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| Reader's
Corner - Staff Picks
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CELIA selects science fiction & fiction. |
GAIL loves historical nonfiction & novels. |
| JULIE likes to spotlight female authors. |
ANDREA picks across all genres. |
| WRIGHT savors literary fiction &
nonfiction. |
ROBERT likes a little bit of everything. |
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CELIA |
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The
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. The
ever-inventive Chabon recreates the world of 1939 New York City as we follow
the trajectory of fame for the creators of a hugely successful comic book
hero, “The Escapist." Joe Kavalier, a self-trained escape artist, pulls off
his greatest escape when he smuggles himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague.
Joe partners with Sammy Clay to create a hit comic book series and make a
lot of money fast to rescue his family. Part of Chabon's genius is the way
in which his characters mimic the comic book world they invent. |
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Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley. Imagine a five-million-acre preserve for the
conservation of dragons which are extinct in the wild. Jake lives at Smokehill
National Park with his scientist father. The few hundred remaining dragons are
reclusive, living deep in the park, and seldom seen by visiting tourists, or
anyone else. Oh his first solo camping trip in the park, Jake discovers a dying
female dragon, next to the human she has just killed. Jake knows his discovery
could doom the remaining dragons by proving how dangerous they are to maintain.
Then Jake notices the dragon had just given birth, and one of the babies is
still alive. Although classified as a Young Adult novel, this fast-paced book
will entertain those of us still suffering from ‘Harry-Potter-Withdrawal” pangs. |
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Fear of the Dark by Walter Mosley. Paris Minton, proprietor of a used
book store, describes himself as a “peaceful, even cowardly man” who wends
his wary way through the labyrinth of South Central L.A. in the 1950’s.
“Through no fault of my own I often found myself in the company of
…kidnappers, extortionists, and fools of all colors, ages and temperaments.”
Trouble brews when Paris’ cousin, Ulysses – “Useless” to everyone but his
formidable mother – disappears. With the help of his aptly-named friend,
“Fearless Jones,” Paris soon discovers that that Useless may be involved in
an elaborate and dangerous blackmail scheme. For a road trip, Mosley’s
mystery is entertaining and engrossing as an audiobook! |
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My Antonio by Willa Cather. The early settlers of the American
prairie in the 1800's come to life in their complexity and humanity
through the eyes of Jim Burden and the subject of his narrative, Antonia
Shimerda. With timeless simplicity and beauty, Cather's prose
illuminates the strengths and passions of people wresting a living in a
harsh land which they come to love. |
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GAIL |
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Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton & Me by Patti Boyd. As
a teenager whose life revolved around the Beatles, my heart broke when
George Harrison married Pattie Boyd. Ever since, I have been wondering where
her memoirs were, for if anyone led a life to be envied, it was her. Now the
book is here and it reveals not so much a dream come true as a cautionary
tale about clinging to abusive and moribund relationships, and not forging
an independent existence. Juicy details abound. |
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The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. Like a nineteenth century
superhero, the Count draws on his seemingly inexhaustible funds of money and
cunning to mete out justice to the scoundrels who wronged him when he was a
mere sailor. This is a splendid yarn written for people who had plenty of
time to be entertained by a fat novel, teeming with characters, tangents and
digressions, and a bone chilling description of life in a dungeon. The
incredibly devious plots devised by Monte Cristo to bring down his enemies
will keep you thinking hard. |
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The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood. This a literary snapshot of
Berlin in the early 30’s just as the Nazis were coming into power but it is
far from gloomy because the characters Isherwood befriends are so eccentric,
colorful and idiosyncratic that a comic tone is dominant. Chief among them
is Arthur Norris, a charlatan who struggles to maintain a façade of
refinement in the face of many ludicrous setbacks; his bon mots are as funny
as a Bertie and Jeeves novel. The quality of youthful experience makes this
an especially wonderful novel. |
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Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonio Fraser. This book is a
sympathetic portrait of the notorious queen, showing her as a victim of
circumstance and a pawn in the machinations of politicians and crafty
relatives. In her short life she experienced the extremes of self
indulgence, such as creating a faux rustic village, “the Petit Trianon”;
also terrible tragedy as she witnessed the slow death by tuberculosis of her
precious son, the Dauphin. Despite a luxurious life as the daughter of an
empress and the wife of a king, she experienced many humiliations and
heartbreaks, culminating in cold blooded abasement at the hands of the
revolutionaries. Fraser is a wonderful writer, and the book has interesting
photos to refer to as you read. |
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JULIE |
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Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman. Hoffman’s lyrical pose turns a
simple story of an unhappy marriage and family into magic. Arlyn loses her
father at 17 and is convinced that the next man she meets will be her true
love and John Moody arrives at her porch that very night. With touches of
the supernatural and fascinating characters, this is a gripping novel. |
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Digging To America by Anne Tyler. Anne Tyler is a master of capturing
human relationships and this novel has plenty of imperfect yet sympathetic
characters . Two very different American families, one all-American and
white and one Iran American, both adopted Korean girls on the same day.
