AMERICA’S BOOK REVIEW
®
AUGUST 2014
COMPLIMENTS OF YOUR LIBRARY
67
REVIEWS of the
best new books
AMY BLOOM A lively sister act hits the road to Hollywood in Lucky Us
paperback picks PENGUIN.COM
Concealed in Death
W is for Wasted
It Happens in the Dark
Deceived
After the demolition of an empty New York building unearths the remains of twelve girls, Lieutenant Eve Dallas discovers a connection between the victims and herself. Eve is determined to hunt down the killer and go head-to-head with evil...
Detective Kinsey Millhone investigates two seemingly unrelated deaths—one murder and one of natural causes. As she digs deeper into the mystery, strange links emerge between the two victims—and to Kinsey’s past. And before long, Kinsey is compromised.
When two murders occur on consecutive nights during the same play, Detective Kathy Mallory must find the killer before more heads roll. But she can’t get a straight answer from anyone—not the lead actors and certainly not the twins so uncannily playing psychos.
Hannah Smith has two big problems on her hands—one is a 20-year-old unsolved murder and the other is a private museum scam that could wipe out her entire community. And the forces behind the scam have no intention of letting anyone stand in their way.
9780515154146 • $7.99
9780425271575 • $7.99
9780425270875 • $9.99
9780425270158 • $9.99
Compound Fractures
The Sweetest Summer
My Beautiful Enemy
Codex Born
Unexpected threats and intimate betrayals force psychologist Alan Gregory to revisit an ethical dilemma from early in his career—and work to solve a deadly mystery in Eldorado Springs that has been brewing for more than a decade.
Police Chief Clancy Flynn’s gorgeous old flame shows up in town, on the run from kidnapping charges—and tries to convince him that there’s more to the story. Now the by-the-book police chief must make the toughest decision of his life: to take Evelyn into custody—or into his arms.
When beautiful and cunning Catherine Blade reunites with Captain Leighton Atwood—a man as dangerous and seductive as she is—she puts her heart and her future at risk. If they are ever to find safety and happiness, they must first forgive and learn to trust each other again.
Libromancer Isaac Vainio, psychiatrist Nidhi Shah, and their dryad bodyguard Lena Greenwood, investigate the slaughter of a wendingo. But Lena—created from the pages of a pulp fantasty novel—has unique powers that Isaac’s enemies hope to use for themselves.
9780451468161 • $9.99
9780451419293 • $7.99
9780425268896 • $7.99
9780756408398 • $7.99
“[Reckless] was an American war hero and her amazing story deserves to be told....This would make a hell of a movie.” —Nelson DeMille, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Quest. This four-year-old chestnut-colored Mongolian racehorse once amazed the crowds in Seoul with her remarkable speed. But when war shut down the tracks, the star racer was sold to an American Marine and trained to carry heavy loads up and down steep hills under a barrage of bullets and bombs. The Marines renamed her Reckless. Reckless soon proved fearless under fire, boldly marching alone through the fiery gauntlet, exposed to explosions and shrapnel. During one day of battle alone, she made fifty-one trips up and down a crucial hill. The Chinese, soon discovering the unique bravery of this magnificent animal, made a special effort to kill her. But Reckless never slowed. As months passed, the men came to appreciate her not just as a horse but as a weapon, and eventually, as a fellow Marine. In Reckless, Tom Clavin, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Heart of Everything That Is, tells the unlikely story of a racehorse who truly became a war hero, beloved by the Marine Corps and decorated for bravery. A moving reminder of the unbreakable bond between people and animals, Reckless is a powerful tale of courage, survival, and even love, in the face of overwhelming odds. NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
9780451466501 • $28.95 Distributed by Penguin Group (USA)
contents
AUGUST 2014 B O O K PA G E . C O M
features 14
12
JESS ROW What if we could change our racial identity?
16
On the cover
Amy Bloom’s playful new novel, Lucky Us, follows two sisters through a series of madcap adventures during the jazz-soaked 1940s.
POINTERS FOR PARENTS
Novel
R EADS from
Avon Romance
The world’s toughest job
17
THE ART OF TEACHING Taking on the new school year
18
FIRST FICTION MONTH The best new debut novels
19
MARY KUBICA Stockholm syndrome takes hold
19
SPENCER QUINN Meet the author of Paw and Order
20
Cover photo © Deborah Feingold
reviews 21 FICTION
GABRIEL WESTON DIANA GABALDON The Outlander series returns
28 31
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFÓN A mysterious, Gothic teen read
25 NONFICTION
BACK TO SCHOOL
also reviewed:
Picture books for first-day jitters
31
RASHIN KHEIRIYEH
columns
top pick:
Blue-Eyed Boy by Robert Timberg Wild Things! by Betsy Bird, Julie Danielson and Peter D. Sieruta Whatever Happened to the Metric System? by John Bemelmans Marciano The End of Absence by Michael Harris
29 TEEN
30 CHILDREN’S
top pick:
top pick:
also reviewed:
also reviewed:
Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
LIFESTYLES WELL READ LIBRARY READS BOOK CLUBS ROMANCE COOKING WHODUNIT AUDIO
The Lotus and the Storm by Lan Cao All I Love and Know by Judith Frank Back Channel by Stephen L. Carter Tigerman by Nick Harkaway Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami Friendswood by Rene Steinke
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre Powers of Two by Joshua Wolf Shenk In a Rocket Made of Ice by Gail Gutradt Mona Lisa by Dianne Hales The Invisible Bridge by Rick Perlstein
Meet the author-illustrator of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
04 04 05 07 08 08 09 11
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman Evergreen by Rebecca Rasmussen The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit by Graham Joyce 2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino Prototype by M.D. Waters
Medicine versus morality
23
top pick:
also reviewed:
The Islands at the End of the World by Austin Aslan Like No Other by Una LaMarche Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid
What If . . .? by Anthony Browne
Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor by Jon Scieszka Courage for Beginners by Karen Harrington The Time of the Fireflies by Kimberley Griffiths Little
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columns
LIFESTYLES
WELL READ
BY JOANNA BRICHETTO
BY ROBERT WEIBEZAHL
The magic of reading
Fun with fabric Little One-Yard Wonders (Storey, $29.95, 360 pages, ISBN 9781612121246) is the newest in the best-selling One-Yard Wonders series by Rebecca Yaker and Patricia Hoskins, and it returns to the premise (and promise) that one yard of fabric is all we need to make one-of-a-kind treasures: this time, for babies and kids. Projects start with nursery staples like a diaper stacker and crib rail guard and move to adorable clothes, accessories and storage solutions,
but about half the book is devoted to projects for play: a tummy-time mat, toddler activity book and story cushion for the truly tiny and a sweet riff on I-Spy. Older kids get a “Gamer’s Tote,” a kite that actually flies, a four-in-a-row matching game and an artist’s portfolio with on-board supplies. But my favorite is also the biggest: the amazing “House in a Hallway.” With an operable fabric gate, mailbox and curtains, it can be the setting of endless narrative play, and even doubles as a doorway puppet theatre. At bedtime, the whole thing— tension rods and all—folds into nearly nothing for easy storage.
A HISTORY OF USEFUL PLANTS Michael Largo, author of The Big, Bad Book of Beasts, shifts his alliterative attention from fauna to flora in his latest compendium. Following the alphabetical arrangement of his previous volume, The Big, Bad Book of Botany (Morrow, $18.99, 416 pages, ISBN 9780062282750) goes not only literally from Absinthe to Zubrowka, but literately as well. Largo has the gift of transforming a nerdy catalog of facts into an apothecary of invigorating information. His encyclopedic knowledge is never an end in itself, but it is always an engine for historical insight and
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reflection on human nature. Somehow, the book’s A-to-Z structure proceeds as an interwoven set of narratives, with each entry including a separate box detailing the pragmatic uses of the species in question. Largo reveals that “early civilizations believed every plant was put on earth with a purpose”—and in the case of Absinthe, that purpose was to kill intestinal parasites, and then (later in its history) to help impoverished artists in Paris get drunk and/or frisky in a fast and cheap fashion. Zubrowka, we learn, can deliver us into a meditative state when it’s not being fermented into vodka. One way or another, each plant can heal or harm—it’s up to us.
TOP PICK IN LIFESTYLES “Sustainability” is not just a buzz word: It’s the only future we’ve got. Without sustaining our natural resources, we perish. Strong evidence suggests that this is what befell the Mayans and a host of other disappeared civilizations. Is it our turn next, on a global scale? That’s what Douglas Gayeton darkly proposes and sets out to fix in Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America (Harper Design, $35, 272 pages, ISBN 9780062267634). Fortunately, there is now a growing sustainable farming subculture, evidenced by this book form of the Internet-based “Lexicon of Sustainability,” a crowdsourced project which draws upon a worldwide fund of agricultural expertise and practical experimentation. The author and photographer lays out workable (and gorgeously photographed) strategies for transforming our wasteful and greedy economy into an efficient, self-sustaining social organism.
I once belonged to a reading group where one member, no matter what book we were discussing, would invariably ask, “Who would you cast as . . . ?” In all fairness, he was a screenwriter, but his perennial need to graft the face of some Hollywood star onto a given character in a novel could be irritating. As I read Peter Mendelsund’s quirky and fascinating What We See When We Read (Vintage, $16.95, 448 pages, ISBN 9780804171632), I came to the realization that this casting device may have been this reader’s imperfect way of visualizing what he was reading. As a book cover designer for Alfred A. Knopf, Mendelsund’s day job is wedding a non-visual art form with images that Is what we somehow see when we convey an author’s inread shaped by an author’s tentions (and sell books) to intentions or a potential by our own reader. This occupation experience? has certainly fueled his curiosity about what we see when we read. In his new book, Mendelsund draws our attention to things we may not be fully conscious of when we immerse ourselves in a narrative. How do we picture characters or settings? Authors often give us scant physical characteristics—the essence of a character can defy concrete description—so, do we really know, or should we care, what Ishmael or Queequeg look like? Are the places we imagine when reading drawn from our own landscape of memory rather than the quite possibly real places upon which the writer has based them—do we picture the banks of, say, the Mississippi, when a writer sets a scene by a river? In other words, how much of what we see in our minds while reading is shaped by an author’s intentions and how much simply by our own experience? Using examples drawn from such classics as To the Lighthouse, Anna Karenina and Ulysses, Men-
delsund explores the phenomenology of reading with a light and engaging touch. He strings lots of images throughout 400 intriguingly designed pages, illustrations that, ironically, underscore the futility of seeking a single answer to what we see and why we see it. He does touch upon the ideas of such experimental novelists as Robbe-Grillet and Calvino when exploring ways of seeing, but for the most part the book is a user-friendly, thought-provoking riff on the elusive magic of reading. “Authors are curators of experience,” Mendelsund suggests. “They filter the world’s noise, and out of that noise they make the purest signal they can—out of disorder they create narrative. They administer this narrative in the form of a book, and preside, in some ineffable way, over the reading experience. Yet no matter how pure the data set that authors provide to readers—no matter how diligently prefiltered and tightly reconstructed—readers’ brains will continue in their prescribed assignment: to analyze, screen, and sort. . . . We take in as much of the author’s world as we can, and mix this material with our own in the alembic of our reading minds, combining them to alchemize something unique.” Mendelsund says reading “works” because it feels like consciousness itself—a collaborate consciousness shared by writer and reader. What We See When We Read will make passionate readers think about things they may largely take for granted when absorbed in a book and spark further thoughts about what the pleasurable experience of reading is all about.
