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June 22, 2009
Fiction
Nwaubani’s droll debut novel takes the reader inside the world of the notorious Nigerian e-mail scammers. Kingsley Ibe has graduated from engineering school, but cannot find a job in his chosen profession; to add insult to injury, his fiancée dumps him. When Kingsley’s father dies, leaving his family with no means of support, he turns in desperation to his Uncle Boniface, the king of internet conmen, whose nickname “Cash Daddy” describes him perfectly. Cash Daddy sets him up with his own “419” scam business (named after the section of the Nigerian penal code that the scammers flout with impunity), and Kingsley tells himself it’s just until he makes some money and gets the family back on their feet. However the huge amounts of money and luxurious lifestyle the e-mail scams can buy is a potent motivator to continue in the “family business.” Cash Daddy wants to parlay his ill-gotten gains into real political power, but he has made enemies building his internet empire, and they will do everything they can to bring him down. Kingsley must resolve his moral dilemma; he could continue amassing wealth with these scams, or go straight and try to build a life on his own. Kingsley makes those annoying Nigerian scam e-mails seem almost sympathetic, and Cash Daddy is a hoot; beneath all the levity, the author has some serious things to say about poverty in Nigeria and the complicity of Western nations in creating and maintaining the status quo. Readers who liked Election by Tom Perrotta or Nick Hornby’s How to be Good will enjoy reading this.
Peggy Adams has had it with the dithering of Brock, her boyfriend of seven years; she figures it’s time for him to make a commitment to marriage, but he isn’t buying. After a shouting match, Peggy flees to Las Vegas for a night of carousing at friend’s bachelorette party; the next morning she wakes up in a stranger’s bed. When she returns to New York, Luke Sedgwick, the man from her Las Vegas adventure, tracks her down to inform her that they are actually married. Since this puts a crimp in her plans to make Brock pop the question, she hightails it to Luke’s home in Connecticut, a mansion he shares with his elderly Great Aunt Abigail, to get an annulment. Abigail is thrilled that her nephew has finally settled down, and rewrites her will to leave the family mansion to Luke and Peggy; however they must stay married for one year to claim it. Peggy decides to go through with it, because her soap boutique could really use the cash infusion. She figures she can handle the arrangement for a year, spending the week in New York and the weekends in Connecticut while pushing Brock to marry her; however she didn’t count on developing feelings for Luke. Peggy, Luke and Abigail are fun and endearing characters, and there is a lot of humor in this very enjoyable chick lit outing. This book is recommended for fans of Sarah Strohmeyer or Claire Cook.
The author is primarily known as the author of the Moomin series of children’s books, but this slender novel will appeal to grown-ups. It consists of twenty-two vignettes, scenes from the lives of six-year-old Sophia and her elderly grandmother, who are spending the summer on an island in the Gulf of Finland. Sophia’s mother has died, and her father is mysteriously absent; the young girl and the old woman spend their days wandering the island, observing the constantly changing sea and sky, the migration of the birds, and the beauty of the natural world surrounding them. The two are almost ideally suited to each other; they are both at a place in their lives where they care little about what others think of them, and are happy with simple pleasures, like building small boats that they set out on the sea, or studying the lives of insects. A subtle undercurrent of sadness runs through the story at the loss of Sophia’s mother and at the grandmother’s declining health, but mostly it is a funny, wise and lovely meditation on the simple pleasures of life, and how important it is to take joy in each day, as we never know when it will be our last. Readers who enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street series or the novels of Jon Hassler will want to try this.
Written in 1963 but not published until now, five years after the author’s death, this sensitive and sometimes almost uncomfortably honest novel tells the story of Grace Cleave, an author who is suffering from writer’s block. Grace has left New Zealand to live in London; she is hoping to achieve success as a writer by getting closer to the epicenter of the literary world, but she is unhappy there. She misses her lush and beautiful homeland, and she finds social and professional interactions challenging and fraught with hidden meanings. When Grace receives an invitation for a weekend at a friend’s country house, she accepts, hoping that a change of scene will help her overcome her problems with finishing her current novel. However when she arrives at her friend Philip’s house, she feels overwhelmed by anxiety; she isn’t sure what to do or say around Philip and his wife Anne and their children, and she fears she is making social gaffes. Her apprehension brings back memories of a childhood spent constantly moving with her family, and never feeling as though she fit in. Frame has written a nuanced and revealing portrait of an artist dealing with fears of failure, and of the personal cost of success; it will appeal strongly to readers who liked Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kittredge or Brooklyn by Colm Toibin.
Many feminists dismiss Helen Gurley Brown, author of Sex and the Single Girl and editor of Cosmopolitan, as a lightweight at best, and a champion of the repression of women at worst. Scanlon argues that Brown was actually a feminist pioneer, speaking for women who felt left out of the rhetoric used by women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. Cosmopolitan focused on what Brown saw as the “second wave” of feminists, i.e. single and working women who had different priorities than the housewives whose plight was addressed by Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. In the magazine and in her book, Brown advocated working within the system to succeed by playing up your feminine assets (looks and charm) to compete with men at their own game. She championed sexual freedom for women, such as making contraceptives easily available to all (including single women, a radical concept in the early sixties) and the right to abortion; she also believed that men should not be seen as oppressors but enlisted as supporters. Brown has lived a fascinating life, and this biography demonstrates that she had an important role in expanding and redefining the concept of feminism to include a much more diverse group of women, and she has had a huge impact on the careers and lives of American women.
