[Reviews from sources on
Amazon.com]
2000/2/27
Krakauer, Jon
Into the Wild.
Some Alaskans reacted
contemptuously to Krakauer's magazine article about a young man who starved to
death one summer in the shadow of
with the discovery of
McCandless' body and works backward, revealing that McCandless graduated from
Emory University, severed contact with his family, assumed the alias
"Alexander Supertramp," and began two years of vagabondage in search
of Truth in living as advocated by Thoreau and Tolstoy, of whose works
"Alex" was enamored. His earnestness indelibly impressed the
itinerants he easily befriended--whom he, in truth, somewhat callously
jettisoned--as Krakauer reveals throughout this sensitive narrative. A moving
story that reiterates the bewitching attraction of the
2000/2/28
Simpson, Joe
Touching the Wild
Concise and yet packed with
detail, Touching the Void, Joe Simpson's harrowing account of near-death
in the Peruvian Andes, is a compact tour de force that wrestles with issues of
bravery, friendship, physical endurance, the code of the mountains, and the
will to live. Simpson dedicates the book to his climbing partner, Simon Yates,
and to "those friends who have gone to the mountains and have not
returned." What is it that compels certain individuals to willingly seek out the most inhospitable
climate on earth? To risk their lives in an attempt to leave footprints where
few or none have gone before? Simpson's vivid narrative of a dangerous climbing
expedition will convince even the most die-hard couch potato that such pursuits
fall within the realm of the sane. As the author struggles ever higher,
readers learn of the mountain's awesome
power, the beautiful--and sometimes deadly--sheets of blue glacial ice, and the
accomplishment of a successful ascent. And then catastrophe: the second half of
Touching the Void sees Simpson at his darkest moment. With a smashed, useless
leg, he and his partner must struggle down a near-vertical face--and that's only the beginning of their
troubles. Amazon.com review
2000/3/27
Huffaker, Claire
One time I saw morning come
home
A memoir desguised as a
novel. It's not until you're well into this Classic that you realize he's
telling the
story about how his parents
met and fell in love. You think you've had it rough, read this one! First read
it 15-20 years ago and lost track of my copy. Been looking for it. Ordering a
new one right now! Timeless classic of two people head-over-heels in love
surviving through the depression. This one'll get ya right where ya live!! If
you see it in a used book store(it's out of print) pick it up, run to the
check-out, race home and cancel your plans for the rest of the day! Thank God
for Amazon.com that I've found it again. If I could find a woman like Orlean,
I'd marry her in a minute. Why Clair Huffaker isn't a more well known author, I
have no idea. He is a natural. I'd like to meet him. Amazon.com
2000/3/27
Grant, Donald
White Goats and Black Bees
Donald and Mary Grant, two
well paid journalists living in
Morgan, Robert
Gap Creek
Gap Creek opens with one
wrenching death and ends with another. In between, this novel of
turn-of-the-century Appalachian life works in fire, flood, swindlers, sickness,
and starvation--a truly biblical assortment of plagues, all visited on the
sturdy shoulders of 17-year-old Julie Harmon. "Human life
don't mean a thing in this
world," she concludes. And who could blame her? "People could be born
and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn't mean a thing.... The
world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its
business." For Julie, that business is hard physical labor.
Fortunately, she's fully
capable of working "like a man"-- splitting and hauling wood,
butchering hogs, rendering lard, planting crops, and taking care of the stock.
Even when Julie meets and marries handsome young Hank Richards, there's no
happily-ever-after in store. Nothing comes easy in Julie Harmon's world, and
their first year together is no exception. Throughout the novel, Morgan
chronicles Julie's trials in prose
of great dignity and clarity,
capturing the rhythms of
simple and hard."
Summer 2000
Blackwell, Anne
Seasons of her Life: The Biography of Madeleine Korbel Albright
The commencement speaker at
Madeleine Albright's 1959 graduation from
Seasoned Time political
reporter Ann Blackman's biography describes how Albright moved past the expectations
of her time--and the challenges of being an immigrant--to become the
highest-ranking woman in the history of
Through a peripatetic
childhood, marriage and divorce, and the increasing demands of her work as a
Ph.D. candidate, professor, and United States ambassador to the United Nations,
Albright is revealed to be driven and demanding, a savvy diplomat who has
forged relationships with world leaders and with a small, sustaining group of
powerful American women. Extensively researched and enlivened by anecdote,
Seasons of Her Life is a
fascinating study of a very unusual and dynamic woman's rise to power. --Maria
Dolan The New York Times Book Review, Jacob Heilbrunn
Fall 2000
Gerber, Merrill Joan.
Old Mother, Little Cat.
As Merrill Gerber steps
outside her kitchen door on a dreary winter morning, her mind on the burdensome
prospect of her regular visit to her mother in the nursing home, she hears the
small, forlorn cry of a lost baby kitten.
With this scene begins a remarkable, deeply personal narrative by
acclaimed fiction writer Merrill Joan Gerber. In a journal covering just less
than a year, Gerber weaves together two journeys - one into the joy and renewal
of emerging life, the other into the anguished helplessness of again.
Gerber brings unmatched
skill, an unerring eye, and unflinching honesty to her first non-fiction book.
