March Books

**Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante is a literary thriller about a retired orthopedic surgeon suffering from dementia and suspected of killing her best friend, Amanda who was found dead with four fingers surgically removed. The prime suspect, Dr. White doesn’t know whether she did it. Told in White’s fractured and eloquent voice, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these proud, forceful life-long friends. As the investigation deepens, White’s relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown children intensify and everyone wonders if White’s shattered memory is preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her hide it? “A startling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to reality through anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss.”

The End of Marking Time by C. J. West is a dystopian novel about gifted housebreaker, Michael O'Connor, who awakens inside an ultramodern criminal justice system where the Supreme Court has declared long term incarceration to be cruel and unusual punishment. Felons now enter reeducation programs where they must satisfy an army of counselors and a black box that teaches them everything they failed to learn from kindergarten through adulthood. Michael slowly realizes everything he does is evaluated to determine whether he lives or dies.

*Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje recounts a 1950s voyage by an 11-year-old boy from Colombo to England. For meals, he is seated at the “cat’s table”—far from the Captain’s Table—with a ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys. As the ship moves across the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, and into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another. One man talks with them about jazz and women, another opens the door to the world of literature. The narrator’s elusive, beautiful cousin Emily becomes his confidante, allowing him to see himself “with a distant eye” for the first time, and to feel the first stirring of desire. A well-written and reviewed ‘coming of age’ novel, but a little slow in places.

Lost Souls of Tennessee by Amy Franklin-Willis mines the fault lines in a Southern working-class family as forty-two-year-old Ezekiel Cooper and his mother, Lillian, journey from the 1940s to 1980s and Zeke moves from anointed son, to honorable sibling, to unhinged middle-aged man. After Zeke twin brother drowns and his wife divorces him, Zeke attempts to escape by leaving his two young daughters and his estranged mother and finds refuge with cousins in Virginia horse country. As severe weather, illness, and a new romance collide, Zeke has to decide the fate of his family. A good, but not great, southern voice makes a respectable debut.

The Night Train by Clyde Edgerton is set in 1963 when Dwayne Hallston discovers James Brown and wants to perform just like him and his black friend Larry aspires to play piano like Thelonius Monk. A dancing chicken and a mutual love of music help Dwayne and Larry as they try to achieve their dreams and maintain a friendship, even while the North Carolina culture makes it difficult. Not Edgerton's best, but it recalls our divided national history and how music sometimes helped bring us together.

Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right by Thomas Frank is described as “, a wonderfully insightful and sardonic look at why the worst economy since the 1930s has brought about the revival of conservatism.” Frank looks for the anger about the recent economic crisis but finds loud demands that the economic system be made even harsher on the recession's victims and that the winners should receive even grander prizes. Good documentation and humor but too repetitive and one-sided, even for someone who still wears an Obama baseball cap.

*The Drop by Michael Connelly is not a great book, but it is very well written and fun to read. Harry Bosch is dealing with a cold case and one that is very hot. DNA from a 1989 crime matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or are all of the lab's DNA cases questionable? Then Bosch's longtime nemesis, Councilman Irving demands that Harry handle the investigation of his son’s death. Bosch’s investigation discovers a killer operating unknown for decades and a political conspiracy that threatens the LA police department.

February Books Read

*Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel prize for economics, draws on an impressive stream of research to introduce his "machinery of the mind" model on human decision making to reveal the faults and capabilities of intuitive versus logical thinking—and how easily we slip away from our assumed rationality. He weaves threads of Charles Darwin, Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud and is “arguably the most important psychologist in history.” “Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of happiness and well-being .”

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta was a ‘notable book of 2011’ exploring a world after a “rapture” takes many people, some not even particularly deserving. The bewildered citizens of Mapleton have to figure out how to cope in an uncertain world where nothing is the same—not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children. Some join “the Guilty Remnant,” a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence or follow sketchy prophets like “Holy Wayne.” An interesting hypotheses with some sharp satire, but, to me, it was someone of a one-note song.

Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer, “one of our most talented archivists of family life, with its hidden crevasses and unforeseeable perils,” doesn’t live up to her successes with The Dive from Clausen’s Pier and Songs without Words. This collection of two novella and short stories suggests that Packer is a talented, insightful writer who wasn’t able to pull together a focused, single project in time to meet her publisher’s contract timetable.

The Silent Oligarch by Chris Morgan Jones has been compared to “the work of Deighton, Archer, and le Carré.” The story moves between London and Moscow, Kazakstan and the Caymans as private spy agencies duel for power and influence. A nondescript bureaucrat in a drab government agency secretly controls a vast business that dominates the nation’s oil industry, and enemies plot to bring him down. , Benjamin Webster, an investigator at a London corporate intelligence firm, finds the weakest link and brings down his quarry with wit and research rather than guns and bombs.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys' is a first novel offering a horrifying account of the forcible relocation of Lithuanians in the wake of the 1939 Russian invasion. For 16-year-old Lina, her mother, and her younger brother, this means deportation to a forced-labor camp in Siberia, where conditions are painfully like a Nazi concentration camps. Simply, but well-written, this would be a great gift for middle or high school students.

