Mindel's Top 10 Pick from 2013 for Your Kindle

This year I made an effort to include more Non-Fiction (N/F) in my reading and was greatly rewarded.  I have a compiled a list of my favorite reads from 2013 which include novels, N/F & short story collections.  A surprising number of N/F have made it on my list.  The top 10 picks are in alphabetical order by title.  Happy reading in the new year.

Billy Lynn's Long Half-time Walk - Ben Fountain - Fiction
Devil in the Grove, Thurgood Marshall and the Groveland Boys - Gilbert King - N/F
Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver - Fiction
Letters to an Incarcerated Brother - Hill Harper - N/F
Lone Survivor - Marcus Luttrel - N/F
The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson - Fiction
The Roundhouse - Louise Eldrich
The Yellow Birds - Kevin Powers - Fiction
This Will be Difficult to Explain - Johanna Skibsrud - Short stories
Trans Atlantic - Colum McCann - Fiction
We are All Completely Besides Ourselves - Karen Fowler - Fiction

If you count an extra pick to my list - be grateful.

Shine Shine Shine by L. Netzer is Glowing

Lydia Netzer's "Shine" was a NYT's Notable Book ('12) & shortlisted for the LA Times Prize for fiction.  Her illuminating novel on what it means to be human just falls short of being infallible.  Precisely what Netzer is telling the reader:  humans are flawed.  Being imperfect is what makes us devine.  The comparisons between man & robots are listed by Maxon Mann*, a genius mathematician & designer of robots with omnipotent capabilities.  Mann (*humans) possess the capacity for love, regret & forgiveness.  Therein lies crucial differences.  Robots can be programmed to make survival sustainable outside of earth's gravity.  However, survival & living are divergent.  Living entails irrational behaviors;  laughter, rage, preference & tolerance.  These are celestial characteristics as inherent to our existence as breathing.  There is a stirring love story between Maxon & Sunny two incredible & unique individuals who grow up together.  It is also a tale of the powerful, unqualified love between a mother & her child.  "Shine Shine Shine" is a glimmering examination of the family structure integral to civilization and what it means to be quintessentially human.  Be sure to put "Shine Shine Shine" in your orbit.  It zooms zooms zooms.

HILL HARPER's Letters to an Incarcerated Brother, HOPE & HUMANITY

"Losing My Cool" is T.C. Williams book which credits the safety net of caring parental support for a successful & meaningful life.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of Williams' friends did not have meaningful assistance.  The majority of his peers have become incarcerated or deceased.  In Hill's "Letters..." he takes us on a 5 year journey with a 16 yr. old inmate, Brian, that is both exhausting and miraculously transforming.  Hill's ongoing  correspondence & connection to Brian, imprisoned for drug possession abounds with torment, desire & healing.  Brian, father to a young boy is serving a minimum 5 year sentence for drug possession.  While imprisoned, Brian reaches out to Hill in a letter with hopes of hearing back.  "Letters..." is an affirmation of humanity, tenacity and redemption.  The reader is privy to on-going letters & communications between these two men and the bond of trust & brotherhood that developed.  Also included are letters from others Hill passes on to Brian and inspirational quotes.  However, this is NOT a preachy, cheesy tale of heroics or adversity.   It is an exercise in learning to give respect and earn respect. Reading this book is a humbling experience.  Caring is being there no matter what, with the understanding each individual is accountable for themselves.  Hill & Brian build a kinship that enriches their lives and inspires the humanity in all of us.  "The ability to forgive and the ability to love are the weapons...to live fully, bravely and meaningfully in a less than perfect world." (H. Kushner)

NonF. LOSING MY COOL, Father's Love Beats Hip-Hop

Thomas Chatterton Williams' revealing memoir elucidates how the hip-hop culture permeates black youths & subjugates them with a misguided conception of acceptable behaviors.  Thomas is son to a white mother & black father.  "Losing My Cool" pays tribute to his loving parental guidance, in particular his father's mentoring that steered him to a better way of life and to being a better person.  Obama, also of mixed heritage, clarifies himself as a black man.  Thomas identifies himself as black & aspires to be accepted as cool by relating to the lifestyle of the hip-hop culture.  "Hip-hop is a way of being street-shit." The mind-washing rhetoric drummed into young blacks is "money, hoes, and clothes, that's all a brother knows: fuck bitches, get money."  Ironically, this jargon which Thomas, along with his peers growing-up bought into, is subversive to success, in all significant wakes of life.  While there is much to feel chagrin at in Williams' adolescence, he speaks with a voice of  innocence, sauciness, wit & revelation.   There is so much to recommend from the unpretentious lessons learned here that aspire us to be independent thinkers and universally tolerant.  I am only perplexed as to who would make a cooler father, Thomas' dad or Bill Cosby.      

Trans Atlantic by Colum McCann;Winner Nat'l Book Award

Irish born author, Colum McCann received the Nat'l Book Award for Let the Great World Spin.  In "Great World," McCann brilliantly intertwines diverse lives at a specific point in time inhabiting NYC.  "Trans Atlantic," is much more ambitious & even more rewarding.  The fulcrum connecting different generations & countries originates & returns to Ireland beginning with Lily, a young, destitute maid during the great famine.  Lily encounters Federick Douglas when he toured Ireland to gain public & financial support for the abolition of slavery in the States & for himself.  Douglas stirs Lily to pursue her own liberation.  She crosses the Atlantic by ship to America and the saga of Lily and her offspring commence.  Worlds are knotted together by war, persecution & human suffering. "Tunnels of lives connect, coming into daylight and then plunge us into the dark again."  McCann's elegiac writing & captivating storytelling makes us question what is life anyway.  "An accumulation of small shelves of incident.  Stacked at odd angles to each other."  I question whether McCann will repeat another Nat'l Book Award honor.  The odds are heavily stocked for it.  

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Unforgettable

A pilgrimage is a mission to gain moral or spiritual significance.  Harold Fry is just an ordinary guy whose life somehow has gone awry.  Harold is adjusting to retirement from the same job he held for his entire adult life.  His long loveless marriage to Maureen is exhausting.  Harold is friendless, his only son David has abandoned him and he is adrift in a malaise of loneliness.  When Harold receives a note from an old colleague "that would change everything."  Queenie, an old colleague wrote informing him she is dying and wished to say good-bye.  Without premeditation or a plan, Harold sets out to mail Queenie a letter and ends up determined to walk the 600 miles to her believing that his walk will save her.  Perhaps this may deter you from Rachel Joyce's novel.  This would be a travesty.  Bear with the initial vapid "Forest Gump" character whose naivety is at first grating & preposterous.  His journey along sets him free to ponder the mysteries of life and reexamine his own.  Living takes putting one foot in front of the other "but, it never ceases to amaze how difficult the things that are supposed to be instinctive really are."  Trust this unlikely beginning transcends & marvels the reader.  "What the world needs is a little less sense, and a little more faith."