No one who has ever loved a pet can fail to be moved by Gerber's descriptions
of Maxie the kitten - his first days of fear and mistrust, his growing devotion
to his owner, his delightful explorations, the profound sense of peace that a
purring cat can inspire. Anyone who has
witnessed the gradual decline of a beloved parent will be deeply moved to find
the experience reflected in Gerber's words. To her mother's grim refrain -
"I wish i were dead" - Gerber registers the full spectrum of human
response: sorrow and sympathy, impatience and rage, and - along with enormous
love - lacerating guilt. With the
complex realities of an aging population bearing upon us as never before, Old
Mother, Little Cat is clearly an e-book for our times.
Fall 2000
Simpson, Mona.
Off Keck Road.
Off Keck Road seems an off-putting title for a book--just try
saying it out loud. But that might be the point. Mona Simpson, celebrated
author of Anywhere
but Here, The
Lost Father, and A
Regular Guy, has written a novel about life's left-behinds. Her
characters are people no one really wants, and Keck Road, in a dingy Wisconsin
suburb, is a place where no one wants to live. Simpson's story follows
tenderhearted Bea Maxwell, daughter of one of Green Bay's leading families, as
she befriends first one, then another of the road's residents. Bea herself
hails from a fancier part of town, where as a teenager in the 1950s she is busy
and happy and not quite like everyone else: "It was as if
adolescence--that new word that everyone all of a sudden knew--was a contagion
Bea somehow had not caught. She agreed with her reasonable parents that dieting
yourself half to death was dangerous. She found high heels ridiculous. She ate
casseroles and desserts with the abandon of a ten-year-old boy." Bea never
does pair up with anyone, boy or man, and her virginity, as imagined by Simpson,
is a lifelong, defining condition: it "seemed an erectness in her posture,
something symmetrical, silver."
Bea compensates for her lack of love by weaving a tight web of equally
not-quite-the-thing friends: Bill, the divorced boss at the real estate agency
where she works; June, a single mom; Matthew, a priest; and finally, Shelley,
uneducated, clever, a polio survivor. A dual portrait emerges: Simpson shows us
a gossipy, exclusionary Midwestern town. And she shows us, in full, Bea, a
character who teeters between the conventional (golfer, broker of the year,
board member at the church) and the off-beat. The author never forces Bea into
the unlikely role of heroine, nor does she judge her curious circle of friends.
In the end, Simpson's warts-and-all rendering has a real humanity to it. --Claire
Dederer
March 2001
Paterson, Katherine.
Bridge to Terebithia (Young adult)
The story starts out simply enough: Jess Aarons wants to be the fastest boy in
the fifth grade--he wants it so bad he can taste it. He's been practicing all
summer, running in the fields around his farmhouse until he collapses in a
sweat. Then a tomboy named Leslie Burke moves into the farmhouse next door and
changes his life forever. Not only does Leslie not look or act like any girls
Jess knows, but she also turns out to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade.
After getting over the shock and humiliation of being beaten by a girl, Jess
begins to think Leslie might be okay.
Despite their superficial differences, it's clear that Jess and Leslie
are soul mates. The two create a secret kingdom in the woods named Terabithia,
where the only way to get into the castle is by swinging out over a gully on an
enchanted rope. Here they reign as king and queen, fighting off imaginary giants
and the walking dead, sharing stories and dreams, and plotting against the
schoolmates who tease them. Jess and Leslie find solace in the sanctuary of
Terabithia until a tragedy strikes and the two are separated forever. In a
style that is both plain and powerful, Katherine Paterson's characters will
stir your heart and put a lump in your throat.
Summer 2001
Peck, Richard
A Year Down Yonder (Young
Adult, Newbery Winner, 2001)
Amazon.com
Grandma Dowdel's back! She's just as feisty and terrifying and goodhearted as
she was in Richard Peck's A
Long Way from Chicago, and every bit as funny. In the first book, a
Newbery Honor winner, Grandma's rampagesere seen through the eyes of her
grandson Joey, who, with his sister, Mary Alice, was sent down from Chicago for
a week every summer to visit. But now it's 1937 and Joey has gone off to work
for the Civilian Conservation Corps, while 15-year-old Mary Alice has to go
stay with Grandma alone--for a whole year, maybe longer. From the very first
moment when she arrives at the depot clutching her Philco portable radio and
her cat, Bootsie, Mary Alice knows it won't be easy. And it's not. She has to
sleep alone in the attic, attend a hick town school where in spite of her
worn-out coat she's "the rich girl from Chicago," and be an
accomplice in Grandma's outrageous schemes to run the town her own way--and do
good while nobody's looking. But being Grandma's sidekick is always interesting,
and by the end of the year, Mary Alice has grown to see the formidable love in
the heart of her formidable Grandma.
