Summer Reading: 2015

(from Amazon) New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

A novel in verse, starring twin basketball players Josh and Jordan. They are stars on the court, but as they grow older, life’s challenges and interests draw them away from their favorite game. Wonderful use of different poetic forms. There is a funny video on YouTube starring the author in all roles (https://youtu.be/iO2-u1258UU)

This is a heartrending narrative nonfiction page-turner. When Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, inherited the throne in 1894, he was unprepared to do so. With their four daughters (including Anastasia) and only son, a hemophiliac, Nicholas and his reclusive wife, Alexandra, buried their heads in the sand, living a life of opulence as World War I raged outside their door and political unrest grew into the Russian Revolution. Deftly maneuvering between the lives of the Romanovs and the plight of Russia's peasants and urban workers--and their eventual uprising--Fleming offers up a fascinating portrait, complete with period photographs and compelling primary-source material that brings it all to life.

A laid off newspaper man with a family struggles to cope with his financial circumstances. He starts a website designed to provide financial advice to poets, but, believe it or not, that idea is a failure. What he turns to next is even a worse idea. This is a funny (darkly funny) quick read from the author of Beautiful Ruins and the cohost (with Sherman Alexie) of the podcast “A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment.”

“The future of higher education is one in which educational organizations shrink back to a human scale. They will be big enough to form authentic communities and not so big that interpersonal connections are overwhelmed…The world needs the twenty-first-century equivalent of Carnegie libraries – beautiful, peaceful places where knowledge lives and grows and spreads. Places supported and beloved by local communities, open to everyone, that offer people all of the educational opportunities technology will make possible.”

“Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, land the first big murder case of their police careers: a 12-year-old girl has been murdered in the woods adjacent to a Dublin suburb. Twenty years before, two children disappeared in the same woods, and Ryan was found clinging to a tree trunk, his sneakers filled with blood, unable to tell police anything about what happened to his friends. Ryan, although scarred by his experience, employs all his skills in the search for the killer and in hopes that the investigation will also reveal what happened to his childhood friends. In the Woods is a superior novel about cops, murder, memory, relationships, and modern Ireland.” This is the first book in the Dublin Murder Squad series.

Drawing on her own adventures living in re-created Victorian conditions, Goodman serves as a guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, she celebrates the ordinary lives of the most perennially fascinating era of British history. From waking up to the rapping of a "knocker-upper man" on the window pane to lacing into a corset after a round of calisthenics, from slipping opium to the little ones to finally retiring to the bedroom for the ideal combination of "love, consideration, control and pleasure," the weird, wonderful, and somewhat gruesome intricacies of Victorian life are vividly rendered.

Thirteenth-century Wales is a divided country, ever at the mercy of England's ruthless, power-hungry King John. Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, secures an uneasy truce by marrying the English king's beloved illegitimate daughter, Joanna, who slowly grows to love her charismatic and courageous husband. But as John's attentions turn again and again to subduing Wales---and Llewelyn---Joanna must decide where her love and loyalties truly lie.

Anything by Jasper Fforde, but I really liked Shades of Grey (not to be confused with Fifty Shades of Grey). This is about an aristocracy based on individuals’ ability to see a particular section of the color spectrum, which is inherited. The top of the hierarchy are those who see purple. Those who don’t see color, the Greys, are the working proletariat. There’s a great scene in the library and just an amazing satire of the hierarchies in society. Plus it’s fun. Fforde also has a fantastic website: http://www.jasperfforde.com
His most famous series is about Tuesday Next (The Eyre Affair), a Spec Ops agent who focuses on books, copyright, and the inner world of literature. Her father was a member of the ChronoGuard who jumped through time, keeping everything aligned.
He also has a serious of Nursery Rhyme Crimes. His first about Humpty Dumpty. Was it suicide? An accident? Was he pushed?

With Terry Pratchett’s death this year, DiscWorld is a must-read series. My favorite is the one about the postal service, Going Postal. It has a wonderful subplot about the Clackers, which many have interpreted to be satire of the Internet. The fascinating thing about DiscWorld is that the newer books are better than his older ones. They are deeper, more subtle, funnier, and richer. His website is also pretty exciting: http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/

The bible of French home cooking, Je Sais Cuisiner, has sold over 6 million copies since it was first published in 1932. It is a household must-have, and a well-thumbed copy can be found in kitchens throughout France. Its author, Ginette Mathiot, published more than 30 recipe books in her lifetime, and this is her magnum opus. It's now available for the first time in English as I Know How to Cook. With more than 1,400 easy-to-follow recipes for every occasion, it is an authoritative compendium of every classic French dish, from croque monsieur to cassoulet. (Amazon)

Did you know that the first graham crackers were designed to reduce sexual desire? Or that Americans have tried fad diets for almost two hundred years? Why do we say things like "buck" for a dollar and "living high on the hog"? How have economics, technology, and social movements changed our tastes? Uncover these and other fascinating aspects of American food traditions in The American Plate.