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson-Same Old, Same Old

Life after Life is a novel that is in part a time travel epic, part British WWII account, and for the most part, a philosophical examination of reincarnation.  On all parts, it seems never ending.  If you are considering reading this relentless palimpsest, let me save you from squandering your future. This story grows old just as it seemed nouveau.  It is both trite, & preachy.  "Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance."  For those who have died in the war, "we must bear witness."  Ursula, born in Britain, Feb. 1910, dies & is reborn, over & over.  Izzie, Ursula's  quixotic aunt believes "life is an adventure."  Sylvia, Urusula's pragmatic mother thinks of life "as more of an endurance race or an obstacle course."  Teddy, Ursula's much beloved baby brother wonders "What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right?  Wouldn't that be wonderful?" I will steer you in the right direction.  Pass on this indefatigable rehash.  Read Barne's Sense of an Ending & see the effervescent film, About Time.  Life after Life was never ending & life is just too short.

The Newlyweds, Bangladeshi meets US husband online

The illuminating novel, THE NEWLYWEDS, by Nell Freudenberger, is an insightful look into what constitutes a marriage while examining cultural differences & lifestyles between the USA & Bangladesh.  Amina, the only child of over protective parents only want what's best for their daughter (and themselves.)  Amina's father is a bungler who squanders the family's finances.  Her mother who can't bear to be apart from her, wants her daughter to have more than an impoverished life.  The novel draws religious, family & cultural comparisons between Amina's Muslim upbringing & that of her American husband, George. The real heart of the story are Amina's observations on marriage & family.  Freudenberger's characters & narrative are so easy to perceive I could smell the curry in Bangladesh & feel the chill in the air in Rochester, NY& around the dinner table in George's mother's home.  Arranged marriages are common in Amina's village despite her parent's elopement.  Amina's parents encouraged her to pursue an American husband online.  George & Amina's connection grows over the internet until George flies to meet Amina & her family.  It is decided Amina will immigrate to the US where she & George will wed, in a purported civil & Muslim ceremony. Amina's adjustment to both her new life & marriage shows her resignations, disappointments and triumphs. Amina tells George, "At first we were puzzle pieces. Now we're the puzzle."  Amina discovers, "the hardest thing about marriage - how can you continue to be kind, once you knew all of another person's secrets?"  This is the kind of novel that flourishes with empathy & intelligence.

N/F Lone Survivor-War is Hell HooYah!

 Luttrel's retelling of his miraculous & heroic survival from a Taliban attack in Afghanistan is a rare glimpse into the incredulous demands of SEAL training, the bonds of brotherhood, and the bloody horrors on battlefront.  "War is not healthy for children & other living things."  True, but trite given the 1st hand accounts of the gruesome realities of war killing too many of our nation's finest; and the heartbreaking collateral fallouts. "In times of uncertainty there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our Nation's call; a common man with uncommon desire to succeed.  Forged by adversity, he stands alongside America's finest special operations forces to serve his country and the American people."  Retired Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell, said  "I'm an American.  And when the bell sounds, I will come out fighting for my country and for my teammates.  If neccessary, to the death."  The reconnaissance Operation Red Wing, June '05, claimed the lives of the 3 SEAL's in Luttrell's unit and the 8 SEALs shot down in their helicopter in their fatal rescue attempt.  Luttrel' reason for his book was "because of my three buddies Mikey, Danny, and Axe.  If I don't write it, no one will ever understand the indomitable courage under fire of those three Americans.  And that would be the biggest tragedy of all."  The ultimate tragedy is the killing of our nation's soldiers.  I found LONE SURVIVOR a story of unbelievable cruelty, amazing sacrifice & deep morality.  The Pashtun people in Afghanistan value "lokhay," the essence of humanity.  It's crucial Luttrel's book be read to honor our American soldiers.  It serves as an essential tool in the arsenal against war.  Congressional hearings must address what is required to protect our own when sent into battle.  "Under the laws of the country we are sworn to serve. They represent a danger to us; they undermine our confidence on the battlefield in the fight against world terror."  HOOYAH!

Gaskell's North & South: Britain's Indust Revolution

The novel North & South by British, Victorian writer, Elizabeth Gaskell is NOT about the Amer. Revolution.  Rather, it is about the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th depicting social stratas of Britain (as in Downton Abbey; early 20th C.)  Gaskell's novel calls for social & relgious reforms.  Her literary prowess led to a strong friendship with Charles Dickens.  During a time of strict Victorian protocols, Gaskell was a pioneer for impoverished factory workers, religious dissenters & women's liberations.  The societal restrictions & limited opportunities for women left little else but to secure a "good marriage."  To "marry for love," was atypical. The heroine's life, Margaret Hale, parallels  Gaskell's life.  Both women were orphaned young, their fathers both ministers & they were raised by their affluent aunts.  North & South is Austen's Pride & Prejudice meets Sinclair's The Jungle.  Both the harsh struggles of the workers & the "idyllic" charmed lives of the upper classes are equally made clear.  This is a turgid historic novel yet prescient for it's clairvoyancy into labor negotiations between workers/management:  "its success necessitate personal intercourse, the formation of a plan as all had borne a part." As for the love interest for Miss Hale, Mr. Thornton is an admirable & misaligned ole chap, but he's no Mr. Darcy; but then who is?  Oh Mrs. Gaskell, you have written a compelling historic novel of social significance.

The Interestings - Is Anything But...

Meg Wolitzer's novel, The Interestings is insipid, self-indulgent, dull; anything but interesting.  Julie Jacobson from Long Island, get's taken in by the  NYC in-crowd @ summer camp during her early teens.  Julie, dubbed "Jules," morphs into an interesting, witty sophisticate with her new found click.  Good for you Jules, I'm glad you had a wonderful camp experience. Time to put your glory years behind and grow up.   Jules was "sad to be a fully grown, finalized adult, with almost no chance for reinvention."  Jules marries Dennis, a clinically depressed oaf.  Even Jules, a psychologist, is unable to be of aid.  Jules' saving grace are her life-long attachments to 3 of the friends she made at camp.  Nevertheless, Jule's bonds of friendship are shrouded in "a sustained level of envy," by their achievements.  I enjoyed summer camp as a kid.  If I went back, I'd toss this novel in the bonfire. There's nothing else to be gained from this drivel.  Kumbayah - Yuck!  

