Children are often much more imaginative than adults. This can lead to horrible things like nightmares, but in books their inventiveness often keeps them alive where adults have failed; especially in coming-of-age novels. The Book of Lost Things manages this idea exceptionally well.

In this story, David has recently lost his mother and longs to have her back. He’s also gained a younger sibling and a step-mother whom he in uninterested in. He copes by escaping into books, a medium his late mother had often praised. As he delves deeper into this story-world the lines between reality and fiction blur and David believe himself to be entering a new world. Here he encounters new dangers that threaten the family he resents.

As David becomes more involved in trying to survive as well as protect his friends in this world and his family in the next, he begins to grow up. With astounding rapidity he must face his own fears, learn to solve problems and finally is left to fend for himself. His ingenuity often saves him while he learns the rules of things. It’s sad that as we learn the rules we often forget to be inventive, which is why I believe coming-of-age novels are so popular. They allow us to experience the best of both worlds.

This novel follows the normal template without being overly trite or entirely predictable. The author’s own inventiveness and word choice bring the story to life in a way that most books fall short of. Connolly does not pull any punches in telling his story, death and depravity are not hidden from the young boy yet nothing is obscene, just realistic. This book receives my whole hearted recommendation.

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Suppose the tragic old man raging amid the storm is not on a heath but in a cornfield. Suppose that he is not an ancient British king named Lear but a prosperous Iowa farmer named Laurence Cook, and that his daughters are not Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril, but Caroline, Rose, and Ginny. Then suppose that what he suddenly suggests dividing among them is not his kingdom but his vast acreage of prime farmland. Before you say that it sounds pretty corny, consider what a plot lifted from the well-known Stratford playwright can become in the hands of a subtle and intelligent thief. The Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev wrote a fine, bitter novella called A Lear of the Steppes, and now Jane Smiley, author of Ordinary Love & Good Will and The Age of Grief, has written a fine, bitter, baffled, suspenseful novel that could as easily be called A Lear of the Plains. One thing that saves A Thousand Acres from being a schematic recasting of Shakespeare’s play is that the plains themselves share center stage with the tragic family fighting over a piece of them. The perfect flatness, as awe- inspiring as it is monotonous, the stunning heat and numbing cold, the dust and mud that defeat the most vigilant farm woman’s efforts to keep them out of the house, the storms gathering on the horizon, the marshes and flooded quarries ”where the surface of the earth dipped below the surface of the sea within it”-all are as precisely evoked as the clothes, food, manners, and intimate feelings of the hardworking farm people who have lived with them for generations. Another thing is that Smiley engineers a deft turning of the tables. Ginny is the narrator, so we get Goneril’s version and a Lear who is more wrong than wronged. The story is really about the transformation of Ginny, through painfully earned knowledge, from a compliant, trouble-suppressing, guilt- ridden daughter and wife into an angry-though still ambivalent-independent woman who has to cast off the only kind of life she has known. The crucial role played by a neighbor’s returned prodigal son, who has been converted to vegetarianism and organic farming, puts ecological as well as feminist issues on the table that Smiley has turned, though she has too much respect for her characters to make them figures in a tract.
Above all, Smiley’s formidable, stoical, laconic Lear, Laurence Cook, however abysmal his dark side (the novel is a bit overladen with dark sides), retains his tragic stature. In his adamant narrowness-his fatalistic motto is ”what you get is what you deserve”-he makes the other characters seem shallow and temporizing, and his daughter remains in awe of the man she has repudiated: ”Perhaps there is a distance that is the optimum distance for seeing one’s father, farther than across the supper table or across the room, somewhere in the middle distance: he is dwarfed by trees or the sweep of a hill, but his features are still visible. Well, that is a distance I never found. He was never dwarfed by the landscape-the fields, the buildings, the white pine windbreak were as much my father as if he had grown them and shed them like a husk.” Even with an anticlimactic ending in place of the original’s wrenching close, Smiley has succeeded in transplanting something of Lear’s mythic power to the bleak American plains. A-

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Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business by Dolly Parton

Most people look at the cover of this book and see a trampy blonde with big boobs, big hair and too much make-up. What they don’t see, and many choose never to see, is the strong, spiritual, caring, emotional, self-conscious person underneath the glitz and glamour. I once read in an interview that Dolly modeled her look after the town tramp. Again, most people take that at face value and don’t see what lies beneath. That in rural east Tennessee a tramp seems like a magical thing with her make-up, tight clothes that couldn’t possible be hand-me-downs, and big hair that must contain something other than what God gave her.

This book gives most of us a glimpse of what rough rural roads Dolly had to travel to get to where she is today. People who think she is trashy are the ones who need to read this the most. I’ve always known she had a heart of gold, but this book proved to me that it might actually be platinum.