Wright started his career as a writer for Hustler magazine, and the rough and raw perspective he developed there is particularly well-suited to the subjects of the essays in this book, which appeared between 1997 and 2007 in such publications as Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. All of the people here are outsiders in American society; they include sex workers, anarchists, white supremacists, skateboarding teens, and more. There is a piece on Delta Company, an Army unit assigned to pursue the Taliban in southeastern Afghanistan, and another on ex Hollywood agent Pat Dollard, who offers to take the author on a trip to Vegas to find “hookers and blow.” Wright presents the seamy underbelly of American life as it really is, allowing these “rejectionists’ of American society to speak for themselves; what they have to say is often disconcerting and unpleasant, but it is important that their stories are told. This chronicle of those who choose, or who are forced, to live their lives in the margins of society will keep readers engrossed from the first page to the last.
This collection of essays from the author of Perfect Husbands (and Other Fairy Tales) tackles a number of serious (and some trivial) subjects regarding the experiences of women in today’s society with humor and insight. Barreca gets down to brass tacks on such burning issues as the difficulties of trying on swimsuits in the store, dealing with bad hair days, and why it’s so disheartening that Anne Bancroft was only thirty-six when she played Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. She writes with brio about the glass ceiling, the disturbing emphasis on Hilary Clinton’s hair and clothing during the 2008 presidential campaign, and why many women allow themselves to be distracted with trivia like holiday decorating or psychic readings instead of fighting for better pay and more job opportunities for women, and other pressing economic and social concerns. However, Barreca doesn’t deliver a sermon; it’s much more like a standup routine with bonus social commentary. If you like Chelsea Handler, David Sedaris, or Stephen Colbert, give this a try.
The author is a now a doctor in an L.A. trauma center, but during his second year as a medical student in 2003, he grew interested in learning about Lassa fever, a disease endemic to West Africa. Lassa fever is responsible for thousands of deaths each year in Sierra Leone and Liberia alone, and patients with severe cases often suffer terribly. Donaldson went to the town of Kenema in Sierra Leone to work in a clinic under Dr. Aniru Conteh, an expert in Lassa fever; surrounded by poverty and the strife of civil war, Donaldson worked to treat the often desperately ill people who came to the Lassa ward for help. He was sometimes exhilarated at the challenge, sometimes appalled by the suffering and poverty all around him, and sometimes fearful of contracting the disease himself. The workers on the ward experienced some successes in treating their patients, but were constantly hampered by lack of supplies, equipment and medical staff. When Dr. Conteh left the author in charge of the ward for a week while he went to supervise public health training, it was a baptism by fire; an inexperienced medical student was forced to make critical decisions that could mean life or death to the patients. The book reads like an adventure thriller, but the author has some important points to make about the status of health care in the third world, and why it matters even beyond the toll of human suffering. Readers who liked Candice Millard’s River of Doubt will be riveted by this one.
June 15, 2009
Fiction
This intriguing sequel to The Rossetti Letter moves back and forth in time, between England in the seventeenth century and in the present day. In the past, the Restoration of King Charles II to the throne has led to great changes; the plague of 1665 and Great Fire of London in 1666 caused great social upheaval, and the Puritan restrictions on the arts were lifted, resulting in a new flowering of theater, painting, and literature. In this new atmosphere women had a lot more freedom, but they were still forbidden to practice medicine; this restriction was ignored by Hannah Devlin, who got around the ban by treating the poor patients no one else wanted to help. When the Secretary of State Lord Arlington summons Hannah to the court, she unwillingly becomes involved in the complex and dangerous machinations of the court’s factions. In the present, Cambridge lecturer Claire Donovan is enjoying her new position and her relationship with fellow academic Andrew Kent when one of their colleagues is found dead, a page of Hannah Devlin’s diary in his hand. Claire and Andrew investigate the murder, trying to discover what a seventeenth century physician has to do with the killing; they discover that events of three hundred years ago may still be causing turmoil in the present day. This exciting and fast paced tale has beautifully drawn period detail, and the suspense will keep readers engaged until the very end. Fans of Kate Morton or Matthew Pearl will want to read this.
In this follow-up to Padura’s excellent Havana Quartet, we return to the character of Mario Conde fifteen years after his retirement from the Havana Police. He now makes his living working for an antique books dealer, using his detection skills, contacts, and love of literature to find and evaluate book collections for sale on the island. His most recent discovery is a remarkable private library left behind decades ago when its owner fled Cuba during the Revolution. While looking through the collection, he finds a magazine article from 1960 about singer Violeta del Rio, who mysteriously disappeared in the 1950s. The photograph of the beautiful singer, who may have been involved with Conde’s father, arouses his curiosity; he feels compelled to try and find out what really happened to her, following the few leads he has back into the pre-Revolutionary period of casinos and gangsters. However, even after fifty years, there are those in the shadows who do not want their secrets uncovered, and the investigation puts Conde in danger. This evocative novel recreates both Cuba’s present atmosphere of deprivation, decay, and political repression, and the thrilling and dangerous heyday of Havana as a hedonistic paradise for rich Americans; Conde’s friends and associates are realistic and three-dimensional, and the reader can almost small and taste the air of Havana in the author’s descriptions. This would be an excellent choice for readers who liked Andrea Camilleri’s inspector Montalbano series, or the Guido Brunetti series by Donna Leon.