Selected from nominations made by library staff across the country, here are the 10 books that librarians can’t wait to share with readers in August.
#1
ONE KICK by Chelsea Cain
Simon & Schuster, $25.99, ISBN 9781476749785
Famously kidnapped as a child, 21-yearold Kick Lannigan now finds herself entangled in a missing child case that will force her from the secure world she has built. On sale August 19.
The Care & Keeping of You Collection—real ANSWERS for GROWING girls
LUCKY US by Amy Bloom
Random House, $26, ISBN 9781400067244 In Bloom’s entertaining novel of reinvention, sisters Eva and Iris leave small-town Ohio behind to pursue their dreams of Hollywood stardom. BookPage interview on page 12.
HEROES ARE MY WEAKNESS by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Morrow, $26.99, ISBN 9780062106070 On an isolated island off the coast of Maine, a down-on-herluck actress must spend the winter in a mysterious mansion with a reclusive horror writer. On sale August 26.
LOCK IN by John Scalzi
Over 3 million copies sold!
Tor, $24.99, ISBN 9780765375865 In this inventive thriller from the Hugo Award-winning writer, millions are afflicted by a virus that causes “lock in”: victims who are fully awake but unable to move. On sale August 26.
THE MINIATURIST by Jessie Burton
Ecco, $26.99, ISBN 9780062306814 Burton’s magical debut is set in 17th-century Amsterdam, where a lonely new bride receives an extraordinary wedding gift from her wealthy husband: a tiny replica of their home. On sale August 26.
BIG LITTLE LIES by Liane Moriarty
Putnam/Amy Einhorn, $26.95, ISBN 9780399167065 In the new novel from the author of The Husband’s Secret, a school fundraiser ends in a tragic death. Is it an accident or murder? BookPage review on page 21.
THE TRUTH ABOUT LEO by Katie MacAlister
Sourcebooks Casablanca, $7.99, ISBN 9781402294457 In this Regency romp, a poverty-stricken Danish princess thinks the man in her garden could be the answer to her prayers.
AN UNWILLING ACCOMPLICE by Charles Todd
Morrow, $25.99, ISBN 9780062237194 In Todd’s World War I mystery, a battlefield nurse must locate a missing war hero to right an injustice and save her honor.
THE MAGICIAN’S LAND by Lev Grossman
Viking, $27.95, ISBN 9780670015672 The final volume of Grossman’s fantastical Magicians trilogy finds Quentin back in the magical realm of Fillory, where he must put things right or die trying.
THE STORY HOUR by Thrity Umrigar
Harper, $25.99, ISBN 9780062259301 As a psychologist, Maggie maintains emotional distance from her patients, but when she meets a suicidal young woman, her professional detachment disintegrates. On sale August 19. LibraryReads is a recommendation program that highlights librarians’ favorite books published this month. For more information, visit libraryreads.org.
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columns New paperback releases for reading groups
HER HIDDEN PAST Sarah Cornwell’s debut novel, What I Had Before I Had You (Harper Perennial, $14.99, 288 pages, ISBN 9780062237859), is a moving and authentic depiction of a family struggling to reconcile with the past. Olivia, mother of two, returns to Ocean Vista, her hometown on the Jersey Shore,
after a 20-year absence. The visit brings back difficult memories of her childhood, which was spent in the care of her loving but eccentric mother, Myla, a professional psychic. Both Olivia and her 9-year-old son, Daniel, suffer from bipolar disorder. When Daniel disappears during the visit home, Olivia tries to find him, embarking on a search that forces her to face up to a family history that’s loaded with secrets. Myla, capricious, beautiful and forever mourning the stillborn twins she lost in 1971, lies at the heart of Olivia’s quest for redemption. Skillfully weaving the story of Olivia’s past together with her search for Daniel, Cornwell has crafted a luminous narrative that proves she’s a writer to watch.
MODERN FAMILY Best-selling author and Oprah favorite Wally Lamb offers up a poignant, timely family story with his new novel, We Are Water (Harper Perennial, $16.99, 592 pages, ISBN 9780061941030). With 27 years of marriage behind her, artist Anna Oh has an ex-husband, three children and a new love interest: art dealer Viveca, the glamorous Manhattanite who launched her career. Plans for a wedding are soon brewing, but Anna’s family has a few misgivings about her decision to tie the knot again. The
BOOK CLUBS
Your Summer Reading List
BY JULIE HALE
novel is narrated, in turns, by members of the Oh family, including Anna’s psychologist ex-husband, Orion, and their kids, Ariane, Andrew and Marissa, all of whom have lives of their own—and scarred psyches. As Anna’s wedding nears, unpleasant episodes from the family’s past come to light, causing the Oh clan to take stock of mistakes and heartaches. Lamb writes about delicate issues like child abuse and addiction with the openness and compassion his many fans have come to expect. His moving portrayal of a contemporary family drama is sure to resonate with readers.
Now in paperback from New York Times bestselling author Joshilyn Jackson “A nuanced exploration of faith, family and the things we do for love.” —People
A gripping literary mystery by critically acclaimed author Emily Arsenault “Arsenault writes a smart tale about a character who finds it hard to save herself, but will do anything to save her brother.” —Jacqueline Sheehan, New York Times bestselling author
TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS Winner of the 2013 National Book Award for fiction, The Good Lord Bird (Riverhead, $16, 480 pages, ISBN 9781594632785) by James McBride is an inspired and slightly transgressive take on the story of abolitionist John Brown. The novel is narrated by 12-year-old Henry Shackleford, a Kansas slave Brown mistakes for a girl. When Brown shoots Henry’s owner, the boy joins his band of abolitionists and lives as a female. Brown and his crew cross the country trying to marshal support for their cause, and Henry tags along, bearing witness to meetings with Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, as well as the raid on Harpers Ferry. McBride, author of the acclaimed memoir The Color of Water as well as two previous novels, shows a remarkable flair for making events come alive and never shies away from the comic possibilities of the boy’s situation. A wonderfully imaginative retelling of history that’s been compared to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, McBride’s latest is a page-turner thanks to Henry’s unique voice and remarkable coming-of-age experiences.
Yangsze Choo’s haunting and original debut novel, now available in paperback “A fantastical, ghost-andmurder mystery… and the love story that flows under it all— the kind so full of longing, the pages practically sigh as you turn each one.” —Oprah.com, Book of the Week
New in paperback from the critically acclaimed author of Boy Still Missing and Strange But True “A dazzling, dark portrait of a troubled family beset by the supernatural…both frightening and beautiful.” —Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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columns
ROMANCE
COOKING
B Y C H R I S T I E R I D G WAY
BY SYBIL PRATT
Cowboy, come home
More than apple pie
A friends-with-benefits situation threatens the status quo of two prickly yet appealing characters in Unbroken (Berkley, $7.99, 320 pages, ISBN 9780425273692) by Maisey Yates. When a riding accident ends Cade Mitchell’s rodeo career, he returns to the family ranch broken and bitter. But his longtime best buddy, Amber Jameson, is there to help ease his pain. No wonder he
American cuisine is almost beyond definition, it’s such a marvelous mélange of regional favorites and immigrant-imported specialties swirled in our vast culinary melting pot. But that has never stopped cooks or cookbook authors from zeroing in on what they consider as American as apple pie. And, fortunately, it has inspired Elena Rosemond-Hoerr and
goes caveman when an old rival arrives, sniffing around Amber’s grandfather’s ranch and pressuring her to sell. Without thought, Cade steps forward and tells the man to back off—he’s moving in to help spruce up the ranch because Amber’s his girlfriend. Their town of Silver Creek seems delighted by the “romance,” though both Cade and Amber are left feeling unbalanced by the new—and passionate—feelings that begin to boil. These two lonely hearts are moving toward believing they might find an ever after when events come about that could tear them apart as friends— and as lovers. Witty repartee and strong sexual chemistry between the leads make this a standout contemporary romance.
DARING LOVE Former almost-lovers reunite in Bound to Danger (Signet Eclipse, $7.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9780451419224), a fast-paced story by Katie Reus filled with romance and suspense. When Maria Cervantes is the sole survivor of a massive explosion, national security wants to find out everything she knows. Sent in to debrief her is her late brother’s best friend from his Marine days, Cade O’Reilly. Cade is now a member of a black ops team directed by the NSA, and he’s determined to keep Maria safe. Although he had walked away
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from their budding romance following her brother’s death, Cade still has feelings for the sultry beauty. But Maria’s not so sure she wants Cade’s help. She still remembers the broken heart he left her with eight years prior. But when it’s clear that her life is at stake—the bad guys are aware she overheard damning information—she knows relying on Cade is for the best. As danger unfolds around them, their old passion reignites, raising the stakes for both of them. At turns both tense and sexy, this exciting story is a sizzling page-turner.
TOP PICK IN ROMANCE The Earl of Ashby trades places with his friend and secretary in order to prove he can win a woman without the benefit of his title in The Game and the Governess (Pocket, $7.99, 432 pages, ISBN 9781476749389), the first in a new series by Kate Noble. After the two depart London, the earl, nicknamed “Lucky Ned,” finds life without his noble name much different. The experience opens his eyes—and he suddenly sees the beauty and bravery of prim governess Phoebe Baker. Yet his conscience battles his desires. Should he seek her heart using a false identity? Soon his own heart is involved, and he worries the game he’s playing will jeopardize his future. Even under the most difficult circumstances, Phoebe has managed to find one moment of happiness each day, but now the man she knows as “Mr. Turner” is offering up a lifetime of happiness . . . until she discovers it’s all based on a lie. Will Lucky Ned overcome the hurt he’s caused and win the most important prize of all? It’s a delicious treat to watch Ned grow from earl to man, and see the stalwart Phoebe get everything she deserves.