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY-Don't let this get away

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leafs a flower, But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf, So Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. (Frost)

Ron Rash's short story collection pays homage to Frost's alluring & melancholy poem.  The stories all share a theme of loss, solitude and forewarning.  Heed one own's instinctive "alarm bell." Know that "luck is due to run out." Do not give into temptation, lest you pay dearly for you choices.  Rash's stories speak of the loss of innocence, "fighting the Japanes in WWI you weren't even a man anymore. It's a wonder any of us could come back & be human again." The stories also smite those who judge.  Judge not lest ye be judged.  Collectively, they evoke a remoteness of an older era.  All the stories are poignant & poetic.  I was most moved with the story of 2 black runaway slaves.  A Confederate farmer entraps the 2 men.  The younger knew to flee but was lured back. The older slave is allowed to escape after he binds the young runaway who was left behind to face the noose.  The stories in NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY are etched with sorrow in realms of gold.

We are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Karen Fowler's novel is about your typical family, unless you find raising a chimp with your children to be atypical.  Rose, our beguiling heroine, becomes a sister to Fern, a newborn chimp. Rose's parents accepted Fern into the family when both were infants.  Rose's father is a psychologist conducting a study to learn whether chimps can learn language skills.  Lowell, Rose's older, wiser & more militant brother asks "Why does she have to learn our language?  Why can't we learn hers?"  Both Rose & Lowell become devoted to Fern.  Both learn to communicate in simpatico with Fern.  As the daughter of a psycholgist, Rose determines that "the thing being studied is rarely the thing being studied."  Fowler is a skillful writer.  "Completely"is vastly entertaining and exasperating.  Rose likes to tell her story from the middle, and skip the beginning.  We learn that as the infernal talking "monkey girl," Rose is friendless until her college years.  Her college life begins with her arrest although she is an innocent bystander in a cafeteria melee.  The boundaries between animal & human behaviors are blurred.  Memories and their accuracies are susceptible to change.  Definitely, life with Fern is astonishing.  But, when Fern is removed from the home, for disputable reasons, the fallout proves devastating.  As an animal advocate, Fowler is preaching to the choir.  As a storyteller, Fowler brought her A game, completely.

Pulitz Prize '13 - The Orphan Master's Son

Adam Johnson's novel, The Orphan Master's Son, is this year's Pulitz. Prize winner.  It is a gripping and relentless look at life in N. Korean under the terrifying, sequestered reign of Sun Young II.  Torture, starvation, forced labor & constant fear and forced labor typify life in N. Korea. The people of N. Korea are coereced into tortuing & kidnapping each other.  Adam Johnson, an American author, who is reknowned for contesting propoganda on all fronts.  Here he writes a very disturbing and complex novel.  He utilizes the narrative of 3 voices, Jon Do, Commander Ga and Jon Do as the "replaced" Commander Ga.  Human life in N. Korea holds no significance.  A person's life/history is subject to rewriting or dismissal.  The novel exposes the dangers of propoganda & brainwashing.  Despite the oppressive life in N. Korea, Johnson also explores the depth of love & sacrifice.  English speaking Jon Do, is sent to the U.S. as an interpreter on a detente mission.  The biting irony of looking at the U.S. from the viewpoint of N. Koreans is also a clever stab at propaganda.  This is an intelligent & demanding novel that is richly rewarding.  It has received many literary awards in addition to the Pulitz.; the Nat'l Book Circle '12. The Orphan Master's Son is an important work of artistry that I recommend everyone should read.  I speak the truth, not propaganda.

Love Anthony by Lisa Genova, Unconditional Love

Lisa Genova is the award winning, best selling author of "Still Alice," which chronicles a woman who has early onset Alzheimer.  In "Love Anthony," Genova examines life as an autistic boy, Anthony, and the heartache & love this brings to a family.  The novel is set in Nantucket where two women are dealing with cracks in their marriage.  Anthony is the son of Olivia & David.  The anguish of managing Anthony siphons the love from his parents marriage which does not survive.  Beth & Jimmy, parents of 3 girls, have separated as a result of Jimmy's adulterous affair.  Beth returns to her writing & channels inside the mind of an autistic child & gives voice to his perceptions .  There are also Olivia's journals reflecting on caring for a child with autism.  Genova is not only a gifted writer, she holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard.  Love Anthony makes for a compassionate, heartfelt story.  "Love Anthony," is about what people need from each other to feel loved in a marriage and what it means to love unconditionally. 

This Will be Difficult to Explain-Easy to Enjoy

Johanna Skibsrud's This Will be Difficult to Explain: and Other Stories, is a quirky &  hypnotic collection of short stories.  "Difficult" will give those who love the artform reason to cheer.  For those who have maximum indifference to short stories, this collection is bound to convert you to appreciate the powerful impact laden in this format.  Skibsrud is a Canadian author whose 1st novel The Sentimentalist '10, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize & her poetry has been shortlisted for the Atlantic Prize.  Her intriguing stories paint vivid characters whose lives have taken unexpected & mostly undesirable  turns.  There are recurring themes to her stories that are presented fresh in each with entirely unique characters & scenarios.  It's intriguing to read her stories dealing with death, filial bonds & resentments, & sexual promiscuity.  "I am uncertain that she will ever die, and as she overwhelms my daily life, my daily bread, I long for her exit."  It is difficult to do justice to the creative writing in these stories that are entirely engrossing.

Bad Monkey, Makes Good Summer Reading

I'm not a fan of the mystery genre.  Ironically, I am a huge fan of Masterpiece Mystery:  Inspector Lewis.  Coincidentally, Lewis has finally developed a personal relationship with the female coroner after a long partnership solving murders.  In Carl Hiaasen's humorous who-done it, debunked Det. Andrew Young has just been releaved of his badge for dubious reasons.  But he is quick to hook-up with the beautiful coroner, who becomes his lover & partner in crime solving.  Young is working in an un-official capacity, seeking redemption & his job back.  Women fall for his charms, guys want to be him and you will root for this character.  Young is an irrepressible rogue whose antics are not exactly kosher.  He's been demoted as a health inspector, a job he does with ingenuity & integrity.  Young can't be bought or deterred.  Mixed in the stew is a colorful cast of characters including a voo-doo queen, a sexual pervert ex-girlfriend & one bad ass monkey.  Hooray for love matches between detectives & coroners.  Bad Monkey is a masterpiece of lighthearted pleasure.  

