September Books

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Phillip Pullman is relatively faithful in style, time line, and events to the gospel canon-though Pullman has twins born to Mary, one called Jesus, and the other Christ. As children, Christ is a goody-goody and Jesus the popular one. Jesus and Christ continue down separate but intertwined paths. Jesus becomes a philosopher-revolutionary and Christ is the seemingly savvy brother. Pullman's story “reveals” how the politics and structure of the institutional church were plotted by power-hungry men, who used the renown of Jesus and his well-meaning brother as pawns in a corrupt game.

*The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt reads like a Coen brothers’ script for a retelling of the Don Quixote legend—although their quest is initially to track down and kill a prospector. The brothers journey from Oregon to San Francisco, and eventually find their target in the Sierra foothills, after meeting a witch, a bear, a dead Indian, a parlor of drunken floozies, and a gang of murderous fur trappers. Initially Charlie is the “lead man,” but Eli, the rotund, deadpan narrator, develops personal insight, morals and leadership along the way. “DeWitt has produced a genre-bending frontier saga that is exciting, funny, and…moving.”

*Notes at an Exhibition by Cornwall’s Patrick Gale describes the impact of mental illness on a family of a brilliant, but troubled artist, and her family. Each chapter is introduced by a note from a posthumous exhibition of Rachel Kelly. The book is artfully constructed and told through several voices as Gale portrays Rachel, her Quaker husband and their four children, with insight and caring detail to each of them and to her art/creativity.

Frenchman’s Cove by Daphne du Maurier described the revolt of Lady Dona St. Columb against the boring confines of high society in the 18th century. She retreats to the Cornish country house where chance leads her to meet a French pirate and discovers that “her passions and thirst for adventure have never been more aroused.” A classic “bodice buster” that will disappoint fans of Ian Fleming or Tom Clancey.

The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier was the first of the Cornwall books during our visit. A University of London chemical researcher, asks Richard to stay at Kilmarth, an ancient house near the Cornish coast. Here, Richard drinks a potion and finds himself at the same location—but in the fourteenth century. The effects of the drink wear off but it is wildly addictive, and Richard cannot resist traveling back and forth in time. He eventually finds emotional refuge with a beautiful woman of the past who is also trapped in a loveless marriage. Reminiscent of H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, the book is a professionally developed yarn of history, romance, and self deception.

August Books

A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay (Sarah’s Key) fails to live up to her previous successful novel. Parisian architect Antoine Rey and his sister, Mélanie, celebrate her 40th birthday where they vacationed until their mother died there in 1974. Upon returning, Mélanie is gripped by a shocking repressed memory of her mother’s affair and loses control of the car. A skeptical Antoine investigates as an upsetting chain of events unfurls in his own family. “This perceptive portrait of a middle-aged man's delayed coming-of-age story rates as a seductive, suspenseful, and trés formidable keeper.”

The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin provides the life story of the two-foot eight-inches tall Mercy Lavinia “Vinnie” Bump over a century after her story-book life. Although encouraged to live a life hidden away from the public, she becomes a ‘showboat freak,’ then reaches out to impresario P. T. Barnum, marries the tiny superstar General Tom Thumb in the wedding of the century, and became the world’s most unexpected celebrity. An engaging novel of public triumphs and personal tragedies, this “is the irresistible epic of a heroine who conquered the country with a heart as big as her dreams.”

* The Snowman by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø has been translated into 40 languages and compared to Stieg Larsson fans and Tom Harris. A child wakes up to find his mother has disappeared and, a snowman has appeared out of nowhere, the calling card of a terrifying serial killer. “Brilliantly crafted, this credible and dark page-turner fully fleshes out the characters. “ Is the Snowman a suspicious doctor, a notorious playboy, or someone on the police force? Despite a few improbabilities, the plot is intense and the book is hard to put down.

Sunset Park by Paul Auster is a decent novel by a much respected writer. New York native Miles Heller now cleans out foreclosed south Florida homes, falls in love with an underage girl and flees to Brooklyn where he moves in with a group of artists squatting in the borough's Sunset Park neighborhood. The narrative broadens to take in the lives of Miles's roommates and estranged parents. “The fractured narrative takes in an impressive swath of life and (recent) history.

**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.”

*The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan is “one of the most original, audacious, and terrifying novels in years.” Jake is over 200, but nonstop sex and exercise with a high protein diet have kept him physically healthy, but so distraught and lonely he is actually contemplating suicide—even if it means ending a thousand years old legend. “…A powerful, definitive new version of the werewolf legend—mesmerizing and incredibly sexy.”

