Summer Reading: 2010

I read this book for two reasons. I had just gotten a Kindle and it was free for the Kindle. AND, it was listed among the books that the Library Journal recommended for readers who were waiting for the next Dan Brown book to be published (this was before The Lost Symbol came out). Ok, I like Dan Brown. I like the convoluted story and the impossibility of it all. Shoot me. Anyway, the book delivered like a Dan Brown book, so if you don’t like Dan Brown, don’t read it. Full of conspiracy theories. Untold wealth hidden or sent to the Pope. Good beach read.

This is such a sweet and charmingly written historical novel. Taken back to the period of world war 2 England. A view of a Guernsey whose people, under occupation by the Germans (who knew that part of England was occupied by the Germans?) are resourceful and enchanting. These folks get hooked up with an English travel writer and the result is delightful.

If you like the Conroy saga you will love this book and I did. Broad is a street in the main character’s beloved Charleston, South Carolina. It serves a demarcation between the wealthy and the not. The city is populated with quirky, but mostly loveable, and many damaged people, like most cities. A mystery is intertwined in the novel and its conclusion is sad. But the book is not sad. It’s delicious. The writing causes you to pause and reread to get the full glory of his writing. I went back repeatedly to some of his well-crafted sentences and shared them with whomever I could button-hole.

I usually give a book about 100 pages. If it doesn’t grab me and say, ‘read me’ I’m done with it. And this fit the bill. But it’s Kingsolver and I love Kingsolver so I pushed through. It was worth the slog. The book transpires over many years from the 20’s through the 70’s and travels between Mexico and the U.S. and includes the historical characters Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Leon Trotsky, the McCarthy era. A tough read, but instructive in this time of calling people socialists, communists and other ists. The intensity caused me to put the book down occasionally because it was just too hard to see our beloved main character get caught in situations from which there was no way out.

The subject matter of this is the Holocaust and the French response to it and to its Jewish citizens. It bounces effortlessly between the current time where a reporter is looking for the story of the Velodrom d’Hiver roundup in the summer of 1942 and the time itself. The characters are sympathetic, their situations tragic. I highly recommend the book both to learn about this period in France and because it is very well written.

Everyone is reading this book and I know why. If you were a sentient being during the early 60’s you remember the turmoil of the Civil Rights movement. One of my enduring memories is coming home from school after Kennedy was shot and seeing my mother and our maid, Estelle, sitting at the kitchen table holding hands and praying together that the assassin was neither black nor Jewish (I grew up in Wisconsin). These were unsettling times and the relationship that the white families of the south had with their maids was viewed differently depending on whether you were the white employer or the black employee. The main character takes it upon herself to write the stories of a dozen black maids in the South.
A reader can’t help but imagine him/herself in her position and hoping that s/he could take the road she did to expose the conditions, the relationships, the impact of racism. It was a terrific read, and I was sad it when it was over.

A bestselling memoir – this is one woman’s way of coping with a difficult divorce. She is a writer and decides covering her sorrows by traveling through many countries to seek meditation. The story is human, personal, intelligent and witty. It is fun to follow her travels. Note: a movie of this story, with Julia Roberts, will be released in August 2010.

The continuation of Gilbert’s “Pray, Eat and Love.” After the experience of a bad divorce, she is again contemplating marriage. In this book, she studies matrimony through historical study and extensive conversations with people in different countries about their traditions and social expectations. Written with wit, intelligence and compassion.

By the cofounder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project. Recommended to me by my boss so I thought I better read it. It reminds me to be kind so I’ve begun carrying it around with me all the time. “Here we are at the end of the century, drifting through a heroless age. We have no leaders we can trust, no visions to invest in, no faith to ride. . . . Here we are, trapped by whatever season we find ourselves enduring, waiting out the weather, staring at a drought sun, stupefied, helpless – or scrambling like fools to make it home before the rain really comes down and the dry river floods and the hills crash into the valley. Where do we find the courage to do what is right?” Inspired by these words of novelist Peter Gadol, this little book was written to put forth the notion that “a crucial measure of our success in life is the way we treat one another every day of our lives.”

The authors, psychologists who were among the first to study this aspect of extreme compulsive behavior, present a variety of case studies which describe compulsive hoarders and the impact of their problem on their lives, living environments, and their families. What struck me most was the compassion with which the authors view these people: while hoarders generally have some ADHD characteristics and have difficulty categorizing things (e.g., worth keeping/not worth keeping), the authors suggest that the hoarders’ extreme attention to their objects and the great pleasure that many of them derive from their “stuff” could be thought of as a special form of creativity. Fascinating and informative.

These very fine traditional-style mysteries are set in or near the idyllic small town of Three Pines in rural Quebec. Of course, murder happens, and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Montreal Surete and his team are called in to solve the crimes. The characters are beautifully drawn, the plots are well-done, and Gamache may well end up being one of the great characters in the genre. This Canadian author has been nominated and/or has won a number awards for this series, her first. Check these out, and keep an eye on Louise Penny.

In this alternative history, a misunderstanding between the Western Allies and the paranoid Josef Stalin, leads to an outbreak of war between the West and the Soviets. Conroy is the author of several alternative history novels.

This thoroughly researched book shows what the cost in lives would have been to both America and Japan if the U.S. had carried through with its plans to invade Japan. Giangreco demonstrates that the militarist regime was determined to fight to the bitter end, and quite comfortable with expending the lives of 20 million Japanese. The American leadership, both civilian and military, were determined not to leave the militarists in power in Japan, fearing that it would just lead to a greater war 20 years later.