In this tale of New York’s glamorous, filthy rich, we meet Marcy Emerson, whose husband John is recruited from Chicago by a big Wall Street firm. When they arrive at their new super luxurious digs and start living the high life of designer clothes, expensive restaurants and fancy vacations, everything seems great, although Marcy is not as thrilled with the snobbery and shallowness of the women in this new world. Midwestern girl Marcy has some trouble fitting in with the upper crust, and makes a couple of faux pas involving drunkenness and not wearing underwear. Meanwhile, her husband John seems to be growing more and more distant, becoming preoccupied with their new lifestyle and his job and neglecting Marcy; or is there more to the story? When another woman enters the picture, Marcy must decide what-and who-is really important to her, and make an effort to stand on her own. The perfect combination of frothy, decadent fun, an appealing heroine, and a gossipy, funny writing style, this would be a perfect summer read for fans of Jennifer Weiner or Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada.
Claire Conover is an idealistic social worker in Birmingham, Alabama. She knows that her clients have serious problems, but she believes that she is helping them and making a difference in the world. Her confidence is shaken when two-year-old Michael Hennessey, the son of recovering drug addict Ashley, one of Claire’s clients, dies of a drug overdose. Claire can’t believe that Ashley is responsible for Michael’s death; she had been doing very well, getting sober and finding a job to support herself and her son. Besides, there were other people in their lives who raise Claire’s suspicions, like Ashley’s ne’re-do-well boyfriend, her alcoholic stepfather with the gambling problem, and Michael’s rather sinister birth father. Aided by computer whiz Grant Summerville, Claire digs deeper into the case, finding connections to the highest levels of Birmingham’s elite, and putting both of them in danger as they search for the truth of what happened to Michael. This terrific debut mystery is reminiscent of the Deborah Knott series by Margaret Maron or the excellent Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear.
The year 1848 was as momentous in European history as the year 1776 was for the United States of America; the events of that time had a long-ranging impact on the Continent, the effects of which would be felt until the end of the twentieth century. All over Europe, economic misery in the form of bad harvests, the growing pains of the Industrial Revolution, and rapidly increasing population was making life increasingly difficult for the majority of Europeans who were not part of the wealthy ruling class. Political and social oppression was widespread and onerous; many people still lived in serfdom, and vast numbers of people in both the cities and the countryside lived in poverty, with little hope for any real change. The widespread discontent and anger was like dry tinder waiting for the spark that touched off the conflagration of revolution; it began in January with a peasant revolt in Sicily, and then the spirit of insurrection spread to Naples and France, and then on to Denmark, Holland, Germany, and England. The series of revolts seriously threatened the existing social order, and the demonstrations and riots in Paris, Berlin and Vienna were often quelled with brute force and bloodshed. The revolts did win some reforms, but mostly ended in failure as the various governments reasserted themselves by the end of the summer. However, Rapport argues that these uprisings laid the groundwork for later liberal democracies that arose in post World War II Europe, eventually leading to the end of the Soviet Union in 1989. The author untangles the complex narrative of the events of that eventful year, providing the reader with a rousing story of the tide of revolution sweeping across Europe, and its importance for us now in the present day.
The history of the arrival of humans in the New World is a long and complex one, and deciphering it is made all the more difficult because the only way to uncover this story is by examining the archeological, geological, linguistic, and genetic evidence they left behind. The current generally accepted theory is that the first humans in the Americas, the Clovis people of the American Southwest, came from Asia across a land bridge that existed thousands of years ago in what is now the Bering Strait; however Meltzer, a professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University, believes that the evidence indicates that some humans arrived earlier, and may not have originated in Asia. Using the latest discoveries and theories, the author explores how humans might have come to the Americas in the prehistoric era, how they survived the brutal Ice Age climate, and how they migrated across this newly discovered continent to establish themselves from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. The debate has sometimes been very heated, but Meltzer lays it all out in a clear and concise manner, making it understandable for the lay person. The story of our distant ancestors is fascinating, and the narrative of how we are learning about them is just as compelling. This is a great choice for armchair archeologists, geologists, and historians, or anyone interested in the story of humanity.
