauty" skyrockets.

One caveat I might suggest that you actually read the book rather than listen to it as I did. The reason being that the physical book, which I've had the chance to browse through, has lovely photos of some of the art work discussed throughout the novel. That's when you understand that words may sometimes fail even a great writer when it comes to describing an object of beauty.

Yes, I am on vacation and tomorrow I'll see if I can express in words the beauty I see as I sit here on the deck, watching the container ships ply the harbor and wonder what's in them and where in this big, wide, wonderful world they're going. I'm hungry already. Is it time for cheese and wine yet?

The Good Daughters

2011-06-10T19:27:00.000-04:00

In the past I had the opportunity to apprise you of the amazing talent of this author, Joyce Maynard. http://bit.ly/ioq8Tz It makes me think about, for the 1000th time, how many talented, insightful writers are out there quietly plying their trade every day who never make it to the "top ten." How can it be that we, as a society, pride ourselves on the mediocre when we could so easily be known for our appreciation of the outstanding? Why do my sweet little old lady customers at the library prefer James Patterson or Steig Larsson to an author like Joyce Maynard? I'll never get it.

This heartfelt novel, The Good Daughters, revolves around the 4th of July birthday (Jess, read no further) of two babies, born in the same hospital, Dana Dickerson and Ruth Plank. The story is told in alternating chapters between the two women as they come of age, each trying to adapt to and be accepted in the lives they've chosen, which don't necessarily conform with the futures their families may have envisioned for them.

Each woman is interesting and lovely in her own right. Ruth, the unexpected baby, rejected by her very unhappy mother Connie, a straight-laced, church-going farm wife, partner but reluctant lover to Edwin, whose family has owned the Plank farm for generations. Plodding along for decades, doing what's expected but nothing more, the Planks grown their strawberries, sell fresh vegetables during the short New Hampshire season, and live an anachronistic life that Ruth, a spirited artist can't wait to escape from.

Dana, on the other hand, has suffered as the child of selfish, nomadic parents, who schlep their family from state to state, following father George's latest get-rich-quick schemes that never pan out. Mom seems detached from all emotion, an artist who prefers the company of her canvases and paints to that of her lonely daughter and spaced out son Ray.

It's the old nature vs. nurture conundrum taken to a new level. In gorgeous prose, Ms. Maynard takes us into the hearts of these tragic, confused characters as they try to navigate the very difficult task of living as responsible adults who have never truly understood their innermost selves.

Ruth harbors a life long fascination, I should say a soul shattering connection, to Dana's quirky brother Ray. Every summer Connie Plank oddly insists on the requisite visit to the Dickerson family so that the "birthday sisters" can spend time together. Of course, Ruth and Dana have little in common and being forced to spend time together exacerbates their reluctance to socialize. These sojourns do, however, allow the spark to ignite between Ray and Ruth who years later will have the chance to act on their attraction to each other with complicated, tragic results.

Dana, on the other hand, falls in love with Clarice, a college professor for whom "coming out" back in the '60's was a sure way to sabotage the tenure track. Their idyllic, long term relationship is one of the amazing strengths of Ms. Maynard's novel. Dana is a woman inexplicably drawn to the land. A nurturer, she buys a farm, raises strawberries, flowers, and goats, establishing an Eden where she and Clarice can escape the judgment of the outside world. Never have I read such a deeply moving description of a long term love affair challenged, but never hobbled by, tremendous social and physical troubles.

I can't say enough about the beauty of Ms. Maynard's writing, in her previous novel, Labor Day, and in her latest, The Good Daughters. I find myself sighing with satisfaction at the end of certain chapters and relishing the next ones. At the risk of going out on a limb, I believe that one can often get the sense of a person through their words and I feel that Joyce Maynard has an extraordinarily kind soul. There isn't an ounce of judgment or recrimination in her work. Instead, one feels that she embraces all of humanity with its foibles, weaknesses, desires and joys. This is a woman I would love to know.

Read more about Ms. Maynard at http://www.joycemaynard.com/Joyce_Maynard/ABOUT_JOYCE.html

Back from Botswana

2011-06-08T07:42:00.000-04:00

Yes, I recently had the pleasure of eavesdropping at the Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party in Gaborone and, once again, I'm so sorry that Botswana can't be included in my ambitious African vacation later this year. Perhaps someday I'll be able to return and soak up the peaceful, laid back life lovingly described by Alexander McCall Smith in his No. 1 Ladies Detective series.

Though the plot was a little thinner than usual, perhaps owing to the fact that there doesn't really seem to be much crime in Gaborone, the lilting voice of Lisette Lecat, who's been doing an outstanding job of narrating these books for years now, is the perfect antidote for endless trips up and down route 41 in Southwest Florida.

For me, at least, the draw will always be the author himself. I never cease to marvel at Smith's insightful grasp of our shared human condition and of the female mind in particular. One can't help but adore Grace Makutsi, once secretary to Ma Ramotswe, now second in command as assistant detective, as she shops for the perfect pair of shoes for her wedding day.
A woman who struggled with poverty, about to be married to Phuti Radiphuti, respected business owner, Grace is in the unusual situation of being able to shop without a thought to the cost, a happenstance that she takes very seriously.

Smith's love and respect for people with all of their foibles, weaknesses and strengths is so endearing. I've seen various PBS documentaries with Smith in which he takes audiences on tours of the Okavango, Delta, introduces us to the local leaders, and simply overflows with appreciation for the land where he was raised.
If you've never read any of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Series then you really must begin at the beginning. Once you get to know the characters then you can bounce around without any loss of enjoyment. Oh, and do see the delightful film starring Jill Scott. I'm anxiously awaiting a sequel.

A Wealth of Books!

2011-06-03T10:03:00.000-04:00

I wish that I had taken a photo of the South County Library staff yesterday when the boxes from Book Expo arrived. I think that I was more excited than Jess and Kathleen, the actual attendees. One of the first things I'll do when I retire will be to call Maryellen (who will also be retired) and book our trip to NYC. We won't be reimbursed, no, but we also won't have to worry about staffing levels or be circumscribed by policy on who we want to see and when.

The cartons of books were a heavy lift but Jessica got them up on carts and we dug in. I love my Nook, no question, but there's nothing like fingering the pages of advanced reader's copies, realizing that one is about to be ahead of the curve, pronouncing on the new novels before the general public gets to see them.

I immediately emailed Barbara Hoffert, book editor at Library Journal, to brag that I was holding in my hand an autographed copy of Amy Waldman's much anticipated The Submission, a novel about choosing the architectural design for a memorial at ground zero. Could I go ahead and review it? And, while I'm at it, and since I'm leaving next week for a "reading" vacation in Maryland and Massachusetts, would she like me to tackle the new Anne Enright? Tom Perrotta? Alice Hoffman?

The Perrotta it is! Kudos to Kathleen Young-Wells for accosting Mr. Perrotta at BEA. Declaring herself his biggest fan anywhere - we librarians love superlatives - she was able to acquire an autographed copy for herself and another one for me. Please note that he graciously responded that he'd been waiting for her all his life. She swooned.

The man must be prescient as his latest novel in a long list of work noted for its blatant social commentary involves - you guessed it - the Rapture! Ironically titled The Leftovers, of which I surely hope I'm one, this is another book that's been getting plenty of hype. I can't wait to dig in.

I began The Submission at 7 AM, eschewing my NY Times and the No-News News Press, and honestly, if I wasn't on my way to the doctor's office for the results of an MRI, and then on to lunch at
Crave, I'd be plopped in a chair until I finished this remarkable novel. It's exceeding even my high expectations. I'll link to the reviews the minute they're published.