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain

"Billy Lynn," along with his army buddies called the Bravos, are Iraqi war heroes on a Public Relations (PR) tour for the  troops.  This engrossing anti-war novel, is also a cutting parody of the American lifestyle the soldiers are fighting to protect.  Specialist Billy Lynn, the hero in Fountain's novel, epitomizes the glorious soldier the army wants to use for PR, much like "Pat Tillman." The movie industry is vying to capitalize on the Bravo rescue story, "a tale of heroism ennobled by tragedy.  Validation, redemption, life snatched from the jaws of death."  Lynn knows otherwise:  there is nothing noble to war, it is "a fuckup so profound and all encompassing as to crush all hope of redemption."   The story takes place over an army issued Thanksgiving leave with PR fanfare to honor the Bravos during a Cowboys' halftime @Dallas Stadium.  Only 19, war has left Billy in a torpor of melancholy and highly sensitive to the absurdity of American idealism.   "Billy suspects his fellow Americans secretly know better, but something in the land is stuck on teenage drama…no amount of lecturing will enlighten them as to the state of pure sin toward which war inclines."  There is a strong anti-war message in this exceptionally bitter-sweet tale that is as entertaining as it is perceptive to the "extremely high American threshold for sham, puff, spin, bullshit and outright lies."  Ben Fountain should be awarded the Medal of Honor for his novel.

On Grace by Susie Schnall, Resonates Real Emotions

On Grace, a first novel by Susie Schnall is a very contemporary & realistic look at the fragile bonds of marriage.  Schnall is pitch perfect in her depiction of today's Updikian suburpia.  Grace is juggling work, motherthood and marriage until her husband's infidelities shatter the foundation of her family.  Grace's honest emotions resonate hurt & befuddlement.  I  grappled along with her heartache, anxieties and conundrums.   Can the marriage be salvaged & trust restored? What are the considerations for staying together or ending a marriage?  Schnall is not chartering new territory but her deft & sensitive writing compel the reader to contemplate their own responses.

N/F Devil in the Grove Thurgood Marhsall, The Groveland Boys,

I thought I knew about Thurgood Marshall, I thought I knew about the Civil Rights Movement, I thought I knew about the Jim Crow South - I now know how little I knew about the attrocities blacks suffered by barbaric white supremisits & the abysmal failure of our judicial system to protect & serve the black population.  Gilbert King's factual account of the brutalities in our country sheds an emblazoned light on racial hatred and "indifference to human suffering that layed the legacy of future generations of whites who in turn would without conscience, perpetuate the agony of an entire other race." Devil in the Grove also recounts the historic legal battles that put an end to segregation in the U.S.  Marshall was a major crusader for justice & civil rights in our courts of law.  As flawed as our legal system is, "Laws not only provide concete benefits, they can even change the heatrs of men-some men anyhow-for good or evil."(Marshall)   King focuses on the travesty of The Groveland Boys; 4 young black youths in FL who were falsely accused of rape by a southern white woman.  One of the 4 was murdered by law officials.  This case is sadly reminiscient of the Scottsborough Boys.  Devil in the Grove is essential reading.  It is a stark reminder "that no matter where liberty is challenged, no matter where oppression lifts its head, it becomes the business of the masses." (Houston)  Flaws in our system still persist as in The Central Park 5 & the killing of Trayvon Martin.

The Woman Upstairs; Thumbs Down

Claire Messud's novel, The Woman Upstairs, is about Nora (A Doll's House) Eldridge, a 3rd grade teacher who views herself as the woman upstairs; inconsequential.  Nora is single, childless & pushing 40.  She is a dedicated teacher but frustrated, wanna be artist.  Her "real" life has been on hold while caring for her mother & committing to a long-term, loveless relationship.  Don't rush to bring on the violins.  Once freed from her self-imposed bondage, she finds herself adrift; but not for long.  Her new student Reza, and his family awaken Nora's hunger for life.  Reza's father is a Harvard prof. & the mother, Sirena, an accomplished artist.  Nora soon ingratiates herself into the fabric of this family.  Nora believes "Life is a about deciding what matters.  It's about the fantasy that determines the reality."  Sirena invites Nora to share her studio space when Nora informs her that she too is an artist.  Nora constructs dioramas of historic women in their habitats.  She cheerfully submisses her artwork in the shadow of Sirena's talent while surreptitiously consuming Sirena's life.  Nora is obsessed with gaining unconditional love from the entire family and crosses multiple inappropriate boundaries. Nora's misguided infatuations undermines the novel's pursuit of artistic value and creates instead, a pathetic tale of stalking.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette: a novel

If you enjoyed last summer's GONE GIRL.  You will find this novel to your liking.  At the heart of the novel by Maria Sample, is 14 year old Bea who is hard to resist.  Bea is  kind hearted (despite serious heart issues,) intelligent, loyal, and an independent thinker.  The kind of girl we'd all like as a friend growing up or as a daughter.  In fact, Bea & her mother share an incredible bond.  Both parents are creative geniuses.  The father is a revered Microsoft exec. who is hardly ever at home & her mother, Bernadette, is agoraphobi &  always there for Bea.  Bernadette's eccentricities & altercations with other's & Bea's insights are entertaining - until things get out of control.  Elgin, Bea's father, becomes  convinced his wife needs to be committed to a mental health facility.  Bernadette is on to her husband's plans for her abduction & ingeniously eludes everyone & vanishes.  Bea is determined to find her mom and this is where the story becomes mired in tedium.  Having committed thus far,  I sought resolution, but not with the zest I had beforehand.  I felt the same for GONE GIRL, both stories drew most of the way through but left me feeling cheated.  Nonetheless, WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE makes for a light, summer read.

The Burgess Boys, by Pulitz. winner E. Strout

This is a novel that is hard to put down.  Elizabeth Strout is a Pulitzer Prize winning author who culls interesting characters from her hometown of Maine.  Strout is a master of juggling numerous intertwining characters, each having their owns compelling story.  At the heart of the story are the Burgess boys, Jim, the overachieving grandiose atty. and his likeable, scrubby brother Bob who worships Jim.  The brothers both live in Bklyn while their sister, Susan, remains in their childhood, small town in Maine with her troubled son, Zach.  Strout's captivating writing embroils you in the lives & problems of everyone.  In addition, serious conflicts & global problems are a pertinent driving force.  Strout has received the Pulitz. Prize; this novel is worthy of a Nobel Peace Award.  The novel is filled with hope, empathy & familial love.  I loved this intelligent & inspiritational novel.