The globalization movement, with its emphasis on removing trade barriers between nations, has been touted by its proponents at the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and other such groups as the path to economic success-and indeed, economic survival-in the modern world. Jeter, the former Washington Post bureau chief for southern Africa, argues that in fact globalization has enriched the elite at the expense of the vast majority of workers around the world, ordinary people who make their living as taxi drivers, factory workers, farmers, etc. Jeter spent seven years traveling to such far flung destinations as Zambia, Argentina and Chicago to interview people at many different economic and social levels to see how the rising tide of globalization has affected them; many of the stories are disturbing and moving, such as the experiences of an African woman who spends twelve hours each day selling tomatoes in the market in Zambia, barely earning enough to feed her children, or the plight of women in Buenos Aires forced into prostitution. Jeter argues that the free trade and privatization favored by groups like the IMF and WTO have in fact created a “transnational underclass” and increased poverty while benefiting the favored few; he offers some hope in the example of Chile, which has resisted pressure to allow globalization, instead investing in infrastructure and social programs to help their own people prosper. Whatever your beliefs about the ongoing trend of globalization, this is a sobering, deeply affecting and thought-provoking work, and will be of interest to anyone who is concerned about the world economy.
Tapas are one of the quintessential delights of Spanish cooking. Known as “small plates,” they are snacks, similar to American appetizers, usually served in bars along with drinks and wine. Tapas can consist of anything from cold plates of olives, tomatoes, and cheese, to deviled eggs, savory stews, or fried squid, or dishes with tuna, sausage, or meat; there is a wide variety of foods used for tapas, and there are many recipes for creating them. Goldstein, who has authored several books on Mediterranean cooking, has sorted out the best recipes for several different categories of tapas (vegetable, meat, seafood, spicy, salty, sweet, etc.) along with recipes for the five basic sauces used with these dishes. She also includes ideas for pairing these treats with wine, including suggestions for Spanish wines as well as wines of other countries. The “Shop-and-serve tapas” section includes a number of recipes that require almost no preparation, and all of the book’s recipes have easy to follow instructions with clear and colorful photographs. This cookbook offers a great opportunity to create tapas for entertaining with friends and family; the varied dishes are a great way to try out Spanish cuisine without a huge investment of time or effort. Try these for your next party.
June 8, 2009
Fiction
Sarah Jeffrey is at loose ends, having just broken up with her boyfriend and feeling bored with her job as a teacher in England; looking for something new and different, she gets a job as an aid worker in Bangladesh, where she meets Ed Salisbury, the charismatic leader of Schools for Change, a charity that plans to build a school in a small seaside village. Sarah falls in love with Ed, and everything seems to be going wonderfully until they run up against Oxan, the multinational oil conglomerate that is buying up the land around the village; the two are unpleasantly surprised when the villagers show mistrust in Ed’s motives. Things come to a head when a giant tropical storm hits and Ed disappears; the last time she sees him, he is running toward the ocean in the midst of the cyclone. Sarah can’t believe her lover is dead, but she returns to London at the request of a senior official in the aid organization; there she is shocked to discover that Ed had many secrets, and his work in Bangladesh was far different than she ever knew. This is an absorbing novel about love and betrayal, with an interesting and complex take on Western attempts to do good in the Third World; fans of Robert Goolrick’s A Reliable Wife or In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien will want to try this one.
McKinty’s latest terrific thriller introduces us to a young Havana cop, Detective Mercado, who discovers that her father, Alberto Suarez, has been killed in a hit-and-run in Fairview, Colorado, where he had been living after defecting to the U.S. Mercado feels it is her duty to investigate, and if possible, take revenge on his killers; she doesn’t believe that his death was an accident. However the Cuban government has little sympathy for her loss, so Mercado smuggles herself into the U.S., posing as a maid; she appears to be just another one of the many undocumented Mexican workers in town. During her investigation, she discovers many troubling things about the town, like the debauched retinues of Hollywood types who have taken over the town, the corrupt and bullying local sheriff, and the many secrets kept by her own father; what was a former intellectual and political refugee doing working as an exterminator in a town like Fairview, and why did someone want him dead? The tension coils tighter and tighter as Mercado pursues her answers, and he vengeance. Suspenseful and gritty, this book would be a good choice for fans of Ken Bruen or George Pelecanos.
In Winona, Minnesota in 1907, women did not have a great many career options besides wife and mother; certainly it was unusual, and perhaps somewhat questionable, for a woman to want to become a photographer, a dangerous profession due to all of the toxic and explosive chemicals used. Fifteen-year-old Jessie Ann Gaebele starts to live her dream of becoming a professional photographer when she is hired as an assistant by F.J. Bauer, learning how to create poses for portraits, develop photographs, and the business end of running a photography studio. In turn, her employer learns about the possibilities of photography as an art form from Jessie Ann, who loves the complexity of light and shadows all around her in the rural Minnesota landscape. The two of them become friends, and eventually develop a mutual attraction; this is a problem for both of them, since Bauer is married, albeit unhappily so. All of the characters are exquisitely rendered, creating an almost photographically detailed sense of time and place, and drawing the reader in to the story; the story’s themes of the difficulties faced by a woman artist in a repressive society, and the dilemma of dealing with an attraction to someone who is unavailable, are sensitively handled. This book is highly recommended for readers who like Tracie Peterson or Lynn Austin, or for anyone who wants a beautifully written historical novel.