The first movie I ever saw was “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” when I was six month old, by the time I was five I could sing every word by heart. Thus began my love affair with Dolly. To anybody out there who thinks she is not a good role model, you must not have grown up in a log cabin in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains. She dug her way out of there, not many can say that, and now she give back so much to the community, even fewer can say that. If it wasn’t for Dolly lots of folks would never have had the chance to learn to read or have a job off their own farm.

It’s also nice to find out how human some celebrities are. Who knew one of Dolly’s fond memories is the same as mine, making snow-cream. For those of you confused, that’s what us poor folks make in lieu of ice cream.

Dolly was wonderfully descriptive in this book; I laughed out loud and cried in public places while reading it. I’ve always wanted to meet Dolly Parton, but after reading this book I might move Carl Dean ahead of her on my list.

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A Simple Plan

This book has disaster written all over it. From the way that the characters keep slowly talking themselves into things and revising their thought processes, you can always feel the slow drift away from their originally good intentions. A Simple Plan remind us that rarely are things so simple.

In Scott Smith’s novel, a group of men find a bag of abandoned money. They argue over what to do with it, trying to determine what’s right. The beauty of this book is how many ways it finds to present the concept of what is “right”. Without giving away details, I’ll give an example from an ethics class I took that also illustrates this point. One classmate said it was wrong to pollute because it could hurt people. Another argued that it was a company’s duty to pollute so that legislation could be enacted that would protect the people from any company polluting. So which is truly “right”? One company protecting the people near it, or a company which forces a government to protect all its people?

In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to ask these questions. However, this world is full of humans and therefore can’t be perfect. As the story progresses it is fraught with tension. Each person is afraid of getting caught or getting turned in. Each person has their own sense of how to handle the situation correctly. Each person has a different opinion of what is morally right.

Each person does not make it out alive.

Smith’s book is an in-depth look at how horribly people can behave whether or not they think what they are doing is right. It’s an engaging read and one that I recommend wholly.

- Kristin Diverxtrme

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Ryan is accustomed to loss. Her father passed away five years ago, she doesn’t relate to her best friends anymore, and she is a Cubs fan. The anniversary of her father’s death happens to land on opening day, so Ryan skips school to go to the game. This is where she meets Nick. Another Cubs fan and also a new kid from her school. Thus, starting their friendship.

Nick’s friendship and the Cubs good fortune transform Ryan into the person she was before she let herself be dulled with grief. Nick reluctantly tells Ryan why his family really moved to Chicago. Ultimately, through facing Nick’s illness, Ryan realizes what her father had tried to teach her about life and baseball. It’s now about winning or losing, but having the courage to continue to the play the game no matter what is thrown at you.

I don’t know why I didn’t read this book sooner! If I had realized how much I was going to like it I would have. I of course was initially drawn to the book because of the Cubs, but what really drew me in was the story itself. Smith is an extraordinary writer and I expect great things from her in the future. Her writing is simple yet powerful. This book is beautifully written, the language is so genuine you can’t help but be held captive to it. I found myself admiring Ryan’s character and empathizing with her throughout the entire story. I loved the history about the Chicago Cubs, although I knew most of it. Other readers might find that part tiresome or boring, but I really think that is adds to the story as a whole. I highly recommend The Comeback Season, it is a heartwarming story that will not be soon forgotten.

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If you took seven years to compose a 614-page opus about the Vietnam War, it would probably be incredibly grating to read reviews employing the word quagmire. All apologies to Denis Johnson, then, because after reading his novel, Tree of Smoke, that’s the first word that comes to my mind.
To be clear, Smoke is impressive, a layered, rich, sweaty accomplishment of massive proportions, a novel whose first three pages are nothing short of perfect. But Johnson is a meticulous writer, and if anything, the next 611 pages suffer from an overabundance of care. Smoke isn’t just set in the tropics, it exudes them — Saigon, yes, but also Manila, Honolulu, and Damulog, their unfamiliar smells and persistent moisture clinging to the story like a fog. And even as I was marveling at Johnson’s narrative gifts, I was staggering under the heft of his ambition. Two decades of story lines tangle into a web of epic relationships, until I no longer bothered to flip back four chapters to remember how one character knew another —I just assumed a part of my brain had retained the information, and pressed on.
On the most basic level, this is the story of Skip Sands, a CIA officer straight out of Graham Greene’s arsenal — a fact that has not escaped Skip’s attention. He’s nominally in the employ of his uncle, Francis Xavier Sands, a.k.a. the colonel, a whiskey-swilling survivor focused only on turning the theater of war to his advantage. Countless characters swirl around the colonel: doomed GIs, loyal locals, assassins, and double agents, each carrying his or her own lovingly painted agenda, most of who fall by the wayside eventually. There are fewer pages of jagged action than there are of philosophy, though the Tet Offensive is recounted with particular vigor. Sands gets a small, tragic love story, which would have been novel enough for Greene. And there’s an obvious point at which the book should end but does not, instead slogging deeper into the jungle (literally) for another 10 years and hundred pages, on a desperate march toward an unclear conclusion.
It’s easy to lose interest in Smoke at this point, but that’s okay; Johnson’s point has largely been made anyway. Not surprisingly, it’s the same moral offered by everyone from Coppola to Creedence — i.e., war is bad, and Vietnam in particular really sucked. Tree of Smoke is a mammoth portrait of humanity in conflict, less about the message than the journey, which leads inextricably to one of the few uniquely American truths: People seem to get stuck in Vietnam. Only Johnson’s extraordinary literary gifts permit the tentative recommendation to join him there. “B”