Off the Radar - Two Little Gems

2011-06-01T09:38:00.000-04:00

This is what I'll miss most about working in a library and why I'll need to be a frequent visitor. I'll still read all the professional journals, of course, I'll be up on what the top writers in the world are doing, but how on earth do you find the little delights that catch your eye when you're shelving? Perhaps it would be fun to work in a book store.

My dear friend Andrea understands how much I crave respite from the news of the world, the frustration and disappointment with the status quo, because she's the same way. So when she mentioned that I might enjoy A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, a novel by Nicholas Drayson, I snapped it up. Think Major Pettigrew moves from East Anglia to Nairobi, Kenya.

In the quiet, subtle manner of Alexander McCall-Smith, Drayson, who lived in Nairobi for two years, touches on many serious political issues facing the Kenyan people, the prevalence of AIDS, corruption of the police and political authorities, and race relations, through a sweet love triangle.

At the center of this triangle is the widow Rose Mbikwa. Of Scottish descent, Rose met and married the love of her life, an African political activist who died in prison under mysterious circumstances. For sixteen years Rose has led the Tuesday morning bird walks and for six years Mr. Malik has been in her thrall, slowly healing from the death of his own beloved wife Aruna.

With the annual Nairobi Hunt Club Ball approaching, the shy, rotund, balding, Mr. Malik is trying desperately to drum up the courage to ask Mrs. Mbikwa to accompany him, when a blast from his past appears in the person of the gold-chain-draped, red-sport-car-driving, Harry Khan. Harry is a caricature of every fast-talking, womanizing creep who ever came down the pike so he naturally sets his cap for Rose.

What follows is a madcap, week long competition to win the hand of the unwitting Rose, who happens to be out of the country having eye surgery. The rules set up by Mr. Malik's cronies at the Asadi men's club state that whichever man comes up with the highest number of unique bird sightings will have the privilege of asking Rose to the ball. Only problem? No one seems to have let the estimable Mrs. Rose Mbikwa in on the contest.

A more serious but no less beautifully written novel that caught my eye is The Typist by Michael Knight, a creative writing teacher at the University of Tennessee. Ann Patchett calls it "elegant, thoughtful, and resonant." Need I say more?
Set in Tokyo immediately after the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this novel examines the disconnect between the conquered and the conquerors, through the eyes of Francis VanCleave, a typist on the staff of General MacArthur.

Van is not your typical soldier abroad. As the typist he is more of an observer, a witness to the carelessness with which the army's men make their presence known, frequenting the dance halls and prostitutes, condescending to the locals. But when Van's roommate, the troubled, insecure combat veteran Clifford, falls hard for Namiki, a local woman from a good family, he enlists Van's help in securing her trust, setting in motion a series of events that readers sense will end in tragedy.

Knight's writing is so spare and perfect. It's amazing the emotions he generates in less than 200 pages. Van's sensibilites commend themselves to MacArthur who entrusts his lonely 10 year old son to Van's weekly visits. Their poignant relationship foreshadows the resolution of another personal decision Van must make about the wife he married on impulse and left behind in the states.

Though The Typist takes place in the 1940's it could just as easily be set in Baghdad or Kabul right now. It poses the question, "what do we look like to those whose lives we've destroyed?" How must it feel to be beholden to your conquerors for your recovery? So far, we've been lucky, but I often wonder when our acts of aggression will come back to haunt us. More to the point, why aren't they haunting us right now?

Tom Franklin on Friendship

2011-05-28T18:57:00.000-04:00

I've been mulling over the nature of friendships obsessively lately as I see our library crew targeting retirement dates, moving away to more reasonable places to live, hoping to simplify their lives. Yesterday I had a "play date," with my college roommate. We try to do this three or four times a year and it's always so satisfying. She, too, is ready to jump off the gerbil wheel.

Forty one years ago I was a bridesmaid in her wedding, we roomed together for three of our four years at Russell Sage, and then we spoke perhaps once a year for thirty years. Imagine how we felt when we found ourselves suddenly living 20 minutes apart in Southwest Florida! The joy of this kind of friendship is that, once reunited, we realized that no time had passed at all. We still find the same things funny, the same things irritating, and have the ability to laugh at ourselves with abandon. We are still on the opposite sides of all things political - except our love of the environment - but simply agree to disagree.

I just finished a powerful novel about friendship, family, race, and secrets in a southern town where nothing much has changed in the almost fifty years since the Civil Rights Act was passed. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, a literary murder mystery, takes place in Mississippi where a bookish young Larry Ott learns early on that friendship cannot transcend race in Chabot. Silas Jones, son of a single black mom who works two jobs to put food on the table, lives in what's likely an abandoned slave cabin on the Ott family farm.

Their secret friendship deepens over time as Larry teaches Silas how to shoot a gun, fish, and appreciate the stories of Stephen King. Yet at school, they pass each other in the hall as strangers. Larry's parents have secrets and his father, especially, is intent upon keeping the boys apart. In a particularly ugly scene, Mr. Ott discovers that Larry has loaned his favorite rifle to Silas, and, pitting the two boys against each other, forces a confrontation that will change their relationship for years to come.

The moniker, "scary Larry," follows young Ott all through his life after his very first date ends in the disappearance of the young woman, her body never found, and suspicion always weighing heavy on Larry, who proclaimed his innocence to no avail. Small towns can be cruel places; reputations once earned are difficult to shed. Larry never had a chance to escape Chabot, while Silas, buoyed by a talent for sports, leaves for college, returning years later as a police constable.

When another woman disappears, it's easy for the townspeople to point to scary Larry. He lives all alone in the family home, runs the family body shop, not that any customers ever come his way, and watches out for his dementia plagued mother in the nursing home.

Silas, who still hurts from the discrimination that sent him away to Oxford (Mississippi that is) twenty years earlier, feels that he has to perform twice as well for half the recognition. This murder investigation is his big chance to gain the respect he deserves. He knows that Larry isn't capable of hurting anyone, but will he have the courage to stand up to the townspeople who have already tried Larry in their hearts?

This heartbreaking novel is so much more than a murder mystery. Even though sharp readers will figure out one of the main points of the story before it's actually revealed, that doesn't detract from Mr. Franklin's painfully honest look at human nature and the lengths that we'll go to to protect ourselves from the bad opinion of others.

The character of Silas is especially interesting, complicated by his guilt and the need to do the right thing after years of covering up key knowledge that could have freed Larry from his loneliness. A few secondary players are also wonderfully drawn. Silas's girlfriend is a strong "sista" who pushes him to be the man she believes he is and Voncile, the dispatcher at the police station, has personality plus. An extremely poignant and satisfying read.

Lisa Genova - Not for Hypochondriacs!

2011-05-25T19:27:00.000-04:00

Did any of you read Ms. Genova's Still Alice and not suspect that you were suffering from dementia at the very least, if not the beginnings of Alzheimer's? I know, I know, I read every article I can about how middle-aged folks shouldn't worry when they can't remember names or find their keys but...I'll never, ever forget that scene in the devastating film Iris, in which Judi Dench, as the writer Iris Murdoch, sits at her desk, staring out the window at a rabbit, and can't for the life of her remember what that poor creature is named.

Now Lisa Genova has given me something else to worry about - traumatic brain injury - in this case, a rare neurological disorder called Left Neglect. In her latest novel, Left Neglected, which I simply can't put down, the full power of her Harvard Phd. in neuroscience is on display.