The third outing of this fun mystery series finds former hotel manager and amateur detective Trevor Lambert unemployed; his previous job went up in smoke when the hotel he was running burned to the ground. Now Trevor decides that running his own bed & breakfast in beautiful Graverly Manor, located on a lake near Vancouver, is just the thing to get him out of the doldrums. The stories that the picturesque inn is haunted by the ghost of Lord Andrew Graverly, and the chambermaid with whom he was having a fling, only make the place more interesting to Trevor, so when Lord Andrew’s elderly widow, Lady Elinor, hires him for a one month trial run to see if he can really handle the place, it seems like his troubles are over. In short order Trevor starts encountering unusual phenomena like strange noises, terrible odors, and disappearing chambermaids; Trevor must investigate to discover what is behind these disturbances, and what Lady Elinor is hiding. Clarissa, one of the hotel’s guests who is also looking into the mansion’s shadowy past, joins forces with Trevor to ferret out the truth before anything even more sinister happens. The ghostly manifestations and the author’s sly humor make this one a lot of fun; fans of K.K. Beck’s Jane da Silva mysteries or the Pennyfoot Hotel series by Kate Kingsbury will like this.
Finding a book about the evolution of language this is as funny and as informative as this one is a real treat. Keyes discusses what he terms “verbal artifacts,” i.e. references to events or things that happened a long time ago, but have entered the lexicon; examples are everywhere, and include such expressions as "Put your John Hancock there," "The buck stops here," and "You're not in Kansas anymore." Most Americans know perfectly well what these expressions mean, but have no idea where they came from; for foreign speakers of English, or for generations born long after the event or thing that inspired the expression (like “drinking the Kool Aid”), they can be bewildering. Keyes has come to the rescue with this compendium of “retrotalk,” or allusions to past events, old slang that is still in use, and references to once-famous and now otherwise forgotten people (Ponzi schemes, Judge Crater, etc.). Reading this is like a trip through American pop culture of the last century or so with a very witty and erudite friend, who also appreciates that use of language is constantly evolving, and trying to bridge the language gap is important to endure that everyone understands the discourse. Readers who enjoy books by Malcolm Gladwell or Christopher Buckley will get a kick out of this one.
This companion volume to the Discovery Channel documentary Nature’s Most Amazing Events is full of absolutely beautiful photographs of some of the most astonishing moments in the lives of animals from Alaska to South Africa. The book includes the annual flood of Botswana’s Okavango River delta, which allows plant life in the Kalahari Desert to flourish and creates habitat for elephants as well as many other species of animals and birds; the melting of the Arctic ice caps; the great annual migration of wildebeests across the vast Serengeti plain; the salmon run in British Columbia; the great feeding frenzy in Alaska’s coastal waters; and the annual sardine migration off the coast of South Africa, which is a feast for marine species from dolphins to sharks. The breathtaking color photographs are accompanied by commentary from the photographers who recorded these events, and a great deal of information about each ecosystem and the various animals that dwell there. If you have ever wanted to see the awe-inspiring beauty of nature first hand, this book is the next best thing to going there yourself and witnessing these moments in person; it makes us aware of the fragility of life on earth.
In 1769, two different ships set sail on voyages of exploration in the South Seas; one was the British ship Endeavour, commanded by Lieutenant James Cook, which left New Zealand on a voyage of scientific discovery; the other was the French ship St. Jean-Baptiste, commanded by Jean de Surville, which left Pondicherry, India, which was at that time a French possession. Both of the vessels were on missions of exploration, sent to map the previously uncharted area of the South Pacific; both were also looking for the mythical Jewish continent thought to be located in the ocean between New Zealand and South America, as well as protecting the interests of their respective countries in the Pacific. Cook mapped the area, while he and his crew endured extreme privation, illness and danger from the Great Barrier Reef. De Surville charted an area of the Pacific that was unknown before is arrival. While trying to find a shorter route back home, Cook discovered Australia, landing at what is now known as Botany Bay and making tentative overtures to the Australian natives. The author uses the diaries of the expeditions’ members, including Cook, de Surville, and naturalist Joseph Banks, to create a vivid and detailed narrative of their extraordinary journeys; their encounters with natural phenomena, new species, and new peoples were fascinating, and helped set the stage for the future of the region. This book is a treat for anyone who likes history, sea stories, or natural history.
Conniff is a naturalist and travel writer who has written for Smithsonian and National Geographic, and has traveled extensively around the world to examine and document species from spiders to chimpanzees, in locations from the inner city to the African veldt. This entertaining collection of stories follows his adventures with animals, from tracking tigers in the Himalayas to trying to get close to wild dogs in Africa, and of course the piranhas of the title; although many of these encounters have a strong element of danger, somehow Conniff always manages to emerge unscathed to share his experiences with the rest of us. There are a number of colorful people depicted, like Justin Schmidt, and entomologist who is developing a detailed Pain Index of Insect Stings by allowing insects of all kinds to bite him and comparing the results. This is an excellent book for the naturalist or armchair traveler who finds this kind of thing fascinating, but really doesn’t want to jump into a pool of feeding piranhas or hunt leopards in Namibia; fans of Bill Bryson or John Grogan will enjoy it.