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David Sedaris’ latest book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is a must read. For those unfamiliar with Sedaris’ previous work, the author specializes in hilarious stories of his family and anecdotes about every day life. Each story brings with it a familiarity; these characters are just like the characters you know in your own life. Well, maybe not JUST like them, but Sedaris brings out the humanity in each of the people he writes about so that you can love them or spite them right along with him.

His most recent novel includes anecdotes about a crotchety neighbor, vacationers in France and Sedaris’ own battle with quitting smoking. These stories are told with such brilliant wit that there is no way to stop reading. I’d go into more detail, but I’d hate to ruin a punchline by trying to prove myself right.

I started this book waiting in an airport for our plane to begin boarding. My husband, listening to his iPod, repeatedly admonished me for laughing so hard I was shaking his seat. I’m sure others around me may have wondered what was wrong with me, but I didn’t care. The joy of this book is entering a world where you don’t care what others think, you just get to sit back and observe the idioscynchracies of life.

- Kristin
Diverxtrme

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Where Are You Now? – Mary Higgins Clark

What would you do if your brother disappeared 10 years ago and only calls every year on Mother’s Day? Carolyn MacKenzie is tired of living with the constant question of her brother’s disappearance and she’s ready to do something about it.

I’ve never read a MHC book that I didn’t like. I will never forget my first… the hardback version of Remember Me, the summer I was 16 and the binding got wet at the pool and stained my beach towel. Since then I have read everything she has written and continue to look forward to her next novel.

This novel has everything we’ve come to expect from MHC; it has two mysteries and a never ending cast of characters to confuse you. Keeping up with the many characters is one of the major tasks to MHC novel; with whole chapters that can take only one page, jumping from one person’s thoughts to another can get confusing. It defiantly works at keeping you from guessing the outcome. As for the two mysteries, MHC deeps us on our toes, not only do you have to figure out who is behind the crime, but also who will the main female character fall in love with. I think that is how MHC appeals to so many women, I personally don’t want to read a romance novel, but MHC adds one or two pages at the end to get the “happily ever after” fairly tale quality that so many of us are looking for.

All in all an excellent novel by MHC; she has the winning formula: crime thriller with just a little romance. Even though I know what to expect as far as the style, the crimes are always fresh, new and a little twisted. Wonder how long we’ll have to wait for her next thriller?

EW

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Mrs. Whippy by Cecelia Ahern

Emelda is getting divorced and frankly she’s the better for it. However, how long will it take her to realize this and convince her children that she hasn’t done anything wrong and that their father is a big pile of stinking dog poo? She seems to be on a forever downward spiral, with only her ice cream to console her… until she meets Mr. Whippy.

Cecelia Ahern can write; we all know this, her first project, “P.S. I Love You,” was outstanding. I had my doubts at first, thinking she got the book deal at such a young age due to her father’s position, but she continues to prove that she deserves it. She did a wonderful job of creating an interesting, full story in only 75 pages. This book is an excellent quick read, not only because of its length, but because once you start you won’t be able to put it down.

EW

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Playing for Pizza by John Grisham

American football in Italy… who knew! Just like at the movies, a football story is rarely bad. Combine that with the writing skills of John Grisham and of course you’ll have a hit.

Following his third concussion and another humiliating game ,this time losing the Brown’s chance at the Super Bowl, third string quarterback Rick Dockery has only one job offer… to play for the Parma Panthers. At first Rick thinks Parma is in Texas, but soon learns that to continue to play and get a paycheck, small as it is, he will need to move across the Atlantic. In the end Rick’s move will transform Rick from a boy who plays football to a man who is a professional athlete.

John Grisham found something truly unique in this day and age… a group of men who still play football for the love of the game. True, coaches and two Americans get paid, but most of the team plays because they love it. He took a real thing, football Americana, and wrote truths about the game in Italy and intertwined it with a story of someone becoming a man.

