Akunin,
Boris, The Winter Queen
Moscow, May 1876. What
would cause a talented student from a wealthy family to shoot himself in front
of a promenading public? Decadence and boredom, it is presumed. But young
sleuth Erast Fandorin is not satisfied with the conclusion that this death is
an open-and-shut case, nor with the preliminary detective work the precinct has
done - and for good reason: The bizarre and tragic suicide is soon connected to a
clear case of murder, witnessed firsthand by Fandorin himself. Relying on his
keen intuition, the eager detective plunges into an investigation that leads
him across Europe, landing him at the center of a vast conspiracy with the
deadliest of implications.
Alexie,
Sherman, Indian Killer
Native
American Sherman Alexie's new novel is a departure in tone from his lyrical and
funny earlier work, which include The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in
Heaven and Reservation Blues. The main character is an Indian serial killer who
incites racial tension by murdering whites in retribution for his people's
history. The killer leaves clear signs of his motives by scalping his victims,
and leaving feathers as gestures of Indian defiance. The killer is a conflicted
creation--raised by loving white parents, but twisted by loss of his identity
as an Indian. Alexie layers the story with complications and ancillary
characters, from a rabid talk show host, to vengeance seeking whites, to
liberals who find their patronizing espousal of Indian causes no longer so
easy.
Alexie,
Sherman, Reservation Blues
Winner of the American
Book Award and a critically acclaimed national best seller, Reservation Blues
continues to find new and adoring readers in academic and popular circles
alike. In 1931, Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil, receiving
legendary blues skills in return. He went on to record only twenty-nine songs
before being murdered on August 16, 1938. In 1992, however, Johnson suddenly
reappears on the Spokane Indian Reservation and meets Thomas Builds-the-Fire,
the misfit storyteller of the Spokane Tribe. When Johnson passes his enchanted
instrument to Thomas - lead singer of the rock-and-roll band Coyote Springs - a
magical odyssey begins that will take the band from reservation bars to
small-town taverns, from the cement trails of Seattle to the concrete canyons
of Manhattan. Sherman Alexie imaginatively mixes narrative, newspaper excerpts,
songs, journal entries, visions, radio interviews, and dreams to explore the
effects of Christianity on Native Americans in the late twentieth century. In
addition, he examines the impact of cultural assimilation on the relationships
between Indian women and Indian men. Reservation Blues is a painful, humorous,
and ultimately redemptive symphony about God and indifference, faith and
alcoholism, family and hunger, sex and death.
Allin,
Michael, Zarafa (nonfiction)
Zarafa was a gentle
19th-century giraffe, a simple animal whose life was dictated by the tumultuous
times around her. From the African savanna where she was caught and tamed as an
infant, Zarafa was shipped down the Nile--along with the meat of her mother and
several hundred human slaves--to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. From
there she sailed on to France, a gift from Muhammad Ali, the "Renaissance
Barbarian" viceroy of Egypt, intended to distract King Charles X while
Egyptian forces invaded Greece. As political ploy, it didn't work. But as
ambassador from an exotic land, this odd animal captivated the French people
for almost two decades, as she lived out her life as part of the royal
menagerie.
Michael
Allin intertwines natural history with a brutal chapter in the history of
civilization, augmenting the clarity of both. This story of one docile animal
contrasts sharply with those of the human profiteers, warmongers, and
interlopers who ultimately decide her fate. But Zarafa's otherworldly charm
also helps us to understand the intrigue that led Napoleon to bring not only
his troops, but a small army of European intellectuals to study all aspects of
Egyptian culture and history, in the invasion that sets up her story.
Alvarez,
Julia, In the Time of the
Butterflies
From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
comes this tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during
the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In
the Time of the Butterflies is inspired
by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for
their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes
life into these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or
"the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines their teenage
years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their
dissentience is uncovered.
Alvarez's
controlled writing perfectly captures the mounting tension as "the
butterflies" near their horrific end. The novel begins with the
recollections of Dede, the fourth and surviving sister, who fears abandoning
her routines and her husband to join the movement. Alvarez also offers the
perspectives of the other sisters: brave and outspoken Minerva, the family's
political ringleader; pious Patria, who forsakes her faith to join her sisters
after witnessing the atrocities of the tyranny; and the baby sister, sensitive
Maria Teresa, who, in a series of diaries, chronicles her allegiance to Minerva
and the physical and spiritual anguish of prison life.
Auel,
Jean, Clan of the Cave Bear
This novel of awesome
beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the
boundaries of love. Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are
taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are
swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who
called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an
unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people
very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar
and ugly--she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient
homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and
Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan
and Iza's way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud
youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a
threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange
girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his
revenge.
Auster,
Paul, Mr. Vertigo
It
will come as no surprise to the gifted Auster's ( Moon Palace ; The Music of Chance ) many fans that walking on air, the implausible
premise of his marvelously whimsical seventh novel, is treated with convincing
gravity. Walt Rawley recounts his life: an orphan born in 1924 with "the
gift," he was seized by his master, Mr. Yehudi, a Hungarian Jew who taught
him to levitate. Yehudi takes the boy from St. Louis to his own Kansas menage,
which consists of Mother Sioux and Aesop, a young black genius. (Also
influencing Walt's life is classy, henna-headed Marion Witherspoon, a seductive
mom figure from Wichita.) After harsh training, Walt tours with his mentor as
"the Wonder Boy," aka Mr. Vertigo. Crammed into this road saga is the
potent Americana of myth: the 1920s carnival circuit, Lindbergh's solo, the
motorcar, the ethnic mix, the Ku Klux Klan and the Mob, baseball and Kansas,
"land of Oz." Diverse mishaps descend, but eventually Walt glides
into old age and writing. The characters speak a lusty lingo peppered with
vintage slang, while a postmodern authorial irony tugs their innocence askew.
