Summer Reading: 2013

Calvin Trillin entertains, educates, and amuses readers with his unique takes on food and American culture. This book concentrates on Cajun cooking, beer, and continues his fight to make spaghetti carbonara the national dish of Thanksgiving. A quick read and suitable for anyone.

Robert Harris is the author of the trilogy describing the life of Cicero so I expected a similar experience. This was not it. If you like super suspenseful thriller, you will like this. Many times during the reading I had to close the book and walk away as too intense and the weird thing is I only liked the wife of the main character – but somehow Harris manipulated me in such a way that he made me care what happened to fairly despicable people. The main character, Dr. Alex Hoffmann, is a genius in the area of artificial intelligence. He pairs up with someone who knows banking and hedge funds. He develops a revolutionary form of artificial intelligence that predicts movements in the financial markets and computer driven trading on steroids. He becomes astonishingly rich and so do his investors. And then things go horribly wrong.

Alert: Pretty sacrilegious but laugh out loud funny.
God (who endeared himself to me by being a Packers’ fan), decides he is bored with the earth and is going to have a final end of the world event. (He does send an angel with a placard to warn us to repent with an exact count down completely dressed in aluminum foil.) The place Heaven, Inc., is a grossly mismanaged corporation in the sky. God golfs instead of worrying about petty things on earth, (like floods, fires and other catastrophes) so he decides to retire to pursue his lifelong dream of opening an Asian Fusion restaurant. Craig and Eliza, two underpaid angels in the lowly Department of Miracles care about the earth and its inhabitants and they strike a bargain with God. He'll call off his Armageddon, if they can solve their toughest miracle yet: getting the two most socially awkward humans on the planet to fall in love.

I seldom read non-fiction and I never read memoir because I find them self-absorbed (too obvious?). But this is an exception. I loved this book and I recommend it to everyone. Written beautifully it describes the Ephrussis family, wealthy Jewish grain traders from Odessa who branched out from Russia to Paris and Vienna before seeing their empire destroyed by the Nazis. The family had captured the entire grain supply-chain from the farmer to the baker. de Waal starts the story with his art connoisseur ancestor, Charles, who acquired the netsuke during the European rage for Japonisme. Netsuke, are small ornamental Japanese carvings that were used by the Japanese who did not have pockets to hold their coins, etc. It is the ornament that a loop went around to hold the pouch on the obi. The hare with amber eyes is one of the netsuke that most draws our author.
He put aside his own work as a potter and curator of ceramics at the Victoria & Albert Museum to uncover the family history of which the carvings are one of the few concrete legacies. While there is tragedy, he tells the story with humor and attention to detail and personality that does full justice to the exactitude of the little carvings that first roused his curiosity.

Bring Up the Bodies is the second part of Mantel’s trilogy on Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII. (The first in the series was Wolf Hall, a 2012 Summer Reading recommendation). This novel delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Though he battled for years to marry her Henry is now disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son, and her sharp intelligence alienates his old friends and the noble families of England. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over a few terrifying weeks, Cromwell ensnares her in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour waits her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle, and to defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must now ally himself with his enemies. What price will he pay for Anne’s head?

The discoveries of fossils on the beaches of Lyme Regis, England, in the 19th century rocked the world and opened the minds of scientists to the planet's unimaginable age and the extinction of species. Though attributed to men of consequence, the first remarkable finds were made by the poor working-class Anning family—and their young daughter, Mary. Chevalier wraps the history with a tale of the friendship between Mary and Elizabeth Philpot, a gentlewoman also fascinated by the creatures of stone, in a time when women were thought to be ill-suited to the work or incapable of understanding the scope of their finds. Each of these two characters tells a first-person story, and Susan Lyons gives Elizabeth Philpot the diction, reserve, subdued tones, and poise expected of a gentlewoman and shades her with idiosyncrasies, passions, and palpable loneliness.

The story of a young Prussian girl, Anna Emmerich, and the broken remnants of her family as they flee westward from the advancing Russian army during the waning days of World War II. Along with them they bring the Scottish POW, Callum Finella, with whom Anna has embarked on a secret love affair. As Anna, her mother, her younger brother Theo, and Callum trek across the Third Reich, other stories run parallel to theirs, including the story of Uri Singer, a Jew that leapt off the train to Auschwitz and survives by assuming identities belonging to various German soldiers; and Cecile, a French Jew taken prisoner in a concentration camp and, along with her fellow prisoners, forced to march westward to outdistance the Russian advance.