Brian Kimberling's SNAPPER is Midwest Doldrums

The novel SNAPPER is the ho-hum tale of growing up in the Hooser State.  We follow Nathan's childhood and his synposis of growing up there.  "Indiana is the bastard son of the Midwest."  Nathan tells of the bigotry he was all too familiar with, "I found myself in an Indiana forest surrounded by rifle-bearing Klansmen."  Kimberling tries to soften the undisguised hatred with the charm of some eccentric local characters.  But, the "humor" kills any chance of redemption.  "What's the same between a wife, a dog, and a slave?  The more you beat them, the more they behave."  Despite abhoring many of the sentiments expressed, there were several long lasting friendships that gave the novel some warmth.  That, and the career he fell into as a bird researcher.  His dedication to ornithology was commendable, but unlike the heroine who studied butterflies in FLIGHT, Nathan failed to garner lmaturity or wisdom with experience.  He does retain a nostalgic lookback to his upbringing.  "Hoosiers do not make much of their distinctive name, nor generally think much of their native state."  I did not think highly enough of SNAPPER to recommend.

The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

"My curiosity for reading "Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, was piqued by the brilliant novel, the Round House, by Eldrich.  Both novels Nat'l Book winning novels are centrally a coming of age novel of a 13 year old boy growing up on an Indian Reservation.  "Part-Time Indian," falls into the genre of a young adult novel.  Although, both deal with serious & disturbing topics that plaque American Indians. The most troubling issue is lack within the confines of the reservation.  Our protagonist Artnold is a beacon of courage. He is a big hearted cartoonist, with numerous physical shortcomings.  Still, he has  aspirations for a better life.  Arnold realizes to obtain his dreams they must stem from being educated off the reservation; at the nearest, all-white school.  The straddling of both the reservation & white community makes him an outsider to both.  However, he is emblazened to forge ahead & make a place for himself in the world.  There are many epiphanies uncovered.  "Life is a constant struggle between being an inividual and being a member of the community."   The empathy Arnold feels is profound.  The jubuliation Arnold feels after his team's victory over his old school is short lived.  He realize no one from the reservation is headed to college, several had not eaten that day, others had fathers in prison or fathers who beat them regularly.  His glory brought Arnold "tears of shame."  Truth:  this "Diary" is filled with great heart, humor, wisdom & empathy.  It's a Diary that should be uncovered and read by all ages.

The KISSING LIST - refreshingly new

I will compare Reent's novel to Egan's Pulitzer Prize, ground-breaking novel, the Goon Squad.   Reents emulates Egan's use of intertwining lives & non-linear timelines.  The Kissing List contains, quirky, fragile characters, intermittent poetry, business models, memos, test questionnaires, and so forth  that all add up to an entertaining & baffling read.  There are several female lead characters whose lives have meshed & intertwined through college, roommate configurations after graduation & the social network that entails daily lives.  Men are secondary to the women in this novel.  This does not by any means empower women over men.  Males remain sought after knights leading to "happily ever after," while the women provide each other's safety nets. The exuberance & confusion of "just getting into the real world," is felt as their over educated degrees prove ineffectual for self-sufficiency.  It is not crucial to maintain a clear notion of the relationships amongst these women, or be precise on plots.  The central quanday is the folly with which we end up with our partners. This novel proves puzzling in its storytelling. This advances the pioneering writing styles keeping abreast with our constantly evolving world.  It was a pleasant surprise how much fun I had going along for the ride.  Put The Kissing List on your must read list.

The FLAMETHROWERS: R. Kushner, merely smolders

Rachel Kushner is an exceptionally gifted, literary award winning novelist.  She received the Guggenheim Fellowship Award '13 & previously been nominated for the Nat'l Book Award.  I've read several of her novels and anticipated a complex sequence of enigmatic events.  There are two main characters, both artists, whose lives merge in NYC '75, at an iconic period of revolution in the contemporary art world.  Reno, a young female heroine, is a free spirited, motorcycle racing, filmmaker who falls for Sandro, a much older, established artist of Italian aristocracy.  Kushner has many burning observations on both the precarious powers of love & the alchemy of art.  "The desire for love is universal but that has never meant it's worthy of respect.  It's not admirable to want love, it just is."  Despite moving to NYC on her own to establish herself as an artist, Reno is feckless in relationships & maleable to a fault.  She is easily led by galvanizing men while acknowledging her actions are without resolution and self-destructive.  Sandro, the older, but no wiser, controlling lover, is so self-absorbed he becomes a caricature of the egomaniacal artist.  The droll observations on the art scene at the time are scornfully prescient.  "Only a killjoy would claim neon wasn't beautiful."  Despite her literary talents and humorous insights, I'm going to be a killjoy.  The FLAMETHROWERS sputters out.

Nat'l Book Award for The Round House by L. Eldrich

THE ROUND HOUSE refers to the communal meeting place for the Indian community living on a reservation in ND, in '88.   Our young Native Amer. hero, Joe, is just 13 and his serene & naive world is about to crumble like a house made of sand.  Joe, the only child of a loving, duo-working couple is wise beyond his years.  His father is a highly respected lawyer/judge in their community.  When Joe's father discovers his wife missing, they set out in search for her.  What they find will horrify the family & lead Joe on a life altering quest.  This poignant Nat'l Book Award winning novel is much more than a coming of age story.  It is also a mystery, a story of friendhship, a tragedy mixed with love & caring.  There are many colorful & unforgettable characters.  Grandpa Mooshum, is a centenarian whose storytelling comes in the guise of sleep talking.  More importantly, it is a social commentary on the oppression of our Native Amer. Indians whose justice has been built on quicksand.  It also profers a piercing view of religion.   THE ROUND HOUSE is a revolving story, wrapped within deeper layer.  It is a gut wrenching tale that is hard to pur down.  Not only is this a MUST read, it should continously be handed down.