The prose grows particularly electric when demystifying "loft and
locomotion." Implicit is an analogy between levitation and the construct
of fiction: both require fierce discipline to maintain a fleeting illusion.
Beatty,
Paul, White Boy Shuffle
Paul Beatty's hilarious
and scathing debut novel is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum
who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There,
he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to
basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided,
downtrodden people."
Bott,
Robert, A Man for All Seasons (play)
The classic play about
Sir Thomas More, the Lord chancellor who refused to compromise and was executed
by Henry VIII.
Brashares,
Ann, Sisterhood of the
Traveling Pants
Carmen
got the jeans at a thrift shop. They didn't look all that great; they were
worn, dirty, and speckled with bleach. On the night before she and her friends
part for the summer, Carmen decides to toss them. But Tibby says they're great.
She'd love to have them. Lena and
Bridget also think they're fabulous. Lena decides they should all try them on.
Whoever they fit best will get them. Nobody knows why, but the pants fit
everyone perfectly. Even Carmen (who never thinks she looks good in anything),
thinks she looks good in the pants. Over a few bags of cheese puffs they decide
to form a sisterhood, and take the vow of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
. . . the next morning, they say good-bye. And now the journey of the pants - and
the most memorable summer of their lives - begins.
Bronte,
Emily, Wuthering Heights
"My
greatest thought in living is Heathcliff. If all else perished, and he
remained, I should still continue to be... Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a
pleasure... but as my own being." Wuthering Heights is the only novel of Emily Bronte, who died a year
after its publication, at the age of thirty. A brooding Yorkshire tale of a
love that is stronger than death, it is also a fierce vision of metaphysical
passion, in which heaven and hell, nature and society, are powerfully
juxtaposed. Unique, mystical, with a timeless appeal, it has become a classic
of English literature.
Chevalier,
Tracy, Girl With a Pearl
Earring
History and fiction merge
seamlessly in Tracy Chevalier's luminous novel about artistic vision and
sensual awakening. Through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Griet, the world of
1660s Holland comes dazzlingly alive in this richly imagined portrait of the
young woman who inspired one of Vermeer's most celebrated paintings.
Clarke,
Arthur, Childhood's End
Without warning, giant
silver ships from deep space appear in the skies above every major city on Earth.
Manned by the Overlords, in fifty years, they eliminate ignorance, disease, and
poverty. Then this golden age ends--and then the age of Mankind begins....
Collignon,
Rick, Perdido
What
drives Will Sawyer to pursue the truth about the death 20 years before of a
young white girl in the New Mexico village of Guadeloupe never becomes clear.
Neither does the truth itself. What is clear is that the townspeople, including
Will's girlfriend, Lisa, do not support his desire to dig into past events and
disturb those who were involved. Set in the same village as Collignon's first
novel, The Journal of Antonio Montoya, Perdido describes tense relationships between ethnic and racial groups
while delving into the concept of identity and providing subtle touches of magical
realism. Eventually finding the solution to the mystery, however, may be of the
utmost importance to some readers. Others will merely settle back and
thoroughly enjoy the journey on which Collignon takes them.
Coman,
Carolyn, Many Stones
Sixteen-year-old Berry
Morgan lives with her mother in Rockville, Maryland, where her mother works as
a reading tutor. Berry's father, a lobbyist, lives in San Francisco with his
girlfriend. He comes in and out of Berry's life unpredictably. A year and a
half ago, he showed up at her school with shocking news: Berry's sister was
dead. While working as a volunteer at a school in Capetown, South Africa, Laura
had been brutally murdered. Now Berry sets out on a two-week trip to South
Africa with her father to attend a memorial service for Laura. He has arranged
some other activities as well: a business meeting in Johannesburg during which
Berry awaits him at a posh hotel; a guided tour of Soweto by minivan; and three
days at Krueger National Park, where they live in round huts and go out
spotting giraffes by day and elephants, leopards, and lions by night. Berry and
her father's painful journey forces them to look beyond their own grieving and
bear witness to a country's tortured search for truth and reconciliation.
Conroy,
Pat, The Lords of Discipline
In this powerful,
mesmerizing, and highly acclaimed bestseller, Pat Conroy sweeps us into the
turbulent world of four young men - friends, cadets, and blood brothers - and their
days of hazing, heartbreak, pride, betrayal, and, ultimately, humanity.
We go
deeply into the heart of the novel's hero, Will McLean, a rebellious outsider
with his own personal code of honor, who is battling into manhood the hard way.
Immersed in a poignant love affair with a haunting beauty, Will must boldly
confront the terrifying injustice of a corrupt institution as he struggles to
expose a mysterious group known as "The Ten".
Creamer,
Robert, Babe (biography)
Babe
Ruth is without a doubt the most famous character ever produced by the sport of
baseball. A legendary player, world-famous for his hitting prowess, he
transcended the sport to enter the mainstream of American life as an authentic
folk hero. In this extraordinary biography, noted sportswriter Robert W.