Caroline Bretherton to write The American Cookbook: A Fresh Take on Classic Recipes (DK, $25, 256 pages, ISBN 9781465415875), with lots of full-color, almost-edible photos and more than 150 recipes with highlighted virtuoso riffs and variations. Boston Baked Beans get the traditional treatment, or you can choose a Tex-Mex Twist or a Vegan Option. Use lime-drizzled mango instead of strawberries in your summer shortcakes; put ricotta, basil and cherry tomatoes in your Mac ’N’ Cheese, broccoli and bacon in your coleslaw or chorizo in the Minestrone; and serve Eggs Benedict on Potato Röstis for the gluten-free gang. The directions are numbered and wonderfully clear. Good, all-American fun.
YES, YOU CAN CAN Summertime and the preserving is easy—it’s the time to capture Mother Nature’s incredible bounty from farmer’s markets, roadside stands and, if you’re lucky enough to have one, your own garden. All you need is a basket of tomatoes or blueberries or zucchini and a copy of Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi’s The Gentle Art of Preserving (Kyle, $29.95, 304 pages, ISBN 9781909487086), which is chocka-block with ideas and inspiration for using everything to its fullest, in ways that are good for our planet and good for your family. There’s a lot more here than making
jams and sauces— Katie covers pickling, brining, smoking, salting, freezing, canning, fermenting, conserving in sugar and alcohol and under oil and fat. Each technique gets a full explanation, accompanied by an international array of recipes that showcase these time-honored traditions: Japanese Pickled Ginger; Rhubarb Cordial; Italian Sopressata; Smoked Trout Pâté; Labneh; Frozen Soffritto; Confit of Tomatoes. The pleasures of preserving can brighten the way you cook, eat and shop.
TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS Nearly 40 years ago, in the most urban of urban settings, a forward-looking, green-tinged city planner came up with the idea of inviting struggling Hudson Valley farmers to bring their produce to Manhattan and sell it in markets amid high-rise buildings and hurrying pedestrians. The now- legendary Union Square Greenmarket and a growing number of neighborhood markets blossomed from that idea, making locally grown produce available to ordinary city folk and inspiring many of New York’s most prominent chefs and food writers to embrace the super-seasonal. To celebrate this fruitful connection between Greenmarket sellers and borough dwellers, Gabrielle Langholtz has collected 93 recipes from 93 of New York’s top gastronomes in The New Greenmarket Cookbook: Recipes and Tips from Today’s Finest Chefs and the Stories Behind the Farms that Inspire Them (Da Capo, $24.99, 256 pages, ISBN 9780738216898) that take you on a seasonal splurge from spring to winter, apples to zucchini, Melissa Clark’s Anchovy Butter on Turnips to Karen DeMasco’s pink-tinted Beet Cake.
WHODUNIT BY BRUCE TIERNEY
The innocence of a guilty sociopath Whenever someone asks me for a recommendation of a first-rate Scandinavian mystery author, Norwegian author Karin Fossum is among the first to jump to mind. Her Inspector Sejer novels are finely crafted, and it has been a rare time (if ever) that I have been able to identify the culprit before Fossum was ready for me to know. Her latest standalone, I Can See in the Dark (HMH, $25, 224 pages, ISBN 9780544114425), goes off in an entirely different direction, spinning the first-person tale of a sadistic hospice caregiver, wrongly accused of the murder of a patient under his care. Problem is, he is guilty of another murder that took place around the same time, and he is now faced with the conundrum of how to establish his innocence with respect to one without calling undue police attention to his guilt in the other. Riktor (a great name for a sociopathic caregiver) is well in tune with his inner demons, trotting them out regularly for examination; in the scarier moments, you can almost empathize with him, and that fact alone speaks volumes about Fossum’s talent at drawing in a reader. At 200-odd pages, this is a book that can be polished off in one sitting by a dedicated mystery fan.
PIPE DOWN, AUNTIE Hospice care (or the lack thereof) segues to Margaret Maron’s Designated Daughters (Grand Central, $27, 320 pages, ISBN 9781455545285). Summoned to the room of her dying Aunt Rachel, Judge Deborah Knott is surprised to hear the elderly woman recount snippets of stories unheard for a generation or more, especially as she had stopped talking some time before and was expected to make her final journey in silence. Several hours later, however, Aunt Rachel takes said journey not peacefully, but rather with the help of a pillow pressed firmly over her face. Ap-
parently some of her impromptu storytelling threatened to unearth a crime for which there is no statute of limitations, and person(s) unknown will stop at nothing to prevent that from happening. As is typically the case with Maron’s novels, Designated Daughters is character-driven, and the characters are exceptionally well drawn and colorful. Think of the old TV
drama “The Waltons,” set in modern times, with Grandma Walton killed off before she can reveal sensitive family secrets.
MOTHER, DID I? The segue this time is “daughter,” as we move to Elizabeth Little’s clever debut mystery, Dear Daughter (Viking, $26.95, 384 pages, ISBN 9780670016389). And what a debut it is, featuring a narrator/protagonist with one of the cheekiest voices in recent memory. After 10 years, Janie Jenkins has just been released from prison on a technicality, where she was serving time for a murder she didn’t commit—as far as she can remember. What she does know is that she was covered in her mother’s blood at the crime scene, and that her mother’s fingernails yielded DNA that was a good match for Janie’s. But there were some irregularities to the investigation, enough that a good lawyer could pry her loose from the slammer and allow her to launch the investigation that she hopes will clear her name: “I mean, come on, you didn’t really think I was just going to disappear, did you? . . . That maybe I would find a distant island, a plastic surgeon, a white ceramic half mask and a Punjab lasso? Get real.” Nope; instead she will go to South Dakota, to an isolated little town at the back end of nowhere, wherein lie
the beginnings of a story she cannot begin to imagine. This is a killer debut, in every sense of the word!
TOP PICK IN MYSTERY I’m not the first—and I certainly won’t be the last—to compare Charles Cumming’s novels to those of the espionage genre masters: John le Carré; Len Deighton; Alan Furst. In Cumming’s latest, A Colder War (St. Martin’s, $26.99, 400 pages, ISBN 9781250020611), sidelined spy Tom Kell is summoned back into the fray after his friend and co-worker Paul Wallinger, Istanbul branch head of the U.K. spy agency MI6, dies in the mysterious crash of a rented private airplane. Mechanical issue, pilot error, suicide, sabotage? All options are on the table as Kell arrives in the Greek island of Chios, the embarkation point of Wallinger’s fateful final flight. But in short order, evidence mounts that an enemy mole is in place as details surface about a trio of unfortunate events concerning individuals recently recruited by Western intelligence. On another front, a pair of romances add a human dimension to the narrative. The first, featuring Kell and Wallinger’s daughter Rachel, is an intense and problematic affair from the get-go. The second and altogether more poignant involves Kell’s boss, Amanda Levene, now head of MI6. Unbeknown to everyone but a select few, Levene and Wallinger were longtime lovers, and she wants badly to bring his murderer, if indeed there is a murderer, to justice. In my review of the previous Tom Kell novel, A Foreign Country, I wrote, “Extraneous details, character motivations, lush backstory . . . ah, who needs ’em? But if you’re looking for a spy novel par excellence, look no further.” Two years on, I stand by that assertion.
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columns
AUDIO BY SUKEY HOWARD
Dizzying heights Martha Grimes seems to have more fun with her mysteries than most of the genre’s perpetrators. And there’s good evidence of that in her latest, Vertigo 42 (Simon & Schuster Audio, $39.99, 12 hours, ISBN 9781442369801), which brings back New Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury, his sidekick Sgt. Wiggins, his best friend, wealthy, elegant Melrose
Plant, and Plant’s eccentric, wellheeled cronies who hang out in a Devon pub. Grimes peppers this top-notch whodunit with clues hidden in literary classics like Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Forster’s A Passage to India, T.S. Eliot’s poetry and, not surprisingly, Hitchcock’s classic film Vertigo, and wraps it in the Devon set’s charmingly odd doings. Asked to look into Tess Williamson’s fatal fall 17 years ago by her husband, who still believes it was murder, Jury’s back in Devon only to be confronted with another dubious fatal fall. Connected? If you listen carefully to Steve West’s bravura performance and know your fiction and flicks well, you’ll figure it out. If not, no matter, you’ll have a vertiginously high time.
OIL ON CANVAS Jim Stegner is an “outsider” artist on the inside track to making it big in the Santa Fe gallery scene, as much at home in a bar fight, raptly gazing at art in a museum or reading Rilke. He’s passionate and violent, deeply talented and deeply scarred, and he’s the first-person narrator of Peter Heller’s beautifully evoked, emotionally convincing novel The Painter (Random House Audio, $40, 11.5 hours, ISBN 9780804190435), ably read by Mark Deakins. Since Jim tells the story, you know he survives, but given his
murderous, blinding temper, that’s not always a sure thing. Living in a small town in Colorado now, after his treasured teenage daughter was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong, his days are an uneasy balance of making art and fly-fishing. When he happens on a burly man abusing a small horse, his life twists into a wildly suspenseful spiral of murder, revenge and, maybe, a touch of redemption.
Listen ing t hat
SIZ ZLES
“Lisa and Francesca, mother and daughter, bring you the laughter of their lives once again and better than ever.” —Delia Ephron read by the authors
TOP PICK IN AUDIO Since we’ve learned that Robert Galbraith is in truth J.K. Rowling, it’s good fun to look for Potteresque shadows in The Silkworm (Hachette Audio, $40, 17.5 hours, ISBN 9781478980902), the second in her acclaimed new series starring Cormoran Strike, a London private eye who lost a leg in Afghanistan. There are no wands or spells. The wizardry here is in Rowling’s vividly drawn cast—their nuanced personalities and fabulous range of accents perfectly realized by reader Robert Glenister—and in its intricately structured plot, replete with a long list of possible suspects and deftly hidden clues, set in the backbiting, gossipy world of publishing. Strike, aided by his smart, attractive assistant, Robin, is investigating the gory, ghoulishly orchestrated murder of Owen Quine, a difficult, disliked novelist whose recently completed, surreally horrifying novel, filled with scandalous portraits of London’s literati, has exploded on that scene like a firebomb. Solid provocation for murder, but it will take all of Strike’s detecting talent and a lick of literary acuity to find the killer. Fortunately, Strike will be back on another case soon.
