Summer Reading: 2009

"Cooper was promoted through the ranks of WorldCom, the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in Mississippi, running its internal audit department. The narrative is great. It reads like a white-collar true crime story. The accounting and audit fraud underway is clearly explained as it arises in the narrative. (Perhaps the accounting is more clearly explained here than in other library resources!)"

"There are a lot of memoirs out there of manic-depression. This memoir differs stands out in a few ways: A) The author is a well-known psychiatrist and has a good understanding of the physiological issues involved in mental illness. B) Her ego isn’t in the way of the narrative. C) She gives a good account of building a very challenging career while living with manic depression. D) The story is more about experience than drama."

"On the surface a pleasant, quick read of a travelogue but it also delves into aging, pollution and the environment, racism, immigration - written over 40 years ago and still totally relevant."

"The first book by a 28 year old author
from Wisconsin. A collection of short stories
set in Africa, Finland, Montana and elsewhere
that you’ll want to read in a sitting."

"A college commencement address that David Foster Wallace gave in 2005. Like all of his work it’s funny, weird, touching and made even more spooky by his sad passing this year…"

An excellent family story. Explores an extended Basque family through the pre- Spanish Civil War period, and then in the aftermath of Nazi bombing. Strong characters, interesting plotlines regarding the resistance, the bombing, and the struggles to hold the family together in the face of devastation.

A beach-read, spy novel kind of story.
Revolves around a search for the lost Library
of Alexandria, the notion that it still exists
today in a secret location protected by
guardians, and that among other things, lost
texts that it contains have the potential to
redefine conflicts in the Middle East. A fun
quick read.

One of McPhee's compilations of previously published New Yorker articles. This one revolves around those providing various kinds of transportation. Includes portraits of a hazardous material tanker truck driver, river barge towboat captains, Union Pacific coal train engineers, ocean tanker captain training, and the path of live lobsters from the trap through the UPS shipping system to your table. An interesting mix of topics, stellar prose, and fascinating details of transportation of commodities that we take for granted or don't think about at all.

If you want a quick read that relives the trials and tribulations of the 2008 election, Trillin’s book is the way to do it. All in verse starting from the beginning to election day, Trillin uses humor and irony to reacquaint the reader with the election experience. 7 months afterwards is nearly enough time to enjoy now what we took so seriously then.

Maeve Binchy is among my favorite authors. Her characters come alive and when I finish a book I miss the people. While I have the good sense not to ask, what are they doing now, I have a feeling their lives are going continuing without me. And they are. Heart and soul brings together characters from Evening class, Whitethorn woods, Scarlet feather, Quentins and the Night of rain and stars. So, if you haven’t read any of Binchy, I’d go back a ways and start with earlier books. But if you have read her stuff, this is a must read.

It looks like Felix Francis is starting to take over his father’s franchise on writing and writing on horses. I was wary at first. While in Hollywood you might find parent and child and grandchild dynasties, there doesn’t seem to be the same in literature. I think they do a great job. Silks kept me entranced from beginning to end. A little more violent, more people die, but the mystery is compelling.

I love Evanovich and this is no exception – it may be her best. Her characters are hysterical and I found myself laughing out loud and trying to read parts to friends who haven’t read the book and it loses something in the translation. All your favorite characters are here and you don’t have to have met them before in order to be laughing at them through this mystery laced with the supernatural.

Billie Letts wrote The Honk and Holler is opening soon and Where the heart is. Hard luck people written about with tenderness and hope. It takes a long time to get to the hope in this book (like about the last page) but it’s worth the trip. The young kids in this book go through things youngsters shouldn’t even know about let alone, experience. I wanted to abandon the book many times as it broke my heart as they made the wrong life decisions over and over again. But I stuck with it because along the way they met good people, too. So, it’s worth the read if you can steel yourself for the really hard parts.

I really liked this book and have since looked at his older book The Poe shadow. I liked this one way better. The Poe shadow was a bit pedantic and the main character could be pushed in any direction the crowd moved. In this book, a literary character is brought to life and the reader gets a little lesson in the history of the publishing industry. [Imagine that, a librarian interested in the publishing industry.] In this story a small publishing company in America is the sole provider for Dickens materials. Scoundrels and unscrupulous publishers (ah, it hasn’t changed much) try to take his content for their own. So, there is mystery, a history lesson, a literary theme and a love story woven nicely together.