I would call Sarah and Bob Nickerson a typically unlikeable yuppie couple who already have too much of everything and are scrambling for more, but then, how do I know what's "typical?" When they boast of working 18 hour days each, going to bed with their laptops and iphones, and then raising three kids under the age of 8 on top of that, I would say "you call that living?"

Bob and Sarah even play games of chance to decide who gets to NOT take the kids to school each day. On this particular morning, Sarah won. How many times have you looked away from the road for just a split second? Changing the CD in the player? Swiping at a bug? Sarah searches her purse for her cell phone, just think how much she can accomplish on her ride into Boston! But, when her eyes next connect with the road, traffic has stopped, she brakes, swerves, rolls, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Genova's novel may have too much technical information for some readers. Because of my fascination with all things medical, especially involving brain injury, I'm enjoying it immensely. Sarah's eyesight has not been affected by the accident yet her brain cannot "see" the left side of anything. Imagine it! It's difficult to think of all the ramifications of an injury of this magnitude for a mother of three. Eating, walking, dressing, reading, and writing, once taken for granted, must be relearned, much as it would if she had had a stroke.

Adding to the stress of regaining her life is the emergence of Sarah's estranged mother as her primary caregiver and cheerleader, a necessity since Bob is facing a company reorganization that may soon render him redundant. Slowly, as Sarah heals, the back story of her older brother's death and her mother's long slide into depression, reveals itself, leading to healing of another kind. As it does, readers begin to surmise the double meaning of "left neglected." I, on the other hand, was left to ponder whether or not I'd have Sarah's gumption and courage to claw back from such a devastating injury.

My New American Life and Other Thoughts

2011-05-22T13:50:00.000-04:00

My latest review appeared in the 5/15 issue of LJ. I'll never get over seeing my name in print. Oh vanity, thy name is woman!
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/ljinprintcurrentissue/890209-403/fiction_reviews_may_15_2011.html.csp

What a surprise I got the other day when I went into work and found not one, but three envelopes from LJ on my desk. I almost went into panic mode thinking that I would have to review three titles at the same time but, no, they had sent me hard copies of older novels that I had reviewed for them. In one, Swamplandia, there was a full color print out of publisher Knopf's advertising for Karen Russell's novel which will soon be out in paperback.

I was blown away to see myself quoted at the top of the page and was so busy patting myself on the back that I failed to notice that the title of the book was spelled wrong! My former manager, Linda Holland, with whom I share these things, spotted it immediately. Once an editor, always and editor.

As I've mentioned before, I'm in the process of whittling down my choices for next season's book discussions and I'm afraid I've just eliminated Francine Prose's My New American Life. I am enjoying the book but, on some level, I just don't think it will work for my group. Ms. Prose is noted for her many award nominated works (Blue Angel, a look at sexual politics on college campuses, A Changed Man, about the Neo-Nazi movement) which tend to be cutting edge, politically timely, and funny in a tongue in cheek type of way. This one is no exception.

Our heroine, Lula, is an Albanian immigrant who has lucked into a boring but cushy job as companion to Zeke, only teenage son of a Walter Mitty clone whose wife left him on Christmas Eve a year ago. Zeke's dad, Mr. Stanley, has a friend who's a renowned immigration attorney, currently working with detainees at Gitmo.
He has managed to streamline Lula's green card, knowing full well that her entire application is a beautifully fabricated story. Lula, you see, has a penchant for fiction writing, a talent that will prove advantageous to Zeke later in the story.

Prose pointedly pushes one of her themes, that we Americans take our largess and freedoms for granted, through Lula's observations and comparisons between the life she's living in Northern New Jersey and the one she left behind. I like Prose's politics, always have, but she rather bangs us over the head with the juxtapostions of Lula's memories of Eastern Bloc justice and the Bush/Cheney policy of torture and rendition that we see through the eyes of atty. Settebello.

Zeke, on the one hand comes across as a lonely, disconnected young man with few friends, and on the other, as a spoiled, disrespectful brat. Still, in her way, Lula loves him and she has his back. To me, he's the most interesting and realistic member of this strange clan.

Lula's longing for a taste of home comes in the person of her missing friend Dunia. Thinking that she's been kidnapped and sold into prostitution, Lula is shocked and somewhat disappointed to find that Dunia has sold her soul to a wealthy plastic surgeon for the unlimited use of credit cards and a handsome young driver. A little too cliched?

Then there's the three Albanian "brothers" who show up unannounced at Mr. Stanley's. Why there, why now? Why do they ask Lula to hide a gun in her underwear drawer? Why on earth does she trust them?

I think it's the character of Lula herself that is giving me trouble. I'm 250 pages in and only just now beginning to feel any empathy for, or belief in her. Is it because, as she says herself, after telling us so many lies, we won't believe her when she tells the truth? Or is Prose getting at something deeper? Is our "new" American life really so different from whence we all came?

Smart Women

2011-05-19T19:57:00.000-04:00

Oh, how I love them. Outspoken, opinionated - remember how Theresa Heinz Kerry was lambasted for calling herself that? I've just finished two books, a novel and a memoir, that went a little way toward satisfying my curiosity about these two women.

Susan Sontag. I have no idea how it is that she's always been on my radar screen, but there it is, she has. Whenever I go to a book sale I look for books by her because I suspect that they're too in-depth and erudite for me to read just for a weekend's pleasure. My overdue fines are high enough as it is! The Volcano Lover is supposed to be the most accessible of her novels and I may just take it with me on vacation this summer.

In the meantime I decided to read Sigrid Nunez's memoir of her time living with Ms. Sontag as her amanuensis and, later on, as her son David's lover. Sempre Susan is the name of this one day read and it provided a light look at the everyday life, quirks and foibles of the notoriously brilliant and, some say, difficult Ms. Sontag. Ms. Nunez does not presume to evaluate Sontag's huge body of essays or her fiction. She simply give readers a glimpse of a woman who was driven to write.

Do you think that she was considered "difficult" because she was a woman? Because she was such a provocative writer and purveyor of ideas that she confounded people? Are scholarly men considered "difficult" when they profess their beliefs for all the world to read? Quick - answer! Time is up.....

Cynthia Ozick has been a finalist for most every prestigious literary award out there: Pulitzer, Man-Booker, O.Henry, etc. Several years ago at a library conference she was on a panel, along with the delightful Liesl Schillinger, frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review. In fact, I believe they were touting all the great new books that were coming out that year. Ozick, who reminds me of my mother, impressed me with her smart, sassy observations and I made a pledge to catch up on her fiction.

I picked up a used copy of Heir to the Glimmering World, you know, one of those books I'm saving for my retirement. But when I saw her latest, Foreign Bodies, with the glorious Parisian skyline at sunset on the cover, I decided I'd better not put her off any longer. So glad I didn't!

One of the most worrisome, difficult things about reviewing literary fiction is the possibility of totally missing the point of a novel. When I see that a book I've reviewed in a lukewarm manner is raved about by someone like my idol Barbara Kingsolver, I just want the earth to open up and swallow me. (this actually happened with E. O. Wilson's Anthill)
Therefore, I was grateful to the reviewers who pointed out that Ozick's novel is a reverse take on Henry James' The Ambassadors. I never would have figured that out on my own! Note to self, download a free copy of the James novel to my Nook.

In 1952 Europe is still reeling from WW II but siblings Julian and Iris are drawn to the dark mysteries of Paris when their father Martin refuses to stop orchestrating every aspect of their lives. In desperation, the egocentric Martin contacts his estranged sister, Bea, expecting her to drop everything (she is a divorced teacher living in relatively poor circumstances in Manhattan where she teaches Shakespeare to low level learners) and fly to Paris to coax Julian back to the states.