read by lorelei king
read by clare corbett
“Narrator Rebecca Lowman
turns in a superb performance.” —Publishers Weekly on Eleanor & Park read by rebecca lowman
read by dan stevens
listen to excerpts at macmillanaudio.com
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cover story
AMY BLOOM
Sisters take a chance on each other
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eaders of Amy Bloom’s riotous new novel, Lucky Us, might want to pack a few snacks and buckle their seatbelts for this highly entertaining ride, which kicks off when half-sisters Eva and Iris hightail it from small-town Ohio to pursue their dreams in Hollywood. Bloom herself has always loved a good road trip. “My first road trip was the day after I graduated from high school,” she says during a phone interview in which it is clear that her own warmth and humor is the source for much of the wit found in her fiction. “I went with two girlfriends, we borrowed a car from someone’s overly indulgent father, and we drove from Long Island to Vancouver, down the West Coast and back again. And it was great. I always have a positive feeling when I see people getting into a car with a bag of chips. I even told my daughters all they needed to hit the road was 50 bucks and a couple of Tampax.” At its wildly beating heart, Lucky Us is a novel of rebirth and reinvention told with the kind of candor that Bloom—the author of two previous novels and three short-story collections—is known for. At the age of 12, Eva is abandoned by her mother at her father and half-sister Iris’ house. The teenagers don’t have much in common, except their shared parent,
LUCKY US
By Amy Bloom
Random House, $26, 256 pages ISBN 9781400067244, audio, eBook available
HISTORICAL FICTION
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Edgar—and even he isn’t quite who they thought he was. Bloom was intrigued by the idea of writing about sisters. “I had never written about sisters before. And though I think there are, as always for any writer, lots of sources, I happen to have “I told my a sister, and daughters all she is six years older than me. they needed to hit the road We both say we paid almost was 50 bucks no attention and a couple to each other until she was of Tampax.” going off to college. I was crawling around on the floor while she was riding her bike. So the idea of what it is to get to know a sister later, when you don’t have all that shared history, interested me.” The charismatic Iris shows early talent as a performer, winning every local and regional speech competition, and Eva becomes her loyal sidekick, dresser and confidante. After the girls catch their father trying to steal Iris’ winnings, they hop a Greyhound bus to Hollywood, where Iris hopes to break into the movies. A scandal ensues and the girls are soon back on the road to New York, but this time, via station wagon, with their father in tow. Their friend Francisco, a hair and make-up artist to the stars, finds them jobs as domestics for the Torellis, a wealthy family on Long Island. But that’s only the beginning of the girls’ madcap adventures: Later in the novel, an orphan is abducted; a friend is accused of being a German spy; and Eva takes a job as a fortune-teller at a local beauty parlor. At times, the book feels almost like a series of outtakes from some screwball comedy—but these are scenes that would have never made it past the censors, like
the lushly described party at the home of Hollywood’s most decadent lesbians, or the sisters conspiring to kidnap a little boy from the local Jewish orphanage for Iris’ childless lover. But Bloom’s command of her characters keeps the novel from spilling over into satire just as her judiciously chosen details keep the plot moving forward. Though she was born in the 1950s, Bloom is as tuned in to the spirit of the 1940s as she was to the 1920s in her award-winning novel Away. Lucky Us gives her a way to look at how life at home provided new opportunities for change and reinvention, especially for women and African Americans. “Part of what happened when this country went to war are things that would have been unthinkable 10 years earlier,” Bloom explains. “Women not only going to work, but doing difficult physical labor and being in challenging leadership positions—things that the dominant culture had fought against since its founding. Now, it’s true the war ended and we sent those women packing, the war ended and the level of integration between African Americans and the dominant white culture dripped dramatically, but my own sense is that once you open the door, you cannot completely and forever close it again.” Each chapter of Lucky Us is headed by a song title from the 1940s, drawn from jazz, blues and pop. These evocative headings are both a distillation of the chapter content and reminder of the rich
© DEBORAH FEINGOLD
INTERVIEW BY LAUREN BUFFERD
diversity of the times, while also working as representations of some of the decade’s most profound social changes. “This was a time when music was everywhere, and though there were cultural divides, most popular music was heard by everyone. The high school girl, her science teacher, the principal, the custodian and the guy who delivered school supplies all listened to the same music,” Bloom says, adding with a laugh, “I had such a wonderful time choosing these. Can’t carry a tune, but I sure do like to listen.” Bloom published a complete playlist of the songs on her website, but says, “If you know the songs, that’s a little plus for you, but even if you don’t, the titles are so evocative they still bring something fresh.” Most of the novel is told from Eva’s wry perspective, but Lucky Us includes letters, both sent and unsent, from the sisters, their father and Gus, who works with them in Long Island, but through a series of unfortunate events, winds up in a German prison camp. The letters move the plot forward, but
r e t t Be h c a Be s d a e R
more importantly, they give the reader an additional glimpse at the inner thoughts of the characters as well as their joys, frustrations and hidden desires. “I love the epistolary form. There is something very moving to me about letters. The wish to communicate—which is sometimes successful and sometimes not—something happens in the presence of that intention.” Bloom’s short stories are known for their wise assurance that the very complexity of human expression—conversational, emotional and even sexual—is not only acceptable but also cause for celebration. In addition to the humor and fast-paced high jinks, Lucky Us contains a similar wisdom as it investigates how we engage with our families, both the ones we are born into and the ones we create. Bloom, who is now the distinguished University Writer-in-Residence at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, also has a master’s in social work and worked as a psychotherapist. She credits her training for giving her empathy for her characters’ deeply human foibles. “I learned to not interrupt,” she says, “to pay attention to what was said and how, and what was said before and what was said after. I learned to make as few assumptions as possible. To recognize that people are, in their nature, complex. So that training was really useful, especially the listening part. I don’t think you can be a good writer and a bad listener.” About halfway through the novel, Edgar remembers that his mother once told him, “It’s good to be smart, it’s better to be lucky.” But Lucky Us reminds us that not all luck is good luck. As Bloom puts it, “Luck is a roll of the dice and we are all subject to it. So, better to be lucky than smart? Sure. But better to be lucky and smart, so you have a plan when the dice go against you, which they will—sometimes.” Her playful novel reminds us that life can only be what we make of it and that the biggest setbacks often result in the most gratifying results. Her readers are all the luckier for it.
“An author to watch.”
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“I adored this book.” —Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train
“Poetic.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Unforgettable.” –Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You
“A delicious, highly readable novel.” –People, People Pick
“Feisty and poignant.” —People “Surprising and satisfying . . . delightfully vivid.” —Boston Globe @HarperPerennial
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interviews
JESS ROW
Blurring the lines of black and white
I
f a writer should follow Ernest Hemingway’s well-known dictum to write what he knows, then first-time novelist Jess Row just might be in the wrong business.
Case in point? In his highly regarded collection of short stories, The Train to Lo Wu (2005), Row, who taught English for two years in Hong Kong, wrote audaciously and movingly from the point of view of Chinese characters. And, now, in his imaginative and thought-provoking first novel, Your Face in Mine, Row writes about a white man named Martin Lipkin who has “racial reassignment surgery” and becomes a black entrepreneur named Martin Wilkinson. In the process, Martin’s predicament allows Row to explore the perplexing, emotionally and politically charged issues of black and white identity. Row also invents a syndrome—Racial Identity Dysphoria Syndrome, or RIDS— that may leap from the pages of fiction to the pages of medical or psychology textbooks some day in the not-too-distant future. “I was thinking, what if there was racial reassignment surgery that was like the gender reassignment surgery of our time?” Row says of the conception of the novel during a call to his home in NYU housing in Manhattan’s West Village.
YOUR FACE IN MINE
By Jess Row
Riverhead, $27.95, 384 pages ISBN 9781594488344, eBook available
DEBUT FICTION
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Named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007, Row teaches creative writing and literature at The College of New Jersey. His wife is a poet and scholar of African-American literature and black diaspora literature at NYU, hence their housing situation. “Then I thought, what if there were people who believed themselves to be born in the wrong racial body and had the surgical means to change that,” Row adds. Sounds like science fiction, right? But on a research trip to Thailand where he interviewed plastic surgeons doing sex change operations, Row found that his premise was not so far-fetched. “When I told them what my book was about, one of them said that is already happening, we just don’t use those words for it. And when I asked if they had clients they thought would do this if it were available, they said absolutely, we talk to people all the time who want to transform themselves in this way.” The very human desire for transformation is palpable throughout Your Face in Mine. The story is told by Kelly Thorndike, a former bandmate of the young, white Martin. As the novel opens, Kelly, now in his 30s, meets the financially successful, black Martin on a Baltimore street and becomes, shall we say, critically involved in the story. Kelly has recently lost his Chinese-born wife and daughter in a horrific car crash and as a result has his own burning need for a transformation. But transformation is a difficult business, as Row, a longtime practitioner of Zen Buddhism, well knows. “In this novel, there’s something very deep that the characters don’t understand about themselves. They follow what is to me a mistaken path toward trying to alleviate what they’ve lost in their lives by transforming themselves. In no case does it solve their problems. I would say that the fiction I
write, and fiction in general—if you look at it from the Buddhist perspective—is about modeling karma, how one event gives rise to another event, how actions have consequences. That’s the way in which fiction and Buddhism come together. They’re both really in some sense about causality.” How Martin and Kelly work out their separate karmic paths in the novel allows Row to examine very complicated issues of racial identity in America. “My feeling is that black culture is American culture. Anyone with an American Row’s novel identity is in poses a some sense rooted in a startling common question: experience What if we that can’t be could change separated from the experience our racial of black Ameridentity icans and the through experience of surgery? black culture. You can’t separate rock and roll from the history of black music. You can’t separate contemporary American culture from hip hop. You can’t separate the story of America from the story of slavery.” Still, Row acknowledges, it’s possible for many Americans to live in what his narrator calls “white dreamtime,” an idea that “very much comes from my own experience. I’m turning 40 this year, which means I was born at the tail end of the Civil Rights movement. I had liberal, very well-meaning, relatively self-aware parents. But I lived an existence where, for the most part, people of color were at
© SARAG SHATZ
BY ALDEN MUDGE
a distance, were not my intimate friends. Looking back on that time, it became clear to me that it’s possible for a variety of reasons for white Americans to imagine themselves in a world where people of color—it’s not that they don’t exist entirely—but they don’t meaningfully exist. And that is what Kelly describes in the novel.” Baltimore, where most the novel’s events take place, is the perfect setting to illustrate this kind of divide. It’s also where Row went to high school. “I really love Baltimore and I grieve over it at the same time,” Row says. “From the time I moved away until now, which is more than 20 years, this city has been in an absolutely dire economic situation. That’s partly because it’s so close to Washington, D.C. It’s been used as a kind of laboratory for so-called solutions to urban poverty. And . . . none of those solutions has worked. So I wanted the novel to be a kind of love song to Baltimore and also a kind of wail of despair.” Like other good works of fiction, Your Face in Mine is not merely a report on what the author knows from experience but an imaginative act. And in this case, it is an act with big risks. “A white person engaging with black culture is a very, very tricky business,” Row admits. “And in some sense there’s no way to get it right. But from my perspective that doesn’t mean that one should stop trying.”