A BUDDHA in the ATTIC: J. Otsuka

A Buddha in the Attic traces the lives of Japanese mail order brides lured to the U.S. with the promise  of a better life.  The arduous, impoverished lives of these young women made them eager to accept proposals of marriages from Japanese men unbeknownst to them.  Thes hardships & heartaches of the voyage & leaving all they had known behind is told through the numerous women who chose (or were coerced) into leaving their homes. The poignant voices are reflected by a unifying chorus.  Julie Otsuka's novel, "Buddha" won the Pen/Faulkner award.  It is an elegant & powerful tale of woe, wonder & shame that reminds us of these brave, pioneering Japanese women & men who endured unbearable harships with strength and dignity.  The story unfolds in Japan, early 20th C, through turbulent voyages headed to San Francisco, to the fraudulent and terrifying lives this women led with their husbands along the west coast, through the births of their children, to WWII and the frenzied racial   Executive Orders by FDR for Japanese internment.  The use of we & they rather than a singular narrative speaks of the varied experiences and emotions of both Japanese & Americans who were complacent as the Japanese were evacuated from their homes after Pearl Harbor.  These Japanese mail order brides "wondered if we had made a mistake, coming to such a violent and unwelcoming land.  We stopped dreaming.  We stopped wanting.  We simply worked, that was all."  The joys of parenthood gave way to assimilated English speaking offspring that "we could barely recognize.  Mostly, they were ashamed of us."  There is plenty of shame to go around. The Exclusion Orders forced Japanese to be interned for the years of  WWII in CA, OR, WA & AZ. "Our mayor has assured us there is no need for alarm. {The Japanese are in a safe place.}"  Many of the Americans who stood by, "who were more than a little relievered to see the Japanese go. We would like to believe that most, if not all, of the Japanese here in our own town were good, trustworthy citizens, of their absolute loyalty we could not be sure."  The racial bigotry and persecution of the Japanese was shamefully hypocritical to what Americans were fighting to eliminate.   Not until '88, did our then Pres.,  Reagan was an official apology & reparations made to the Japanese for the prejudicial persecution in  the 40's.  "Haruko left a tiny laughing brass Buddha up high, in a corner of the attic, where he is still laughing to this day."  Otsuka's brilliant historic novel must be taken out and read for generations.  

FLIGHT BEHAVIOR, Barbara Kingsolver's novel soars. Put this atop your must read list.

Kingsolver has been named one of the most important writers of the 20thC by Writer's Digest.  In 2000, she received the Nat'l Humanities Medal; the highest honor in the U.S. in the arts.  Perhaps, she is best known for her novel, THE POISONWOOD BIBLE; a Pulitz. Prize Finalist.  The Dayton Literary Peace Prize was given to Kingsolver in '11 for the culmination of her work.  FLIGHT BEHAVIOR, '12, is certain to receive prescient literary awards.  Similar themes exist between "Flight" & "Poisonwood."  Both novels depict the shortcomings of narrow mindedness, blind faith and the consequences of turning a blind eye to the consequences of our actions.   Environmental destruction & global warming is a key message in "Flight."  A phalanx of monarch butterflies alight upon the trees that belong to our heroine's, Dellarobia, in-laws.  Dellarobia is a 20 something housewife & mother of two young children.   Her shotgun wedding to Cub occurred before graduating high school.  Dellarobia, remains in her dismal marriage to Cub despite an early miscarriage.  Dovey, Dellarobia's best friend, and the voice of humor & reason states, "Men and kids get to just light out and fly, without ever worrying about what comes next."  The mystifying aberration of the monarch's migration to this "hillbilly" town draws both scientific and mass media attention.  Kingsolver does not proselytize but wake-up calls are delivered by her intriguing characters.  Dellarobia's contemplation of her life & possibilities makes us question our obligations & the ties that bind a family.  I bestow Kingsolver as one of the most relevant, talented and important writers of the 21st C.

James Salter's LIGHT YEARS, prose on time passage

James Salter holds the distinction of having flown more combat missions than any other highly awarded author.  He may hold the dubious distinction of being one of the best, but perhaps least known writers.  Salter's career began in the U.S. Air Force but came to a screeching halt when he crashed landed his plane into a residential neighborhood; fortunately without incurring casualties.   Afterwards, he was assigned to military service in the Phillipines and later volunteered for combat duty in the Korean War.  In the War he flew over 100 comat missions.  His writing career began with his civilian life.  He turned to his experiences from the Korean War for his first novels.  LIGHT YEARS from '95, tells of the mundane married lives of Viri and Nedra and their two daughters.  However, the simplicity of the story is anything but pedestrian.  The reader is swept along with the melancholy of fleeting years, the dissolution of a marriage and the epiphanies that arise from having lived.  Seasons pass, the years surmount calling into question our own mortality, "The house is surrounded by white.  Hours of sleep, the air chill.  The most delicious sleep, is death so warm, so easeful?" The seemingly idyllic union of Nedra & Viri, having a perfect facade, is not as it appears. "Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to bring into light and shadow."  Salter's style pays homage to Woolf, Ibsen and in particular, Wilder's THE LONG CHRISTMAS DINNER.  By comparing Salter to such literary greats I honor his illuminating writing.  Still, I place him in a contemporary class of his own.  His writing has earned him a PEN/Faulker Award.  He's elected to the Amer. Acad. of Arts & Letters '00 and selected for the 25th PEN/Malamud Award.  I will be attending the 92ndY's Talk with James Salter & Richard Ford.  I recommend the works of  Mr. Salter's and not to miss this opportunity of a lifetime to hear him in person.

Married Love (P.S.) Short Stories by Tessa Hadley

Tessa Hadley's short story collection puts her in league with masters of this genre; like Alice Munroe & Jhumpa Lahiri.  High praise for this contemporary British author who has been listed for the Guardian 1st Book Award.  She is a teacher of Lit./Creative Writing @ Bath Spa Univ.  Hadley's title of Married Love uses a skeletal framework of marriage to probe how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive the way we are viewed by others inside/outside of our families.  These tautly written stories examine what we are willing to divulge, what facades we establish, and what we discover when through another's perspective.  "She had a gift of vehemence, the occasional lightning flash of vision so strong that it revealed to others, for a moment, the world as it was from her perspective."  In the story about a middle-aged cleaning woman, you feel sympathy for her loss of her only son in Afghanistan.  She realized he was holding back from her while on leave, "Whenever they partned now, he kissed her as if her were putting her aside, kindly but firmly."  This character & others addresses the class system that is still pervasive in England.  The fascination lies in the awareness of diverging lifestyles and the disparities/similarities in possessions and behaviors. A young woman who "married up," admits to being "uncertain how to fit in with this family and their unashamed grand gestures." She advises the new boyfriend in the family, "You should always keep something of yourself back from them.  Keep a few secrets." Hadley's well structured collection of stories are incredibly powerful in their astute observations and parsimonious emotional depictions.  I highly recommend Hadley's Married Love as well as collections by Munroe & Lahiri.