Figuring out one’s place in the world is always a compelling theme and Tyler
hits the right notes of humor and poignancy. |
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London is the Best City in America by Laura Dave. Emmy comes home for
her brother’s wedding three years after she called-off her engagement and
exiled herself to a small New England town. Josh, days from getting married,
is torn between two women. Likeable characters and an interesting plot that
may resonate with many Generation X and Y readers make this debut novel a
stand-out. |
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Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum
series began with One for the Money and continues to delight with her
latest laugh-out-loud mystery. When Stephanie’s ex-husband goes missing, she
becomes the number one suspect. Evanovich includes fan favorites such as two
sexy leading men, crazy Grandma antics, and amusing dialogue. |
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Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. One of the pioneers of Mommy Lit,
this tale of four new mothers as they adjust to motherhood features
compelling characters and a nice mix of comedy and poignancy. It’s an
enjoyable read, particularly for moms and moms-to-be. |
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ANDREA |
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An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. This sprawling novel follows an
underprivileged, yet ambitious young man on his journey to make a better
life for himself. Working as a bellhop at a fancy hotel in Kansas City, he
begins to distance himself from his pious, yet destitute family. When a
terrible accident happens, he runs off to Chicago before being hired to work
in a collar factory by a wealthy uncle in New York. There, he begins a tryst
with a factory girl before becoming infatuated with a debutante and tragedy
ensues. Dreiser’s epic has been called America’s Crime and Punishment, and
its treatment of social issues such as abortion and the death penalty still
resonate today. |
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Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of
Possibility by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger. In this
intriguing book, the authors assess what they consider to be the
shortcomings in the environmentalist movement today. In order for people to
care about the non-human world in the US and elsewhere, basic needs must be
met, and only growing prosperity and clean economic development can solve
the world's environmental problems. The authors take a very broad approach
to their subject, analyzing diverse issues, from the destruction of the
Brazilian rain forest to the inability of American carmakers to provide the
public with efficient, yet desirable cars. A new energy policy that would
foster the inventiveness of the human spirit and belief in the future are
the answers they convincingly argue for. |
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Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan. The party lifestyle of a blasé
young lady and her playboy father becomes threatened by his engagement to a
morally upright woman who expects them to conform to her idea of propriety.
As the carefree, decadent days with her father looming as a nothing but a
memory, the young lady plots to disrupt the engaged couple’s coziness with
unexpected results. Sagan wrote this coming-of-age tale, her first novel,
before she was twenty and captures her protagonist’s youthful insouciance as
well as her emotional ambivalence before learning not everything is a game.