Peck is at his best with
these hilarious stories that rest solidly within the American literary
tradition of Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Teachers will cherish them as great
read-alouds, and older teens will gain historical perspective from this lively
picture of the depression years in small-town America. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty
Campbell
Summer 2001
Berg, Elizabeth
Never change
Amazon.com
Elizabeth Berg has a single great gift as a novelist. She creates heroines who
are stuck and unhappy, yet deeply sympathetic. This may seem like an easy trick
to pull off, but it's not. Think about it: usually when a character is mired in
a problem--especially a problem stemming from her own reluctance to change, or
fear of commitment, or lack of identity--the reader is ready within a few dozen
pages to shout, "Pull yourself together!" and set the book aside. In
contrast, Berg's characters seem like enjoyable challenges: problems with
actual solutions. In Never Change,
Berg uses her gift to great advantage. Middle-aged Myra Lipinsky describes
herself as "the one who sat on a folding chair out in the hall with a
cigar box on my lap selling tickets to the prom, but never going." And
despite a flourishing career as a visiting nurse, she feels as much an also-ran
as ever. As the novel begins, in fact, high school seems to be rearing its ugly
head again: Chip Reardon, the heartthrob of Myra's youth, has returned to town
to live with his parents. Chip is dying from a brain tumor, and Myra becomes
his nurse. Berg is not the kind of writer to lay bare the unsettling power
dynamics of such a situation. Instead, Chip and Myra become friends and, well,
learn how to love each other. It's a testament to the author's strong sense of
character that we actually believe--and what's more, care about--Myra's
emergence from her emotional cocoon. And the book is full of nice details, like
this snapshot of children being read to at a library, "rising up on their
knees to see the pictures, resting their hands unselfconsciously on those ahead
of them so that they would not lose their balance." Such careful
observations, recounted in Myra's voice, make us believe that she is a
character worth knowing, and worth saving. --Claire Dederer
Summer 2001
Touch the Top of the World
: A Blind Man's Journey to Climb Farther Than the Eye Can See
From Publishers Weekly
In this moving and adventure-packed memoir, Weihenmayer begins with his gradual
loss of sight as a very young child. By the time he became fully blind in high
school, he had already developed the traits that would carry him to the summits
of some of the world's highest mountains as well as onto the frequently
hazardous slopes of daily life: charm, resilience, a sense of humor, a love of
danger and a concern for others. His eloquent memoir exhibits all these traits.
Weihenmayer--a thrill seeker who skydives, climbs mountains and skis--devotes
the first half of the book to his adolescence, punctuated by his loss of sight,
his mother's sudden death and his diligent efforts not only to pick up girls,
but first to figure out which ones were attractive. With its many tales of
pranks, adventures and the talents of his guide dog, this half alone is worth
the price of admission. He goes on to chronicle his young adulthood, including
his teaching career and his passion for climbing, seeded during a month-long
skills camp for blind adolescents and blossoming on his harrowing ascent of
Mount McKinley. He describes fearsome ascents of Kilimanjaro--with his fiance,
so they can be married near the crater summit--El Capitan and Aconcagua's
Polish Glacier. Weihenmayer tells his extraordinary story with humor, honesty
and vivid detail, and his fortitude and enthusiasm are deeply inspiring. With
the insightful intimacy of Tom Sullivan's classic If You Could See What I Hear
and the intensity of the best adventure narratives, Weihenmayer's story will
appeal to a broad audience.
Summer 2001
O'Brien, Tim
Things They Carried
Amazon.com
"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief,
terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their
own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful
memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died,
because they were embarrassed not to."
A finalist for both the 1990
Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They
Carried marks a subtle but definitive line of demarcation between Tim O'Brien's
earlier works about Vietnam, the memoir If
I Die in a Combat Zone and the fictional Going
After Cacciato, and this sly, almost hallucinatory book that is neither
memoir nor novel nor collection of short stories but rather an artful
combination of all three. Vietnam is still O'Brien's theme, but in this book he
seems less interested in the war itself than in the myriad different perspectives
from which he depicts it. Whereas Going After Cacciato played with reality, The
Things They Carried plays with truth. The narrator of most of these stories is
"Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he
chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as
"Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in
"Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing
never happened doesn't make it any less true. In "On the Rainy
River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving
north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in
the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between
dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north,
never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a
decision to make. The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls
and was inducted into the United States Army. But the truth of "On the
Rainy River" lies not in facts but in the genuineness of the experience it
depicts: both Tims went to a war they didn't believe in; both considered
themselves cowards for doing so. Every story in The Things They Carried speaks
another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line
between truth and reality, fact and fiction, that makes his book unforgettable.
--Alix Wilber --
Spring 2001
Snicket, Lemony
The Bad Beginning (Series
of Unfortunate Events, Book 1) Young Adult
Amazon.com
Make no mistake. The Bad Beginning begins badly for the three Baudelaire
children, and then gets worse. Their misfortunes begin one gray day on Briny
Beach when Mr. Poe tells them that their parents perished in a fire that
destroyed their whole house. "It is useless for me to describe to you how
terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed,"
laments the personable (occasionally pedantic) narrator, who tells the story as
if his readers are gathered around an armchair on pillows. But of course what
follows is dreadful. The children thought it was bad when the well-meaning Poes
bought them grotesque-colored clothing that itched. But when they are ushered
to the dilapidated doorstep of the miserable, thin, unshaven, shiny-eyed, money-grubbing
Count Olaf, they know that they--and their family fortune--are in real trouble.