“A big, old-fashioned, and important novel.” —Rick Bass
“Painted Horses has the hard thrill of the West when it was still a new world, the tenderness of first love, and the pain of knowledge.”—Amy Bloom “Gripping, page-turning . . . An outstanding debut novel that will linger in the reader’s mind.”—Library Library Journal (starred review) #1 IndieNext Pick for August A Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Pick An Indies Introduce Debut Author Selection
“A debut that captures a spirit of a place.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A wonderful novel full of horses, archaeology, the new West, and two fascinating women. Malcolm Brooks should be lauded for this amazing debut. Very fine.”—Jim Harrison “Malcolm Brooks has the same intuitive understanding of women that his character John H has of horses. . . . An exquisite, enthralling debut.”—Lily King Coming in August Available in cloth, eBook, and as a Blackstone audiobook
G R O V E / AT L A N T I C , I N C . www.groveatlantic.com
features
PARENTING BY AMY SCRIBNER
Finding your own parenting style
T
here’s no one way to successfully parent (if only there were—this whole parenting thing would be so much easier!). While the best advice is probably to follow your instincts and cut yourself a break when you make a mistake, these new books offer fresh, sometimes funny insight into the world’s hardest job. I’m not going to lie—I fully expected to dislike The Brainy Bunch (Gallery, $21.99, 240 pages, ISBN 9781476759340). Kip and Mona Lisa Harding have gotten a lot of media attention for homeschooling their children and getting six of their 10 kids into college by the age of 12. What’s the rush? I wondered indignantly. Why can’t you let your kids be kids? But the Hardings’ story is very much one of putting love and family first. They are not pushing their children to overachieve— they are helping them find their own unique potential. The book is filled with useful tips, sample schedules and fun projects—and even sections written by some of the children themselves. (Chapters also start with Bible verses, so if that’s not your thing, this may not
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be the book for you.) “Our children were not joining fraternities and sororities or going to the weekend parties,” they write. “Instead, they were actually spending more time with our family than if they had been attending a public high school. Our kids actually get to experience more of their childhood because they have more freedom in their education and lives.”
HILARITY ENSUES In How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane (Da Capo, $19.99, 256 pages, ISBN 9780738217345), TV writer Johanna Stein offers a deliciously funny reminder that parenting doesn’t have to be so serious. To wit: When her child was born, Stein took the placenta home from the hospital in order to play a joke on her best friend. That story alone is worth the price of the book. Chapter 17, written in all caps, enumerates the many ways her preschooler has insulted her. Favorites include, “Mommy, your tummy looks like a bagel” and “Clara and I were playing in your underpants. They fit both of us at the same time, ha ha!” Stein is definitely not trying to replicate What to Expect When You’re Expecting. If anything, she is the anti-parenting guide, subtly using funny anecdotes to demonstrate that we can
have fun with childrearing. She might not bestow nursing tips or ideas for planning the perfect playdate, but she will make you laugh—a lot—about the sweetness, messiness and absurdity of parenting.
SLEEP TIGHT La Leche League International’s newest book on how to breastfeed and still get some shut-eye is chock-full of advice and information. Maybe too chock-full? At more than 500 pages, one could argue that Sweet Sleep (Ballantine, $20, 512 pages, ISBN 9780345518477) might be a little overwhelming for a sleep-deprived new parent. But the editors smartly break the information into digestible bits organized by topics and age ranges. And for any parent desperate for an uninterrupted few hours of sleep, the advice is worth the read. Sweet Sleep includes extensive information on creating a safe sleep space, helping children learn to sleep on their own and defusing criticism of your family’s choices. La Leche League sometimes is (undeservedly) portrayed as an extremist group, but this book is nothing but supportive of whatever your choices are about nursing and sleeping.
NURTURING YOUNG READERS Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age (Touchstone, $15.99, 336 pages, ISBN 9781476749792), by former Mediabistro editor Jason Boog, is a book that couldn’t have been
written even five years ago. Used to be, you grabbed a copy of Pat the Bunny and maybe a Dr. Seuss, and you were good to go for several years. But new research and technology have made the seemingly simple topic of reading with your child much more complicated. Who hasn’t watched a toddler master an iPad faster than her parents? How can a print book ever compete with the newest Disney app? But we now know just how important reading from birth is—it can help build vocabulary and strengthen adult-child bonds. Boog offers straightforward advice—based on his research and conversations with experts, and on his own parenting experience— about how to make the most of time spent reading with your child. Sing, ask questions, use the book to springboard to conversations about bigger issues. Boog shows you how in this fascinating and user-friendly guide to helping develop a lifelong reader.
TAKING CHARGE Keep Calm and Parent On (Atria, $24, 288 pages, ISBN 9781476739540), by child development specialist Emma Jenner, is a no-nonsense guidebook for even the most unsure parents among us. Her message, delivered in a brisk, British, stiff-upper-lip manner, is that saying no to your kids doesn’t mean you don’t love them. In fact, it might be just what they need to hear. “You do not have to cater to your children and be an on-demand cook,” Jenner writes in a chapter called—of course—A Tale of Porridge and Pudding. “Your family kitchen is not a restaurant, so don’t let your children treat it like one!” Jenner has appeared on TLC’s “Take Home Nanny,” and her years of experience are apparent on every page of this wonderfully practical tome. Like a British nanny, Keep Calm and Parent On is gentle but firm, a reminder to this generation of parents that we really are in charge of our children, not the other way around. With Jenner’s advice in your pocket, you will feel equipped to parent on, indeed.
EDUCATION BY ANGELA LEEPER
Better teachers, better schools
A
s a new school year begins, four new titles reveal that teachers can but do change lives in classrooms every day. Chronicling how teachers adapt to change, improve their methods and even learn from their own students, these books will appeal to all those interested in the impact of education.
LEARNING TO TEACH Do some teachers have natural qualities that make them more effective educators? Elizabeth Green, editor-in-chief of website Chalkbeat New York, explores
teacher performance. Using numerous examples of instructional methods and students’ reactions to math problems, Green shows how teaching is anything but natural work. In this era of high-stakes standards, with an emphasis on accountability but little guidance, the author makes the case through thoughtful details that great teachers are made, not born. As Green advocates for practice-based teacher education, she brings hope and renewal to the field.
OUR CHANGING SCHOOLS
that question in Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (And How to Teach It to Everyone) (Norton, $27.95, 384 pages, ISBN 9780393081596). Expanding on an essay she wrote for the New York Times Magazine, Green gives a historical overview of studies on teaching, from the perspectives of such experts as behavioral and cognitive psychologists, educational specialists, economists and entrepreneurs. Among those cited are noted individuals in the field of education, including Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion, and mathematics teaching specialists Magdalene Lampert and Deborah Loewenberg Ball. Green also reflects on whether such recent developments as No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and Common Core have influenced
Just as he reflected on the state of dying bookstores in The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Lewis Buzbee turns to the plight of declining public schools in the slim yet moving Blackboard: A Personal History of the Classroom (Graywolf, $23, 224 pages, ISBN 9781555976835). Admittedly an average student, Buzbee attended California public schools when they were ranked first in the nation. Now these same schools scrape the bottom at 48th or 49th. To try to understand this fall, the author returns to the same schools he attended as a child and teenager. As he recalls visceral moments during his education, from learning to read with Ginn and Co. textbooks to the terror of locker room nakedness in P.E., Buzbee offers short, appealing histories of such staples as kindergartens, blackboards and school buses, and explains how they transformed the American school environment. He never forgets the most important asset in any school—the teachers—and recalls how they changed his own life after his father died. But in this era of budget cuts, metal detectors and teachers
forced to take second jobs to make ends meet, Buzbee also draws attention to the social, political and economic changes needed to create better schools. Part personal recollection, part history lesson, part call to action, Blackboard is all eloquence.
BACK IN THE CLASSROOM When his wife changed jobs and his family needed health insurance, Garret Keizer returned, after a 14year hiatus, to teaching at the same high school where he started his career 30 years earlier. A contributing editor of Harper’s magazine, author (Privacy) and a former Guggenheim Fellow, Keizer documents a one-year stint as an English teacher in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, one of the state’s poorest regions, in Getting Schooled: The Reeducation of an American Teacher (Metropolitan, $27, 320 pages, ISBN 9780805096439). This candid month-by-month account describes his time with his working-class students, as he wonders what they will do for employment and how to prepare them properly. Trying to make connections with his students and peers and keep his “ancient” teaching techniques alive—despite his students’ reluctance to consult books and a decimated library replaced with computers for reading—he finds education vastly transformed since he last set foot in a classroom. Much of Keizer’s memoir is dedicat-
ed to the biggest changes: uniform instruction (i.e., state and Common Core standards) and computerized productivity tools. Ironically, the latter make him devote more time to data and less time to educational substance. Readers will empathize with Keizer’s bittersweet feelings in June, when school is out and another year is not an option.
CONTINUING EDUCATION When Kim Bearden began her career as an educator, she assumed she would be the one doing all the teaching in her classroom. Instead, she recognizes the insight and wisdom she’s gleaned from her students in Crash Course: The Life Lessons My Students Taught Me (Simon & Schuster, $23.99, 208 pages, ISBN 9781451687705). Drawing on 27 years of experience as a teacher, curriculum director, middle school principal and cofounder of the Ron Clark Academy (an innovative, internationally renowned middle school in Atlanta), Bearden offers anecdotes, analogies and examples of creative problem-solving. Related in Bearden’s down-to-earth voice, these honest and uplifting lessons show the importance of relationship building, tenacity, gratitude and even magic and play. Bearden explains how she and her students “do see color,” embracing and celebrating differences in culture. She shows that we sometimes have to identify the greatness in others before they see it for themselves, and that our individual talents, which may seem like misshapen puzzle pieces, can fit together to make a beautiful picture. While the author gives a teacher’s perspective, the recommendations here are applicable to anyone who works with youth or the public.
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features
FIRST FICTION
Four talented first-timers step onto the literary stage
T
hough the “overnight success” story tends to make headlines, debut novels are more often the result of years of hard work and dedication. This month, we’re highlighting four debuts that deserve some time in the spotlight.