Creamer reveals the complex man behind the sports legend. From Ruth's early
days in a Baltimore orphanage, to the glory days with the Yankees, to his later
years, Creamer has drawn a classic portrait of an American original.
Cross, Donna Woolfolk
, Pope Joan
For a thousand years men
have denied her existence--Pope Joan, the woman who disguised herself as a man
and rose to rule Christianity for two years. Now this compelling novel animates
the legend with a portrait of an unforgettable woman who struggles
against restrictions her soul cannot accept. When her older brother dies in a Viking attack, the
brilliant young Joan assumes his identity and enters a Benedictine monastery
where, as Brother John Anglicus, she distinguishes herself as a
scholar and healer. Eventually drawn to Rome, she soon becomes enmeshed in a
dangerous mix of powerful passion and explosive politics that threatens her
life even as it elevates her to the highest throne in the Western world.
Crutcher, Chris, Chinese Handcuffs
Dillon
is living with the painful memory of his brother's suicide -- and the role he
played in it. To keep his mind and body occupied, he trains intensely for the
Ironman triathlon. But outside of practice, his life seems to be falling apart.
Then Dillon finds a confidante in Jennifer, a star high school basketball
player who's hiding her own set of destructive secrets. Together, they must
find the courage to confront their demons -- before it's too late.
Dangarembga,
Tsitsi, Nervous
Conditions
This stunning first
novel, set in colonial Rhodesia during the 1960s, centers on the coming of age
of a teenage girl, Tambu, and her relationship with her British-educated cousin
Nyasha. Tambu, who yearns to be free of the constraints of her rural village,
especially the circumscribed lives of the women, thinks her dreams have come
true when her wealthy uncle offers to sponsor her education. But she soon
learns that the education she receives at his mission school comes with a
price. At the school she meets the worldly and rebellious Nyasha, who is
chafing under her father's authority. Raised in England, Nyasha is so much a
stranger among her own people that she can no longer speak her native language.
Tambu can only watch as her cousin, caught between two cultures, pays the full
cost of alienation.
Enger,
Leif, Peace Like a River
Born with no air in his lungs, it was
only when Reuben Land's father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to
breathe that Reuben's lungs filled. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma
from then on, making him a boy who knows firsthand that life is a gift, and
also one who suspects that his father is touched by God and can overturn the
laws of nature. The quiet 1960's midwestern life of the Lands is upended when
Reuben's brother Davy kills two marauders who have come to harm the family. The
morning of his sentencing, Davy -- a hero to some, a cold-blooded murderer to
others -- escapes from his cell, and the Lands set out in search of him. Their
journey is touched by serendipity and the kindness of strangers, and they cover
territory far more extraordinary than even the Badlands where they search for
Davy from their Airstream trailer. Sprinkled with playful nods to Biblical
tales, beloved classics such as Huckleberry Finn, the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, and
the westerns of Zane Grey, Peace Like A River is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story,
and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world.
Enrenreich, Barbara, Nickel and Dimed
Author Barbara Ehrenreich relates her experiences from 1998 to 2000, during which time joined the ranks of the working poor as a waitress, hotel housekeeper, cleaning woman, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart clerk to see for herself how America's "unskilled" workers are able to survive on only $6 or $7 an hour.
Fischer,
Jackie, Moyer, An Egg On
Three Sticks
Finally Abby is
thirteen. A real teenager who only wants to pierce her ears, have a boyfriend,
and run her own life. But when her mother suffers a nervous breakdown, Abby
faces a life far different from what she hoped for. Set in the Bay Area in the
'70s, An Egg on Three Sticks is
Jackie Moyer Fischer's emotional, funny, and extraordinarily heartfelt novel
about Abby's struggle to hold her family together, find love from a mother who
has little to give, and simply try to be thirteen.
With a
voice completely fresh and honest, Abby takes us on a journey that is often
hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and overwhelmingly hopeful. But a journey
no thirteen-year-old should have to take.
Fitch,
Janet, White Oleander
Astrid
is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who
wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships
her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery-but
their idyll is shattered when Astrid's mother falls apart over a lover.
Deranged by rejection, Ingrid murders the man, and is sentenced to life in
prison. White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid's journey through a
series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place for herself in
impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws
and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the
challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless
child in an indifferent world can become. Tough, irrepressible, funny, and
warm, Astrid is one of the most indelible characters in recent fiction. White
Oleander is an unforgettable story of mothers and daughters, burgeoning
sexuality, the redemptive powers of art, and the unstoppable force of the
emergent self. Written with exquisite beauty and grace, this is a compelling
debut by an author poised to join the ranks of today's most gifted
novelists."
Fugard,
Athol, Master Harold and the
Boys (play)
Based on an incident in
the life of the playwright, who was strongly opposed to the policies of
apartheid which began in South Africa around 1948, this powerful and poignant
drama casts Sam, a black man, as a person of vision and nobility. Hally, a
young white man, chooses to exert power, instead of being human, and shows that
he is a lesser man than either Sam or Willie. Less a political drama than a
human one, the play rises above its immediate setting to consider universal
feelings and human relationships.
Gantos, John, hole in my life
The author relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.
Green,
John, Looking for Alaska
Miles "Pudge" Halter is
done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and
his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave "the Great
Perhaps" even more (François Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes
crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his
life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The
gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly
fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into
her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Nothing
is ever the same.