Still, they could never have anticipated how much trouble. While it's true that
the events that unfold in Lemony Snicket's novels are bleak, and things never
turn out as you'd hope, these delightful, funny, linguistically playful books
are reminiscent of Roald Dahl (remember James
and the Giant Peach and his horrid spinster aunts), Charles Dickens
(the orphaned Pip in Great
Expectations without the mysterious benefactor), and Edward Gorey (The
Gashlycrumb Tinies). There is no question that young readers will want
to read the continuing unlucky adventures of the Baudelaire children in The
Reptile Room and The
Wide Window. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson
Summer 2001
Snicket, Lemony
The Reptile Room (Series
of Unfortunate Events, 2) (Young Adult)
Amazon.com
The Reptile Room begins where Lemony Snicket's The
Bad Beginning ends... on the road with the three orphaned Baudelaire
children as they are whisked away from the evil Count Olaf to face "an
unknown fate with some unknown relative." But who is this Dr. Montgomery,
their late father's cousin's wife's brother? "Would Dr. Montgomery be a
kind person? they wondered. Would he at least be better than Count Olaf?
Could he possibly be worse?" He certainly is not worse, and in fact
when the Baudelaire children discover that he makes coconut cream cakes,
circles the globe looking for snakes to study, and even plans to take them with
him on his scientific expedition to Peru, the kids can't believe their luck.
And, if you have read the first book in this Series of Unfortunate Events, you
won't believe their luck either. Despite the misadventures that befall these
interesting, intelligent, resourceful orphans, you can trust that the engaging
narrator will make their story--suspenseful and alarming as it is--a true
delight. The
Wide Window is next, and more are on their way. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin
Snelson
Golden, Arthur
Memoirs of a Geisha
Amazon.com
According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first novel, the word "geisha"
does not mean "prostitute," as Westerners ignorantly assume--it means
"artisan" or "artist." To capture the geisha experience in
the art of fiction, Golden trained as long and hard as any geisha who must
master the arts of music, dance, clever conversation, crafty battle with rival
beauties, and cunning seduction of wealthy patrons. After earning degrees in
Japanese art and history from Harvard and Columbia--and an M.A. in English--he
met a man in Tokyo who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman
and a geisha. This meeting inspired Golden to spend 10 years researching every
detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on the geisha Mineko Iwasaki, who
spent years charming the very rich and famous.
The result is a novel with
the broad social canvas (and love of coincidence) of Charles
Dickens and Jane
Austen's intense attention to the nuances of erotic maneuvering. Readers
experience the entire life of a geisha, from her origins as an orphaned
fishing-village girl in 1929 to her triumphant auction of her mizuage
(virginity) for a record price as a teenager to her reminiscent old age as the
distinguished mistress of the powerful patron of her dreams. We discover that a
geisha is more analogous to a Western "trophy wife" than to a
prostitute--and, as in Austen, flat-out prostitution and early death is a
woman's alternative to the repressive, arcane system of courtship. In simple,
elegant prose, Golden puts us right in the tearoom with the geisha; we are
there as she gracefully fights for her life in a social situation where careers
are made or destroyed by a witticism, a too-revealing (or not revealing enough)
glimpse of flesh under the kimono, or a vicious rumor spread by a rival
"as cruel as a spider."
Golden's web is finely woven,
but his book has a serious flaw: the geisha's true romance rings hollow--the
love of her life is a symbol, not a character. Her villainous geisha nemesis is
sharply drawn, but she would be more so if we got a deeper peek into the cause
of her motiveless malignity--the plight all geisha share. Still, Golden has won
the triple crown of fiction: he has created a plausible female protagonist in a
vivid, now-vanished world, and he gloriously captures Japanese culture by
expressing his thoughts in authentic Eastern metaphors.
Fall 2001
Weathers, Beck
Left for dead: My Journey
Home from Everest
Left for Dead is a deeply personal story, told in first person by a
variety of people who contributed to the survival of Beck Weathers during the
Everest accident of 1996 that left nine climbers dead. It goes past the tragedy
to discuss why Weathers got involved in climbing in the first place, his
lengthy and painful recovery, and the all-important relationship with his wife,
Margaret (commonly referred to as Peach). Without Peach's hope and tenacity,
it's likely that rescue efforts would not have been continued, and Weathers may
never have recovered from the hypothermic coma and its dreadful results. The
story of their relationship--they were estranged at the time of the
accident--is told from both perspectives, and his obsession with mountains
seems almost like another family member. The overall tone is straightforward
and conversational: children, pets, and clothing feature as prominently as
reconstructive surgery and heroic rescues. But no matter how plainly they are
told, the events of that climb are sure to bring tears. Rob Hall's last
conversation with his wife, climbers disappearing into the storm, Anatoli
Boukreev's rescuing three people, and Weathers and climbing partner Yasuko
being left for dead are just a few from a long list. Still, you'll find
yourself laughing just pages later, when Weathers gets his rescue team to sing
"Chain of Fools" while hiking back to safety--you can imagine Peach
being in full agreement of that song's appropriateness. The Everest deaths
affected people around the world, and this chronicle of one survivor and his
family is a hopeful reminder of the good that can result from such tragedies
January 2002
Armstrong, Jennifer.