It is always a treat when a talented writer chooses to write about her home, particularly when she does so with authority, clarity and imagination. Such is the case with Carrie La Seur, whose debut novel The Home Place (Morrow, $25.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780062323446) gives readers a stunning but frank look at what it means to be from Billings, Montana. La Seur, herself a lawyer, employs her intimate knowledge of the legal system and her familiarity with the setting to create a powerful work of fiction. The main character, Alma, has put her hometown far behind her to work at a highend law firm in Seattle, but she is called back to Billings after her younger sister, Vicky, is found dead on the side of the road. Upon arriving in Billings, Alma dubs herself co-investigator of Vicky’s death, quietly mulling over possible evidence, interviewing witnesses and interrogating potential killers. La Seur’s book is not just a crime novel, however. As Alma is forced to return to places she has worked to forget, she struggles with memories from her past—of first loves, of never-ending landscapes that have since been destroyed by mining, of her parents’ deaths, of Vicky’s life, of leaving Montana. With pitch-perfect prose, La Seur reminds us that home, though often a difficult word to define, is the place that pulls us no matter how hard we try to push against it. —STEPHANIE KIRKLAND
BLENDING MYTH AND MAGIC Marjorie, a graduate student in literature, assumed her sister Holly would always be her best friend and their grandfather’s bedtime stories were fairy tales. Then, after his death, Marjorie discovers notebooks filled with the same stories, now poetically rendered as Jewish folktales—though her grandfather never claimed to be a Jew.
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Presented in full throughout the novel, these tales reveal aspects of Marjorie’s grandfather’s identity that undermine her faith in his character. As she struggles to interpret the stories, Marjorie has a series of encounters with an old man who not only knows about the notebooks, but also bitterly resents her grandfather. While coping with these revelations, Marjorie struggles to accept Holly’s marriage to Nathan, a
structed life is artificial, and as he quickly discovers from his job in a 1970s research lab, artificial sweetness has its drawbacks. Sweetness #9, the pretty pink artificial sweetener David examines in his lab, promises him, and the country, the good life. But it might have a dark side—since its introduction, many have become lethargic, anxious and overweight. But is that because of the pink powder, or is it just a product of the
prickly, deeply observant member of an Orthodox Jewish sect. As Marjorie turns away from Holly and her new faith, a tragic event related to their hidden history forces Marjorie to set aside her anger and help someone she loves. As Marjorie’s investigations proceed, she discovers connections that span not just generations, but oceans, and that may even disobey the laws of time and space. Stephanie Feldman’s first novel is a compelling mix of fable, history and mystery, but at the center, it is a very human story about how families accept one another’s choices while forgiving one another’s mistakes. The Angel of Losses (Ecco, $25.99, 288 pages, ISBN 9780062228918) is an ambitious work by a brilliant new author.
human condition? It’s easy to think Sweetness #9 (Little, Brown, $26, 352 pages, ISBN 9780316278751) is an anti-food industry book, but it really isn’t. Artificial sweetener is used as a metaphor, and the real heart of the story is the past decades’ cultural shifts. It’s all here, from aerobics to blue ketchup, from school shootings to suburbia, from over-medication to diet fads. Chemical flavoring stands for our obsession with immediacy, our single-serving, isolationist culture and our inability to stomach anything nourishing, either culinary or emotional. German-born author Stephan Eirik Clark’s style is understated and calm, punctuated with funny observations on the ridiculous aspects of everyday life. His writing is undeniably quirky, complete with a boy who loses his ability to use verbs, a German entrepreneur who flavored food for Hitler and a dancing monkey. But, like the sweetener, Clark’s style is masking something else: His quippy one-liners keep us
—MARIANNE PETERS
A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR David Leveraux just wants to fit in. He creates an easy, comfortable life with his pretty wife—but it doesn’t stay that way. His well-con-
entertained, so we barely notice the tale of hopelessness and loneliness that he’s creating along the way. Fans of Tom Perrotta will enjoy Clark’s pointed examination of the human condition. —C A R R I E R O L LWA G E N
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED Tom Putnam, an English professor at a small Southern college, had grown accustomed to living a simple, quiet life. His days were spent teaching, his nights at home with his unstable wife, Marjory, and her mother, the outspoken Agnes. Tom blamed himself for Marjory’s condition—a fleeting affair with a visiting poetess a decade ago had completely devastated her—and he never seemed to want more than he had. That is, until Rose Callahan arrives to run the campus bookstore and a series of unpredictable events change everything. Rose is as lovely as her name, managing to charm almost everyone. Tom is taken with her instantly, but the very night they meet, he receives word that his affair produced a son, who will be coming to stay with him. Suddenly Tom must figure out how to navigate both his relationship with his son and his growing attraction to Rose. Martha Woodroof’s delightful debut is a character-driven novel with a lot of heart. It’s a story of family, friendship and the unexpected ways people come in and out of our lives. Watching Tom and Rose change each other for the better is engaging and inspiring, and while some plot twists border on the unbelievable, Small Blessings (St. Martin’s, $25.99, 320 pages, ISBN 9781250040527) is pure reading pleasure. Woodroof, an NPR contributor, clearly has a deep understanding of the human condition, and she has crafted a charming and compelling first novel that is perfect for book clubs and fans of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand. —ABBY PLESSER
Find more #FirstFictionMonth coverage on BookPage.com.
MARY KUBICA BY SHEILA M. TRASK
A daughter’s captor
M
ary Kubica’s debut, The Good Girl (MIRA, $24.95, 352 pages, ISBN 9780778316558) is a constant game of cat and mouse. In this tense psychological thriller, Mia Dennett’s abduction poses questions about relationships, their boundaries and their limits.
MEGAN BEARDER
q&a
The Good Girl offers an unusual perspective on Stockholm syndrome. Do you believe there are situations when a captor can actually be a protector—and vice versa? Yes, I absolutely do. I feel that in certain situations where the victim and perpetrator must rely on each other for survival, their roles can evolve from a hierarchical system into a relationship based on mutual understanding—and a knowledge of the fact that their very existence may depend on the other. That dependence on one another could certainly allow a captor to take on the role of protector, or the victim to take on a more assertive role in the relationship. Mia’s mother plays a major role in the kidnapping investigation. How did your own fears as a mother play into this story? I sympathize with Eve Dennett on every level. For a mother, having your child vanish into thin air is utterly incomprehensible. I tried hard to explore the emotions I may have felt had it been my child who disappeared, considering everything from fear to sadness to anger. But Eve has more to deal with than just a missing child. She’s also trying to make amends for poor decisions she’s made in the past and suffers from grief, regret and longing all at the same time. This too I can sympathize with; as a mother, it’s easy to make spur-of-the-moment decisions we later regret. Raising children is no easy task, a fact which I’ve tried to make evident in the case of Eve. Shifting before-and-after perspectives keep readers guessing throughout The Good Girl. What did you find to be the greatest challenge in crafting such a puzzling thriller? I’d have to say that the greatest challenge came in the editing process. Because of the various twists and turns and the overlapping storylines, every aspect of The Good Girl is tightly connected. As any one detail—no matter how trivial—changed, it unraveled a seemingly endless number of threads, so that I would need to reread the manuscript again and again—and yet again—to make sure I had revised all other mentions of the change—a challenging task, and yet one I enjoyed! You seem equally at home setting your story in busy Chicago streets or quiet Minnesota woods. Are you a city girl or a country girl? This is a great question! By and large I’m a city girl. I like a little noise and the close proximity of neighbors; I like the luxuries of city life and knowing there is a grocery store and a coffee shop nearby. That said, I also love the beauty and serenity of the country; I’m always up for a walk through the woods or exploring the countryside—though I have a strong aversion to bugs. Would I like to be trapped inside a rural, rustic cabin for months on end? No, thank you. But a long weekend in the country . . . that’s much more my style, as long as I can get Visit BookPage.com for a back to the city as soon as the weekend is review of The Good Girl. through.
meet SPENCER QUINN Q: What’s the title of your new book? would you describe the Q: How book in one sentence?
Q: What makes Chet an excellent narrator for this series?
Q: What three things can a dog do better than a person?
a writer, what’s been the best thing about adopting a new Q: As (and very different) voice to tell Chet and Bernie’s stories?
Q: Words to live by?
PAW AND ORDER In Paw and Order (Atria, $25, 320 pages, ISBN 9781476703398), ruff-and-ready canine detective Chet and human helper Bernie head to Washington, D.C., to solve a case involving international spies and a menacing guinea pig. The imaginative brain behind this operation belongs to Spencer Quinn, aka Peter Abrahams, a noted suspense writer who chose a nom de plume to chronicle Chet and Bernie’s adventures. Abrahams lives on Cape Cod with his dogs, Audrey and Pearl.
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features
BEHIND THE BOOK
Between medicine and morality
S
urgeon-turned-author Gabriel Weston made her literary debut with a gripping medical memoir. In her first novel, Dirty Work, she again turns to medicine for inspiration, this time investigating one of its most morally fraught procedures: abortion. In a behind-the-book story, Weston explains why she felt drawn to explore this contentious issue, and why she believes the two sides may be closer together than we think.
What would you do if you had an untellable story? Of what does a doctor’s morality consist? What surprised me most about writing my first book, Direct Red: A Surgeon’s Story, was the reaction it elicited in some of my colleagues. I had read quite a few memoirs written by men in my profession, and although I was always impressed by their operating achievements, I felt slightly weary of reading heroic tales of life-saving antics, proud accounts of bloody machismo. What I decided I wanted to put alongside these chronicles was a story of surgical inadequacy. I wanted to describe what it feels like to be a surgeon in those moments when one does not feel in control, when one is uncertain of one’s ability, when one is terrified, when an operation is not going well. Instead of cataloging what a
DIRTY WORK
By Gabriel Weston
Little, Brown, $25, 192 pages ISBN 9780316235624, eBook available
DEBUT FICTION
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surgeon can do, I wanted to talk about how we feel and what we do when we haven’t got a clue. After publication, surgeons came to me quietly or wrote to thank me for having said and described things they had felt inI saw the room tensely themselves during for a moral their training person to feel but had never completely been able to torn between admit. I was touched by a sense of righteousness these comments but, and a even more, I corrosive guilt. was interested. I started to wonder to what extent we all carry an untold version, the untellable truth of our own existence, folded tightly away within ourselves. I started thinking about what it might mean to keep aspects of our lives secret as well as the implications of suddenly having to speak out. I also started to consider what it means to be a good doctor. Many of my colleagues claimed they were afraid to own up to feelings of uncertainty in case doing so damaged their reputation. I realized that doctors still feel, in some sense, that they should behave like paragons. I wondered where our moral core resides and what it would take to break that brittle image. What would it take for a doctor to go from being considered good to being thought of as bad? It was from these questions that my main character emerged. Nancy is a woman with an unspeakable story, a woman physician who
carries an indelible moral taint. Despite her best intentions and perhaps even by accident, Nancy has become an abortion provider. Her very existence is taboo and yet she is forced, by the circumstances of a mistake made in the operating theatre, to tell her story, to justify her actions not only to an external panel of judges but, perhaps hardest of all, to herself. I happened upon the subject of abortion for this reason, not because I had any particular political ax to grind. I have never had an abortion myself, nor have I performed one as a doctor. But as soon as I started researching the area, something fascinating struck me. None of the books or articles that I read on the subject seemed to allow for even a degree of ambiguity. Everyone, from whichever side of the fence they were preaching, seemed so sure that they, and they alone, had the right answers. In some ways, it seemed to me that people were being dishonest in their certainty. And whenever I told someone I was embarking on a novel about an abortion provider, the conversation stopped dead. Even my agent and publisher cautioned me that if I wrote the book I intended to, no one would want to read it. It was like a red flag to a bull, and all the encouragement I needed.