The story of a feisty senior citizen who causes her entire town to ask 'Why are we here?' It is VERY funny and Fannie Flagg novels never disappoint.

In 1996, a rare book expert is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of a mysterious, beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in 15th century Spain and recently saved from destruction during the shelling of Sarajevo’s libraries. When Hanna Heath, a caustic Aussie loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in the book’s ancient binding – an insect-wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair – she begins to unlock the mysteries of the book’s eventful past and to uncover the dramatic stories of those who created it and those who risked everything to protect it.

A very well-written novel portraying suburban existence in the 1950s and filled with (American) cultural motifs. A good “conversation read.” I thoroughly enjoyed reading (and talking about) this novel.

A short novel that plays out the relations between Germany's present and past with a somewhat intriguing use of allegories (mainly embodied in the characters). As one critic observed, the novel invites the reader to see it as both crime story and parable.

From Library Journal: “In beautifully nuanced scenes, Heather Wolfe, a 24-year-old graduate student, forces a meeting with broken-down Leonard Schiller, an out-of-print, sick old writer whose early works, written during the heyday of 1940s and 1950s New York intellectualism, forever changed Heather's life. Targeted as the subject of Heather's master's thesis, Schiller quickly falls under the seductive promise of her admiration, much to the distress of Ariel, his 39-year-old daughter, whose own struggles with failed romance and childlessness derail her energy. Morton demonstrates an astonishingly sensitive appreciation for his characters as he reveals with unnerving accuracy the most private thoughts not only of his women but of the dying old man as well. These mismatched souls gradually realize that their individual journeys, which they thought were drawing to a close, are in fact new beginnings. Morton's respect for his characters and his audience is a quiet literary triumph.”

"An historical fiction novel about the love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. From the book jacket: “In this groundbreaking historical novel, fact and fiction blend together. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America's greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney's profound influence on Wright." "Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a narrative portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan's Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world, and her unforgettable journey, marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leads inexorably to this novel's conclusion." Another fast read."

At age sixty-seven, following the death of his second wife, Trond has moved to a rustic cabin in a remote part of eastern Norway. Here an encounter with his neighbor prompts him to reflect on a summer from his childhood, spent nearby with his father just after World War II. That summer was pivotal in his progression to manhood as he struggled to make sense of one particularly tragic incident, what he learned of the Norwegian resistance to German occupation, and the disintegration of families that is precipitated by suffering and betrayal. The book won the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was named a best book of 2007 by the New York Times Book Review and a Notable Book for 2008 by the American Library Association.

A 24th-century corporation controls the technology for time travel and immortality; however, the time travel only works within strict parameters (you can go back to any time, but you must return to your own time; recorded history cannot be changed), and the immortality process can only be applied to young children with the end product being a cyborg. The Company, Dr. Zeus, Inc., cleverly (and profitably) gets around all this by creating immortal cyborg employees seeded throughout time who work to salvage art and culture from the ravages of time and human destructiveness – or are they unknowingly abetting the avaricious and unscrupulous goals of the seemingly all-powerful Company? Baker is an award-winning writer of wit and insight.

"Named as one of the best books of 2007 by the New York Times, Ross (music critic for the New Yorker) provides an engrossing and accessible survey of pivotal modern classical musical works and their composers in the context of the cultural milieus that produced them, from the premiere of Richard Strauss’ Salome in 1905 to the works of Philip Glass and John Adams. Detailed without being overly technical and utterly fascinating, this will change your perceptions of 20th-century classical music."

Humpty Dumpty is found dead and Jack Spratt tries to find the murderer.
I found this book enormously entertaining. It’s filled with nursery rhyme and mythological characters (persons of dubious reality) as well as real people.
It’s a crazy kind of fantasy that was fun in part because of all the literary puns and references.