Greene,
Bob, Rebound: the Odyssey of
Michael Jordan
Greene,
author of Hang Time, gives us the remarkable second chapter in the
Michael Jordan story, beginning with the day Jordan's father was murdered and
following him for two years through basketball arenas and minor-league baseball
dugouts. Rebound is the story of
a man who seemingly had everything the world could offer, and then, in pain,
left it behind in an effort to rediscover who he once was, and who he wanted to
be.
Hardy,
Thomas, Tess of the
D'Urbervilles
Thomas
Hardy's novel makes a heroine out of a simple girl. Tess Durbeyfield, the
daughter of a nearly extinct noble line, leads a life of heavy responsibility
where her impoverished family is concerned. At the behest of her parents, she
seeks assistance from the D'Urbervilles who are, supposedly, relatives. This
assistance yields disastrous results and Tess feels compelled to find work as a
milkmaid where she meets Angel Clare, the son of an evangelical pastor, who is
gathering experience in order to become a farmer.
Harris,
Joanne, Five Quarters of the Orange
In Five
Quarters of the Orange, Joanne
Harris returns to the small-town, postwar France of Chocolat. This
time she follows the fortunes of Framboise Dartigan, named for a raspberry but
with the disposition of, well, a lemon. The proprietor of a café in a rustic
village, this crabby old lady recalls the days of her childhood, which
coincided with the German occupation. Back then, she and her brother and sister
traded on the black market with the Germans, developing a friendship with a
charismatic young soldier named Tomas. This intrigue provided a distraction
from their grim home life--their father was killed in the war and their mother
was a secretive, troubled woman. Yet their relationship with Tomas led to a
violent series of events that still torment the aging Framboise.
Hayes,
David and Daniel, My Old Man
and the Sea
Some fathers and sons
go fishing together. Some play ball. David Hays and Daniel Hays sailed 17,000
miles through the world's most feared and fabled waters in a little boat they
built together. This is their story.
Alone with nothing
but the mammoth waves of the Southern Ocean, the unceasing wind, a compass, a
sextant and a pet cat, they voyage down the Caribbean, through the Panama
Canal, past the Galapagos Islands, beyond Easter Island and around their
destination--Cape Horn. Father and son narrate in alternating fashion, their
voices weaving together an engrossing story of travel, exploration and
difficult, dangerous sailing.
But more than a tale
of adventure, this is a touching account of a father and son's rite of passage
as they assess their complex and evolving relationship. Daniel, out of college
and unsure of what he wants in his life, sees his father getting older, more
forgetful. David deals with unresolved issues he had with his own father,
fearful that he'll make the same mistakes with his son, yet frustrated that
Daniel treats him like an old man.
Moving,
often hilarious, often poignant, My Old Man and the Sea is a rich and profound chronicle of their voyage of
discovery. Every reader will identify with this uplifting story of a father and
son who go down to the sea and find each other.
Heinlein,Robert,
Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger
in a Strange Land, winner of the
1962 Hugo Award, is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the
only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by
Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman
and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil
with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to
mention de facto owner of the
planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him,
Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own
church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by
the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs.
Hemingway,
Ernest, A Farewell to Arms
The
best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance
driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse.
Hemingway's frank portrayal of the love between Lieutenant Henry and Catherine
Barkley, caught in the inexorable sweep of war, glows with an intensity
unrivaled in modern literature, while his description of the German attack on
Caporetto -- of lines of fired men marching in the rain, hungry, weary, and
demoralized -- is one of the greatest moments in literary history. A story of
love and pain, of loyalty and desertion, A Farewell to Arms, written when he was 30 years old, represents a new
romanticism for Hemingway.
Holthe,
Tess Uriza, When the Elephants
Dance
In the
waning days of World War II, the Filipino people were caught between a brutal
Japanese occupation and battling U.S. forces. In this compelling, incandescent
novel, thirteen-year-old Alejandro Karangalan, his spirited older sister
Isabelle, and Domingo, a passionate guerilla commander, narrate the story of
the Karangalans-a family who huddle with their neighbors in the cellar of a
house near Manila to wait out the war. In their crowded refuge, the group
shares magical stories of Filipino myth and legend. Spellbinding, with a
dazzling array of ghosts, witches, supernatural creatures, and courageous
Filipinos from history, these tales transport the listeners and give them new
resolve to survive.
Jen,
Gish, Mona in the Promised Land
In
this ebullient and inventive novel, Gish Jen restores multiculturalism from
high concept to a fact of life. At least that's what it becomes for teenaged
Mona Chang, who in 1968 moves with her newly prosperous family to Scarshill,
New York, where the Chinese have become "the new Jews." What could be
more natural than for Mona to take this literally--even to the point of
converting? As Mona attends temple "rap" sessions and falls in love
(with a nice Jewish boy who lives in a tepee), Jen introduces us to one of the
most charming and sweet-spirited heroines in recent fiction, a girl who can
wisecrack with perfect aplomb even when she's organizing the help in her
father's pancake house. On every page of Mona in the Promised Land, Gish Jen sets our received notions spinning with a
wit as dry as a latter-day Jane Austen's.
Kincaid,
Jamaica, Lucy
Lucy, a teenage girl
from the West Indies, comes to North America to work as an au pair for Lewis
and Mariah and their four children. Lewis and Mariah are a thrice-blessed
couple--handsome, rich, and seemingly happy. Yet, almost at once, Lucy begins
to notice cracks in their beautiful facade. With mingled anger and compassion,
Lucy scrutinizes the assumptions and verities of her employers' world and
compares them with the vivid realities of her native place. Lucy has no
illusions about her own past, but neither is she prepared to be deceived about
where she presently is.