The novel tells the story of a Bengali woman who meets (online), then marries, a man from Rochester, New York. It sounded very promising on the outset and held my interest most of the time, but it lacked sophistication. The intercultural tension which plays a major role in the novel was especially interesting to me, but in the end, the book left me somewhat disappointed. Worth a try as some reviews were quite good and some readers may find it better than I did.

From publisher description: “her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave. Her family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.”

A fascinating read on multiple levels and so many issues to think about and grapple with. Highly recommended.

From the publisher: “a powerful, blazingly honest, inspiring memoir: the story of a 1,100 mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe--and built her back up again.”

A well-written memoir; gripping. Highly recommended!

Here is a fun book for anyone who has ever been beguiled by the trains that ran through the landscapes of our lives. This entertaining and evocative anthology presents the amazing variety of poems and songs written about the American railroad in the last century and a half. Comprised of selections from both oral and written traditions, the volume celebrates the historical and cultural significance of this marvel of engineering skills. Hedin's anthology allows all readers, from the most avid railroad buff to anyone who has fond memories of train travel, to enjoy the romance of trains.

Eclectic compilations of readings that tell the history of rock and roll music as it has been received and explained as a social and musical practice. Includes a variety of selections from media critics, musicologists, fanzine writers, legal experts, sociologists and political figures. Readings delve into the often explosive issues of censorship, copyright, race relations, feminism, youth subcultures and the meaning of musical value.

A neurosurgeon tells the tale of his near death experience and shares the brain science to explain why it was impossible. Warning: your understanding of consciousness, meaning, life, and death may change.

The first book in Herbert's classic Dune series is set on a desert planet far in the future of the human race where powerful houses struggle for control of the spice that runs civilization. Part sci fi epic, part adventure, part political thriller, all awesome.

Often described as Steinbeck's most ambitious novel, East of Eden brings to life the intricate details of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories. It is a sort of retelling of the Fall of Man (how sin entered the world) and repentance told through two generations of a family. Large, moves fast, excellent characters.

two books, part of a series (books 1 and 2). Science Fiction, dystopian society, war games, regret, repentance, religious undertones, being made into a movie this fall

Ender Wiggin, the hero and scapegoat of mass alien destruction in Ender's Game, receives a chance at redemption in this novel. Ender, who proclaimed as a mistake his success in wiping out an alien race, wins the opportunity to cope better with a second race, discovered by Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania. Orson Scott Card infuses this long, ambitious tale with intellect by casting his characters in social, religious and cultural contexts.

This wild ride of a book received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A touch of the fantastic and surreal (ala Gabriel Garcia Marquez) but also a very gritty urban story of Dominican immigrants in New York and New Jersey through the eyes of a nerdy, comic book reading, overweight Dominican teenager and his family.

A funny, tragic story of the American West, family, nature – one of my all-time favorites.

“When Dashti, a maid, and Lady Saren, her mistress, are shut in a tower for seven years for Saren’s refusal to marry a man she despises, the two prepare for a very long and dark imprisonment. With Shannon Hale’s lyrical language, this forgotten but classic fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm is reimagined and reset on the central Asian steppes; it is a completely unique retelling filled with adventure and romance, drama and disguise.”

Here are two intertwined stories. One delves into the history of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and the architect responsible for its construction, Daniel H. Burnham. The other is the story of H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. A breathtaking novel with a wholly factual account of the fair and the mass murderer lurking within it.

Summer, 1960. Bookish teen Sophie Martineau finds an overgrown maze on part of her grandmother’s former-plantation home in Louisiana. An impulsive wish transports her back to 1860, where she is mistaken for a slave by her ancestors.

A portrait of Berlin during the first years of Hitler, through the eyes of U.S. ambassador William E. Dodd and his carefree daughter, Martha.

In Roman-occupied Britain, army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso copes with miserable weather and minimal supplies. Gaius reluctantly investigates some local deaths and rescues an injured slave girl from her sadistic owner. A fun read that’s the first in a series.

Originally published in 1960, this Pulitzer Prize winner tells the story of a black man charged with the rape of a white girl, through the eyes of young Scout and Jem Finch. A classic.