Dead Zero by Stephen Hunter may be the worst book I’ve read in several months. Hunter won a 2003 Pulitzer for literary criticism so I assumed he would be thoughtful, insightful, excellent writer—bad assumption! The book is a series of compound clichés and predictable crises involving two almost super-human snipers trying to unravel a conspiracy deep in the heart of the intelligence community. The strongest part of the book is Hunter’s “hallmark accuracy on modern killing technologies.”

2012 Books Read-January

The Best of Me by Nicolas Sparks is another best-selling “chick lit” bestseller. Twenty-five years after their passionate first love, Amanda and Dawson are summoned home for the funeral of the mentor who encouraged their high school romance. Carrying out his instruction, “they discover undeniable truths about the choices they have made.” An overabundance of coincidences lead to a dramatic, but sappy, ending that only the most romantic will enjoy.

*The Price of Civilization:Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by Jeffrey Sachs offers a “a forceful, impassioned, and personal voice, (offering)… a searing and incisive diagnosis of our country’s economic ills with an urgent call for Americans to restore the virtues of fairness, honesty, and foresight as the foundations of national prosperity.” Comprehensive (almost overwhelming) data, excellent analysis and skillful writing make this a timely and important book for anyone interested in the global and U.S. economies.

The Litigators by John Gresham is a book that members of the liberal elite (and those of us who aspire to it) will enjoy. Gresham employs his standard David and Goliath plot and superb story-telling skills to expose the foibles and dark side of big pharma, tort attorneys and lawyers in general. Finley & Figg is “a boutique law firm” specializing in quickie divorces and DUIs. Change stumbles in when David Zinc, walks away from his fast-track career at a fancy downtown firm and lands on the doorstep of F&F. Finley & Figg now think they are ready to take on Goliath in the form of Varrick Labs who is under fire because several of their customers have suffered heart attacks.

*11/22/63 by Stephen King is a nostalgic novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—“a thousand page tour de force”. Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine who is shown a portal to 1958 and challenged to prevent the Kennedy assassination. Jake enters a world some of us remember with Elvis and JFK, of cheap gas, big cars and sock hops. Torn between his ‘commitments’ to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian, Jake’s story is a tribute to a simpler era and a “gripping exercise in escalating suspense.”

39 Steps is Patrick Barlow's award winning stage adaptation, based on John Buchan's gripping whodunit--filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. The play is the next production of Santa Barbara’s ETC and will be much more fun to see than it was to read. In print, the play sounds overly slapstick, but four actors can play one hundred and thirty-nine roles with panache. When we saw it in NY, it kept the cast breathless and us on the edge of our seats.

**The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar is the “great panoramic social novel that Los Angeles deserves.” Araceli is the live-in maid in the Torres-Thompson household. She is the last of three Mexicans employed and financial pressure is also causing disturbing domestic arguments. After a particularly dramatic fight, Araceli wakes to an empty house—except for the two sons she’s never had to interact with before. Their parents are unreachable, so she does the only thing she can think of and heads to the bus stop to seek out their grandfather. None of the family and much of Southern California will ever forget the adventure that follows. With shades of The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tortilla Curtain and Babel, this empathetic insightful novel was named as the Boston Globe’s Best Fiction Book of 2011

Bob's Best Books of 2011

FICTION:

Room by Emma Donoghue's is about, Jack, a typical 5-year-old who likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma—but he has lived his entire life in an 11 x 11 room, sharing the tiny space with his mother and a nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the real world, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to create a normal life for her son. When they achieve the dream of experiencing “Outside,” the consequences are frightening. “Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live.” An amazingly original novel of survival, discovery and growth—an extended view of moving outside the comfort zone of “Plato’s Cave.”

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall describes the travails of Golden Richards, the title patriarch, his four wives and 28 children. Golden's houses are the sort of places where the dog often wears underwear and a child or two doesn't. “Golden may be hapless, distracted, and deceitful, but he is large-hearted and so is his story.” Like John Irving and Pat Conroy, Udall is a great storyteller who sees humor in the human tragedy and enjoys pyrotechnics.

The Murderer’s Daughters by Susan Meyers begins with young Lulu finding her mother dead and her sister wounded at the hands of their alcoholic father. The novel traces the trauma’s impact for 30 years. Rejected by family, they are sent to an orphanage, where Lulu turns tough and calculating, searching for safety and control until they manipulate a way into an adoptive family. Lulu is a great student, becomes a doctor, marries an understanding husband and has two intuitive children who are confused the secretiveness about her past. Her sister, Merry becomes a victim witness advocate who is dependent on Lulu, drugs and alcohol, and looks for love in all the wrong places. In the background, their imprisoned father looms until a crisis forces Lulu and Merry to confront what happened years ago. I found the book psychologically complex, believable and enjoyable.