May 18, 2009
Fiction
Asta Hewitt is a seven-year-old girl living in rural Maine with her widowed mother and her nine-year-old brother, Orion. Asta and Orion’s lives are very circumscribed; their mentally ill mother has told them that the rest of the world was ravaged by a plague, and she has kept them isolated indoors for years, away from other people. As a result, the two very bright and imaginative children have created a richly textured world for themselves, and they have an extremely close bond. Their mother acts capriciously, sometimes loving, sometimes cruel, but always unpredictable; then one day she doesn’t come home, and the children decide they must go out into the world to search for her. Meeting people for the first time is frightening and unsettling; as Asta and her brother interact with adults and other children, she begins to realize that her mother has lied to them. The children react differently to their new situation; Orion is overwhelmed and stops speaking, but Asta tries to learn everything she can about this strange new world, so she can adjust to their new reality and help her brother, who has been separated from her by well-meaning but misguided adults. Asta is an intelligent, resourceful and creative child with a unique and captivating voice, and the author intelligently examines themes of a mother’s love for a child, the importance of family, and how children can be at the mercy of uncomprehending adults. This book is reminiscent of Lisa Tucker’s Once Upon a Day or Monkeys by Susan Minot.
Zaki Khalil left his native Pakistan years ago and immigrated to London, hoping for a better life. He became a shop owner, achieving financial success and an affluent lifestyle for his family, but he doesn’t enjoy his life very much; he fears that he is getting old, and wants to break away and do what makes him happy, which is gambling, traveling, and having affairs with women. Zaki’s serious-minded son Jinan, an attorney, is married to Frenchwoman Delphine, who loves the luxuries her husband’s income provides but feels unsatisfied and empty. Their teenage son Lucky dreams of playing on England’s World Cup soccer team, and is in love with Portia, the clerk at his grandfather’s shop. When Delphine succumbs to Zaki’s entreaties to resume the affair they were involved in years before she married Jinan, the consequences for the entire family are life-changing. This novel treats familiar themes, such as the difficulties of assimilation, and the weight of responsibility taking precedence over one’s own desires, in a fresh way; the author writes with candor and humor, making the reader care about these characters and their plight despite their flaws and bad choices. If you enjoyed Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake or Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, this book would be a good choice.
In this intriguing new novel, we meet August Rose, a man who has struggled all his life with issues of identity, love, and loyalty. When we first encounter August, he is a prisoner at the Guantanamo detention facility, where he is being interrogated by Harper, a pitiless American agent dedicated to getting information he believes August posseses regarding the activities of a terrorist group. August withdraws into his memories to escape Harper’s brutal torture; he thinks about the most important women in his life, remembering his childhood and adolesence in Harlem in the fifties and sixties. August’s mother Juliet was a loving but insecure Italian woman, whose family disowned her after she gave birth to a multiracial child; she loved and accepted him, but he felt alienated from both the white and black communities. As a young man, he met Elise Merkete, a troubled young woman who recruited him to a shadowy movement dedicated to “vigilante democracy;” his involvement with them led to his current imprisonment and torture. Finally, he remembers Selina, a beautiful white woman and the great love of his life; although their affair brought August more heartbreak than happiness, he has many wonderful memories of their years together until Selina’s death in a terrorist bombing in Spain. Duncan unflinchingly depicts the reality of torture and the physical and psychological scars it leaves on its victims; he also creates a complex and believable world in which no one is entirely to blame, and no one is without guilt. This novel is would be a good choice for readers who enjoy the works of Richard Price or Kate Atkinson.
A debut mystery with an interesting twist, this one is set in the time of King Arthur, but the characters of Arthurian legend are the secondary characters; the protagonist is soldier-turned-scribe Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, who lost his right arm in battle against
The tale of Antony and Cleopatra is one of the most famous love stories in history, and the author argues that much of what we believe about the tragic lovers is due to Roman propaganda put forth after they both committed suicide in the year 30 B.C.E.
The author spent seven years researching her family’s history from the late 19th century to the present day, and considering how her family’s saga intersected with larger historical events and trends in the vast migration of Indian people around the globe. Hajratwala’s family roots were in the Gujarat region of northeastern India; they were descended from a dynasty of kings who has long ago lost their power. Many members of the family became weavers, and they spread out over five villages in the area. For many years the family was happy in their peaceful village life, but then the famine of 1899 compelled the author’s great-grandfather, Motiram, to leave his family and sail to Fiji, where he learned to be a tailor. Motiram was very successful, building his business from a tailor shop into one of the largest retail chains in the South Pacific. Other members of the family immigrated to such places as Durban, South Africa, and the United States, where they too found success as business owners and as professionals in a variety of fields. A number of common threads that run through the family’s experiences, such as the problems of dealing with racism and prejudice, living with economic hardship as brand new immigrants, handling the alienation and loneliness of assimilation into a new culture, and the importance of family and community ties. This is an absolutely compelling story of one family’s far-flung history, made even more riveting by the author’s depiction of the broader context of the Indian diaspora.