Bea arrives in Paris to find Julian married to an older woman, a Jewish refugee whose husband and child were killed during the war. She works for an agency that places immigrants in housing and jobs, yet supports the rather listless, unattractive Julian. Iris is in an experimental relationship with an unsavory man who's passing himself off as a doctor, duping people out of hard earned money.

Why the Americans yearn for these "foreign bodies" is at the crux of this complicated, dispiriting novel, which is so well written that the reader forgives the slimy way the author makes us feel about being so devil may care about our wealth and advantages. Bea is a wonderful, tough character, a feminist before her time and I just loved the clever way she was able to win over her niece and nephew with her open, sensible, smart attitude!

Remembrance of Things Past

2011-05-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

No, I haven't tackled Proust! I did, however, attend a retirement party, one of many I expect to attend over the next couple of years, and had a disturbing interaction with a former co-worker that has been sticking in my craw. I just hate it that her infamous negativity swamped over me and I've been trying to analyze it ever since Friday evening.

Our library system has been graced with an exuberant, visionary group of people who came to the profession in mid-life. We went through graduate school together, encouraging each other every step of the way. We soaked up all that we learned at conferences and participated in leadership seminars. Now, after the requisite twenty years, we are facing our next iteration, whatever that may be.

I mentioned that evening that we will soon be losing our corporate memory and that I would be interested in writing a history to enhance the timeline several of us worked on a few years ago while preparing a five year strategic plan. This person scoffed at my suggestion and said in no uncertain terms, "no one would care, no one would read it." She went on to say that no one remembers you the day you walk out that door (and it may be true in her case!) and if you think they do you need to have you head examined. Ouch.

What she failed to see was that this isn't about me or any one person but about a generation of idealistic librarians who have embraced their career paths and, dare I say it, changed people's lives. Sometimes with encouragement, other times without, we have made innovations that have brought new services to those who may not have had access before.

Will we ever forget the pride we felt seeing our first library director's face on the cover of Library Journal - Librarian of the Year! Can I ever forget the encouragement and mentoring that I received from Pete Smith, the Bookmobile librarian who supervised me for two years while I was getting my degree? Will we ever forget Lesa Holstine who single handedly got the Southwest Florida Reading Festival off the ground? (now a sought after speaker and reviewer)

So, do we learn from history? Our country's continued war in Afghanistan, so like the Vietnam quagmire, tells me that no, we probably don't. But should we stop trying? No way! As we sixty somethings straggle out the doors of our libraries over the next couple of years I have no doubt that there will be fabulously inventive young people to take our places. I've just written a personal recommendation for one such lovely young woman and this I know is true. If I hand her a copy of the corporate history, she'll read it.

The Weird Sisters are - well- kind of weird

2011-05-15T19:01:00.000-04:00

I've been listening to Eleanor Brown's book for several weeks now and I'll admit I was becoming so annoyed with these women, Rose, Bianca and Cordelia Andreas, that I was ready to scream. I just wanted to shake them and yell "grow up!" How could I have ever thought that I'd make a wonderful psychologist? I'd have been just awful!

I had to take a huge giant step back and try to remember where my brother, sister and I were when we were the age of these women - mid to late '20's - and realized, a bit sheepishly, that perhaps we weren't quite as settled or accomplished as my addled brain remembers. I'd love to know what my folks would say. Ha!

The sisters are the daughters of an absent minded Shakespeare professor, thus the names from King Lear, and his wife, who happens to be in the throes of chemotherapy and radiation treatment for breast cancer. What a great cover for Rose, Bianca and Cordy to all pile on at home, each nursing their own very private wounds. As will happen when "kids" return home after flying the coop, they immediately tend to revert to the roles they had as children and begin to act like children as well.

I'm dating myself but, if you remember the Smothers' Brothers when they did their sibling routine "mother always loved you best," then you'll get the picture. As the oldest, Rose tends to be the "bossypants," (apologies to Tina Fey) still disapproving and judgemental after all these years. Though her long suffering fiance is at Oxford on a teaching fellowship, she just can't seem to see her way clear to even go for a visit, convincing herself that her folks can't do without her, when in fact, she just won't leave her comfort zone.

Bianca is the one who couldn't wait to leave the confines of the bucolic Ohio town where she was born and raised. Bright lights, big city was all she ever wanted, and the parties, clothes, and men to go with it. But those things cost plenty, so when the men stopped buying, she helped herself to the company's checkbook.

Cordy is the most lovable one of the bunch, an irresponsible flower-child, floating from town to town with her guitar in tow, flopping for a week or a month wherever the spirit moves her. Now she's back in the fictitious Barnwell, broke, pregnant and yearning to be settled and able to indulge her burgeoning nesting instincts.

The narrator of the audio does a wonderful job with the omniscient voice, bringing life and sympathy to these characters all struggling with what, I realized, are major, life altering decisions. The parents who, throughout most of the novel, seem like cloudy, background characters, suddenly take their places toward the end of the book with sage advice and unexpected wisdom, allowing this listener to sigh with relief.

Suddenly I saw the truth and insight of Ms. Eleanor Brown. How could I have forgotten the way I felt the day I left my little town in the Berkshires? I never wanted to look back and honestly, didn't, for many years. I was terrified, like Cordy and Bianca, of being trapped in what I saw as a "small town" life and it took me a long time to be able to return and appreciate the beauty of my original home.

As the girls begin to make mature decisions and realize that the choices are theirs and no one else's, readers will get a sense that all will be well for the Andreas family, even though much different than they might have predicted. How can you not love a book in which one of the main characters decides to become a librarian? And, it's a good thing!

Bessie Smith at Florida Rep

2011-05-08T11:48:00.001-04:00

Only a few of you may know this but I've harbored a secret desire to be a torch singer ever since my parents used to return from their annual theatre trip to New York City back in the '50's with the records of the shows they'd seen,. My siblings and I would play those vinyls again and again, memorizing every word to Camelot, My Fair Lady, even The Tenderloin. We mounted ambitious productions every summer, The Emperor's New Clothes sticks in my mind. Once we even attempted Shakespeare! We charged the neighbors five cents a seat and that included refreshements.

So it was with anticipatory pleasure that Don and I traipsed downtown on a hot, sunny Florida afternoon to take in the matinee at Florida Repertory Theatre. Fort Myers' very professional company has tackled every Pulitzer winner, Obie recipient and Tony award winning play ever produced and I've seldom seen a show that didn't stand up to New York standards in every way. This one was no exception.

I'm only sorry that we were part of a, by nature, older crowd that tends to go to the theatre in the afternoon, as I suspect an evening crowd would have been a bit more rambunctious. True confessions, I'm one of those annoying people who just can't sit still if the music is hot. The Devil's Music is an 80 minute joy of theatrical storytelling, mixed with incredible vocals and a sexy saxaphone, jaunty piano and subdued bass. One might think I'd have dropped five pounds from bouncing in my seat.

Neither Don nor I had previously been familiar with the life of Bessie Smith, though we recognized some of the songs right away. She was a groundbreaking, tough living, multi-talented woman who came of age in the twenties, saved Columbia Records from bankruptcy after the depression through her stellar sales, appearing on stages all over the country. Who knew?