Shipwreck at the Bottom of
the World. (YA--read along with Amy Laun)
Amazon.com review
The harrowing survival story
of English explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and the ill-fated Endurance
has intrigued people since the 1914 expedition--spurring astounding books such
as Endurance:
Shackleton's Incredible Voyage and The
Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. As Shackleton
and 27 sailors attempted to cross the frozen Antarctic continent from one side
to the other, they were trapped in an ice pack, lost their ship to the icy
depths, survived an Antarctic winter, escaped attacks from sea lions, and
traversed 600 treacherous miles to the uninhabited Elephant Island. Leaving 22
men behind, Shackleton and five others sailed 800 miles across the southern
Atlantic Ocean in a 20-foot open boat to tiny South George Island, where they
hiked across unmapped mountains to a whaling station. In 1916, 19 months after
the Endurance became icebound, Shackleton led a rescue party back to
retrieve his men. Remarkably, every crew member survived.
DiCamillo, Kate.
Because of Winn-Dixie (Newberry Honor Book, 2001) (YA--Amy read along)
Amazon.com
With her newly adopted, goofy
pooch at her side, Opal explores her bittersweet world and learns to listen to
other people's lives. This warm and winning book hosts an unforgettable cast of
characters, including a librarian who fought off a bear with a copy of War
and Peace, an ex-con pet-store clerk who plays sweet music to his animal
charges, and the neighborhood "witch," a nearly blind woman who sees
with her heart. Part Frankie (The
Member of the Wedding), part Scout (To
Kill a Mockingbird), Opal brings her own unique and wonderful voice to
a story of friendship, loneliness, and acceptance. Opal's down-home charm and
dead-on honesty will earn her friends and fans far beyond the confines of
Naomi, Florida. (Ages 9 and older)
Diamant, Anita
Red Tent
Amazon.com
The red tent is the place where women gathered during their cycles of birthing,
menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this
feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insider's look at the
daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only
daughter, Dinah. Told in the voice of Jacob's daughter Dinah (who only received
a glimpse of recognition in the Book of Genesis), we are privy to the
fascinating feminine characters who bled within the red tent. In a confiding
and poetic voice, Dinah whispers stories of her four mothers, Rachel, Leah,
Zilpah, and Bilhah--all wives to Jacob, and each one embodying unique feminine
traits. As she reveals these sensual and emotionally charged stories we learn
of birthing miracles, slaves, artisans, household gods, and sisterhood secrets.
Eventually Dinah delves into her own saga of betrayals, grief, and a call to
midwifery.
"Like any sisters who
live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of
loyalties and grudges," Anita Diamant writes in the voice of Dinah.
"They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the
only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my
face between their hands and made me swear to remember." Remembering
women's earthy stories and passionate history is indeed the theme of this
magnificent book. In fact, it's been said that The Red Tent is what the
Bible might have been had it been written by God's daughters, instead of her
sons. --Gail Hudson
Salzman, Mark
Lying Awake.
Amazon.com
In his third novel, Lying Awake, Mark Salzman breaks the primary rule of
fiction by creating a protagonist who has virtually no external life. Sister
John of the Cross, a middle-aged nun cloistered in a Carmelite monastery in
contemporary Los Angeles, languished for years in a spiritual
drought--"her prayers empty and her soul dry"--until she suddenly
received God's grace in the form of intense mystical visions. So vivid have her
visions become that they burn a kind of afterglow into her mind that she
transcribes into crystalline (and highly popular) verse. The only downside is
that they are accompanied by excruciating headaches that cause her to black
out.
The story hinges on Sister
John's discovery that her visions are in fact the result of mild epileptic
seizures. As she learns from her neurologist, temporal-lobe epilepsy commonly
brings about "hypergraphia (voluminous writing), an intensification but
also a narrowing of emotional response, and an obsessive interest in religion
and philosophy." Dostoyevsky, the classic victim of this condition, wrote
of his raptures: "There are moments, and it is only a matter of five or
six seconds, when you feel the presence of eternal harmony.... If this state
were to last more than five seconds, the soul could not endure it and would
have to disappear." An exact description of Sister John's visions. The
question she now faces is whether to go ahead with surgery--and risk
obliterating both her spiritual life and her art--or cling to a state of grace
that may actually be a delusion ignited by an electrochemical imbalance.
Using a very limited palette,
Mark Salzman creates an austere masterpiece. The real miracle of Lying Awake
is that it works perfectly on every level: on the realistic surface, it
captures the petty squabbles and tiny bursts of radiance of life in a Los
Angeles monastery; deeper down it probes the nature of spiritual illumination
and the meaning and purpose of prayer in everyday life; and, at bottom, there
lurks a profound meditation on the mystery of artistic inspiration. Salzman
made a highly auspicious debut in 1986 with Iron
and Silk, a memoir of his years in China, and since then he has
dramatically changed key in every book--most recently from the absurdist
American suburban chronicle of Lost
in Place to the artistic-crisis-cum-courtroom-drama novel The
Soloist. Lying Awake is quieter and more sober than Salzman's previous
narratives, but it is also more accomplished, more thought-provoking, and more
highly crafted. --David Laskin --This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.