Raspberry Pi chose Python as its teaching language of choice to encourage a new generation of programmers to learn how to program. This approachable book serves as an ideal resource for anyone wanting to use Raspberry Pi to learn to program and helps you get started with the Python programming language. Aimed at first-time developers with no prior programming language assumed, this beginner book gets you up and running.

Set in the 1930s, “Ask the Dust” is Fante’s gritty and starkly realistic semi-autobiographical novel detailing the life of a struggling writer in depression-era Los Angeles.

First published in 1919, “Winesburg, Ohio” is second only to the Joyce’s “Dubliners” as the most significant modern short-story collection in the English language. In a set of interconnected tales, Anderson chronicles the loneliness and isolation of the inhabitants of a small, ever-industrializing Midwestern town.

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Parallel stories of a young blind French girl and her family, and a young German soldier and his comrades during World War II. Glimpses of humanity amongst the chaos and terror of the war.

A random find in a bookstore in Duluth this winter. Very powerful.
From the Goodreads summary:
After seeing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, fourteen-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin's grandfather. In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky.

Boston cops, gangsters, union strife, crooked politicians, an influenza pandemic, a snapshot of race relations in the early 1900's: a saga of two families. Oh, and Babe Ruth, too. First of a planned trilogy.

"Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London presiding over cases in family court. She is fiercely intelligent, well respected, and deeply immersed in the nuances of her particular field of law. Often the outcome of a case seems simple from the outside, the course of action to ensure a child's welfare obvious. But the law requires more rigor than mere pragmatism, and Fiona is expert in considering the sensitivities of culture and religion when handing down her verdicts. But Fiona's professional success belies domestic strife. Her husband, Jack, asks her to consider an open marriage and, after an argument, moves out of their house. His departure leaves her adrift, wondering whether it was not love she had lost so much as a modern form of respectability; whether it was not contempt and ostracism she really fears. She decides to throw herself into her work, especially a complex case involving a seventeen-year-old boy whose parents will not permit a lifesaving blood transfusion because it conflicts with their beliefs as Jehovah's Witnesses. But Jack doesn't leave her thoughts, and the pressure to resolve the case--as well as her crumbling marriage--tests Fiona in ways that will keep readers thoroughly enthralled until the last stunning page"-- Provided by publisher.

"Called a "magnificently crafted story...brimming with wisdom" by Howard Frank Mosher in The Washington Post Book World, Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage."--BOOK JACKET.

This prize-winning book, loosely based on Don Quixote, is not just for young adults. While pretty far from my usual fare, it absolutely drew me in and kept me turning the pages to the end. As the New York Times Book Review describes it: “You could say that [this book] … begins with an offputting premise. The narrator, Cameron, a self-proclaimed slacker, learns that he has contracted a fatal condition: Creutzfeldt-Jakob, or mad cow, disease. Who wants to read a 480-page novel about a 16-year-old who has four to six months to live and suffers from progressive muscle weakness, dementia and delusions? But Libba Bray, author of the bestselling gothic-fantasy-romance Gemma Doyle trilogy, manages to turn a hopeless situation into a hilarious and hallucinatory quest, featuring an asthmatic teenage dwarf, Gonzo; a pink-haired angel in combat boots, Dulcie; and Balder, a Norse god who is cursed with the form of a garden gnome. If Dulcie is to be believed, Cameron must find the mysterious Dr. X who is responsible for releasing dark energy that could cause the end of the world. If he succeeds, he may just save his own life. (Or, it's all just a hallucination.) … Cameron does or doesn't travel to New Orleans to see a trumpeter who comes off as a kind of oracle, get duped by a religious cult, explore parallel universes and realize that along the way, "It's not all sand castles and ninjas." Why keep reading, when we know our hero is still going to die? As Balder chides Gonzo during a scene involving a wizard and a burning pancake restaurant: "Cameron is our brother, our friend, and we do not abandon our friends. . . . This is a quest. I pledged my loyalty to Cameron back on the cul-de-sac. I shall see it through to the end." Libba Bray not only breaks the mold of the ubiquitous dying-teenager genre - she smashes it and grinds the tiny pieces into the sidewalk.”

