*Let Me Be Frank With
You by Richard Ford has four
connected novellas, almost an afterword to his highly praised Frank Bascome trilogy. This book has the retired realtor confronting
his 70ls, a lonely life, and, at the
same time, dealing with the impact of ravages
associated with Hurricane Sandy, aging,
and failed marriages. This isn’t Ford’s best book, but it shows that why still he
is considered one of the best of contemporary novelists.
The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit is the
collective story of the women who were silent partners of one of the strangest and most important research projects in modern history. It's a
testament to the remarkable women who
carved out a life for themselves, in spite of the chaos of the war,
isolation and the smothering impact of
intense secrecy. Despite excellent
reviews, I found this debut novel’s collective voice to be a bit strained.
Intimate Apparel by Lynn Notage is the script for February’s
production of the Ensemble Theater. Esther is a black seamstress in New York
City in 1905 who sews intimate apparel for
clients from wealthy white patrons to prostitutes. Despite lacking beauty, she
still longs to find a husband and start
a beauty parlor. After corresponding with George, a worker on the Panama Canal,
they decide to marry, sight unseen, but he betrays Esther and fritters away her
money. While the plot is predictable and a bit sexist, I am confident that the
cast will make the script come alive.
Stumbling on
Happiness by Harvard psychologist Gilbert Daniel describes the foibles of
imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our
tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions. Drawing from research in
psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics,
Gilbert discusses what has been discovered about the uniquely human ability to
imagine the future, the capacity to predict how much we will like it when we
get there and why we fail to understand ourselves. Although witty and
accessible, I still found the book a bit pedantic in places.
Gray Mountain by John Grisham is another
of his enjoyable, formulaic “David and Goliath” novels wherein a young attorney
takes on an evil adversary. After losing
her job at New York City's largest law firm after the economic crisis, Samantha becomes an unpaid intern in a small Appalachian
community, where she stumbles upon dangerous secrets, does battle again
nefarious coal companies who will do anything (including murder) to hide their
abuses of workers and the environment. Grisham keeps even jaded readers
interested with colorful background data, well-drawn characters and a touch of
suspense and romance.
World Made by Hand
by James Howard Kunstler is set “a few decades into the future after global catastrophes have destroyed industrial civilization." The
inhabitants of Union Grove struggle to
deal with a new way of life over the course of an eventful summer and plays out against a panorama of abandoned
highways and empty houses, horses mowing in the hayfields, and neighbors
working shoulder-to-shoulder to survive. “A powerful tale of love, loss,
violence, and desperation…(Kunstler) depicts a surprisingly lyrical, tender,
and hopeful new America struggling to be born.”
**The Rosie Effect
by Graeme Simsion is a much anticipated sequel to The Rosie Project (my favorite book of 2013). Don Tillman (think a
slightly more adaptable Sheldon Cooper of
“Big Bang Theory) and Rosie are now living in New York and unexpectedly
expecting their first child. As Don
tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, getting his friends to
reconcile, servicing the industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half his
apartment, helping Dave save his business and marriage while staying on the
right side of his social worker, he almost misses the biggest challenge until he realizes that his compulsive
helpfulness might cause actually him to lose Rosie.
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