BARNEY JONES
BY GABRIEL WESTON
It has been my experience, in the process of writing this book, that the thing that makes us all so very uncomfortable when the subject of abortion is raised, is the mysterious compulsion we all feel to have a completely absolute and watertight opinion on the subject. This seems crazy to me. I have stood on anti-abortion picket lines in the Midwest of America, and I have understood exactly why the people who wave their banners are so upset. I have also witnessed countless women gain access to the abortion services that they absolutely deserve. In Nancy, I hope to have created a character who holds all this ambiguity within herself. In writing her, I saw the room for a moral person to feel completely torn between a sense of righteousness and a corrosive guilt. First and foremost, what I hope to have written is a gripping, unput-downable novel. But I hope also to show that even the most extreme positions on this thorny subject may be held within one consciousness, that the enemy camps are pitched much closer to each other than one might think.
reviews
FICTION EVERGREEN By Rebecca Rasmussen
BIG LITTLE LIES
Moms behaving badly BY DEB DONOVAN
LITERARY FICTION
Australian author Liane Moriarty portrays elementary school drama in her latest page-turner, Big Little Lies, which comes on the heels of her first U.S. bestseller, The Husband’s Secret. At Pirriwee Public School, petty jealousies and rumors all come to the surface in one “perfect storm”—otherwise known as the annual trivia night. Amid a large cast of kindergarten parents, Moriarty focuses on three women: Madeline, not pleased she’s turning 40; Celeste, a raving beauty whose husband is obscenely wealthy; and newcomer Jane, a young single mom who just recently moved to the pristine beachside community of Pirriwee. Madeline and her husband Ed have a daughter, Chloe, in kindergarten, and a 7-year-old son, as well as a 14-year-old daughter, Abigail, By Liane Moriarty Amy Einhorn Books, $26.95, 416 pages from her first marriage. Her ex-husband and his young wife, a free-spirISBN 9780399167065, Audio, eBook available ited yoga fanatic, have a daughter who will be in Chloe’s class at Pirriwee Public, much to Madeline’s dismay. When Madeline befriends Jane POPULAR FICTION and introduces her to Celeste, whose twins are also entering kindergarten at Pirriwee, the three women and their children enter what Madeline describes as “a minefield” of school politics together—one they must start navigating on the very first day. Over the six months preceding the school’s most eventful trivia night ever, Moriarty reveals some of those politics, as well as secrets harbored by each of these women—even as they become close friends. Bullying, infidelity and more enter the picture in surprising ways, reminding readers that everyone has secrets. Moriarty has crafted a great summer read full of perceptive glimpses into the many guises of human relationships: mother-child, husband-wife (and ex-wife) and above all, the Visit BookPage.com for a Q&A strong bond of female friendships.
with Liane Moriarty.
A MAN CALLED OVE By Fredrik Backman
Translated by Henning Koch Atria $25, 352 pages ISBN 9781476738017 eBook available
WORLD FICTION
At first glance, Ove looks like a Grumpy Old Man with a Saab—a typical curmudgeon, not the type whose depths one is tempted to plumb. In fact, unless you like being scowled at, scolded, insulted and having doors slammed in your face, you might just decide to avoid him altogether. He wouldn’t mind; the only person he wants to see is his wife, who died six months ago. Luckily for Ove, certain types of people see a grump as a project.
One such, a pregnant SwedishIranian named Parvaneh, moves in nearby with her family and instantly gets under Ove’s skin, in both senses. It soon becomes clear that this is a story about the rewards of looking beyond the surface. Despite appearances, Ove is neither a xenophobe nor exactly a misanthrope; he just believes rules are rules. Each morning he patrols the neighborhood to make sure all is just so. Parvaneh and her family’s arrival—in which they drive in the strictly no-driving zone, etc.—heralds a series of challenges to Ove’s preferred order. Worse, people keep interfering with his plans to join his wife. Ove finds his grief is not enough to let him off the hook. Like it or not, he can’t turn his back on the changing world. A Man Called Ove—which made its blogger author a Swedish literary superstar when published
Knopf $25.95, 352 pages ISBN 9780385350990 eBook available
there in 2013—takes a wry look at modern Sweden, particularly the way its older, stodgier generations are coping with change. It’s a fascinating, hilarious and occasionally heartrending portrait. Buried sadness forms the story’s core, yet the writing is light and charming, the descriptions inventive. (Asked what he’s doing in the garage, for instance, Ove answers “with a sound more or less like when you try to move a bathtub by dragging it across some tiles.”) The third-person narration has some quirky perspective shifts: Sometimes we’re inside Ove’s head, knowing and feeling what he knows and feels, but other times we sort of hover near his shoulders, watching him with authorial fondness. For the most part, though, watching Ove from any vantage point is a pleasure. —BECKY OHLSEN
Rebecca Rasmussen (The Bird Sisters) traces the lasting damage of violence to devastating effect in her second novel, Evergreen, a fairy tale-like chronicle of how one moment’s pain can echo through generations. When gentle, innocent young Eveline follows her German-born husband, Emil, to a homestead in the wilds of Minnesota after their marriage in 1938, she must learn to care for her family without the comforts of town. Soon after their son, Hux, is born, Emil is called to the bedside of his dying father in Germany. He instructs Eveline to take Hux and return to her parents in town, but Eveline, who has fallen in love with the freedom and beauty of the wilderness, decides to await his return in their primitive cabin. Human threats prove to be greater than those from nature, however, and a violent visit leads to a fateful decision that shapes the family for decades to come. Rasmussen was born and raised in the Midwest, and her descriptions of the Minnesota wilderness are poetic in their spare beauty. Nature has an almost mystical draw for the characters in Evergreen, most of whom look to it as a refuge rather than something to conquer. Nature can be cruel, but humans—with their messy emotions and ability to harm even those they love—can be even more devastating. It’s far from an uncommon message, but here it’s delivered with sensitivity and without sentimentality. With its quiet beauty, deep compassion and strong emotional pull, Evergreen cements Rasmussen’s reputation as one of our most talented new writers. —T R I S H A P I N G
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reviews THE GHOST IN THE ELECTRIC BLUE SUIT By Graham Joyce Doubleday $24.95, 288 pages ISBN 9780385538633 Audio, eBook available
FANTASY
FICTION Electric Blue Suit, Joyce weaves a bizarre, colorful story, full of nostalgia, indecision, emotion and tension, and this genre-spanning novel is sure to be a favorite of fantasy, suspense and thriller fans. —HALEY HERFURTH
2 A.M. AT THE CAT’S PAJAMAS By Marie-Helene Bertino
In the summer of 1976, 19-yearold David Barwise takes a job at a holiday resort in the seaside town of Skegness, England, hoping to avoid spending the summer with his mother and stepfather. But there is something more sinister underlying David’s reasoning: The beach resort is where his biological father died 15 years earlier, and David feels strangely drawn to the area, despite the tension it causes within his family. The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit is a startlingly clear tale of a blistering English holiday season, the hottest in English history. The seasonal staff, made up of eccentrics and show people, accepts David into the fold—even hulking, ill-tempered resort employee Colin, with whom David develops an interesting relationship. His days are filled with organizing treasure hunts, setting up talent shows and judging sandcastle contests, and his nights are spent restlessly attempting sleep as he grapples with the odd feelings that being at Skegness brings. As David attempts to navigate the social structure of the resort staff, he becomes entangled in political movements and love triangles, both forbidden and dangerous. Meanwhile, swarms of ladybugs plague the town, and his attempts at building a life in Skegness are haunted by sinister and troubling visions of a man in a blue suit who wanders the beach, grasping a rope and an unidentifiable young child. Graham Joyce’s fiction has earned him the O. Henry Award, the British Fantasy Award and the World Fantasy Award, and praise from horror and fantasy-genre greats like Peter Straub and Stephen King. In The Ghost in the
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Crown $25, 272 pages ISBN 9780804140232 Audio, eBook available
DEBUT FICTION
her. Bertino’s prose easily dips in and out of the lives of her characters as she weaves them together, including insight into secondary figures at each turn. With vivid description and great character development, Bertino brings Philadelphia and its inhabitants to life in an unforgettable tale. —CARLA JEAN WHITLEY
PROTOTYPE
—MEG BOWDEN
THE LOTUS AND THE STORM By Lan Cao
Viking $27.95, 400 pages ISBN 9780670016921 eBook available
WORLD FICTION
By M.D. Waters
Dutton $26.95, 384 pages ISBN 9780525954248 eBook available
SUSPENSE
It’s 7 a.m. on December 23, and Madeleine Altimari is shimmying. In 30-second intervals, the girl attempts to perfect her moves, pausing in between for a quick drag from a cigarette. After each interval, she rates her work on a school-letter scale. She has yet to check off the day’s other rehearsal tasks: singing, scales, guitar. Madeleine is two days shy of 10. She doesn’t know it yet, but Madeleine is about to embark on one of the most sensational days of her young life. She dreams of life as a jazz singer, and after a particularly challenging day at her Philadelphia Catholic school, Madeleine will set out to make that dream a reality. She may have to break some rules and step on some toes in the process, but Madeline doesn’t mind; her heart is set on song. Across town, Madeleine’s fifthgrade teacher, Sarina Greene, is preparing a special day for her students and anticipating a dinner party that will reunite her with high school friends. Meanwhile, Jack Lorca faces a fine that could lead to the demise of the Cat’s Pajamas, the legendary jazz club he inherited from his father. As the minutes tick past, their individual paths become intertwined. 2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas, the debut novel by One Story editor Marie-Helene Bertino, chronicles the ordinary moments that add up to one memorable day in the lives of Madeleine and those around
loved, lost and fought every step of the way.