"James K. Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist, dissects the remains of Reaganism and explores the true nature of the George Bush regime: a "corporate republic," bringing the mentality of big business to public life,
and a predator state, intent not on reducing government but rather on diverting public cash into private hands. The real problems and challenges--inequality, climate change, the infrastructure deficit, the subprime crisis--cannot be solved by free markets. They will be solved only with planning, standards and other policies that transcend and even transform markets. James Galbraith is the son of John Kenneth Galbraith. Both are noted economists."

“The Science of Chocolate” takes the reader on a chocolate journey from its discovery and early history to why chocolate is so good for you. It answers all your questions on the chocolate making process and the basic role science plays in each step of the process. This book will appeal to those with a fascination for chocolate and will be of specialist interest to those studying food sciences and working in the confectionery industry. A series of experiments, which can be adapted to suit students, are included to demonstrate the physical, chemical and mathematical principles involved chocolate making."

“Born Standing Up” is a rare look at what should come to define the term “comic genius.” Steve Martin’s prose are as witty as they are insightful. As a man who brought standup to its heights in the mid to late 70’s, I can think of no one better to help the reader understand the phenomena that is Stand-Up comedy.

Ha’penny is set eight years later, and deals with a plot to kill the prime minister and Hitler. Good mysteries combined with a compelling political history.

Farthing is a mystery story set in a 1949 alternate England, where Great Britain made peace with Nazi Germany, leaving Hitler in control of Europe. Who murdered the main negotiator of the peace?

Flora, turning 14, will soon be sent to study war like her mother, but she’d rather be a Ranger (independent scout and spy.) Things start to liven up when she discovers the magical Butler in a forgotten library in her family’s castle.

The story of two girls growing up at Los Alamos while their parents are working on the secret gadget that will end World War II. A beautifully written novel that won the 2007 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. The sequel (White Sands, Red Menace) recently won a California Book Award.

Comprehensive and absorbing account of Katharine Hepburn’s life and legend, and how she created both.

What should we have for dinner? When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods might shorten your life. Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from a national eating disorder. As the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous landscape, what's at stake becomes not only our own and our children's health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth. Pollan follows each of the food chains--industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves--from the source to the final meal, always emphasizing our coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. The surprising answers Pollan offers have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us.

Basic perennial garden planting & maintenance -- Design and its relationship to maintenance -- Bed preparation: insurance for success -- Planting and establishment -- Pests and diseases of perennials -- Staking -- Division -- Renovation of the established perennial garden -- Pruning perennials -- Introduction to pruning -- Deadheading -- Cutting back -- Pinching, disbudding, thinning, and deadleafing -- Pruning to prepare for winter and pruning to prepare for spring.

Atwood’s book covers a timely subject – the current period of economic upheaval and its consequences. A small book of only 230 pages, but it covers a lot. Written in an engaging style, imaginative and entertaining, the author investigates the idea of debt and fairness in society.

A witty and humorous book of one year’s life experience by the author. Jacobs, an editor at Esquire magazine, decides to follow the Old Testament word by word in his daily life. How could this be possible and how does it relate to present time? Highly entertaining and educational!

On the heels of a family tragedy precipitated by the influenza epidemic of 1919, middle-aged spinster schoolteacher Agnes Shanklin inherits enough money to embark on the journey of a lifetime. Traveling to Egypt, she settles in at the Semiramis Hotel, where she meets and becomes involved with a number of members of the Cairo Peace Conference, including T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Winston Churchill, and Lady Gertrude Bell. As these luminaries begin to carve up the Middle East, the unassuming Agnes wins the confidence of the conference attendees and attracts the attention of a dashing German spy. Narrated by Agnes, this atmospheric entrée into a bygone time and place provides a first-person peek into the international political machinations that forged the contemporary Arab world.

This striking debut novel is an homage to old-fashioned boys-own adventure stories, and unfolds like a Robert Louis Stevenson tale retold amid the hardscrabble squalor of Colonial New England. The sheer strangeness of the story is beguiling: a one-handed boy, tainted by his upbringing in a Catholic orphanage and with little to offer but a head full of lice, is adopted by a con artist, and enters an underworld of ruthless mousetrap-manufacturing barons, feisty chimney-dwelling dwarves, and, perhaps most terrifying of all, black-market dentists. In keeping with the gothic tradition, Tinti writes with an arch, almost camp sensibility. While on a nocturnal grave-digging excursion to procure bodies for a crazy scientist, for instance, the pair encounter an assassin, who tells the twelve-year-old hero that he was made for killing. Will the boy ever discover the truth of his past?