The author trained as a midwife in the 1950s, learning her profession from the nuns of a convent of nurses and midwives located in the poorest East London slums. The nuns dedicated themselves to providing medical care for the poorest people at a time when there were no other options; without their help, many more women and babies would have suffered. Worth tells the story of her training and work delivering thousands of babies in squalid conditions, with little in the way of equipment and drugs, dealing with patients who were often malnourished and ignorant about their own bodies and the process of childbirth. Worth saw many sad stories of poverty and neglect, but also many stories of loving families doing their best to get by and provide for their children. Many of her colleagues were interesting personalities as well, including the upper-class woman who gave up her life as a socialite to become a nurse, the nun who loved cake, the long suffering handyman, and many more. Worth doesn’t romanticize the poverty and suffering she saw, but she does paint a vivid and often charming picture of how a new life enters the world. Readers who enjoyed the James Herriot books or Mildred Kalish’s Little Heathens will like this one.
It sometimes seems that current scientific knowledge has progressed so far beyond an average person’s level of understanding that it is impossible to understand without an advanced degree, but in the last few years several authors, like Neil Shubin and Brian Greene, have quite successfully taken on the challenge of making modern science comprehensible to the lay reader; Christopher Potter can be added to that list with this new book. The author takes us on a journey from a single human cell all the way out to clusters of galaxies drifting in the vastness of space, vividly illustrating the scale of the universe in a way that makes the mind boggle while presenting a clear picture of Earth’s place in the cosmos. He discusses concepts of measurement, and explains why this idea is so central to the scientific method (that is, being able to reproduce measurable results in an experiment). He considers the history of scientific inquiry from antiquity to the present, showing how models of the universe were created, modified, and sometimes discarded as human knowledge grew over time, and discussing Einstein’s work, quantum theory, and the theory of evolution. Potter explains these very complex topics clearly and effectively without simplifying too much, and creates an extremely entertaining and interesting book in the process. Anyone who likes science will want to read this.
May 11, 2009
Fiction
This is an exciting fantasy novel that effectively weaves together stories from three very different times in the history of Britain. In the sixth century town of Londinium, a young knight called Galaad experiences a vision that compels him to go to the court of King Artor, where he convinces the king to follow him on a quest for the Holy Grail. Centuries later, during Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897, the London Metropolitan Police fear that a series of brutal murders may be the work of Jack the Ripper, whose killing spree a decade earlier threw the city in a panic; however private detective Sandford Blank and his assistant Roxanne Bonaventure believe that a new killer, with a sinister motive involving the Grail, is responsible. One hundred years later, runaway American teen Alice Fell is in London trying to discover the meaning of her own mysterious visions, which seem to be showing her future; pursued by strange menacing creatures, she is assisted by the enigmatic Stillman Waters. The malevolent forces behind all of these incidents cause the breakdown of barriers of time and space, bringing all of the various characters together to fight an evil so great that it could lead to the end of everything. The author has blended fantasy, mystery and science fiction into a gripping story that will enthrall readers until the very end of the book. Readers who enjoyed Neal Stephenson’s excellent Anathem or American Gods by Neil Gaiman should definitely try this one.
This is the exciting sequel to 2007’s excellent City of Fire, which introduced LAPD Robbery-Homicide Detective Lena Gamble. She is assigned to investigate the gruesome murder of an unidentified young woman whose dismembered remains were found in a dumpster in Hollywood. Her supervisor warns her that the brass may be trying to set her up for failure; Gamble has been persona to them non grata since her last case exposed police corruption. The case seems pretty cold, as the victim is unidentified and there are few clues and no apparent witnesses, but Gamble has a mysterious ally in her pursuit of the killer; someone mails her the victim’s drivers license and a video of her being kidnapped from a restaurant parking lot. Lena doggedly follows the evidence, which points toward the wealthy owner of a drug company, as well as various higher-ups in the LAPD and other movers and shakers. Several other murders occur that may be related, and Gamble must find the missing witness before the killers do; in the process, she puts herself in danger as well. The story is full of twists and turns, the suspense will keep readers on the edge of their seat, and the LA setting is depicted in all its glamour and squalor. Fans of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series or the Prey books by John Sandford will definitely want to try this series.
Leila al-Ghani is a young woman living in the war-torn city of Mosul in Iraq. Her dream has always been to become a doctor, and she has begun working toward her dream by getting a degree from Cairo University. Leila’s parents had always encouraged her to pursue her career goals and to think of herself as a modern woman, but since the beginning of the war, they have become increasingly conservative, and they now wish her to follow the traditional path of an arranged marriage. Unable to go to medical school in her current circumstances, Leila gets a job as a translator at the U.S. Combat Support Hospital on the nearby American military base; part of her job includes working with torture victims being treated at the hospital. She hides her job from her family, trying to pursue her goals on her own despite their disapproval. When Leila meets handsome Special Forces Major James Cartwright, they fall in love. James has been emotionally disconnected because of the terrible things he has witnessed during the war, but his feelings for Leila reawaken his conscience. When Leila’s father Tamir discovers his daughter’s betrayal, he is furious, and Leila must make difficult choices between her family’s demands and her own dreams and desires. The author skillfully depicts the terror and violence of war, and the profound psychological effects of living in a war zone; the romance is captivating, and the suspense will keep readers riveted. This book would be a good choice for fans of The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar or Laura Fitzgerald’s Veil of Roses.