Retired newsman Brinkley’s reminiscences of Washington in the early 1940s, a small Southern town suddenly thrust on the world stage. Covers the housing crisis in a city ‘crowded to suffocation;’ the ‘parasitic’ high society of the town; the civilian and military bureaucracies; and much more. An interesting book to ponder as we observe anniversaries of the Second World War.

I truly enjoyed this book and easily recommend it to everyone. A story of an international student from Pakistan who does very well in his studies and work in the United States. He becomes very distracted due to developments in the world and finds himself to be a servant of American empire which has constantly interfered and manipulated his homeland. He returns to Pakistan and becomes an influential and controversial university professor. It is a well-constructed suspense novel, involving an unexpected connection between his personal and political life. Not a big book in size but it is a well-written and gripping story. A movie with the same title has been released, but it is not as good as the book.

An entertaining road novel – funny and spirited! After retirement, the main character, a divorced teacher and former farmer, takes to traveling. The author makes the point that a change in lifestyle can be beneficial at any time in one’s life. Light reading for summertime.

Refugee. Queen. Saint. In eleventh-century Scotland, a young woman strives to fulfill her destiny despite the risks . . .

Historical fiction at its best. Set during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), the narrative creates believable human beings from the great roll of historical figures. Here are the mad Charles VI, the brilliant Louis d'Orleans, Joan of Arc, Henry V, and, more…

The latest from Terry Pratchett; Dodger is a street urchin in Victorian London, who suddenly finds himself mixing with the likes of Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, and Sweeny Todd. It’s a rip-roaring adventure in the streets and sewers of London.

This is a fascinating and very readable book about the Manhattan Project, and not just about the building of the bomb, but also about the espionage to steal information about the project. A hard book to put down, and it’s nonfiction!

Speaking of espionage, here is another tale from World War II. This is the story of a couple of young women serving in the British air corp; one is a pilot and the other is a spy. This is one of the very best young adult titles of 2012.

How much do you remember about the assassination of James Garfield from you high school history textbook? Perhaps, not much. This book will fill in the blanks, and leave you amazed by the real story. It was an assassination that succeeded not because of the skill of the shooter, but because of gross medical failures. Fascinating stuff…don’t miss it!

Born a freeman in 1808 in Minerva, New York, Solomon Northup’s slave narrative provides a uniquely intimate and unconventional analysis of the interrelation between slave labor and the cycle of exchange values. From his 32 pre-slavery years as a wage laborer and musician to his 12 years as a slave, Northup meticulously records several financial transactions, from the $1 a day he receives as a musician from his kidnappers (before they are revealed), to his initial purchase price of $650, to the $3,000 he receives for the copyright of his narrative, which he then uses to buy property near Glens Falls, New York. Through relating these specific transactions of human capital, Northup unconsciously illustrates what Marx refers to as the “process of abstraction,” “reducing the phenomena to their purely qualitative essence, to their expression in numbers and numerical relations” (Lukacs). Thus, because Northup was born a freeman he very consciously subscribes to, and even as a slave, acknowledges without animosity, that his identity, as well as the slaveholder’s identity, is built upon a spatial relation of labor values. I recommend this book to anyone interested in US history, economics, African American history, biographies, social identity ideologies, etc. It’s an easy read with a wealth of subtext.

One of the best books I’ve read this year. Read it. Now.

From Kirkus Reviews: “ … a heartbreaking tale of friendship during World War II. In a cell in Nazi-occupied France, a young woman writes. Like Scheherezade, to whom she is compared by the SS officer in charge of her case, she dribbles out information--"everything I can remember about the British War Effort"--in exchange for time and a reprieve from torture. But her story is more than a listing of wireless codes or aircraft types. Instead, she describes her friendship with Maddie, the pilot who flew them to France, as well as the real details of the British War Effort: the breaking down of class barriers, the opportunities, the fears and victories not only of war but of daily life. She also describes, almost casually, her unbearable current situation and the SS officer who holds her life in his hands and his beleaguered female associate, who translates the narrative each day. Through the layers of story, characters (including the Nazis) spring to life. And as the epigraph makes clear, there is more to this tale than is immediately apparent. The twists will lead readers to finish the last page and turn back to the beginning to see how the pieces slot perfectly, unexpectedly into place. A carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”