"An ambulance driver during WWI, Jade del Cameron promises a dying soldier that she'll track down his brother. The only problem is that the soldier's mother, whom Jade goes to visit in London, insists that she had only one son. Jade reasons that the missing brother must have been born to another woman, conceived when the now deceased family patriarch was exploring East Africa. So off she goes to Nairobi, where she mingles with the colonial elite, kills a hyena, learns Swahili, fingers a drug smuggler, romances a man twice her age, uncovers a murder and attracts the attentions of a local witch.” A fun summer read!

Winding up her book tour promoting her collection of lighthearted wartime newspaper columns, Juliet Ashton casts about for a more serious project. Opportunity comes in the form of a letter she receives from Mr. Dawsey Adams, who happens to possess a book that Julia once owned. Mr. Adams then invites his articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their stories including the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German occupation.

"After a devastating tsunami destroys all that they have ever known, Mau, an island boy, and Daphne, an aristocratic English girl, together with a small band of refugees, set about rebuilding their community and all the things that are important in their lives,"

"This is the young adult version of ‘Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee’ by the same author.
To Kill a Mockingbird is the twentieth century's most widely read American novel. Yet despite the book's perennial popularity, its creator remains a somewhat mysterious figure. Journalist Shields brings to life the warmhearted, high-spirited, and occasionally hardheaded woman who gave us two of American literature's most unforgettable characters--Atticus Finch and his daughter, Scout. If you don’t have time for the 300+ page full version, try the shorter one instead."

"The setting for this Canadian author’s recent novel is Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories of Canada. The main human characters are linked through the town and the local radio station (hence the title), and have come from near and far. The location itself, far north with wicked winters and short summers is an equal character in this work and as complex and interesting as the residents."

I was fortunate to be at a writer/artist’s residency with this author this past April. The stories of her work teaching poetry at San Quentin in the 1980’s are fascinating and make you reflect on some big issues. Her intelligent and sensitive voice is engaging. What role can the arts play (and specifically poetry) in rehabilitating prisoners? Her next book due out later this year will be a dual memoir, co written with one of her poet-students from the inside that she has worked with for years.

For fans of post-apocalyptic fiction. The central characters are a professor at a small North Carolina college and his family. One afternoon, the lights, radio and TV go out in their town. They soon discover that the lights have gone out all over America…

Roach literally bares all in her quest to explore the natural, but mostly unknown functions of human sexuality. With chapters like “The Upsuck Chronicles: Does Orgasm Boost Fertility, and What Do Pigs Know About It?”, to “The Testicle Pushers: If Two Are Good, Would Three Be Better?”, and “What’s Going On in There?: The Diverting World of Coital Imaging,” these titles alone, and others that I didn’t think would get printed in this list, should stoke your curiosity enough to place a hold on this item today.

Kahaner presents an easy to understand, yet detailed study of the AK-47, the world’s most popular assault rifle, due to its durability, ease of operation, and cheapness. Kahaner begins by providing a relatively thorough examination of the AK’s designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, a mechanically inclined Russian soldier, who came up with this simple gun to counter superior German weaponry during World War II. Kahaner then traces the global history of the gun, spanning almost 60 years and about 100 million AKs, from the Soviet Union to Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and the Middle East.

Great fantasy/adventure book from a new Wisconsin author. As good as Lord of the Rings. First book of a three or four book series. The author is coming to MN this summer for a Sci-Fi convention.

An interesting history of and philosophical defense of those of us who would rather sit on the porch with a book than go to the block party.

Great short autobiographical novel about travelling and Buddhism and...well you'll just have to read it.

A fantastic book from one of my favorite authors. It follows 5 people over the course of 7 nighttime hours and their strange encounters. P.S. Murakami is featured in Loners Manifesto!

The newest book from the author of Fight Club about a member of a group of spies from a totalitarian Asian nation who come to the US as exchange students. If you like Palahniuk, you'll like this book, if not, you won't. NOT for kids!