At the
same time that Lucy is coming to terms with Lewis's and Mariah's lives, she is
also unravelling the mysteries of her own sexuality. Gradually a new person
unfolds: passionate, forthright, and disarmingly honest. In Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling new
character possessed with adamantine clearsightedness and ferocious integrity--a
captivating heroine for our time.
Kovaly,
Heda, Under a Cruel Star (non-fiction)
A Jew
in Czechoslovakia under the Nazis, Kovaly spent the war years in the Lodz
ghetto and several concentration camps, losing her family and barely surviving
herself. Returning to Prague at the end of the war, she married an old friend,
a bright, enthusiastic young Jewish economist named Rudolf Margolius, who saw
the country's only hope for the future in the Communist Party. Thereafter,
Rudolf became deputy minister for foreign trade. For a time, the Margoliuses
lived like royalty, albeit reluctantly, but then, in a replay of the Stalinist
purges of the 1930s, Rudolf and others, mostly of Jewish background, were
arrested and hung in the infamous Slansky Trial of 1952. Kovaly's memoir of
these years that end with her emigration to the West after the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia in 1968 are a tragic story told with aplomb, humor and
tenderness. The reader alternately laughs and cries as Kovaly describes her
mother being sent to death by Dr. Mengele, Czech Communist Party leader Klement
Gottwald drunk at a reception, the last sight of her husband, the feverish
happiness of the Prague Spring.
Kozol,
Jonathan, Savage Inequalities
Kozol
believes that children from poor families are cheated out of a future by
grossly under-equipped, understaffed and underfunded schools in U.S. inner
cities and less affluent suburbs. The schools he visited between 1988 and
1990--in burnt-out Camden, N.J., Washington, D.C., New York's South Bronx,
Chicago's South Side, San Antonio, Tex., and East St. Louis, Mo., awash in
toxic fumes--were "95 to 99 percent nonwhite." Kozol ( Death at an
Early Age ) found that racial
segregation has intensified since 1954. Even in the suburbs, he charges, the
slotting of minority children into lower "tracks" sets up a
differential, two-tier system that diminishes poor children's horizons and
aspirations. He lets the pupils and teachers speak for themselves, uncovering
"little islands of . . . energy and hope." This important,
eye-opening report is a ringing indictment of the shameful neglect that has
fostered a ghetto school system in America.
La
Farge, Oliver, Laughing Boy
1929. The story begins:
He was riding the hundred miles from T'o Tlakai to Tse Lani to attend a dance,
or rather, for the horse-racing that would come afterwards. The sun was hot and
his belly was empty, but life moved in rhythm with his pony loping steadily as
an engine down the miles. He was lax in the saddle, leaning back, arm swinging
the rope's end in time to the horse's lope. His new red headband was a bright
color among the embers of the sunstruck desert, undulating like a moving graph
of the pony's lope, or the music of his song
Forsyth,
Adrian & Miyata, Ken
Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rain Forest
Tropical Nature is superior by virtue of its freshness and
authority. It is an account of the extraordinary richness of the tropical
forests by two gifted young biologists who have recently experienced it and are
experts on their subject. They write with the crispness of journalists sending
dispatches from the field.
Ernst
Mayr Combines excellent science, often based on original observations, with a
warm sympathy for creatures big and small. A worthy successor to the writings
of the great naturalists of the American tropics.
Mansbach,
Adam , Angry Black White Boy
From the acclaimed
author of Shackling Water comes
the first great race novel of the twenty-first century, an incendiary and
ruthlessly funny satire about violence, pop culture, and American identity.
Macon Detornay is a
suburban white boy possessed and politicized by black culture, and filled with
rage toward white America. After moving to New York City for college, Macon
begins robbing white passengers in his taxicab, setting off a manhunt for the
black man presumed to be committing the crimes. When his true identity is
revealed, Macon finds himself to be a celebrity and makes use of the spotlight
to hold forth on the evils and invisibility of whiteness. Soon he launches the
Race Traitor Project, a stress-addled collective that attracts guilty liberals,
wannabe gangstas, and bandwagon riders from all over the country to participate
in a Day of Apology - a day set aside for white people to make amends for four
hundred years of oppression. The Day of Apology pushes New York City over the
edge into an epic riot, forcing Macon to confront the depth of his own
commitment to the struggle.
Peopled
with all manner of race pimps and players, Angry Black White Boy is a stunning breakout book from a critically
acclaimed young writer and should be required reading for anyone who wants to
get under the skin of the complexities of identity in America.
Martel, Yann, Life of Pi
Pi Patel, having spent an idyllic childhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper, sets off with his family at the age of sixteen to start anew in Canada, but his life takes a marvelous turn when their ship sinks in the Pacific, leaving him adrift on a raft with a 450-pound Bengal tiger for company.
McCullers,
Carson, The Heart is a Lonely
Hunter
With
the publication of her first novel, THE
HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became
a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its
compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is
considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by
Houghton Mifflin in 1940. At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who
becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town
during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When
Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where
Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace
in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the
human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South,
McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the
rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives
voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. Richard Wright
praised Carson McCullers for her ability "to rise above the pressures of
her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of
apprehension and tenderness." She writes "with a sweep and certainty
that are overwhelming," said the NEW YORK TIMES. McCullers became an
overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and
powerful today as when it was first published. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER is
Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best.