I true John Grisham fashion the book is irresistible, you find yourself thinking of these characters when you are not reading and up set at the end when your short time with them is finished. The story ends and begins on the last page, with many questions unanswered in black and white.

I happened to read this book on my way to Milan and was intrigued. Not only did I want to see Italians play football, but it is free! In America even High School football costs $10 per tickets. I landed on a Sunday morning and had I not succumbed to jet lag (a.k.a. napped), I could have made the Parma Panthers vs. Milan Rhinos game in Parma Sunday afternoon (I’m still kicking myself). As the season is only 8 weeks long, I will have to plan another trip next year to see a game. However, I did make it to Quattro Mori, the restaurant that Rick goes to in Milan before the game with the Rhinos, and had a wonderful Bolognese.

EW

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In Those Who Save Us , Jenna Blum illuminates the relationship between a mother and a daughter whose relationship is based on secrets and half truths. Trudie is the grown daughter of Anna, a woman who came to the United States from Germany during the Holocaust. When Anna is hospitalized and Trudie is forced to pack up her mother’s belongings, she finds a framed picture of herself as a child and her mother with a Nazi Soldier who she presumes is her father. This photo serves as the central image defining Trudie and Anna’s relationship– a photo that Trudie assumes to be one thing and that Anna refuses to discuss.

The book is told both in a series of flashbacks to Anna’s list in Nazi Germany and in accounts of Trudie’s life as a German history professor who, in hopes of understanding more about her mother and her own past, embarks on a project to collect the stories of Germans who lived during the Nazi regime. Trudie’s interviews with a number of German immigrants provide a foil to Anna’s story which we learn is one of falling in love with Jewish man and getting involved in the resistance movement.

Those Who Save Us has compelling stories, rich characters, and deeply enriching historical details. As the reader learns more about Anna’s life in Germany, our compassion for both Anna and Trudie grows. Relationships between mothers and daughters are often complex, yet Blum gives us a relationship strained by Anna’s traditional German values and expectations of who Trudie should be coupled with her own fear and shame of sharing her own story.

This is an excellent book, rich in plot, with skillful structure, and sympathetic characters. I highly recommend it.

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Each of our lives is bound to spiral and turn to a certain degree. We do not know where we’ll eventually wind up, which is what makes choosing a path so hard – we do not know where it ends. As such, Linnet Gow, makes some remarkably brave decisions in The Linnet Bird.

As a woman in her era, Linny seems to have few life paths before her. She has few opportunities for independence. She begins life in one of the poorest neighborhoods in England with a bleak future ahead of her. Yet, with every choice she has, she inches closer to being her own woman. This journey through several countries leads her through an amazingly complex series of events that seem to be set in motion with the first page of the story.

Linny’s reactions at the beginning of the book are very reactive and survival based. She obediently obeys her step-father no matter what she is asked to do, for fear of ending up alone on the street. But compared to what he asks of her, being on the street would not be such a terrible fate. She is truly as caged as the bird after which she is named. Slowly, she begins to make more proactive decisions and ultimately takes control of her own destiny.

This glimpse into the life of a strong woman in a time when women were supposed to faint at the first glimmer of inequity is completely moving. Linda Holeman pulls no punches while telling us this tale, and we are all pushed to examine our own choices. Is there a moment when we would decide it is easier to be taken care of than to fend for ourselves? This book is an excellent examination of what truly makes a person captive or free and where your choices can lead you. It also serves as a reminder that evil is around any corner and that you can only control your own choices and thus your own destiny. A great read, highly recommended.

- Kristin
Diverxtrme

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The beginning of this novel is much like starting a new job. You think: Who are these people? Why are they so paranoid? Why are they so neurotic? But slowly, slowly you get sucked into the insanity. For really, what is work without the insanity? Then We Came to the End is engrossing the same way that workplace gossip is an addiction.

This novel focuses on a Chicago advertising firm that is consistently laying people off in an attempt to keep itself afloat. The timeline jumps back and forth which may be confusing to some, but is reminiscent of how you learn about your co-workers: one story about what they’ll do this weekend, one story about a project from a year ago. This keeps the book populated despite the layoffs that are occurring, but also brings us into the fold. We are learning about these people, these teammates the same way that we would if we were working with them. They are interesting and once we’ve become part of it we can’t help but want to know more.

There is a heart breaking middle section to the book that is extremely well written, but seems to come out of nowhere. It is a completely different pace than the rest of the book and focuses on one particular person’s issues rather than the groups. At the end of the book this section is tied back in, but it still does not seem to entirely fit with the rest of the writing.

In the end, both section of this book are engaging and touching, although in vastly different ways. This book is worth reading for anyone who has ever worked in an office and thought they knew everything about those around them, until they find out they know everything but what matters.

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- Kristin
Diverxtrme