Anderson, Joan
A Year by the Sea
From Kirkus Reviews
A touchy-feely
finding-oneself memoir by a midlife woman who took a year off from her
unfulfilling marriage and spent it in reflection by the sea. Anderson, a
50-year-old journalist and author of children's books (Harry's Helicopter,1990;
1787, 1987; etc.), refused to follow her husband when his job transferred him
to another state, choosing instead to move alone to their summer cottage on
Cape Cod and take stock of her life and marriage. Comparisons with Anne Morrow
Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea are inevitable: both are by women concerned with
the creative life, both express a closeness to nature at the seashore, a
kinship with other life forms, a response to the ebb and flow of the tides, and
both find metaphors in seashells. However, whereas Lindbergh has only a brief
holiday at the beach and finds universal themes, Anderson's sojourn is
protracted and her focus narrow. Alone, she is self-reliant and self-conscious,
adventurous, resourceful, and open. Not all her time is spent in solitude,
however: she works in a fish market for extra money, finds a mentor and
companion in the widow of psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, has house guests,
including an old friend, a psychoanalyst, and a priest, hires on as short-term cook
for a nephew's film crew, and entertains her husband, sons, and
daughters-in-law over Memorial Day. At the year's end, she is more certain of
who she is and what she wants. She is ready to live once again with her
husband, not in the old stale marriage, but in a new and still-to-be-defined
one. A less-than-enthralling journey of self-discovery marred by more than a
touch of self-congratulation. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All
rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or
unavailable edition of this title.
Salzman, Mark (Note:
Pasadena's One City, One book
selection)
The Soloist
From Booklist
Salzman just
gets better and better. His memoir Iron and Silk (1987) was a hit, and
his first novel, The Laughing Sutra (1990), was funny and smart, but
this book is a jewel. Reinhart Sundheimer was a child prodigy who could coax
the very music of the gods from a cello even before he could touch the floor
with his feet while seated. He spent his youth studying with an old master and
performing around the world. But then, just as inexplicably as it arrived, the
magic evaporated, and Sundheimer was left high and dry with no social life to
speak of, no sexual experiences, an unsatisfying university job, and a profound
sense of failure. This miasma lasts well into his thirties until Sundheimer
agrees, albeit reluctantly, to accept a Korean boy as a student. Shy little
Kyung-hee is a genuine prodigy whose pure and intuitive response to music acts
as a balm to Sundheimer's bruised and neglected soul. At the same time,
Sundheimer is summoned to jury duty. He ends up assigned to a case that
involves the murder of a Zen Buddhist master by a novice disciple. Sundheimer
is forced to broaden his participation in life. He must interact with his
fellow jurors, including an attractive woman who tries to get him to loosen up,
and consider weighty questions about the meaning of guilt, sanity, responsibility,
and the tricky relationship between teacher and student. Slowly and
self-consciously, Sundheimer attains a renewed sense of himself and discovers
how to find peace in our jarring world. This is a beautiful novel, a veritable
concerto. Salzman's intonation is flawless, his themes infinitely ponderable,
his symmetry and resolution captivating and uplifting. Donna Seaman
--This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.
Resonates
long after curtain closes, November 23, 2000
Reviewer: David
Flood (see more about me) from seattle, wa United States
Few books have touched me like this one. It takes on the hard task of the
difficult life shift we must all make at some time or another: when you've gone
as far as you can with an art and have to turn to the task of sharing what you
know with the next generation. But Salzman never moralizes, he puts you into
the mind of a child prodigy -- now as an adult -- who must grow beyond the
limited spotlight of the stage. Stalzman has a gift for drawing character, and
writing so clearly that it goes into you with the rhythm and life of a
well-delivered cello solo. Seems I've rarely been able to stay with a book to
its end these days, but this one held me from start to finish. I recommend this
to anyone who loves music, loves good literature, and wants to enjoy the beauty
and clarity that seems to come straight from the author's heart. Thank you,
Mark.
quick
read; great for music lover or spiritual person, January 5, 2002
Reviewer: ccjello
(see more about me) from Kansas City, MO USA
This story, told by a child-prodigy-cellist turned music professor, alternates
chapters about the professor's life, professional & personal struggles with
chapters about a jury trial, in which a Zen Buddhist is on trial for slaying a
Zen master. As a very amateur cellist, I most enjoyed the writer's frequent and
highly descriptive references to great cellists (YoYo Ma, Rostopovich, Janos
Starker, Pablo Casals) and composers (Bach, Mozart), the comparison of
composers & their music to works of art, the details of the protagonist's
efforts to inspire and teach his student, a ten-year old Korean boy. None of
the music discussion comes across as academic or pedantic; it's woven
gracefully into the novel.
The
trial aspect of the book was not a typical fast-paced courtroom drama; it
focused more on the parameters of the insanity defense as applied to a
religious fanatic, and the trial is resolved in a decidedly undecided way
(that's all I'll say).
The
novel is more about the protagonist's personal experiences with music,
relationships, and jury duty than it is about any underlying story. The
protagonist is likeable and, for the most part, very real. He is supposedly a
virgin, which didn't come off as believable to me. Minor glitch, though.