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Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits by Mark Vieira. Filled with beautiful
black and white photographs, this title delves into famous photographer
George Hurrell’s work from 1925 to 1943. When Hurrell arrived in California
in the mid-twenties, he was an unknown, but within a few years, he was
shooting some the era’s biggest movie stars, including Norma Shearer, Joan
Crawford, and Jean Harlow. His photographic techniques, career trajectory,
and relationships with his famous models are all examined. Anyone interested
in photography, glamour portraits and/or the classical Hollywood studio
system will find this title to be particularly satisfying. |
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No Shortcuts to the Top by Viesturs. In this autobiographical work,
Viesturs recounts his extraordinary adventures in becoming the first
American to reach the peaks of the world’s fourteen highest mountains, all
without the aid of supplemental oxygen. Growing up in the Midwestern
flatlands, his future as a world-class climber seemed highly improbable.
However, while attending the University of Washington to study veterinary
science, Mount Rainier beckoned him from his dorm window so much so that he
soon became a guide there for summer climbers, honing his skills and his
desire for greater challenges. Each of his fourteen peaks in the Himalayas’
8000+ meter mountains is thrillingly detailed, as are many other summits,
including attempts where he did not make it to the top. |
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WRIGHT |
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Life Class by Pat Barker. Booker Prize winner Pat Barker turns her hand
to a tale of London art students in the 1910s. The characters, who belong to
a wide range of social classes, are introduced in peacetime. The changes
brought by the coming of World War I, ranging from the global to the
intensely personal, are poignantly depicted. The work examines and questions
the pervasive impulse to privilege war over art. The author is keenly
sensitive to the many roles gender issues play in shaping perception and
experience. |
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Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee. The Nobel Prize winning J.M. Coetzee
pulls off a coup by creating a coherent, readable novel from three coexisting
narrative strands. In most of the book, each page is divided into three
sections. The top portion of text represents the meandering philosophizing of
the protagonist, a renowned writer not at all unlike Mr. Coetzee. The bottom
portion of the page describes the reactions and thoughts of a young Filipina
whom he has hired to transcribe his current work in progress. The middle third
of the page depicts their interactions as a straightforward narrative. While
successfully delivering his signature load of polemics on various weighty
issues, Coetzee uses this tripartite format to show how people gradually come to
influence and affect the lives and views of those around them. These affects
often bear scant resemblance to one’s express intentions and statements. |
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Mawrdew Czgowchwz by James McCourt. This exercise in delirious camp covers
two years in the career of the title character, whose name is pronounced “Mardu
Gorgeous.” Ms. Czgowchwz is an opera singer whose range is so great as to merit
the unique voice classification of “oltrano.” The action takes place in a
version of 1950s New York City as perceived by an hallucinatory opera fiend.
While Ms. Czgowchwz basks in the adulation of her fanatical following, she must
live in a world inhabited by other jealous divas, each of whom possesses a
similarly vindictive and aesthetically overheated fanbase. Intrigues abound. Ms.
Czgowchwz at times finds herself in peril, but she, and the reader, must trust
in the redemptive power of beauty and art. This cult novel, first published in
1975, marked the debut appearance of Marwdew. She continues to resurface in the
works of Mr. McCourt, most recently in Now Voyagers. |
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In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. This follow-up to Pollan's influential
work The Omnivore's Dilemma, seeks to put the national obsession with
“nutritionism” in perspective. Pollan defines nutritionism as an excessive focus
on foodstuffs as mere repositories of nutrients and as the accompanying tendency
to focus narrowly on consuming the “right” nutrients as the primary factor in
deciding what food to buy. Although nutrients are undeniably important, Pollan
demonstrates how a myopic emphasis on nutrient consumption can easily undermine
the quality of one’s diet. He describes how the food industry has created an
array of "edible foodlike substances." These often appeal directly to the
nutritionistic impulse while simultaneously delivering substandard products that
impoverish the diet. Pollan offers practical tips for the consumer. His basic
credo boils down to this."Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." |
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The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin. Journalist Toobin delivers capsule biographies
of the current Supreme Court justices, all of whom prove to be extraordinary
characters. Along the way, he provides a recent history of the Court and
describes its place within the national context. He demonstrates how Sandra Day
O’Connor effectively steered a middle course for the entire Court during much of
her tenure. While chronicling the increasingly politicized nature of the
confirmation process for new justices, Toobin cites numerous instances revealing
that the Court has had a highly politicized, often partisan, edge for most of
its history. He gives reason to expect increasingly conservative opinions from
the court in the years to come. This much is certain; this fundamental American
institution never lacks for vivid personalities. |
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ROBERT |
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We Disappear by Scott Heim. It’s been thirteen years since Scott Heim burst
onto the fiction scene with his raw and riveting first novel, Mysterious Skin.