Another weighty tome (nearly 900 pages) from Stephenson (The Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon). If you enjoy lots of hard science and technology in your speculative fiction, this will be a good summer read for you – just plan on setting aside a good chunk of time. After the moon mysteriously explodes, scientists discover that the lunar debris will destroy all life on the surface of the Earth via devasting meteorite showers and atmospheric firestorms, which will be starting within the next two years and which will last for several millennia. Sending as many people as possible to the existing space station and then frantically building more orbiting space habitats (“arklets”) is the solution; however, only a couple thousand people will be saved. The first two parts of the book describe the desperate preparations prior to the destruction of the Earth’s surface and then the next few years during which the survivors try to adapt to and enhance their new environment and home in orbit, while the third and final part describes another civilization-changing event 5,000 years in the future. (yes, humanity does survive, though it was a close call … ) While many of the characters seem somewhat generic, the events that move the plot forward are interspersed between the lengthy and detailed descriptions of the technological stuff, and the final part seems a bit tacked on and hasty (if 300 pages can be considered “hasty”), the concept and overall scope of the story does hold one’s attention and the science is utterly fascinating.

I am conflicted about this book, as were several reviewers. Elie – whose previous book, The Life You Save May Be Your Own (FSG, 2003, OSF PS 153 .C3 E45 2003) was about American Catholic writers Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor, Percy Walker, and Dorothy Day – really loves Bach’s music, has done a lot of research, and is a good writer. However, Elie is not a musicologist and I do have some reservations about the whole Bach and technology premise that he puts forth. I also noticed a few things (as did several other reviewers) that made me raise my eyebrows or that were outright errors. That being said, I found the book to be very accessible and fascinating to read, and it has inspired me to do some more concentrated listening to Bach and to start reading some more scholarly works on the main characters: noted Bach scholar and interpreter John Eliot Gardiner’s recent weighty tome, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven (Knopf, 2013, OSF ML 410 .B1 G34 2013) is sitting on my bookshelf right now …

Publisher’s description: “The story of a revolution in classical music and technology, told through a century of recordings of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. In Reinventing Bach, his remarkable second book, Paul Elie tells the electrifying story of how musicians of genius have made Bach's music new in our time, at once restoring Bach as a universally revered composer and revolutionizing the ways that music figures into our lives. As a musician in eighteenth-century Germany, Bach was on the technological frontier--restoring organs, inventing instruments, and perfecting the tuning system still in use today. Two centuries later, pioneering musicians began to take advantage of breakthroughs in audio recording to make Bach's music the sound of modern transcendence. The sainted organist Albert Schweitzer played to a mobile recording unit set up at London's Church of All Hallows in order to spread Bach's organ works to the world beyond the churches. Pablo Casals, recording at Abbey Road Studios, made Bach's cello suites existentialism for the living room; Leopold Stokowski and Walt Disney, with Fantasia, made Bach the sound of children's playtime and Hollywood grandeur alike. Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations opened and closed the LP era and made Bach the byword for postwar cool; and Yo-Yo Ma has brought Bach into the digital present, where computers and smartphones put the sound of Bach all around us. In this book we see these musicians and dozens of others searching, experimenting, and collaborating with one another in the service of Bach, who emerges as the very image of the spiritualized, technically savvy artist.”

With all the Marvel movies coming out these days, I think more and more people are becoming intrigued by comic books, but don’t really know where to start. Or perhaps some feel like the genre’s overabundance of burly white guys punching other burly white guys just doesn’t interest to them. Whatever the case may be, the answer to your problem is Ms. Marvel! It’s the story of a high school girl named Kamala Kahn who gains shape-shifting powers and tries to use them to protect her hometown of Jersey City. It’s funny, exciting, and ever so much fun. It’s like a Spider-man story for a new generation. Not to mention that it’s wonderfully refreshing to read a superhero story where the main character is a woman of color.

A book that looks at the ramifications of our culture’s obsession with artificial light and one of the most interesting pieces of non-fiction I’ve read in a while. It’s easy to say that light pollution is a problem because it destroys our view of the stars, but the issue is so much bigger than we realize. Our mistaken trust that Brighter = Better is damaging our bodies, our economies, our ecosystem, and even our safety in ways that we are only now starting to figure out. It’s a book that, for better or worse, will change how you look at the night sky and at artificial lights.