Munroe,
Alice, Lives of Girls and
Women
Del Jordan lives out
at the end of the Flats Road on her father's fox farm, where her most frequent
companions are an eccentric bachelor family friend and her rough younger brother.
When she begins spending more time in town, she is surrounded by women-her
mother, an agnostic, opinionated woman who sells encyclopedias to local
farmers; her mother's boarder, the lusty Fern Dogherty; and her best friend,
Naomi, with whom she shares the frustrations and unbridled glee of adolescence.
Through these unwitting
mentors and in her own encounters with sex, birth, and death, Del explores the
dark and bright sides of womanhood. All along she remains a wise, witty
observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful,
moving, and humorous demonstration of Alice Munro's unparalleled awareness of
the lives of girls and women.
Myers,Walter
Dean, Somewhere in
the Darkness
Jimmy
hasn't seen his father in nine years. But one day he comes back -- on the run
from the law. Together, the two of them travel across the country -- where
Jimmy's dad will find the man who can exonerate him of the crime for which he
was convicted. Along the way, Jimmy discovers a lot about his father and
himself -- and that while things can't always be fixed, sometimes they can be
understood and forgiven.
Ngugi,
Wa Thuion'o, Weep Not,
Child
This is a simple and
powerful tale of the effects of the Mau Mau war on individuals and families in
Kenya. Two brothers must decide where their loyalties lie; Njoroge, the dreamer
and accomplished student, finds it hard to give up schooling and is drawn
relentlessly into turmoil. Good and evil are portrayed somewhat more starkly
than in Ngugi's later works.
Opdyke,
Irene Gut, In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer (non-fiction)
When World War II began,
Irene Gutowna was a 17-year-old Polish nursing student. Six years later, she
writes in this inspiring memoir, "I felt a million years old." In the
intervening time she was separated from her family, raped by Russian soldiers,
and forced to work in a hotel serving German officers. Sickened by the
suffering inflicted on the local Jews, Irene began leaving food under the walls
of the ghetto. Soon she was scheming to protect the Jewish workers she
supervised at the hotel, and then hiding them in the lavish villa where she
served as housekeeper to a German major. When he discovered them in the house,
Gutowna became his mistress to protect her friends--later escaping him to join
the Polish partisans during the Germans' retreat. The author presents her
extraordinary heroism as the inevitable result of small steps taken over time,
but her readers will not agree as they consume this thrilling adventure story,
which also happens to be a drama of moral choice and courage. Although adults
will find Irene's tale moving, it is appropriately published as a young adult
book. Her experiences while still in her teens remind adolescents everywhere
that their actions count, that the power to make a difference is in their
hands.
Picoult,
Jodi, My Sister's
Keeper
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed
for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells
the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and
a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.
Anna is not sick, but
she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries,
transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the
leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation
genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life
and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna
is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has
always been defined in terms of her sister -- and so Anna makes a decision that
for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and
have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.
My
Sister's Keeper examines what it
means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct
to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing
upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are,
if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart,
or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject
with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.
Pipher,
Mary, Reviving
Ophelia
From her work as a
psychotherapist for adolescent females, Pipher here posits and persuasively
argues her thesis that today's teenaged girls are coming of age in "a
girl-poisoning culture." Backed by anecdotal evidence and research
findings, she suggests that, despite the advances of feminism, young women
continue to be victims of abuse, self-mutilation (e.g., anorexia), consumerism
and media pressure to conform to others' ideals. With sympathy and focus she
cites case histories to illustrate the struggles required of adolescent girls
to maintain a sense of themselves among the mixed messages they receive from
society, their schools and, often, their families. Pipher offers concrete suggestions
for ways by which girls can build and maintain a strong sense of self, e.g.,
keeping a diary, observing their social context as an anthropologist might,
distinguishing between thoughts and feelings. Pipher is an eloquent advocate.
Pope,
Denise Clark, Doing
School (nonfiction)
This
book offers a revealing - and troubling - view of today's high school students and
the ways they pursue high grades and success. Veteran teacher Denise Pope
follows five highly regarded students through a school year and discovers that
these young people believe getting ahead requires manipulating the system,
scheming, lying, and cheating.
Potok,
Chaim, I Am the Clay
As an
old peasant couple flee the devastation of their Korean village, which has been
invaded by the Chinese and the North Koreans, they find a young boy dying in a
ditch. The woman, who has lost her own child, is overcome by a ferocious need
to save the child. The man's equally strong instinct is for self-preservation.
The wife's will is stronger; the child joins them, and ultimately makes himself
indispensable to their survival. The story recounts the wartime perils that the
threesome encounter; the tension between the old man and the boy; their
individual memories, fears, and dreams; and the eventual inevitable separation.
The book contains subtle, unobtrusive symbolism for those who wish to puzzle
over the meaning of the Christian hymn of the title, the nomadic nature of the
journey, the namelessness of the peasants, the rescue of the boy by a Jewish chaplain,
and the mysticism of the old villager. Most readers however, will experience
the story as a simple and powerful narrative of survival of the human spirit.