Booker Prize for Heat & Dust, by R. P. Jhabvala

Heat and Dust is a forbidden love story between a newly married Englishwoman, Olivia and a Nawab, a minor Indian prince.  Olivia moves to colonial Indian in 1923 with her British civil servant, Douglas.  This is a novel of powerful yet quiet, majestic beauty.  Heat & Dust contrasts the social constraints & lifestyles of British society and those of India in early 20th C.  More importantly, it  confronts the demise of India's culture under British Imperialism.  Oliva's restless & reckless story is told by Douglas' granddaughter from his 2nd marriage who discovers her letters and retraces Oliva's steps through India while keeping a compelling journal of her own.  Douglas' granddaughter learns of the harsh lives in India by her Indian landlord, "Nothing human means anything here. Not a thing." Olivia lears of Douglas attempt to prevent the India religious practise of suttee.  Indian woman who become widowed are placed upon their husband's funeral pyre.  Though barberic, Olivia does questions British  interferance with India's cultural practices. "It's part of their religion isn't it?  I thought one wasn't supposed to meddle with that.  And quiet apart from religion, it is their culture and who are we to interfere with anyone's culture, especially an ancient one like theirs."  Jhabvala's impressive novel reveals a compelling look at Anglo-Indian relationships.  It's also a penetrating look at India's past and present.

Morality Play, Barry Unsworth, a Sin to Miss

Barry Unsworth is Booker Prize winning author & a master of historical fiction.  Morality Play is a play within a play about morality set in the 14th C English countryside. This is a time when rampant religious & judicious corruption reigned. The story begins with Priest Nicholas fleeing to excape discovery of his adultrous liasion by the husband.  Haven fallen from grace, Nicholas becomes an outcast, alone in the difficult & treacherous countryside.  He is destitute and vulnerable. Survival appears bleak when he stumbles upon a troupe of actors.  Nicholas convinces the group of his value as a man of the cloth and with the gift of gab.  The band led by Martin, agree to bring him into their fold despite the his questionable predicament.  As a member of the troupe, Nicholas hears complaints against both Church & Nobles who rule the land.  "The Church works with the Nobles and keep folks tied to the land."  Men were not permitted to leave their townships without permission of their Lords or risk "being taken & branded as fugitives on their foreheads for all to see."  They enter a town where a young boy has just been murdered and a woman condemned to hang for the crime.  A monk brought the woman in for questioning.  Martin devises a new type of play to draw in a paying audience that  will depict the murder.  Plays were only performed from biblical stories at this time.  Hear ye, a large audience hath come forth to their performance bringing the wrath of the Nobel Lord upon them.  This historic novel is worth reading for its historic depiction, its crime mystery, and for the philosophical quandries it raises  "It was the Church that first made God a player, the priest played before the altar."  And, for its clever irony, Nicholas muses, "I was a priest playing a priest, dressed for the part in my own dress."  I hereby order you to read this novel.  When it is performed, I wouldn't tarry to attend.

The Yellow Birds - A Gleaming Anti-war Novel

Kevin Powers served with the U.S. in Irag 2004-2005.  THE YELLOW BIRDS is Power's 1st novel & is a Nat'l Book Award Finalist.  I rank this Iraq war novel alongside the WWI novel ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT & the Vietnam novel THE THINGS THEY CARRIED.  All are powerful & poignant novels that speak of the attrocities of war; both on the battlefield and the homefront for returning vets.  In THE YELLOW BIRDS, John Bartle & Daniel Murphy, enlist in the army as young men.  They meet & befriend each other while in bootcamp, under the command of Sgt. Sterling.  Their friendship between under Sterling's war weary knowledge, emphasize the harsh realities of war.  Power's lyrical tale is not linear in structure which adds an element of intrigue.  Bartle is the narrator of this heartbreaking saga.  He looks back at his life as a naive youth, on the battlefronts, and at his own post war purgatory. "There isn't any making up for killing women or even watching women get killed, or for that matter killing men and shooting them in the back. There was acid seeping down into your soul and then your soul is gone."  THE YELLOW BIRDS is sure to be a classic literary achievement addressing the Hell of war.  We continuously fail to heed the wisdom of our founding father, "If tyranny & oppresion come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." J. Adams

The $12,000,000 Stuffed Shark, Non-Fiction

The $12,000,000 Stuffed Shark refers to the price paid for Damien Hirst's taxidermic shark embedded in formaldehyde.  This engrossing & mystifying book by Don Thompson, examines "The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art." Thompson seeks to clarify the definition or parameters of contemporary art as well as the intent of art.  He delves into the factors driving the interest & monetary value of contemporary pieces of art. Thompson rationally dissects the emotional calculations of the purveyors in the art world as well as its consumers.  The candor of the author is beguiling, "I have long been puzzled by what makes a particular work of art valuable."  The value I gained from this book is priceless.  I came away with some keen insights into an enigmatic & compelling world to which I'm already drawn.  However, I came away feeling further perplexed.  Art holds the power to to illuminate & align both our thinking & visceral responses.  Contemporary Art has blurred the boundaries between business and visual creations.  "Never invest in a business you can't understand.  Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for ten years."  W. Buffett  

The 12 Tribes of Hattie Oprahs Pick/not mine

When Oprah speaks, people listen.  A book selected for Oprah's Book Club becomes a best seller.  Ms. Winfrey is a positive force for constructive change.  Oprah is credited for getting more people reading.  However, that doesn't mean Oprah's picks are divine.  I appreciate why the The 12 Tribes of Hattie, by Ayana Mathis, was chosen.  The novel touches on many significant issues affecting African Americans'  lives; Jim Crow Laws in the Southern States and dire poverty endured by the multitudes who came north hoping for a better life.  Hattie migrated north to escape the horrors of the south.  One of Hattie's 12 children notes, "they left because of the whites, only to spend the rest of their lives being hostalgic for the most banal and backwoods things.  The North was cold and colorless."  Mathis touches briefly on numerous struggles in addition to racism: a self-imposed class system, stubborn pride,"unseemly failed" males, church charlatans, unwed mothers & limited options for a better life.  Hattie concluded ""60 years out of Georgia, and there's still the same wounding and the same pain."  Mathis covers too many issues through too many lives that their impacts becomes diluted.  I recommend "To Kill a Mockingbird, or the Help instead.  People listen when Oprah speaks, but those who speak to Oprah, do not always speak the truth (Sir Lance Lies-a-Lot.)  I on the other hand, can be trusted.