Gina Tait is a high-powered career woman, and every minute of her day is filled with obligations. Her to-do list is never ending, so when she is trapped in a malfunctioning elevator for an hour and a half with laid-back artist Brad Harding, it seems like the worst thing that could happen. When Brad sees Gina, he sees the polar opposite to his own lifestyle as a single parent living in a small country town, and believes they have nothing in common. But Gina is surprised by how much she is attracted to him, and how well they get on together; Brad finds his interest piqued as well, and after they escape their confinement in the elevator, they decide to try and be friends. When Brad’s daughters meet Gina, they are convinced that the two are perfect for each other, and put a plan in motion to get them together. The author creates very believable and appealing characters, and shows us how two very different people can come together and find not only common ground, but happiness. This is a charming and fun romance that will please fans of Jane Green, or C.A. Belmond’s Penny Nichols books.
In 1796, George Washington proposed that a national botanic garden be established in Washington for the benefit of the American people. His idea came to fruition when the United States Botanic Garden was established by Congress in 1820. The Botanic Garden’s mission is to collect, preserve and disseminate plant species for the benefit of the American people. Although the garden languished for a time in the 1830s, it was substantially enlarged in 1842, when Charles Wilkes returned from the United States Exploring Expedition, a four-year voyage of exploration in the Pacific Ocean that gathered thousands of plant and animal specimens, including more than 250 plants that were added to the Botanic Garden. Other later scientific expeditions gathered more plant specimens and seeds for the Garden, and it grew and prospered into the twentieth century. The garden moved to a new larger site in 1920, and was completely renovated in the 1990s, reopening in 2001 larger and better than ever. This beautiful book is filled with lush color illustrations, including many historical images and photographs, as well as gorgeous contemporary photographs. Paging through the book is like taking a trip to a peaceful and calm oasis of vegetation; it is a special treat for gardeners.
In 2003, Williams was living in a tiny rented apartment in Brooklyn with her husband and young child; they loved their neighborhood, but were longing to buy a house with more space, and take on all the benefits (and even the disadvantages) that come with home ownership. It was their misfortune that they began looking for a home at the height of the real estate frenzy in New York City, perhaps the priciest and most overheated real estate market in the country. Everything they could afford on their $400,000.00 budget was dismayingly awful; terrible unsafe neighborhoods, falling-down and squalid hovels resembling the tenements of the early 1900s, and houses built on the expressway or infested with termites were the only kinds of properties they could find anywhere near their target areas. The search dragged on for three years, and they were forced to make many compromises before finally finding a suitable home in Inwood, a neighborhood much farther away from the city than they had originally wanted. As she tells her own story, the author periodically checks in with others trying to find suitable housing in different regions of the country, finding that the same problems (too little house for too much money) were happening to some extent all around the country. The author’s story is both hilarious and heartbreaking, and it will ring true for anyone who endured house hunting in the last few years. In addition to offering a cogent explanation for the madness of the housing bubble, she vividly illustrates the effect of the real estate crunch on average middle class Americans.
Wolff examines the American educational system by exploring the experiences of some of our most celebrated achievers, including Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Henry Ford and Elvis Presley. This cross-section of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, all of whom went on to achieve greatness in their chosen fields, had very different educational experiences; some were taught at home, some had a bit of formal schooling, some more than a bit, and some stayed in the formal educational system all the way through university. The most interesting thing about all of these narratives is the thread that runs throughout, a love of learning and a curiosity about the world that led each of these people to seek out knowledge and experience that helped them in their chosen pursuits. It’s fascinating to see how they all overcame challenges and barriers placed in their way, and went on to achieve their goals. Wolff is obviously knowledgeable about the subject, and his writing style is lively and engaging, never pedantic; the stories he tells about these celebrated people are appealing, and the narrative of success against the odds is a truly American story. The ways in which these individuals fostered their success by seeking out all kinds of educational opportunities, including real life experience in business, industry, politics and other fields, has implications for the current educational system in this country. This book is highly recommended for readers who enjoy history or biography, or who are interested in education issues.
For many people, mentioning exorcism brings visions of horror movies that show victims of demonic possession writhing, levitating furniture, and disgorging strange body fluids; however this ancient rite of the Catholic Church is usually experienced quite differently in real life. The author follows the Rev. Gary Thomas, a priest from San Jose, California, as he takes a Vatican-approved course on exorcism at a university in Rome, and then goes through an apprenticeship with an experienced Italian exorcist. Thomas was asked to take this training by his bishop, and was somewhat reluctant in the beginning, feeling that exorcism was a somewhat of a relic from a less enlightened time in Church history. However as he studied the rite his perspective changed, and Thomas experienced a spiritual reawakening, opening himself to new possibilities; the experiences he witnessed also caused the author to reexamine his own faith. Baglio includes fascinating stories from practicing exorcists and from people who have undergone the ritual, and he explores the history and rituals of exorcism, the teachings of the Catholic Church on demonic possession; he also considers how the Church reconciles the practice with modern medical ideas on mental illness. This is a balanced, well-researched and compelling work on an intriguing topic.
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