Actress Michi Braden is a knockout! Only a few minutes into the show I felt as though I were sitting in the living room of an old speakeasy talking with Bessie Smith as she shared the ups and downs of her life as a black woman determined to make a place for herself in a too white world. The show runs for two more weeks. Love music? Get downtown to see it!
http://www.floridarep.org/

A Lost Week

2011-05-06T09:07:00.000-04:00

I was hell bent on finishing Cynthia Ozick's novel in one sitting this week when two things happened to stop me in my tracks. Of course, the first thing was the headline in the paper on Monday morning that had me questioning my self image as an anti-death penalty fanatic. I want to feel guilty about my lack of empathy for Mr. Bin Laden, truly I do, but my friend Andrea has always told me that I'm a strategic thinker and that part of my personality emerged as my immediate reaction was, President Obama's approval ratings will improve drastically.

I haven't talked politics in a while - just books. It seems that, after the mid-term elections, I was in such a funk, such a deep depression about the state of our country, the rise of the conservative fringe, and the election of Florida governor Rick Scott, that I just didn't know what to say. I drowned myself in literature.

This week I've had to do the same. When I'm not reading every newspaper I can get my hands on, I'm reading my latest gift from Library Journal which also arrived on Monday. The 400 and some page novel, the latest from Russell Banks, has a one week turnaround and is consuming my every spare minute.It appears to be a thought-provoking treatise on the nature of crime and punishment. How appropos is that?

Halfway through The Weird Sisters which I'm listening to in my car. (so don't be offended when I decline car pooling) Will give you my thoughts when the review of Mr. Banks' novel is on its way to New York.

Addicted to Writing, Not to Mention Reading!

2011-04-29T13:14:00.000-04:00

It's true that I often wake up in the middle of the night and compose a complete post in my head. My friend Don gave me a little recorder that I can keep handy in order to write down my thoughts, but with the typical hubris of those who can't believe they're aging, I always figure I'll remember everything word for word in the morning. NOT!

This post is a query. Why would I continue to punish myself day after day listening to this Donna Tartt novel, The Secret History? It's at once fascinating and repelling and, I might add, in huge need of a better editor! There is so much extraneous material in there. If I were to be snarky, I might say that all the references to the Greeks and the classics are simply an opportunity for the author to show off her extensive knowledge.

Most readers will likely blow past these contrivances and zero in on the murder mystery. The thing is, it's so much more than that. I immediately compared this book to a Patricia Highsmith novel - think, The Talented Mister Ripley - later reading reviews that suggested the same thing. Perhaps it's knowing how diabolical Highsmith is that I keep on, waiting for the awful deed to happen. The suspense is killing me!

Tartt's characters don't seem to have a redeeming quality among them. Twenty somethings, attending an exclusive college in New England, they are so full of themselves, so sure of their brilliance, hand-chosen by the dubiouly tolerated classics professor for a private curriculum in Greek and Latin, these young men and one woman share a sense of entitlement that seems so outdated it's hardly believable.

Entering into this exclusive group is the narrator, Richard Papen, a scholarship student from a low brow California family, whose desire to be accepted is palpably sad. One wonders what he would do to become an "insider." Then there's Bunny, there's one in every crowd, whose whole reason for being is to identify the hidden weakness of each person in the group and then to tease or embarass that person unrelentingly, in an effort to boost his own low self esteem.

If I'm not making this sound like a recommendation, you're right. And yet...there's something so sinister, so slowly, inexorably evil about these people that curiosity as to just how far they'll go to protect themselves and their way of life keeps the reader turning the pages. This book must have been sold to a movie house. I can't believe it won't be appearing some day soon at a theatre near you.

If my ladies from Birmingham are still reading, a shout out to you. Would love to have a chat about your take on the royal goings on at Buckingham today. Full disclosure, against my better judgement, I did take my coffee and newspaper into the living room this morning to catch a glimpse of the happy couple. Hope springs eternal, so they say.

Next up, a marvelously written book, Foreign Bodies, by Cynthia Ozick.

Another Cover I Couldn't Walk Past!

2011-04-23T12:14:00.000-04:00

I just love eye popping book covers, as I've mentioned before. Sometimes, when I'm shelving my 4th or 5th cart of new books at the library, I pretend I'm the judge of the latest artwork and choose a title based on that. I always find it interesting when audience members at the reading festival or other presentations question how writers choose their covers.

The quick answer is - they don't. Unless you're a James Patterson or Danielle Steel you actually have no choice on cover art, not even on the title they tell us. Also, one's overseas publisher might proffer your novel with a completely different cover than the one used here in the states. The same goes for paperback editions vs. hardcover.

With that in mind, let me tell you about the book I'm currently reading. The Lady Matador's Hotel just cried out to be taken home and I finally got to it this week. The setup is reminiscent of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, in that the building, in this case the elegant Hotel Miraflores, somewhere in South America, actually becomes a character in the book.

A fascinating cadre of seemingly disparate characters is staying at Miraflores during this particular week, and author Cristina Garcia (Dreaming in Cuban), does a lovely job of weaving the threads that will tie them all together.

Suki Palacios in Room 719, aloof to the excitement generated by her visit, prepares to meet her bull while in the Honeymoon suite a Korean businessman tries to placate his very pregnant mistress and still keep a handle on the labor unrest at this textile factory.

Down in the lobby an unhappily married couple is about to take possession of a newborn girl adopted through a highly suspect agency run by the intrepid attorney Gertrudis Stuber whose husband is having an affair with one of her hired birth mothers. And in the kitchen, a former guerrilla fighter turned waitress prepares a poisonous soup for the atrocity committing colonel who pompously awaits her ministrations in the dining room.

Garcia's characters abound with all the flaws that make them human, causing the reader to empathize even with the worst of them, rooting for their happiness, and laughing at their all too recognizable foibles. Reading this novel gave me that juicily uncomfortable feeling of being a voyeur. Great fun!

Huneven's Blame on Agenda for Book Discussion

2011-04-19T15:01:00.000-04:00

I'm taking advantage of a couple of days at home - no sunlight for 48 hours is no easy restriction to adhere to when one lives in the Sunshine Capital in springtime - to be a layabout and actually relax and read an entire book in one sitting. I chose Michelle Huneven's NBCC nominee, Blame, a year ago for our May book discussion at the library. I never read the books ahead of time. I like to come to them fresh, the same way our customers do, when they show up on discussion day.

Deciding on books for discussion group so far ahead of time is no easy task. Normally I'll have 10 or 15 choices and have to narrow them down to 5 or 6 in time for a June press date. This spring, though, I'm having trouble. Nothing is screaming my name. Best sellers lists look, well, listless to me and suggestions from friends have been considered and discarded. My tendency is to revert to the classics and I may tackle The Jungle in the fall. Meanwhile, I'm a woman on a quest.

Blame has turned out to be a fantastic choice for discussion. In fact, it's a much more nuanced, complicated book than I had expected. I began to make a snap judgement early on in my reading, wondering how I could devote 300 pages of time to such an unlikeable protagonist but I held back, opened my heart and mind to Patsy MacLemoore, and am anxiously hoping she'll prove worthy of my trust.

Patsy, you see, is a recovering alcoholic, twenty years sober and still trying to make amends for an action she has no memory of. The police told her that she drove her car, unlicensed as the result of a previous DUI, into her own driveway, running down a mother and her young daughter. The prison sentence that followed, gritty and realistically portrayed, probably saved her life, but it's after her release that living becomes even more complicated.

Patsy's psychiatrist aptly compares her re-entry to that of a soldier returning from war. The move from such a regimented environment to a smorgasbord of options can seem overwhelming and the author writes with such conviction about this difficulty that I wondered for a time if there was some biographical truth in there. An every day existence is no easy thing for the addictive personality, the world is often too much with us.