Father of the Rain by Whiting Award–winner Lily King is narrated by the insightful daughter of an alcoholic father, follows their evolving relationship over four decades. Daley watches her charismatic WASPy father flounder through divorce, disgrace and increasing alcoholism. With a caring, socially responsible mother and self-imposed distance from him, she eventually returns to her father's side after he is no longer capable of living alone. Dealing with deep and complex emotions, “King's latest is original and deftly drawn, the work of a master psychological portraitist.”

Bill Warrington’s Last Chance by James King was 2009 Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award–winner April Shea is a bright 14-year-old girl who experiments with pot and constantly squabbles with her single mother, Marcy. Together, Marcy and April care for Marcy's 79-year-old father, Bill, a Korean War vet, retired salesman, failed father and now, an Alzheimer’s patient. Bill longs to bring his family together for a reunion, but with no takers on this idea, Bill and April take off for California, where April plans on joining a band and Bill imagines he can force a reunion. With shades of “Death of a Salesman” and The Notebook, King fashions a good story with a terrific ending.

Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld (Yale law professor who is married to the “Tiger Mom”) uses the 1920 bombing of Wall Street as the backdrop for a superbly written novel and well-crafted historical mystery. The ambitious plot provides a believable solution to the never-solved search for the person/s responsible for the death and injury of more than 400 people. Rubenfeld weaves such historical figures as Marie Curie and Sigmund Freud through the shifting landscape with a historian's factual touch and a storyteller's eye for the dramatic. I was enthralled as Dr. Stratham Younger, his beautiful fiancée, scientist Colette Rousseau, and Det. James Littlemore succeed in providing a reasonable solution to an important ‘cold case.’ “This fat book is heir to Caleb Carr’s The Alienist.”

NON FICTION

Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Pulitzer Prize winner, Ron Suskind, tells how Wall Street struggled to save itself while a young president with great gifts tries to master the world’s toughest job, and rescue the economy in the first real management job of his life. Suskind is critical of Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, and Larry Summers, (especially Summers)—all of whom had too much confidence. His heroes are Paul Volker, Gary Gensler (CFTC), Jim Weinstein (CECS) and Pete Rouse. The ensemble cast ranges from the titans of high finance to a new generation of reformers, from petulant congressmen and acerbic lobbyists to a tight circle of White House advisers—and, ultimately, to a unique portrait of the president himself. “Based on hundreds of interviews and filled with piercing insights and startling disclosures, Confidence Men brings into focus the collusion and conflict between the nation’s two capitals.”

The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature by Timothy Ferris convincingly explains how and why science was an integral part of the intellectual toolkit of the leaders of political and individual liberty. A readable history of science and intellectual thought, Ferris begins with profiles of seventeenth-century philosophical pioneers, continues with champions of the Enlightenment’s intersection of science and self-government, such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, and reviews contemporary threats to this tradition. “Lucid and captivating... Ferris’s clear and educative account makes for an enjoyable read.”

This Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum is “a wake-up call and a call to collective action”. They analyze the four challenges we face—globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation’s chronic deficits, and our pattern of excessive energy consumption—and spell out what we need to do now to sustain the American dream and preserve American power in the world. Friedman and Mandelbaum believe that the recovery of American greatness is within reach and offer a five-part formula for prosperity that could enable us to cope successfully with the current challenges.

Examined Lives by James Miller combines short biographies and synopses of 12 philosophers’ ideas of wisdom. The book is aimed at people like me who are intrigued by the history of philosophy but not prepared to take on the original texts. Miller introduces Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes, Seneca, Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Nietzsche, then describes how their mental abstractions were buffeted by demands of material or political realities that sometimes led contemporaries and posterity to bridle at inconsistencies between their words and deeds.

December Books

**Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Pulitzer Prize winner, Ron Suskind, tells how Wall Street struggled to save itself while a young president with great gifts tries to master the world’s toughest job, and rescue the economy in the first real management job of his life. Suskind is critical of Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, and Larry Summers, (especially Summers)—all of whom had too much confidence. His heroes are Paul Volker, Gary Gensler (CFTC), Jim Weinstein (CECS) and Pete Rouse. The ensemble cast ranges from the titans of high finance to a new generation of reformers, from petulant congressmen and acerbic lobbyists to a tight circle of White House advisers—and, ultimately, to the president himself, as you’ve never before seen him. Based on hundreds of interviews and filled with piercing insights and startling disclosures, Confidence Men brings into focus the collusion and conflict between the nation’s two capitals

*Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson captures s the intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries ( personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing). Jobs , warts and all, is still portrayed as a creative genius who realized the power of integrating design, creativity and technology. Isaacson’s masterful biography is “instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.”

The Lion in Winter by James Goldman originally opened on Broadway in 1966, was the basis of two successful movies and an excellent 2011 performance by Santa Barbara’s Ensemble Theater Company. Set during Christmas 1183, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife , whom he has had imprisoned since 1173. The story concerns the gamesmanship between Henry, Eleanor, their three surviving sons Richard, Geoffrey, and John, their guest, Phillip II of France. Historically creative, the script is beautifully written, and “explores themes of dysfunctional family, political maneuvering, war and peace, as well as aging, death, inheritance, and posterity.”