Overall, a good novel, particularly for a music lover, and a quick read.
How
many lives does Mark Salzman have?, May 28, 2002
Reviewer:
Grady
Harp (see more about me) from Altadena, California USA
THE SOLOIST is a fine novel, interweaving three stories that all center on the
narrator: the rise and fall of a child prodigy cellist, the sole member of a
jury at a murder trial who finds meaning in a defendent's case, and a teacher
of a budding, gifted young Korean cellist. Each story has its own cast of
characters beautifully realized, but most important - each aspect of this
tripartite novel is told with such informed authority that imagining the author
in anything but an autobiographical mode is next to impossible. Just as in his
previous novel LYING AWAKE which dealt with the inner thoughts of a cloistered
nun, Salzman here shows us he has a thorough understanding of music, music
making, and the sociology and philosophy of our court system and our education
system. Not that he stops at reportage. Hardly! It is simply his depth of
knowledge about everything he writes make his novels deeply committed and
inspiring. The reason for writing THE SOLOIST is probably one of encouraging
his readers to live in the moment. But it is the loving manner of relating his
tale that gets us there, almost without knowing we've arrived. A fine book to
encourage a whole town (Pasadena) to read and share as is the goal here. Well
worth anyone's time.
Coming
to Terms with Life,
Reviewer: naia1
(see more about me) from HI,
As a writer, Mark Salzman is always pushing his limits, and The Soloist is no
exception. The story revolves around a music professor, Reinhart Sundheimer,
who as a child was an acclaimed cellist. He has been unable to play
professionally ever since he became overly focused on pitch. Despite his best
efforts, he can never produce a note that is absolutely perfect (no one can),
and his playing has lost its spontaneity and fluidity. Clearly depressed by his
perceived failure, he has led an extraordinarily isolated and lonely life for
years, without even a pet to keep him company. Then two things happen to propel
him out of his rut - he is chosen to be a juror in a murder trial, and is asked
to give cello lessons to a young Korean boy who is clearly exceptionally
gifted.
The
murder trial exposes him to a whole new group of people whose lives do not
revolve around classical music. It also forces him to question and re-question
his beliefs about motivation as he struggles to decide whether the defendant in
the trial was insane when he committed the crime. Likewise his cello student,
whose parents would prefer he acquire a skill that would be useful in the
family's laundry business, helps him get beyond his narrow focus and see his
own childhood in a fresh light.
This
is a complex story, and Salzman does a good job of weaving the past and
present, and amusingly contradictory scenes of Reinhart's life into a
comprehensive whole. The one problem I had was with Reinhart's sudden and
rather unbelievable catharsis at the top of a mountain (
Summer 2002
Verne, Jules.
Around the World in Eighty
Days.
This is Verne's classic story
of the trip of Phileas Fogg (who is obsessed with time), Passeportout, Aouda,
and Detective Fix around the world on a wager. The book is filled with
beautiful time and space imagery throughout (I would bet that one could write
an entire thesis on all the time and space references in the novel).
Thirty-three years after its publication, the world first learns of the
space/time continuum (although I'm certain Verne was not anticipating
Einstein). Fogg bets his fellow club members that he can circumnavigate the
globe in a mere eighty days. He leaves immediately with his valet Passeportout
and is pursued by Detective Fix, who thinks he is a bank robber. Through many
adventures, including the rescue of Aouda from immolation, they all return to
Carter, Jimmy
An Hour Before Daylight
Review from Amazon.com
Born on
Carter describes--in glorious, if sometimes gory, detail--growing up on a
farm where everything was done by either hand or mule: plowing fields,
"mopping" cotton to kill pests, cutting sugar cane, shaking peanuts,
or processing pork. He also describes the joys of walking barefoot ("this
habit alone helped to create a sense of intimacy with the earth"), taking
naps with his father on the porch after lunch, and hunting with slingshots and
boomerangs with his playmates--all of whom were black. Carter was in constant
contact with his black neighbors; he worked alongside them, ate in their homes,
and often spent the night in the home of Rachel and Jack Clark, "on a
pallet on the floor stuffed with corn shucks," when his parents were away.
However, this intimacy was possible only on the farm. When young Jimmy and his
best friend, A.D. Davis, went to town to see a movie, they waited for the train
together, paid their 15 cents, and then separated into "white" and
"colored" compartments. Once in
In this warm, almost sepia-toned narrative, Carter describes his
relationships with his parents and with the five people--only two of whom were
white--who most affected his early life. Best of all, however, Carter presents
his sweetly nostalgic recollections of a lost
Packer, Ann
The Dive from Clausen's Pier
From Booklist
*Starred Review*
Packer's first novel is a sensitive exploration of the line between selfishness
and self-preservation. Carrie Bell is 23 and has lived in
The Dive from
Clausen's Pier is one of those small miracles that reinforce our faith in
fiction. It does what the best novels so often do, making the largest things
visible by its perfect rendering of life on the smaller scale. It is witty,
tragic and touching, and beguiling from the first page." --Scott
Turow A riveting novel about loyalty
and self-knowledge, and the conflict between who we want to be to others and
who we must be for ourselves. Carrie
Bell has lived in
Crane,
Stephen.