In fact, for all the millions of folks that AA has saved, criticism has been leveled that they simply exchange one addiction for another, albeit, a healthier one. How does a person manage a balanced life, not too heavily dependent on religion, sex, money, booze or drugs? This is the dilemma that Patsy faces as she tries to assuage guilt, seek redemption, repair relationships, and find fulfillment.

Though Huneven peoples her novel with a marvelously eclectic supporting cast of characters, readers understand that only Patsy can arrive at her true North intact. This reader has knots in her stomach as she heads to the couch for the denouement.

Up Country with Nelson DeMille

2011-04-18T14:39:00.001-04:00

It's been a full month since the Southwest Florida Reading Festival and I've been remiss in not sending a huge shout out to my co-worker and friend Jessica Girlando for the outstanding job she did in her third or is it fourth year as the the one-man Author Selection Committee. Not to take away from Kathleen Wells who singlehandedly has lined up all the fabulous young adult - Ridley Pearson - and children's authors, from R. L. Stine to Jeff Kinney.

My pal Maryellen and I used to do this same job back in the day, before social media completely changed the way we interact with our author idols. One thing, however, will not change. The bigger they are, the nicer they are to deal with. Go figure! David Baldacci? A gem. Janet Evanovich? Wow! A self published Florida writer with one unknown book? Oy!

This year we were privileged to have Nelson DeMille, a man who was so laid back that he refused the mantle of "keynote" speaker. This guy didn't even mind mingling with the public in the restroom! Do you think he thought no one would recognize him? He stood for tons of photos, appeared on two panels, but it was the evening before the festival that really tells you what kind of a man he is.

A Vietnam veteran whose book, Up Country, I'm going to tell you about today, he appeared alone at the Evening with the Authors dinner only to find his table completely full. As he sat and looked around, he realized that some of the faces were familiar. In fact, rather than repeat the whole story, let me have him tell you himself from his own newsletter: http://www.nelsondemille.net/content/newsletter.asp

I love DeMille's work but am fluent in his later novels with the wonderful John Corey. After hearing him speak, however, I couldn't wait to go back ten years to Up Country, especially in light of my renewed interest in my youth and the Vietnam War in particular (Matterhorn, The Lotus Eaters). This novel does not disappoint and is the perfect antidote to running up and down Route 41 in season.

Lt. Paul Brenner is not the smart ass that Corey is, but you still get the sense of a guy who uses humor to defuse situations when he's right on the edge. Believe me, there are plenty of opportunities for him to do this as Brenner travels, under the constant surveillance of the suspicious General Trang, from the southern former Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, to the north in search of a witness to a murder that happened thirty years ago during the height of the Tet Offensive.

In typical government fashion, Brenner is given the least amount of information possible; given just enough to entice him out of retirement, to search for the North Vietnamese soldier whose letter to his brother, uncovered after all this time, recounted a cold blooded killing of a young American lieutenant by an American captain. Who were they? Is the witness still alive?

I guess I've read one too many espionage stories because when Brenner was met in the hotel bar on his first night in country by a gorgeous, much younger American business woman, coincidentally fluent in Vietnamese, my thought was, "oh boy, look out."

Rather unrealistically, Brenner and Susan Weber fall into a relationship that they too quickly call love, (he has a woman back home - don't they all?) and she inserts herself into his investigation under the pretense of helping with the language. All I could think was CIA. Why didn't Brenner get it? Or, maybe he did and he was using Ms. Weber as much as she was using him?

Their easy camaraderie is a precursor to the fabulous relationship between Mr. and Mrs. John Corey. Tension runs high as they try to outwit the nasty Trang, keeping one step ahead of his goons. Along the way DeMille treats us to a gorgeous description of the countryside and the people of Vietnam who, amazingly, don't seem to hate us for the terrible, unforgivable damage that we did to their country.

Like many veterans, my friend Don included, DeMille's return trip to Vietnam seems to be a necessary, cathartic experience and that mysterious country, unknown to so many Americans, is the perfect setting for this politically disturbing, suspenseful and absorbing read.

Thirteen Hours of Suspense

2011-04-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

I had to stay up last night to finish this outstanding suspense novel by South African writer Deon Meyer. His creation, Benny Griessel, is my new cop hero. Years ago I went through a stage where all I read were Ed McBain's police procedurals. Add to that, an affinity for Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue (Dennis Franz was my main man), and Law and Order, I got to the point where I could read between the lines of any news article on a crime and accurately surmise "the rest of the story."

I love the psychology of crime and the crime solvers as well. Michael Connelly fascinates me and Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series calls to me, especially since he's added body language expert Katherine Dance. I hoped to be a psychiatrist from a very young age but, thankfully, my mother disabused me of that notion. She rightly worried for my own mental health - perhaps not thinking I was stable enough to take on other people's troubles?

So I came to Thirteen Hours as a return to crime novels because I had read several excellent reviews but also because of my interest in South Africa, in this case Cape Town, where the Meyer novels take place. The novel is so much more than a murder mystery but that doesn't keep the adrenalin from flowing and the heart racing as recovering alcoholic and recently promoted Captain Benny Griessel plays beat the clock in an effort to halt the execution of a second young American tourist in a city struggling to forge a reputation as a tourist mecca.

Eighteen year old Rachel Anderson overrode the worries of her Indianapolis folks and embarked on the trip of a lifetime with African Overland Tours. About halfway through the trip, though, her positively euphoric response to all that she's learned and seen, takes a dramatic dive.
Her friends don't understand and neither do we. In fact, Meyer juggles so many seemingly disparate threads that he keeps the reader guessing right up the last minute as to why Rachel is being hunted like a wild animal through the streets of Cape Town by, not one, but five sinister young men.

Adding to the suspense is the way the chapter headings each cover a small one or two hour window in the overall thirteen hours of this particular day. Along the way readers are introduced to the beauty of Table Mountain and the ugly residue of apartheid. Divisions in the police hierarchy are based on color, language, sex, and tribal culture. Whites resent being questioned by blacks while the "coloureds" (mixed race) are basically persona non grata.

As in all major cities, political expediency grossly affects who is appointed to a high profile case where a PR nightmare is in the offing. The pressure on Benny comes from above and below as he's assigned to three cases in one day, acting as mentor to a new group of cops, while worrying about his own daughter who's studying in another country and his wife who's left him until he cleans up his act. Can he focus? Will he relapse? Read it and see. I'm moving on to Meyer's previous novel Blood Safari.

Cardinal Sin of Blogging

2011-04-13T20:40:00.000-04:00

I'm apologizing to my readers because I suddenly realized that I have committed a cardinal sin of blogging. One is supposed to update, post, write, whatever you want to call it, at LEAST twice a week or one's readership falls off. This is according toThe Huffington Post Guide to Blogging, but hey, I don't have all the writers that Ariana Huffington has at her disposal, not to mention the free time now that she's sold to AOL! That was a disappointment.

Speaking of disappointments, my president has really been letting me down lately. I've been holding out "hope" that the man I thought I knew (and gave a bit of $$ to) would return - very funny skit on the Daily Show about our relationship with the president by the way. I'm weeks behind on watching, just as I'm weeks behind on reading. I still haven't finished Sunday's paper!

I know that the president spoke this afternoon about the budget and a quick scan of the headlines, indicates he may have finally said the right things about taxes on the uber-wealthy, cuts in defense spending, and protecting senior citizens' rights to Medicare. I'll have to listen to the full speech later. But, he's going to have to tell me an awful lot before I respond to his letter to me yesterday.
Yes, the one with the return envelope for my check for 2012. I wish we had rules like the Europeans do - give folks a month or two to campaign and that's it, put the burden of doing our homework back on us and not on network TV. Wouldn't that be heavenly?