Heim followed that up with In Awe, then dropped out of sight for years
due to his disillusionment with the publishing world. He finally returns to form
with We Disappear, a book years in the making. Briefly, it is the story
of a broken mother and son, and their complicated, co-dependent relationship.
Donna is dying of cancer, Scott is practically killing himself with an addiction
to crystal meth. Obsessed with the stories of abducted children from her own
youth up to the present, Donna enlists Scott in a mission to find answers to
mysteries that seem confusingly tied up in her own past. |
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Creem: America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine by Robert Matheu and Brian J. Bowe.
Growing up, I had a subscription to Creem magazine and breathlessly awaited each
issue’s arrival in my mailbox, even more so than its older and more
well-circulated music magazine sibling, Rolling Stone. Creem seemed so much more
rock ‘n’ roll to me, covering a wide range of bands, including many of the punk
rock and new wave groups I loved, as well as rap music before any other
mainstream rock magazine did so. Editors Matheu and Bowe, who have resurrected
the Creem name with an online presence, do the classic magazine proud with this
compilation of classic covers, articles and photos from Creem’s heyday. |
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The
Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. In this post-Harry Potter book
world, librarians are often asked by eager readers what they should dig into
next when they’ve finished with Harry’s adventures at Hogwarts. One recent book
that has picked up a deserving amount of buzz is Brian Selznick’s The
Invention of Hugo Cabret. A clever and visually sumptuous novel, it combines
some of the best elements of storytelling—children’s picture book, graphic
novel, and silent film—into a feast that readers are likely to devour quickly
despite the book’s 530 page length. In short, the novel tells the story of
orphan, clock keeper and thief, Hugo Cabret, a mysterious young boy who secretly
lives within the walls of a Paris train station. Hugo has been left orphaned by
the untimely death of his father and scrabbles within the walls of the train
station and in the dark of Paris night, struggling to survive and still find
connec-tions to the love and humanity of his father. A talented tinkerer, Hugo
also longs to be a magician, and his path towards reconnecting with his lost
father converges with those of an equally mysterious toy seller, his eccentric
young goddaughter, and a movie theater usher. Readers will really enjoy the
heart and humanity in this one. |
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The 13 Best Horror Stories of All Time. Edited by Leslie Pockell, this
collection of chilling classics includes several obvious masters of the form,
including Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft and Bram Stoker. Each of
their stories are magnificently creepy and horrific, but as a fan of the short
story form, I especially like this book for its inclusion of Shirley Jackson's
"The Lottery" and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." The latter
story, in particular, is one of my all-time favorites. It is the disturbing
first-person account of a young woman's descent into madness, precipitated by a
severe bout of post-partum depression. That it was written in 1892, when
post-partum depression and psychosis was hardly a well-known or acknowledged
disease, makes the story all the more remarkable. |
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Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris. A compilaton of six holiday-themed essays
and short stories by wickedly funny American satirist, David Sedaris,
Holidays on Ice is classic for one story in particular: "The Santaland
Diaries." A fictionalized account of Sedaris' real life stint as a Macy's
Christmastime elf, the story details his often humiliating and demoralizing role
as a Z-grade supporting player in the retail giant's annual holiday spectacle.
The resulting story is scathingly funny and will have you keeled over with
laughter. Highly recommended if you can find it is Sedaris' own reading of the
story, which NPR often plays as the holiday season approaches. |
This page was last modified on
06/21/2008 |
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