Preston,
Richard, Hot Zone
The
dramatic and chilling story of an Ebola virus outbreak in a suburban
Washington, D.C. laboratory, with descriptions of frightening historical
epidemics of rare and lethal viruses. More hair-raising than anything Hollywood
could think of, because it's all true.
Remarque, Erich, All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul Baumer enlisted with
his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they
become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces
under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year
after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of
hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different
uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive.
Roberts,
Jack, The Importance of
Dian Fossey
Roy,
Arundhati, The God of Small
Things
With
sensuous prose, a dreamlike style infused with breathtakingly beautiful images
and keen insight into human nature, Roy's debut novel charts fresh territory in
the genre of magical, prismatic literature. Set in Kerala, India, during the
late 1960s when Communism rattled the age-old caste system, the story begins
with the funeral of young Sophie Mol, the cousin of the novel's protagonists,
Rahel and her fraternal twin brother, Estha. In a circuitous and suspenseful
narrative, Roy reveals the family tensions that led to the twins' behavior on
the fateful night that Sophie drowned. Beneath the drama of a family tragedy
lies a background of local politics, social taboos and the tide of history? all
of which come together in a slip of fate, after which a family is irreparably
shattered. Roy captures the children's candid observations but clouded
understanding of adults' complex emotional lives. Rahel notices that "at
times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk
unsaid inside." Plangent with a sad wisdom, the children's view is never
oversimplified, and the adult characters reveal their frailties? and in one
case, a repulsively evil power? in subtle and complex ways. While Roy's powers
of description are formidable, she sometimes succumbs to overwriting, forcing
every minute detail to symbolize something bigger, and the pace of the story
slows. But these lapses are few, and her powers coalesce magnificently in the book's
second half. Roy's clarity of vision is remarkable, her voice original, her
story beautifully constructed and masterfully told.
Satrapi,
Marjane, Persepolis
(parts I and II)
Satrapi's
autobiography is a timely and timeless story of a young girl's life under the
Islamic Revolution. Descended from the last Emperor of Iran, Satrapi is nine
when fundamentalist rebels overthrow the Shah. While Satrapi's radical parents
and their community initially welcome the ouster, they soon learn a new brand
of totalitarianism is taking over. Satrapi's art is minimal and stark yet often
charming and humorous as it depicts the madness around her. She idolizes those
who were imprisoned by the Shah, fascinated by their tales of torture, and
bonds with her Uncle Anoosh, only to see the new regime imprison and eventually
kill him. Thanks to the Iran-Iraq war, neighbors' homes are bombed, playmates
are killed and parties are forbidden. Satrapi's parents, who once lived in
luxury despite their politics, struggle to educate their daughter. Her father
briefly considers fleeing to America, only to realize the price would be too
great. "I can become a taxi driver and you a cleaning lady?" he asks
his wife. Iron Maiden, Nikes and Michael Jackson become precious symbols of
freedom, and eventually Satrapi's rebellious streak puts her in danger, as even
educated women are threatened with beatings for improper attire. Despite the
grimness, Satrapi never lapses into sensationalism or sentimentality.
Skillfully presenting a child's view of war and her own shifting ideals, she
also shows quotidian life in Tehran and her family's pride and love for their
country despite the tumultuous times. Powerfully understated, this work joins
other memoirs-Spiegelman's Maus
and Sacco's Safe Area Goradze-that
use comics to make the unthinkable familiar.
Sinclair,
April, Coffee Will
Make You Black
Sinclair's
much-touted story of a teenage girl confronting racial prejudice while growing
up on Chicago's South Side during the late 1960s
Smith,
Alexander McCall, The
No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
It's
the detective as folk hero, solving crimes through an innate, self-possessed
wisdom that, combined with an understanding of human nature, invariably
penetrates into the heart of a puzzle. If Miss Marple were fat and jolly and
lived in Botswana--and decided to go against any conventional notion of what an
unmarried woman should do, spending the money she got from selling her late
father's cattle to set up a Ladies' Detective Agency--then you have an idea of
how Precious sets herself up as her country's first female detective. Once the
clients start showing up on her doorstep, Precious enjoys a pleasingly
successful series of cases.
Tsukiyama,
Gail, The Samurai's
Garden
Set in Japan just before
WWII, Tsukiyama's novel tells of a young Chinese man's encounters with four
locals while he recuperates from tuberculosis.
Tyler,
Anne, Searching for Caleb
Duncan Peck has a
fascination for randomness and is always taking his family on the move. His
wife, Justine, is a fortune teller who can't remember the past. Her
grandfather, Daniel, longs to find the brother who walked out of his life in
1912, with nothing more than a fiddle in his hand. All three are taking
journeys that lead back to the family's deepest roots...to a place where
rebellion and acceptance have the haunting power to merge into one....
Uris,
Leon, Exodus
"Passionate
summary of the inhuman treatment of the Jewish people in Europe, of the exodus
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to Palestine, and of the triumphant
founding of the new Israel." -- The New York Times
Uris,
Leon, Mila 18
It was
a time of crisis, a time of tragedy--and a time of transcendent courage and
determination. Leon Uris's blazing novel is set in the midst of the ghetto
uprising that defied Nazi tyranny, as the Jews of Warsaw boldly met Wehrmacht
tanks with homemade weapons and bare fists. Here, painted on a canvas as broad
as its subject matter, is the compelling of one of the most heroic struggles of
modern times.