So, what am I reading? Well, I haven't gotten far enough in anything to express an opinion but first up will probably be Nelson DeMille and Up Country. I'll be running the roads Friday on my day off and try to finish that one up so that I can get to the anxiously awaited Weird Sisters which sounds intriguing.

I've just started Donna Tartt's The Little Friend on my ipod. She reads it herself, typically a bad move for an author, but in this case, it's outstanding. The subject matter, though, may prove to be a bit erudite for me and at a whopping 18 or 19 parts to boot. By the bed I'm still enjoying Deon Myers' Thirteen Hours but at ten minutes per evening before crashing out, it'll be a while before I'll be able to weigh in on this.

At work I'm browsing through the latest Robert Baer book, written with his wife Dayna. These two former CIA agents have plenty to say about their previous employer and, as you can imagine, it's far from good. The Company We Keep has not fallen prey to the redactors the way Valerie Plame's book did (practically ruining it for readers or listeners), so the Baers must have learned to play the game. Ever since my love affair with the British spy series MI-5 I've been fascinated by the dark world of espionage. Well actually, I've been interested for most of my life. Why would that be, I wonder?

Any ideas on how I can juggle work, exercise, social life, home, garden and relationships and still have time to read more, I'd love to hear from you! Is it any wonder that social security check is calling my name?

News Out of Africa and a Few Other Tidbits

2011-04-07T06:48:00.000-04:00

You'll be hearing way too much about this in all likelihood but it's only 6 months now until I embark on what I expect will be the biggest adventure of my life - three weeks in Africa. The New York Times had an apropos cover story in Sunday's paper this week titled "Why We Travel," which fit me to a tee. I love to learn! As a matter of fact, I get almost as much pleasure out of preparing for a trip as I do from actually taking it. I think I'd be a fantastic travel writer - another retirement possibility?

You can imagine what a daunting task it is to even begin to get a handle on the largest continent in the world. Our original plans simply became overwhelming logistically so we've sensibly limited our visit to three locations in South Africa with a respite from the long flight with a stop over in Senegal.

My friend Don introduced me to an author who was able to distill the more recent history into an accessible book called New News Out of Africa; Uncovering Africa's Renaissance. Charlayne Hunter-Gault's name will be well-known to NPR aficionados for her work on a special called "Apartheid's People," which won a Peabody award. She was also CNN bureau chief, living and working out of Johannesburg for many years and has decried the lack of news available in the United States about the continent.

With her impeccable credentials, Ms. Hunter-Gault has been given exclusive access to all the big players in Africa's recent history, including Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and even Qaddafi. She accompanied President Clinton on his trip to Rwanda and has written at length about what Archbishop Desmond Tutu refers to as the "new apartheid," HIV-AIDS.

A big disappointment is that we simply cannot spend enough time away to include Ghana on this trip but Ms. Hunter-Gault's book, and most other African historians, give kudos to Ghana's conversion to a democratically elected government. I've heard such wonderful things about the Ghanaian people from one of our volunteers at the library who lived with the Ewe tribe for six weeks while teaching computer and grant writing skills.

Believe it or not, another fun way to get a feel for a culture is through crime literature, police procedurals in particular. When we were in Greece - and wherever we go - bookstores are one of our first stops. A bookseller there recommended Petros Markaris. I've now discovered Deon Meyer whose homicide detective Benny Griessel mentors a mixed race group of South African cops as they navigate Cape Town's darker side. Blurbed by none other than Michael Connelly, Thirteen Hours kept me up last night. More on that this weekend.

Meanwhile I've finished and reviewed my latest gift from Barbara Hoffert at Library Journal, a really unusual debut novel with the great title Daughters of the Revolution. Somehow she almost always knows just what will work for me. Also printed in the April 1st edition is my starred review of Helen Schulman's "ripped from the headlines" novel of a family in free fall after a web video goes viral. Read it here:
http://bit.ly/fc5yCM Just scroll down to the author's last name.

Anne Fortier - You've Made Me So Happy!

2011-04-02T12:09:00.000-04:00

Anyone who's ever met me probably knows that I believe that I should have been (or was in another life) Italian. If I could choose anywhere in the world to live in my retirement it would likely be a hilltown in Umbria or the Chianti region. The language sings to me, the people call to me, the food, the wine....need I say more? Anne Fortier - who is NOT Italian - must feel the same way because her debut (doesn't seem possible) novel feels, smells and tastes like Siena.

Juliet is the happiest book I've read this year. Sure, we could find some holes in the plot, be cynical about romance, or just slough it all off as light fare, but we'd be making a mistake to do that. Ms. Fortier's imaginative novel is so damn much fun! And, with the world in such tragic disarray, we sure could use some of that right now.

Sisters Julie and Janice Jacobs are as different as night and day. Orphans since their parents died in an auto accident in Italy, raised by flighty Aunt Rose in the states, Julie is a giver (currently teaching Shakespeare camp to school kids), while Janice is a taker, always on the lookout for whatever's in it for her. So, when Rose's will is read and Janice is the sole recipient of the estate both girls are stunned. Janice doesn't look back. Julie discovers that she has been given a passport and a key which may unlock the mystery of her past.

Toggling back and forth in time from 14th century Siena to present day, Fortier keeps the suspense going as Julie Jacobs finds out that she is actually Giulietta Tolomei, a descendant of the original Juliet of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet saga. Adding to the fun, she discovers letters, diaries, and papers that indicate that Romeo and Juliet lived in Siena, not Verona.

Enter a handsome, imperious stranger, Alessandro, who takes a keen interest in watching over Julie/Giulietta as she pokes around Siena's libraries and museums, and the stage is set for a match made in? Hmmmm - perhaps not heaven, but here on earth several centuries ago?

Having vacationed for way too short a time in Siena several years ago, staying in an old convent converted to a B and B, I can tell you that Fortier's description of the city is right on. You can truly visualize every little side street, vegetable stand, cathedral and hotel.
Her history of the contradas, or old tribal divisions that make up the city, and the glory of the pallio, the horse race through Siena that still goes on today are just perfect, giving background to the story of the family feuds that fuel that action in this simply delightful novel.

Conversations With Myself

2011-03-29T20:00:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's true, I often feel as though I'm conversing with myself out here in cyberworld until I get a wonderful repsonse out of the blue as I did from P. J. Grath at http://www.dogearsbooks.net/ It's so gratifying to realize that one has made a connection and that feeling, coupled with my thoughts on listening to Nelson Mandela's musings in his latest book, aptly titled Conversations With Myself, has brought me to mulling over this idea of being heard and understood by another person.

No matter how much we may love someone there are always times where words and intentions are misconstrued, feelings are hurt and the sooner fixed the better. But imagine if you possibly can what it must have been like for Mandela, confined as a political prisoner for nearly thirty years, feared by his captors for the damage (to them) that his powerful words could do, yet scorned as a man who expected too much - fair and equal treatment while detained.

Imagine the anguish of trying to communicate with your family, hearing of your wife's imprisonment through a grapevine, of your mother's death from an emissary, or of your first born son's demise in an automobile accident through a smuggled in newspaper. Imagine knowing that each word of anguish you put to paper will be read by strangers, blacked out, reworded, redacted, until it barely makes any sense IF it ever reaches its intended audience.

Mandela, writing in secret from Robben Island - the prison off the coast of Cape Town that I hope to visit in the Fall - came to the slow realization and acceptance of the fact that over the years of his incarceration he was becoming the symbol for the anti-apartheid movement and though he gracefully accepted that mantle, he railed and angrily chafed at the smaller indignities that came with never knowing if he was being heard, by family or friends in the outside world.