Red Badge of
Courage.
It was totally unlike any book I've ever read. Usually in
books authors focus on EVENTS, what happens around the central character; but
in Red Badge, the author focused more on the soldier's thoughts as war, the
"blood swollen god," engulfed him, his friends, and his country. The
"youth" soldier, the main character of the book, portrays in a sense
what thoughts are at the essence of war: fear of death, fear of defeat, and
fear of failure. This perception was highly usual for Crane's time, as authors
before him portrayed war as a great and glorious and golden chance for victory.
Crane, on the other hand, wrote with sarcasm and bitterness, with fear and
vulnerability, shedding light on an entirely new view of war which fascinates
the reader. He also wrote in changing "moods" or "tones".
One minute he'd be caught up in a whirlwind fury of sarcasm and humor; the
next, in the blind blackness of fear; the next, in the desperation of a madman.
Crane's changing tones are entirely interesting, as in his complex and
beautifully visual metaphors and imagery. All of this shows war, battle, in its
entirety, revealing to the reader the "riot of emotions" and the
confusion that accompanies war and its dehumanizing factors. It's amazing to
believe that Crane wrote this book in a little over a week, and at the time of
his writing never experienced war. I recommend this to anyone wanting a deeper,
more thoughtful reading experience.
Earle, Steve
Doghouse roses
Steve Earle does everything he does with intelligence, creativity, passion, and
integrity. In music, these strengths have earned him comparisons to Bruce
Springsteen, the ardent devotion of his fans, and the admiration of the media.
And Earle does a lot: he is singer, songwriter, producer, social activist,
teacher. . . . He"s not only someone who makes great music; he"s
someone to believe in. With the publication of his first collection of short
stories, DOGHOUSE ROSES, he gives us yet another reason to believe.
Earle"s stories reflect the many facets of the man and the hard-fought
struggles, the defeats, and the eventual triumphs he has experienced during a
career spanning three decades. In the title story he offers us a
gut-wrenchingly honest portrait of a nearly famous singer whose life and soul
have been all but devoured by drugs. "Billy the Kid" is a fable about
everything that will never happen in
Summer 2004
Otts, Olga.
Olga Ots was born in
Shah, Saira. A Storyteller's Daughter
Born in England and raised on her father's fantastic stories of an
Afghanistan she had never known, Shah spends her adult life searching for a
mythic place of beauty. "Any Western adult might have told me that this
was an exile's tale of a lost
Bender. Sue. Plain and Simple.
From 500 Great Books by Women;
review by Marilyn Meyer. In 1967, Sue
Bender found herself mesmerized by the dark muted colors of Amish quilts and
the haunting beauty of their faceless stuffed dolls. The quiet simplicity of
these crafts eventually led her on a journey of self-discovery to two Amish
communities in 1982. Not surprisingly, Sue Bender, an over-achiever with two
Masters degrees and two careers, found herself strongly attracted to the
predictable rhythm of Amish life she encountered. Like her extended retreat,
this simple book, describing both the ways of the Amish and their effect upon
the author, is an escape for the reader as well. There are glimpses into Amish
life: the wagon built to transport benches to the weekly home prayer groups,
teenage girls who wear electric blue Nikes under their long black dresses, the
democratic selection of a minister by drawing lots, and a no-holds waterfight
among the nine Beiler children. Set against this background is Sue Bender's
quest to discover inner wealth, to quiet the ramblings of ego, and to explore
the part of her existence which values simplicity. With the Amish women as her
mentors, she questions the obvious limits of their domain as well as her own
frenzied pace. Walking to town one hot sunny day, Sue Bender calls out to the
horse-drawn buggies, "Am I on the right road?" It's a question we
should all ask ourselves. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out
Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.--This text
refers to the Hardcover edition.
Bender, Sue. Everyday Sacred : A Woman's Journey Home
From Library Journal. Applying the symbolism of the empty Zen
begging bowl, Bender graciously shares another leg of her spiritual journey,
the previous being her stay with the Amish recorded in her best seller, Plain
and Simple (HarperCollins, 1989). Listening to the author (who also serves as
reader), one has to admire her zest for life and determination for
self-discovery as she recounts the experiences that filled her bowl daily and
revealed the sacred. She learned that miracles can and do occur when we accept
whatever happens to us each day, work from the heart, do less, and listen and
relax more. She tells of the power in small things, the beauty in imperfection,
and the boundless effects of generosity. Bender's findings are pure and simple
and not unheard of; however, it is the fresh context in which she places them
that makes Everyday Sacred a special and unique program. Recommended for
inspirational collections. Barbara J. Vaughan, State Univ. Coll. at Buffalo
Lib., N.Y.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to
an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Kallos, Stephanie. Broken for you
From Booklist *Starred Review* Well-crafted plotting and
crackling wit make this debut novel by Seattle author Kallos a delight to read
and a memory to savor. The compelling story highlights the losses and
disjointedness of life and the many paths back to healing for those who seek
the way. Margaret Hughes lives alone in a
Hosseini, Khaled. The
Kite Runner .
From Publishers Weekly: Hosseini's
stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American
immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come
to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland
to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot
during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do