Valdez,
Luis, Zoot Suit (play)
A backdrop of a giant newspaper headlines
announces an invasion of "zoot-suiters," or pachucos, young Mexican-American men who wear slicked-down hair
and suits with long, exaggerated coattails; armed forces are called in to
handle the problem.A switchblade rips through the newspaper to reveal El
Pachuco, the epitome of a zoot-suiter, assuming the usual posture of defiant
coolness. He begins speaking in Spanish, then switches to perfect English. In a
cocky beat, he describes the Pachuco style. He exits, swinging a long watch
chain.
Vonnegut, Kurt, Cat's Cradle
In the year 2000, a young man discovers ice-nine, which can set off a chain reaction more deadly than a nuclear bomb, and discovers a new prophet whose teachings sweep the world.
Vonnegut,
Kurt, Welcome to the
Monkey House
Welcome
To The Monkey House is a collection
of Kurt Vonnuegutıs shorter works. Originally printed in publications as
diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, what these superb stories share is Vonnegut's
audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.
Walker,
Alice, You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down
A natural evolution
from the earlier, much-acclaimed collection In Love
& Trouble, these fourteen provocative and often humorous
stories show women oppressed but not defeated. These are hopeful stories about
love, lust, fame, and cultural thievery, the delight of new lovers, and the
rediscovery of old friends, affirmed even across self-imposed color lines.
Wideman,
John Edgar, Hoop Roots
Basketball is only the
starting point for novelist John Edgar Wideman's meditations in this genre-defying
book, which announces its difference in the opening paragraph. Some other
author might have written the sentence, "Playing the game provided
sanctuary, refuge from a hostile world." Only Wideman would follow it
with, "Only trouble was, to reach the court we had left our women
behind," and only Wideman would close a book about playground basketball
with a letter to his grandmother. In between, he contrasts the sport with the
craft of writing; mingles memories of learning to play with recollections of
growing up in Pittsburgh; invokes the lover he found after his 30-year marriage
broke up ("Turning this into a basketball game, aren't you, Mr.
Hoopster?" she says at one point during their affair); talks about
minstrel shows and African American music; and pits the purity and democracy of
schoolyard ball against the professional sport, in which "a chosen few,
players certified to be the very best, perform for pay as entertainers."
You'll need to read it all to appreciate the way Wideman masterfully weaves
together these diverse strands; suffice it to say that the importance of
basketball to black men in a racist society, though a crucial subject here, is
too straightforward to be the entire topic. "The deepest, simplest subject
of this hoop book is pleasure," he writes, and he conveys that sensation
to his readers on several different levels: the excitement of a superb
description (men playing on a Greenwich Village court); the satisfaction of
shrewd cultural analysis (why poor kids wear expensive clothes to play); the
power of metaphor (the searing chapter titled "Who Invented the Jump Shot
(A Fable)"); and most of all the thrill of watching an artist at the top
of his game
Wilder,
Thornton, The Bridge of San
Luis Rey
"On Friday noon, July the twentieth,
1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into
the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The
Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the
towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the
world. By chance, a monk witnesses
the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was
divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who
perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death -- and to the
author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the
human condition.
Winchester,
Simon, The Professor and the
Madman (non fiction)
When the editors of
the Oxford English Dictionary put
out a call during the late 19th century pleading for "men of letters"
to provide help with their mammoth undertaking, hundreds of responses came
forth. Some helpers, like Dr. W.C. Minor, provided literally thousands of
entries to the editors. But Minor, an American expatriate in England and a
Civil War veteran, was actually a certified lunatic who turned in his
dictionary entries from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Simon Winchester
has produced a mesmerizing coda to the deeply troubled Minor's life, a life
that in one sense began with the senseless murder of an innocent British
brewery worker that the deluded Minor believed was an assassin sent by one of
his numerous "enemies."
Winchester also paints a
rich portrait of the OED's leading light, Professor James Murray, who spent
more than 40 years of his life on a project he would not see completed in his
lifetime. Winchester traces the origins of the drive to create a "Big
Dictionary" down through Murray and far back into the past; the result is
a fascinating compact history of the English language (albeit admittedly more
interesting to linguistics enthusiasts than historians or true crime buffs).
That Murray and Minor, whose lives took such wildly disparate turns yet were
united in their fierce love of language, were able to view one another as peers
and foster a warm friendship is just one of the delicately turned subplots of
this compelling book.
Wolff,
Tobias, In Pharoah's Army
(nonfiction)
Novelist
and short story writer Wolff, who recounted his early years in This Boy's Life, served as a junior officer adviser to a South
Vietnamese army unit in the Mekong Delta for his tour in Vietnam. Wolff, a
reluctant warrior at best, now offers an idiosyncratic, witty, and thoroughly
enjoyable glimpse into his military service and his civilian life immediately
before and after Vietnam. This extended essay is not so much a combat narrative
as the story of a young man's struggle to reach maturity and coming to terms
with his family, his loves, his America, and himself. Wolff's characters (most
especially his father and the long-suffering Sergeant Benet) and the American
and Vietnamese settings are vividly depicted in a style only a skilled
craftsman could devise.
Wouk,
Herman, Marjorie
Morningstar
Novel by Herman Wouk,
published in 1955, about a woman who rebels against the confining middle-class
values of her industrious American-Jewish family. Her dream of being an actress
ends in failure. She ultimately forfeits her illusions and marries a
conventional man with whom she finds sufficient contentment as a suburban wife
and mother, thus finally coming to accept her parents' values.