A series of short stories and novellas about some of the great “What ifs…” of history.

Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential.

Walton says this book is "the result of wondering what a world would be like if the axioms of the sentimental Victorian novel (a noble ruling class, an established church, arguments over inheritance) were inescapable laws of biology." It’s an Anthony Trollope novel, except with dragons.

After World War II, Dewey and the Gordon family relocate from Los Alamos to Alamogordo when Mr. Gordon is offered a job to develop rockets for the U.S. government. Klages's novel nails the uncertainty that many Americans experienced after the truths of Hiroshima began to surface. The sequel to The Green Glass Sea, which won the 2006 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

This collection of letters to family and friends recounts Green's experiences in the Women's Army Corps in 1944-45. Green dropped out of the University of Minnesota to enlist and served in a variety of training situations and medical facilities in the United States. Her very literate letters show army life to be long periods of boredom interrupted by short periods of useful work, all complicated by administrative inefficiency.

By the author of Snow Falling on Cedars, this tale is also set in the Pacific Northwest, and relates the story of two friends that bond over their mutual love of the outdoors. John William, who follows his passions and obsessions, ultimately becoming a hermit, and Neil, who after some shared adventures opts for a more conventional life. Per the Amazon review, "The Other compellingly explores the compromises we make to balance meaning and security in our lives through the choices (and their subsequent consequences) of these two men." I'll be interested to hear how "compellingly" you think the story's told, and your views on which protagonist you admire more.

The latest installment in Krueger's Cork O'Connor series, relating the ongoing adventures of the former sherriff of the fictional Tamarack County in northern Minnesota. This one involves Indian gaming and development conflicts in the north woods. Note: DO NOT read this out of order of the rest of the series, as the plot produces it's own "spoiler" that will impact your enjoyment of the other novels.

A crazy book..."set in the late eighteenth century, Water Music follows the wild adventures of Ned Rise, thief and whoremaster, and Mungo Park, a Scottish explorer, through London’s seamy gutters and Scotland’s scenic highlands—to their grand meeting in the heart of darkest Africa. There they join forces and wend their hilarious way to the source of the Niger." In spite of the weirdness of the concept, Boyle produces some amazing prose, and for some additional fun, you can try spotting the occasional anachronisms.

It’s a-peel-ing!

“Set during the early civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer. She begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams.”

“A tale of two love affairs in mid-century Hong Kong shows colonial pretensions tainted by wartime truths. Will Truesdale, a rootless, handsome Briton, arrives in the colony in 1941, and is swept up by Trudy Liang, the blithe and glamorous daughter of a Shanghai millionaire and a Portuguese beauty. They quickly become inseparable, their days spent in a whirl of parties and champagne, but when the Japanese invade, Will is interned and Trudy resorts to increasingly Faustian methods to survive. After the war, Claire Pendleton, the naive wife of a British civil servant, arrives. She begins giving piano lessons to the daughter of a rich Chinese couple, and falls in love with their wounded and inscrutable driver: Will. Lee unfolds each story, and flits between them, with the brisk grace and discretion of the society she describes a world in which horrors are adumbrated but seldom told.”

An uplifting book whose title gives a hint to the writings of the author – a monastic Benedictine nun.

A collection of stories that examine issues related to love through a refreshingly perceptive lens. As noted in the NYT Book Review (2/7/2010), “Bloom, who is also a psychotherapist, vividly chronicles the inner lives of people caught in emotional and physical constraints -- illnesses they are striving to survive, regrets they are trying to allay, desires they often dare not fulfill. She writes in beautifully wrought prose, with spunky humor and a flair for delectably eccentric details. Her narrative talents include a fine touch with flashbacks, which she handles as suavely as any writer I can think of. Her gift for dialogue is equally terrific.”

Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm.

Charles Darwin published 'The origin of species,' in 1859. Even today, the theory of evolution creates tension between the scientific and religious communities. This same debate raged within Darwin himself and played an important part in his marriage: Emma's strong faith gave Charles a lot to think about as he worked on his controversial theory.

Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure. Claudette is an important figure in the civil rights movement, because she, as a teenager, refused to give up a bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, several months before Rosa Parks did so.

Need a good horror story? In 1888, twelve-year-old Will Henry chronicles his apprenticeship with Dr. Warthrop, a scientist who hunts and studies real-life man-eating monsters, as they discover and attempt to destroy a pod of Anthropophagi. Check out the trailer at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4V-biapntE.

A.R. Oppenheimer examines the more than 150 year history of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). However, instead of focusing on the IRA’s political and national motivations, Oppenheimer compiles a list of the group’s methods and tools for creating terror in an urban environment. The IRA’s ingenuity with bomb technologies, and adaptability to a constantly changing urban environment and its lack of resources, has made the organization one of the leading developers in IEDs and their subsequent influence on other terrorist organizations worldwide. As one former IRA member recalls “we were not nuclear physicists, but we were good electricians.” Oppenheimer reveals a people united in armed struggle for national freedom.

For those less aware of guerilla warfare methods and bomb terminology I strongly recommend reading Oppenheimer’s Appendices: Bombs and Explosives – How they are made, How they work and what they do and Effects of Explosives.