July Books

*Blood Money: a Novel of Espionage by David Ignatius of the Washington Post is “a terrific, believable novel about the intersection of politics, ethics and finance.” A new CIA intelligence unit is trying to buy peace with America's enemies, but someone is killing its agents. Sophie Marx is asked to figure out who's doing the killing and why. She starts with Alphabet Capital, a London hedge fund that provides cover for this secret operation, but the investigation soon widens to include several Middle Eastern capitals. She wonders if her hard-nosed boss, Jeffrey Gertz, his genial mentor at headquarters or the well-mannered head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate are giving her the whole story.


A Little Death in Dixie by Lisa Turner is a “tightly-plotted novel that turns the screws and sends readers racing to its surprise conclusion." Well, I thought it was professionally crafted but not great. One of Memphis' most seductive and notorious socialites has vanished. Is she's off on another drunken escapade or a victim of foul play? Aetective Billy Able quickly discovers a complex web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, and sordid secrets including a few of Billy's own.

*My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands by Chelsea Handler is “as much fun as getting drunk and waking up in some stranger's bed.” I wouldn’t know, but she hilariously reports on photographing her parents having sex at seven and growing up to research the joys of one-night stands, i.e., “having sex early so you're not months into a relationship before you discover he's into ‘anal beads and duct tape’." She finds a date on ChocolateSingles.com., sleeps with a "little midget," and ‘enjoys’ a number of would-be partners less well adjusted than herself or with penises too small to consider. Some of the stories might not be completely true, but it would be a great loss to (mostly) single men (and her readers) if she eventually settles down with just one.

Swamplandia by Karen Russell is “a suspenseful, deeply haunted book” according to the NYT. Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has always lived at Swamplandia, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when cancer fells Ava’s mother, their headliner, the family slips into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a ghost, and her brilliant older brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called “The World of Darkness”. As Ava sets out on a mission through the haunted swamps, we are drawn into a lush and dramatic terrain that challenges the concreteness of reality. Wonderful reviews, superb writing, and almost too imaginative for my tastes.

Flourish by Martin Seligman Seligman, the guru of the "positive psychology" movement, who abandons his previous emphasis on learned optimism and happiness, which he now views as too simplistic. This examination of how individuals might achieve a richer, multilayered goal: a life of well-being could have been his most important book. He identifies four factors that can help individuals thrive: positive emotion, engagement with what one is doing, a sense of accomplishment, and good relationships. Unfortunately, he does too much “cut and paste" from grant proposals, course syllabi and previous papers to provide more than an occasional nugget amidst the muck.

A Singular Woman:The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother by Janny Scott portrays Dunham as a feminist, an unconventional, independent spirit, a cultural anthropologist, and an international development officer who surely helped shape the internationalist world view of her son. The book is tirelessly researched, adds to our knowledge about her Indonesian experience, but sometimes gets lost in extraneous details… “a straightforward, deeply reported account-- a complicated portrait of an outspoken, independent-minded woman with a life of unconventional choices.”

June Books

*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.

Nose Down, Eyes Up by Merrill Markoe features Jimmy, a canine seminar leader who instructs members of his pack in the art of manipulating their human masters. Jimmy's canine wisdom is made available when his owner, Gil, an unlucky in love handyman learns how to communicate with dogs. When Gil shoots down Jimmy's idea that he is Gil's biological son, Jimmy insists on meeting his birth mother, who happens to belong to Gil's now-remarried ex-wife. A series of setbacks beset the duo, and “the tribulations provide lessons in life, love and finding happiness.” Fun, cute, but hardly great literature.

In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Petroff won the Minotaur Books/MWA Best First Crime Novel award. Det. Simon Ziele has abandoned big-city policing for the quiet dullness of a town in Westchester County when someone kills a Columbia mathematics graduate student whose brilliance evoked jealousy in her peers, in her home. Ziele's investigation is soon joined by Alistair Sinclair, a Columbia criminologist who thinks he knows the killers identity. The period detail, characterizations and plotting are well-done, but I found the plot predictable and a little slow.

*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.

Dixie Divas by Virginia Brown introduces the Divas--a group of 12 women from the small Mississippi town near Memphis, Tennessee. This eclectic group holds a very private monthly meeting with chocolate, alcohol and an occasional transvestite stripper as the main staples. The main characters are Trinket, a 51 year old divorcee who just moved back to Cherry Hill and her cousin, Bitty, recently divorced from her fourth husband Senator Hollander who is discovered murdered in her coast closet. Most of the Divas work to help find the killer while we also learn about the history of the area, the people with a slice of southern small town living. Too clever by a third, but still a fun, quick read.