Publisher’s description: “Life is close to perfect for Emil Larsson, a self-satisfied bureaucrat in the Office of Customs and Excise in 1791 Stockholm. He is a true man of the Town—a drinker, card player, and contented bachelor—until one evening when Mrs. Sofia Sparrow, a fortune-teller and proprietor of an exclusive gaming parlor, shares with him a vision she has had: a golden path that will lead him to love and connection. She lays an Octavo for him, a spread of eight cards that augur the eight individuals who can help him realize this vision—if he can find them. Emil begins his search, intrigued by the puzzle of his Octavo and the good fortune Mrs. Sparrow's vision portends. But when Mrs. Sparrow wins a mysterious folding fan in a card game, the Octavo's deeper powers are revealed. For Emil it is no longer just a game of the heart; collecting his eight is now crucial to pulling his country back from the crumbling precipice of rebellion and chaos. Set against the luminous backdrop of late eighteenth-century Stockholm, as the winds of revolution rage through the great capitals of Europe, The Stockholm Octavo brings together a collection of characters, both fictional and historical, whose lives tangle in political conspiracy, love, and magic … “

From Publisher’s Weekly: “Some of humanity's least sung but most vital gadgets are celebrated in this delicious history of cooking technology. Food historian Wilson (Swindled) surveys eons of cookware, from the Neolithic Age's roasting spits and revolutionary clay pots by enabling the preparation of mushy liquid foods, they kept toothless people from starving to death--to today's programmable refrigerators and high-tech sous-vide cookers. She deftly presents a wealth of scientific lore on everything from the thermodynamics of boiling to the metallurgical properties of knives. But she is also alive to the social context--the medieval taste for highly refined and processed foods, she notes, relied on armies of exhausted kitchen maids whose constant grinding, sifting, and chopping made them the Cuisinarts of their day--and cultural resonances of cooking customs. (She contrasts the aggressive piercing and carving of food at Western knife-and-fork meals with the gentle gathering of bite-sized morsels by chopsticks at Chinese tables.) Wilson is erudite and whip-smart, but she always grounds her exploration of technological change in the perspective of the eternal harried cook--she's been one--struggling to put a meal on the table. This is mouthwatering history: broad in scope, rich in detail, stuffed with savory food for thought.”

From Publisher’s Weekly: “ … a promising new clerical series with this collection of interlocking short whodunits featuring a latter-day Father Brown, Canon Sidney Chambers. In the first selection, set in 1953, the Anglican minister presides over the funeral of a suicide, Stephen Staunton. When Pamela Morton, whose husband was Staunton's law partner and who believes Staunton was murdered, seeks Chambers out, Chambers agrees to ask questions informally, despite the skepticism of a friend on the force. His success in resolving Mrs. Morton's concerns proves to be just the starting point as an amateur sleuth. In subsequent chapters, he investigates a jewel theft, suspicions that a doctor is performing euthanasia, and a strangulation in a jazz club. The last case, "Honourable Men," is the strongest after the opening mystery, with a sophisticated plot centering on the murder of the actor playing Julius Caesar during a staging of the assassination scene from Shakespeare's play.”

From Publisher’s Weekly: “In Harkness's lively debut, witches, vampires, and demons outnumber humans at Oxford's Bodleian Library, where witch and Yale historian Diana Bishop discovers an enchanted manuscript, attracting the attention of 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew Clairmont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and harass her. Against all occult social propriety, Bishop turns for protection to tall, dark, bloodsucking man-about-town Clairmont. Their research raises questions of evolution and extinction among the living dead, and their romance awakens centuries-old enmities. Harkness imagines a crowded universe where normal and paranormal creatures observe a tenuous peace. "Magic is desire made real," Bishop says after both her desire and magical prowess exceed her expectations. Harkness brings this world to vibrant life and makes the most of the growing popularity of gothic adventure with an ending that keeps the Old Lodge door wide open.”

From Amazon.com: “ … Now Shadow of Night picks up where the first book leaves off, with Diana and Matthew entering Elizabethan London, where Mathew is part of the mysterious School of Night, a group that counts Christopher Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh among its members. Characterization, a great eye for detail, and a story that takes some notable twists and turns make this a great novel that will more than live up to eager fans’ expectations. It’s even better than the first.”