I know it’s not exactly practical to know what would happen if a glass of water were to literally be half-empty (the result is spectacularly ballistic), or if a person could fly by shooting enough guns at the ground (they could!), but there’s a strange comfort in knowing the answers nonetheless. And there is just something immensely enjoyable about using the illustrious tool known as Science for such ridiculous purposes. Not to mention that Monroe’s illustrations make every entry all the more entertaining.

No summer reading list would be complete without something that will send chills down your spine. Graphic novelist Emily Carroll’s short stories are fantastically spooky and hauntingly beautiful. I have a whole bookshelf devoted to graphic novels and this is one of my favorites. It’s just that good.

Terry Pratchett is my favorite author and he sadly passed away earlier this year. But if you’re looking to stick your toe in the wonderful waters that are his Discworld books, this is where I usually recommend people start. It’s a self-contained story that demands no previous knowledge of the series to enjoy. It tells the story of a powerful god who, when his followers stop believing in him, finds himself trapped in the body of a tortoise with only one true believer to his name. It’s not only a wonderfully funny read, but also a really interesting look at religion, what it means to believe in something bigger than yourself, and what it means to have someone believe in you.

Shirley Jackson is probably the most notable American author you’ve never heard of. Famous authors like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman are quick to credit her as a source of inspiration. Her short story “The Lottery” dealt such a blow against traditionalism and groupthink that it caused a stir the likes of which The New Yorker had never seen before. Her novel The Haunting of Hill House is often credited as being one of the greatest horror stories of the 20th century. She was an amazing talent and this is my favorite book of hers. It’s a wonderfully macabre tale coated in a shell of whimsy; the story of 2 reclusive sisters, their senile uncle, and a small town that wants nothing more than to be rid of them all for good.

Ken Jennings, best known for his epic winning streak on Jeopardy! in 2004, returns to the writing world with Maphead, a charming, funny, and of course, informational book about the world of maps and the people who love them. Even if maps are not your thing, Jennings writes about them with such affection and humor that the topic becomes fascinating; the clever captions for the maps in the book alone are worth the read (the first map in the book compares shapes of places that were “separated at birth” and are therefore soul mates. Included: Lake Michigan and Sweden). From the politics of geocaching to the ups and downs of the contestants participating in the National Geographic Bee (which, according to Alex Trebek, should have its own prime-time show like the spelling bee), Jennings captures the excitement and wonder of places. --Caley Anderson

This thoughtful read is about twins separated at birth yet growing up side by side in the early days of mid-19th-century Stillwater, MN. It delves into what it means to be family in a world that is torn apart by many changes, touching on how issues like the Native American upheavals, Underground Railroad, Civil War, and Minnesota’s impending statehood affect both the community and characters.

When Kate’s friend Elizabeth dies on a plane trip, leaving her husband alone with their three young children yet asking for Kate to have her trunkful of journals, everyone is confused. But as Kate begins to read them and see their friendship – and Elizabeth’s life – from Elizabeth’s perspective, she starts to understand just how differently everyone can view the same experiences. Sometimes the most important questions are the ones we never ask, and this was a book that I couldn’t get out of my head for days afterwards.

I’ve been reading several World War II-era books over the last year, and this is the most touching. Young Willie Beach is evacuated from London on the brink of the Second World War to the home of old, gruff Tom Oakley. Willie has had a hard life, and is terrified of the countryside, but he gradually thrives under Tom’s care. Then his mother summons him back to London. When Willie doesn’t answer Tom’s letters, Tom goes to London to find him, and there makes a terrible discovery. This book is written for children and won the Guardian Children’s Fiction award, but it’s a wonderful story for any age.

While rummaging through my nonfiction shelves, I found this book, which was a Christmas present a few years ago. In 1925 Harold Ross hired Katharine Angell as a manuscript reader, later fiction editor, for the New Yorker. Among others, she championed the works of Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, James Thurber, Marianne Moore, and her future husband, E.B. White. In 1958 she wrote a critical review of garden catalogs for the magazine, possibly the first time that such catalogs had been considered worthy of literary attention. For the next several years she wrote thirteen more columns on the history, development, and literature of gardens and flower arranging. After her death, E.B. White collected and republished the essays, with a personal introduction. The New York Times said, “Onward and Upward in the Garden is quite a bit more than a book about flowers. It is itself a bouquet, the final blooming of an extraordinary sensibility.”