May Books

*Three Stages of Amazement by Carol Edgarian's looks at the way the smart and privileged cope when luck turns against them. Dr. Charlie Pepper moves his family to San Francisco to start Nimbus Surgical Devices, just in time for the 2008 market crash. While he scrambles to find funding, Lena tries to cope with a premature infant with multiple health issues, a young son, and her own dysfunctional family. They are teetering on the edge when Charlie is offered support from Lena’s uncle Cal, the man behind her father's failed business. “Edgarian is in fine form, giving readers a well-told story with characters of great depth and complexity, but it is her crystalline writing and the unique narrative tone that elevates this the most.”

*Hector’s Search for Happiness by French psychiatrist, François Lelord, is a charming, whimsical fable around Hector's pursuit of the elements that comprise true happiness. Written with fairy-tale simplicity, the story takes the psychiatrist on a trip around the world to learn more about what makes people both happy and sad. His observations result in keen nuggets for attaining joy in life. The book is profoundly and deceptively simple and engaging.

The Priest’s Graveyard by Ted Dekke is “beguiling, compelling, challenging, and riveting.” Danny is a Bosnian trying to escape memories of a tragic war that took his mother's life, currently serving as a priest and as an avenging angel who shows powerful, evil men the error of their ways. Renee is the frail, helpless victim of one such man who now lives to satisfy justice by destroying him. But when Danny and Renee's paths become entangled, everything goes awry in a suspenseful, engaging manner.

A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block is not one of the author’s best 50+ novels. After being forced out of the NYPD, Matthew Scudder has given up drink and takes the reader on a tour of most of NYC’s AA meeting places after a fellow 8-stepper is killed while attempting to atone for past sins. Scudder solves the mystery, stays sober and manages to bore me more than any of Block’s previous books.

* The Next Decade by George Friedman compares the position of the United States today to that of Britain in 1910, and argues that the U.S. is an "unintended empire" and that its president is a "global emperor," because of the size of the country's economy. Friedman argues for an end to a reluctance to entangle the country in global affairs. He examines the past strategies of Presidents Bush and Clinton and stresses what President Obama and his successor must do about terrorism and technology to foster relations with the Middle East, Europe, the Western Pacific, Latin America, Africa, Israel, Iran, and Russia. He doesn't play favorites, criticizing their policies and comparing them with presidents who possessed more Machiavellian attributes. While his ideas are well-researched and compelling, Friedman makes some leaps of logic that some readers (including myself) can find confusing.

Recent Reads

*The Love of My Youth by Mary Gordon is part literary novel, part travelogue and partially a review of “roads not taken.” Miranda and Adam were young lovers but haven’t seen each other in 30 years. Their heady reunion takes place in Rome, a city of myths and ghosts Adam knows well. Miranda is there for an environmental health conference. Their intense conversations are psychologically intricate and complexly metaphysical and aesthetic that they seem a bit theatrical. We learn that their blissful love bloomed when they were 16 and slowly withered during their twenties as Adam devoted himself to becoming a great pianist and Miranda searched for a way to help make the world a better place. The more they talk on their Roman rambles, the more the reader wonders what finally drove them apart—and why their spouses don’t worry about their extended togetherness.

*The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is about Enzo, a rescue lab terrier mix, adopted by race car driver Denny Swift. Enzo is a new age philosopher who hopes to be reincarnated as a person after watching Denny meet and marry Eve, have a daughter, Zoë, and risk his savings and his life to make it on the professional racing circuit. Enzo, frustrated by his inability to speak and his lack of opposable thumbs, watches Denny's old racing videos, coins koanlike aphorisms that apply to both driving and life. When Denny hits an extended rough patch, Enzo is a “reliable companion and a likable enough narrator, though the string of Denny's bad luck stories strains believability.”

*The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly is the fourth legal thriller featuring Mickey Haller the LA L.A. lawyer who uses his Lincoln town car as an office. A foreclosure client, Lisa Trammel, may be fighting too hard to keep her home and becomes the prime suspect when a mortgage banker, is killed. Strong circumstantial evidence points to Trammel, but Haller crafts an impressive defense that concludes with "the fifth witness." “Connelly has a sure command of the legal and procedural details of criminal court, and even manages to make the arcane, shady world of foreclosure interesting.” The novel is timely because of its description of shady mortgage lending/foreclosure practices and because its publication coincides with the release of the movie, “The Lincoln Lawyer."