The Attack by Yasmina Khadra

The central character in the novel, The Attack, is Amin Jaafari, an Arab naturalized Israeli citizen who becomes a surgeon in Tel Aviv.  Amin earns respect with his colleagues. Amin & his Palestinian born wife, Sihem, form friendships in Tel Aviv.  Nonetheless, he does suffer 2nd class citizenship amongst the general public who view him with disdain & distrust for his Arabian heritage. Still, Amin has been happily married for more than 10 years to Sihem, until his marriage & his life are irrevocably shattered.  An exploison erupts in close proximity to the hospital Amin works & it becomes an immediate triage for the severly wounded.  The blast takes the lives of dozens of innocent victimes & children & the life of Sihem.  Sihem, however, was not an innocent victim.  She was the fundamentalist suicide bomber to the complete horror & total disbelief of Amin. "We had no secrets from each other," Amin tells the polic Capt.  Therein lies the guise for understanding the deep rooted hated between Israelis/Palestinians.  Amin's quest for answers leads him to his Arabian relative complicit with Sihem who explains why. "Humiliation.  It takes away your taste for life.  Other people are trying to confine them {Palestinians} to ghettos until they're trapped in them for good.  The reason why they prefer to die.  When dreams are turned away, death becomes the ultimate salvation.  She died for others." Yet, Amin maintains, "Every Jew in Palestine is a bit of an Arab, and no Arab in Israel can deny that he's a little Jewish. So why so much hate between relatives?" The Attack is somewhat preachy but it does serve to open vital dialogue.

The Border of Truth by Victyoria Redel

The novel, The Border of Truth, is a present day story set in NYC juxtaposed against the time in Europe just prior to WWII.  The current story centers on a single, middle aged woman, Sarah.  Sarah is a Prof. researching the writings of a famous writer who died in Europe during the war.  Sarah is also in the midst of adopting a child from any war torn country that will permit an adoption.  The Holocaust escape story is told almost entirely in letters by a 17 year old Belgian boy, Itzak, who is fleeing Nazi persecution via whatever means necessary.  Itzak is writing his life's story to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt while pleading for her assistance to enter the U.S.A.  Itzah is travelling alone on board the Quanza, that  landed in NYC in Aug. 1940.  Entrance for most of the immigrants on board was denied.  The obvious irony to the reader, unbeknownst to Sarah, is Itzah, a.k.a. Richard, her father, has not revealed to her his true history.  Itzak's letters reveal his life as a boy in Brussels, his amazing means of escape and his guilt  for self-preservation.  The Border of Truth examines how history is recounted, what constitutes a family and why understanding the past matters.  Itzak wrote the First Lady, "Sometimes I think we need to tell our stories more than any one needs to hear our stories.  Maybe just so that anticipation or happiness can be reached for again."  The intertwining stories in The Border of Truth compell the reader to question how we discern perfidy in our lives & the world in which live.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a rare & most often times fatal cancer, Ewing Sarcoma, in her left jaw @ age 9.  Lucy endured 5 years of cancer treatment and underwent 30 reconstructive surgeries on her face.  Her initial cancer surgery removed most of her left jaw, leaving her terribly disfigured, or in her words "repulsive."  Lucy talks about her idenity being "…my face, my ugliness.  I was my face."  We sympathize with Lucy's isolation, depression & torture she suffered from the hands of her doctors & the cruelty of her peers.  However, I would not categorize her bio as a book of self-pity.  Rather, this is a beautifully written book of self-awareness & growth.   She writes with sensual abandon the love she had in caring for her horses and their total disregard for her appearance.  I was tuned to her philosophical quest for love & its meaning.  In her college years Lucy formed deep friendships.  "Through them I discovered what it was to love people.  There was an art to it, I discovered, which was not really all that different from the love that is necessary in the making of art.  It required the effort of always seeing them for themselves and not as I wish them to be."  Reading Lucy's autobiography dissolve away her physical constrictions & draw you deep into her poetic soul.  "I used to think truth was eternal…most truths are inherently unretainable, we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most basic things."

Train Dreams, a novella by Denis Johnson

Train Dreams is a gem of a tale by Nat'l Book Award winner, Denis Johnson.  Johnson takes us back to the old American west beginning in 1917 towards the end of the 20th C.  Our hero, Robert Grainer, was orphaned early on & raised amongst various "cousins."  He found labor as a young man cutting down trees prior to railroad construction .  Grainer lived a solitary & nomadic existence for most of his life except for the few years he married & had a baby girl.  Sadly, both perished in a devastating fire that engulfed an entire region.  Johnson's prose is both clear & ephemeral.  We view the changing landscapes and developments of the 20th C through the eyes of Grainer.  Train Dreams is a little jewel and should be valued for both its lyrical prose and magical glance back into our country's western expansion.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened, a Mostly True Memoir

This mostly absurd and irritating memoir by Jenny Lawson, happens to be a total waste of time.  I can appreciate irreverence & the bizarre, but this incredulous memoir lowers the bar somewhere below potty humor & outlandish bigotry.  Wait, you say I'm envious of her wit - bullshit - oops, I mean malarky.  I should have heeded Lawson's own early warning, "If you're easily grossed out, I recommend skipping this entire section - Or maybe getting another book that's less disturbing than this one."  What a fool, I didn't take her advice.  I didn't find her amusing, only confusing if not problematic:  "Like, did you know that Angelina Jolie hates Jewish people?  True story. {Editor's note:  Angelina Jolie does not hate Jewish people at all, and this is a total fabrication."  Still, I forged on, only to seriously question if Lawson is anti-Semetic.   She recalls her grandmother describing Hitler "as a sad little man who probably didn't get hugged enough."  Enough already, I usually read at least 100 pages before I set a book aside.  Don't be a fool, forget this rule, forget this "mostly true memoir."  I can't fathom how this memoir ever happened to be published.

The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell

J. G. Farrell's Booker Prize winning novel is based on the true uprising of Muslim soldiers on the British compound in Krishnapur in 1857.  The novel depicts bloody battles between the British & Muslim soldiers and the months of resistance & isolation of the Brits. The holdout depict the slow demise of civilization from hunger, disease & despair.  Farrell brilliantly writes of the British imperialistic convictions and the transformation of ideas of progress & equality.  England is far from being the only nation quilty of foreign domination or a prevailing class society.  The killings of so many Brits made it apparent "India itself was now a different place; the fiction of happy natives being led forward along the road to civilization could no longer be sustained." While under siege, issues of class and living in harmony are vigorously debated.   Many of the British captives maintained their's "a superior civilization…our advances in science and morality have so obviously found the best way of doing things." Yet, others came to differing epiphanies. "How alike we all are, really…There's so little difference between one man and another when one comes to think of it." This historic & discerning novel depicts an epic revolt amidst the downfall of varying convictions.