I thought I would enjoy listening to this book as the reader, John Kani, has that delightful, lilting voice reminiscent of Mandela's own. The initial format is a bit confusing but one adjusts after a disc or two. Mr. Mandela's thoughts on his mission to end apartheid, his words of love through letters to his family, and interview transcripts can seem disjointed, but they are arranged chronologically so if you listen, do stay with it. This book is one of many tributes to the unbelievable resilience of the human spirit.

A new book showed up yesterday from Library Journal so I'll be incommunicado for a few days while I try to determine, dear readers, whether or not you would enjoy a debut novel by Carolyn Cooke.

The Blind Contessa's New Machine

2011-03-27T10:32:00.000-04:00

Call me morbid but I always used to dwell on subjects like this: if I had to be blind, would it be easier to have never seen at all (blind from birth), or to lose your sight slowly but at least nurture a memory of what the world used to look like? At least one would have that concept of color and spacial distances ingrained, something to tap into as one adjusted to the darkness.

This question is dealt with in a thoroughly original way in a sweet little debut novel that I picked up off the new book shelf a couple of weeks ago. Author Carey Wallace doesn't even look old enough to have written a book, let alone to come up with such a great opening sentence: "On the day Contessa Carolina Fantoni was married, only one other living person knew that she was going blind, and he was not her groom."

According to her website, Ms.Wallace is, among several other notable attributes, a photographer and perhaps that explains the nature of this imaginative book. http://www.careywallace.com/
Set in some gorgeously rural part of Italy where various villas grace the countryside, boasting lakes and lemon groves, a young Carolina grows up with a tremendous amount of freedom due to a careless mother and a doting father.

Her love of the earth and intellectual curiosity set her apart from other young women, keeping her outdoors exploring plants, trees, and bugs from morning til night. Turri, the neighborhood eccentric, finds in Carolina a kinship that he doesn't share with his wife. An inventor, Turri bounces his ideas off Carolina and an intense friendship flourishes.

When she begins to realize that her eyes are dimming, her parents dismiss her "folly" and her fiance, the sexy but dimwitted Pietro, only laughs. Turri, on the other hand, gets to work and builds a writing machine that becomes the talk of the town, allowing the blind contessa to communicate with the outside world as her family would prefer to diminish her involvement with life.

Ms. Wallace has created a tough minded, passionate character in Carolina, a woman who uses her brains and wit to adjust to her circumscribed condition. She also cleverly points out the duality of human relationships in that it takes two male characters of varying strengths and weakness to satisfy one woman, and even then, not completely. What a delightfully subversive idea!

On The Fleeting Nature of Fame

2011-03-24T19:01:00.000-04:00

It's possible that many of my readers are not in the library profession - possible but not probable. For those who aren't, I need to preface this post with an explanation of "weeding." It's one of my favorite and most difficult of job duties. Libraries pride themselves on keeping an up-to-date, relevant collection. They are also notoriously lacking in space!

The neat freak in me really loves cleaning up the shelves, getting rid of dog-eared, outdated paperbacks and odoriferous (smokers, you have no idea the damage you do), food stained hardcovers, but the book lover in me sobs to see so many beautiful tomes that have rarely been opened. Naturally, the ones that haven't been checked out in years are the ones I would want to read: the Booker finalists, the Pen/Faulkner award nominees, novels written by authors no longer on our radar screens, who once stood before adoring fans reading passages from literature they hoped would stand the test of time.

So why doesn't it? Are readers too lazy? Do they want to stick with the same old/same old and never venture into something new and wonderful? Where are the readers like my mother who spent hours, after school or on Saturdays, three noisy little readers in tow, perusing the shelves at the Mason Library looking for that little gem?

If I could, I'd take every single one of these "gems" home and create my "retirement library" where I'll one day sit and read for hours playing catch up. If there is any kind of existence after this one, I hope all these unloved books will join me as I read and blog into eternity. In the meantime, perhaps they will reach an unexpected, grateful, audience somewhere out there.

Evening with the Authors

2011-03-22T19:55:00.000-04:00

Heather Graham, Susan Elizabeth Philips and Ted Bell were among the many who attended the Evening with the Authors at the Royal Palm Yacht Club. So much fun and so down to earth, I'm not sure why I expect authors to walk on water! Guess what? They think we do to!

Oh, and my wish was granted. Yes, I got to meet and introduce the beautiful Alice Hoffman. No, Blackwell is not Becket but a figment of her imagination!

Thoughts on the Southwest Florida Reading Festival

2011-03-21T18:07:00.000-04:00

For the 12th year the Lee County Library System staff and many, many generous sponsors and volunteers from around the county have put together what has become a premier event for authors from around the country and beyond. (Laura Esquivel came in from Mexico City). This multi-generational celebration of reading seems to run smoother every year and the crowds are more and more grateful and receptive.

Every year I work at this festival and every year I think of the one person whose germ of an idea was the catalyst for our very auspicious beginning. Lesa Holstine http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/ was a branch manager in Lee County, a readers' advisor extraordinaire, an author groupie, and an organizer. She asked a few of us (you know who you are) that she knew were "good" readers to join her committee, got the library administration on board and the Lee County Reading Festival emerged.

The thing about Lesa is that she knew so many authors and wasn't afraid to go after them. Yet, it was never about her. She didn't care to be in front of the microphone. She walked around Centennial Park in a wide brimmed hat, her husband Jim manning the camera. But we all knew that "the lady in the big hat" was the "go to" person.

After that first shaky year we were able to attract a young man, just starting to make a name for himself in the mystery writing genre. Dennis Lehane agreed to join us and some writing buddies of his came along too. Jan Burke, James Hall, and Les Standiford stand out. Maryellen was beside herself as she was assigned the enviable task of picking up Carl Hiaasen and bringing him down to the outside stage where he proceeded to regale folks with his snarky tales of politics and corruption.

As the years went by, the Lee County Reading Festival became such a big deal that we had to hire someone to run it as a full time job! I had the pleasure of eating dinner the other night at the Evening with the Authors at Heather Graham's table and we commiserated about the rapid passing of time. I reminded her that she had been our keynote speaker years ago before we even had the Harborside Event Center as an indoor venue. She spoke out on the lawn in her spike heels under a white tent and it was so hot, folks were keeling over in their chairs! http://eheathergraham.com/index.htm

Lesa has moved on to greener pastures - lucky Glendale, AZ - festival coordinators have come and gone, but some of us have stayed on volunteering because we LOVE this! We have often discovered that the most famous writers are the easiest, most gracious people to work with. Think of Sue Grafton, Elizabeth Berg, Janet Evanovich, and David Baldacci who donated the proceeds of his sales to his charity. http://feedingbodyandmind.com/

I can scarcely single out all the lovely people we have briefly crossed paths with over the last twelve years, most recently the beautiful Alice Hoffman who received our Distinguished Author award this year for her work with young writers and in breast cancer research http://www.alicehoffman.com/. Then there was Dr. Michael Palmer and Jeffrey Deaver who were like a stand up duo, playing off each other and leaving the audience in stitches - pun intended. And what about Nelson DeMille who demurred at being considered the "keynote" speaker, leaving that spot to the incredible Linda Fairstein.

Oh, I could just go on and on but....once again, I'm told that long posts lose people's attention. We are a nation with attention deficit disorder, aren't we? I guess I just wanted to write a paean to authors and to Lesa, in particular, to thank her for her foresight that resulted in this labor of love. We miss you lady!