Ape House by Sara Guren is a disappointing follow-up to her wonderful Water for Elephants. This clumsy outing begins with the bombing of a university research center dedicated to the study of how bonobo apes communicate. The blast occurs one day after reporter John Thigpen visits the lab and is entranced with the bonobos. After a series of personal setbacks, Thigpen pursues the story of the apes and subsequent explosions for a Los Angeles tabloid. “Unfortunately, the best characters in this overwrought novel don't have the power of speech.”

**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 only 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 Incredible Mrs. Chadwick: the Most Notorious Woman of Her Age by John S. Crosbie is a blend of fact and fiction about the career of a woman who became fabulously wealthy by borrowing huge sums of money, backed by forged bonds and a story about being the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie. Crosbie does a creditable job of research, fills in the blanks with reasonable assumptions and is a competent writer. The book, however, is less exciting than the story deserves.

*The Physics of the Impossible by Micho Kaku introduces complex theories of physics to general readers. His knowledge of Physics is matched by his knowledge of science fiction and his references to pop culture—Star Trek to Terminator 3—that engage the reader and help make the frontier of physics almost engaging. Kaku suggests that time travel, teleportation, alternative universes don’t violate known laws of physics and could be achieved in the next century. He also “investigates the moral issues of futuristic technology…and asks provoking questions about the fate of humankind.”

March Books

Retirementology: Rethinking the American Dream in a New Economy by Gregory B. Salsbury was an excellent idea that, to me, is poorly executed. Salsbury attempts to apply behavioral finance to retirement planning during an economic downturn. He identifies classic mistakes in earning, spending, saving, investing, and borrowing. His chart identifying common financially unhealthy traits such as procrastination and overconfidence along with the consequences of such traits is relatively helpful. It is good basic stuff, but there are no new insights.

Hell’s Corner is David Baldacci's “implausible fifth Camel Club novel (and) disappoints with cartoonish plotting and characterization.” After the president persuades former assassin Oliver Stone to tackle the growing threat of Russian drug gangs, Stone finds himself in Lafayette Park when gunfire breaks out and a bomb explodes. Taken off his original mission, Stone tries to identify the forces behind the attack with assistance from the “Camel Club”. “Those who prefer intelligence in their political thrillers will have to look elsewhere.”

*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 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.

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova is narrated by Sarah Nickerson is a 37-year-old, overachieving multi-tasker with a demanding job at a Boston consulting firm. Her husband, Bob, works at a struggling start-up and shares the stresses and pressures of rearing their three young children in an affluent suburb. A car accident and traumatic brain injury leave Sarah with “left neglect,” a lack of awareness of anything to her left, including the left side of her own body. Sarah’s mother, Helen, can help, but their relationship has been rocky. Seven-year-old son, Charlie is diagnosed with ADHD, Bob’s job is in jeopardy, but there is “healing of body, mind, and mother-daughter relationship and acceptance that ‘normal is overrated’.” A good book, but not up to Genova’s Still Alice.

The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfield includes Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and several important American politicians and millionaires in a gripping historical novel. Freud is an all-too-human man of obvious charm and originality; Jung is cold, calculating and obviously envious; and fictional narrator Dr. Stratham Younger is an admiring early Freudian who helps ease readers through some of Rubenfeld's longer monologues about life and architecture in New York in 1909. A better plot than Rubenfeld’s sequel, but this book could have benefited from the improved writing (or editing) of Death Instinct.

Strategic Moves by Stuart Woods is a relatively “weak entry in the long-running Stone Barrington series.” Super lawyer Stone grapples with both financial and international intrigue, beds a couple of gorgeous women, eats wonderful meals at Elaine's, drinks lots of Knob Creek, negotiates incredible agreements with and for his clients (who include an international arms dealer and the CIA), while staying a step ahead of the Mossad. Woods is an entertaining, productive writer probably won't win the Nobel prize this year.

*Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay captures “the insane world of the Holocaust and the efforts of the few good people who stood up against it.” Focusing on the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver, then transported to Auschwitz, the novel captures the terror and courage of Sarah who lives through the ordeal and the lasting impact on France. Told from the prospective of forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond as she, her arrogant, unfaithful husband and their 11 year-old daughter cope with personal and family issues.

**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.”

House Rules by Jody Picoult is a NYT’s best seller about an eighteen-year old with Asperger's syndrome, and his devoted single mother who has sacrificed her career, marriage and other son to help Jacob function. When he is accused of murder, his symptomatic behavior makes him look guilty. Picoult's deals intelligently with questions about autism and Asperger's, “the whodunit is stretched sitcom-thin and handled poorly, with characters withholding information from the reader throughout.” The book is engaging, but has too many voices with none asking the important, obvious questions.