M.D. Waters provides even more suspense and revelations as she returns to the complicated dystopian world that she set up so brilliantly in her debut novel Archetype. Equal parts science fiction and romance, this two-book series follows our heroine Emma as she attempts to define herself in a futuristic world where cloning is an everyday affair. At the end of Archetype, Emma had escaped her controlling husband, Declan Burke, after discovering that she is a clone of the resistance member Emma Wade. Now months have passed, and Emma has fled to Mexico to search for her parents in hopes that they can help her start a new life. When Declan appears on the news, offering a sizable reward for Emma’s return, she realizes that it is impossible for her new life to begin until her past is settled—including her feelings for Noah, the fellow resistance fighter she married before the cloning. Much of the struggle in Prototype is internal, as Emma tries to overcome her past trauma. Archetype found Emma in a confused, fragile state, searching for answers and then discovering that she is a clone. By the conclusion of Prototype, Emma has transformed into a brave and determined woman who knows what she wants, and will fight hard to get it. With every turn of the page, Emma achieves the respect that comes from having
“Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam, we’ve all been there.” So says war correspondent Michael Herr on the persistent reality of a war curiously prone to re-examination. In The Lotus and the Storm, by Vietnamese-American author Lan Cao, this revisiting takes the form of a dialogue of sorts between a daughter and a father, lotuses swept to America’s shores by the storm of the American intervention. The father, Mr. Minh, is a soldier in the South Vietnamese army. At first appreciative of the assistance the Americans provide, he is disillusioned by the U.S.-backed assassination of the republic’s leader Diem. Minh doesn’t switch sides, but when the Americans retreat in ignominy, his sense of betrayal becomes complete. Mai, the daughter, becomes enamored at a young age with a typically green and generous American, who appears to be killed in an attack that also slays her sister. Much like the author, Mai nevertheless attains with great ambivalence a portion of the American Dream. Now that most Americans view the war as a mistake if not an atrocity, the author is keen to remind us that, whatever the Americans’ broader strategic goals, saving South Vietnam was to its loyal citizens a dire matter indeed. Moreover, the civil strife didn’t end when the war did, with Vietnamese-Americans on both sides still holding grudges and nursing resentments. But this is also a novel about reconciliation, and about that generation of Vietnamese for whom the future
supersedes the past. This isn’t the best novel about the conflict—that honor goes to Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War. Cao’s dense language and her seeming indecision between embittered history and sentimentality belie the novel’s therapeutic character. But, like Cao’s acclaimed debut, Monkey Bridge, it is an impassioned and powerful attempt to understand a chapter of history that, as Herr says, we’ve all in a sense inhabited. —KENNETH CHAMPEON
ALL I LOVE AND KNOW By Judith Frank
Morrow $26.99, 432 pages ISBN 9780062302878 Audio, eBook available
POPULAR FICTION
Judith Frank’s second novel is a powerful tale of a family working its way through unthinkable tragedy. It opens as Matt Greene and his partner, Daniel Rosen, are flying to Tel Aviv—Daniel’s twin brother and his wife have just been killed by a suicide bomber. Ilana and Joel left behind two small children, 6-yearold Gall and baby Noam. A devastated Daniel knows that his brother and sister-in-law wanted Matt and Daniel to raise the children if anything ever happened to them. Ilana’s parents, Holocaust survivors and devout Jews, are stunned that their only remaining connection to Ilana will now live thousands of miles away with a gay couple. Daniel’s parents are nonplussed as well. They are not fans of Matt and feel as if they should have been the ones chosen to raise the children. As is typical in tragedies, the characters focus their energy and emotions on the children left behind. Frank, however, spends a good deal of time focusing on the character of Daniel, the surviving twin and now foster father, who is overwhelmed with grief. The multilayered story is about the characters learning to live after a
sudden and immense loss. With issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, terrorism, gay partnership and Judaism in America as a backdrop, All I Love and Know is a powerful novel about love, loss and the will to endure after inconceivable tragedy. —ELISABETH ATWOOD
BACK CHANNEL By Stephen L. Carter
Knopf $27.95, 464 pages ISBN 9780385349604 Audio, eBook available
SUSPENSE
The first thing you may think when reading the opening pages of Stephen L. Carter’s engrossing Back Channel is, “What in the devil is going on here?” It’s 1962 and we’re at the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy is in a townhouse with a 19-yearold African-American girl, but not for the reason you think. It seems that this young lady is the key to stopping the world from becoming a glowing, radioactive ember in the darkness of space. You can’t be blamed if your first reaction is bemusement. But even before this assignation, the young lady, Margo Evans, is sent to Bulgaria to babysit a real historical figure—you would never in a million years guess who it is. (Don’t worry, it isn’t Comrade Khrushchev.) Now, on top of your bemusement, you have to wonder, “Were things during the Cold War that desperate?” Anyway, Margo’s fractious charge has been approached by some Russian muckety-muck who may or may not tell him just what’s in all those crates the Soviets are shipping to Cuba. Her task is to get him to tell her so she can tell her handlers, or something like that. But when the charge refuses to show up for a meeting because of obsessions he finds more pressing, Margo goes in his place. The experience proves traumatic, but then, to paraphrase one character,
q&a
DIANA GABALDON BY TRISHA PING
The heart of a series
W
orld War II-era nurse Claire Randall stumbled through a stone circle into the 18th century—and straight into the hearts of readers, who have enthusiastically embraced Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.
ELENNA LOUGHLIN
FICTION
Gabaldon returns to the saga of Claire and her Scottish soul mate, Jamie Fraser, this summer with Written in My Own Heart’s Blood (Delacorte, $35, 848 pages, ISBN 9780385344432), the eighth book in the series—and this month the TV adaptation of the first book, Outlander, will debut on Starz. Like all your books, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood has a lot of interwoven storylines. Which one was your favorite to write? Ah . . . well, I’ll tell you what. Pick up your favorite shirt. Look at the fabric closely. Which thread is your favorite? If a fabric is well-woven, all the threads will be in the right place, providing support or ornament. Just so in a well-constructed book. What was the most exciting moment from the book to see on screen? I won’t know until I’ve seen the show in its entirety. I did, though, tell Sam Heughan [who plays Jamie Fraser] during a fan event in L.A. that I was looking forward to seeing him raped and tortured. As an author, do you worry that the TV series will put increased pressure on you to finish the series, as George R.R. Martin has experienced after the adaptation of the Song of Ice and Fire series? No. I write much faster than George. <g> No, really—it’s not a problem. I have eight books of the series in print! Several of them quite long (meaning that the material could well extend over more than one season). It isn’t going to take me eight years to write another book. It seems like every Outlander book is rumored to be the last. Do you see a likely end point? Rumors, forsooth. It’s just silly hysteria, and entirely pointless. I’ve never said this or that book is the last one. I can’t think why people think they have to know how many books there will be in a series—but if some mental compulsion afflicts them, I’m afraid they’re out of luck. I don’t plan the books out ahead of time, I don’t write with an outline, and I don’t write in a straight line—so I have no idea. Your fans are particularly fervent—a 900-seat auditorium in Portland sold out, and you just had a fan retreat outside Seattle. Do you have a standout fan moment? I have wonderful fans: educated, literate, intelligent, sane (something many of my fellow authors envy) and amazingly kind. Which is not to say that some of them don’t show up at signings with “Da mi basia Mille” tattooed on their rumpuses, or present me with hand-knitted teddy bears (in pale blue) playing bagpipes, but I love them all, regardless. You’ve mentioned your work on a contemporary mystery—is that still something fans can look forward to? Yes, in the fullness of time.
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reviews “Things get funny.” If that’s not enough to keep you hooked, Carter surrounds Margo with people who are decidedly not nice and situations that are beyond surreal. Watching Margo navigate among so many landsharks, including our charming horndog of a POTUS, is fascinating in its own right. Then, there’s Margo herself. Brilliant, logical, ambitious, patriotic in her own way, somewhat chilly in demeanor, she may remind you of a young Condoleeza Rice. But it’s her vulnerability, ultimately, that fascinates. She’s a girl, she’s an orphan, she’s a virgin, she doesn’t quite know what she’s supposed to do or how she’s supposed to do it. That you’re here to read this review tells you one outcome of her ordeal. For the rest of it, you’ll have to read Carter’s smart and snappy page-turner. —ARLENE M�KANIC
TIGERMAN By Nick Harkaway Knopf $26.95, 352 pages ISBN 9780385352413 eBook available
FANTASY
Nick Harkaway has a strange way of making us feel at home as readers even when we are in a decidedly strange place, of immersing us in something new and somehow making it feel familiar at the same time. With Tigerman, he again spellbinds with witty prose and inviting characters while taking us into a world that needs an unexpected hero. After a hard tour of duty in Afghanistan, Sergeant Lester Ferris is sent off on a supposedly leisurely assignment in a fictional British territory called Mancreu. He’s meant to simply keep an eye on things, despite the island’s growing criminal reputation. In the quirky, chaotic and often unexpected grind of daily life there, he meets a young boy obsessed with comic books and quickly grows fond
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FICTION of him. They forge a somewhat unlikely friendship as the boy influences Lester’s worldview. Then, an outbreak of violence shakes Mancreu, and when faced with a new path, Lester must contemplate being a hero again, not just for the island, but for the boy he’s come to love. British writer Harkaway (The Gone-Away World) is known for sweeping us off to alien worlds that are somehow strikingly and humanly familiar. With Tigerman, he pulls that off again. Mancreu is a fascinating place, smeared over with a particular kind of fantasy, one where the reinvention of self seems to hang in the air. The characters who populate it are equally compelling. If you look closely, though, you’ll see that Harkaway’s gift lies not just in his knack for imagining environments teeming with a kind of transportive magic, but in the prose itself. Lester’s dreams of a new life, and the boy’s musings about and fixations on the heroes he worships, are just as filled with depth and charisma as the novel’s completely inventive plot. Harkaway shows his brilliance on a micro and macro level, and the result is a funny, touching and meditative page-turner that will leave you thinking about what it really means to be a hero for days after you’ve finished it. —MATTHEW JACKSON
Visit BookPage.com for a Q&A with Nick Harkaway.
COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE By Haruki Murakami
Translated by Philip Gabriel Knopf, $25.95, 400 pages ISBN 9780385352109 Audio, eBook available
WORLD FICTION
Much like J.K. Rowling and George R.R. Martin, best-selling author Haruki Murakami is the type of writer whose fans queue up at bookstores at midnight, clamor-
ing to be the first to get their hands on his latest book. Unfortunately, people who do not read Japanese have had to wait quite some time to read Murakami’s latest, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, which was published to acclaim in Japan in April 2013. One could argue that it was worth the wait. In this somber book, readers are introduced to Tsukuru Tazaki, a Tokyo train engineer in his mid-30s. During high school, Tsukuru had been immersed in a particularly A young man close friendseeks reasons ship with for a past two other disappointment boys and two girls in his in Haruki hometown. Murakami’s However, sorrow-steeped one day soon after new novel. they started college, the group kicked him out of their close-knit circle and refused all future contact, without giving any explanation. Now Tsukuru’s girlfriend has decided that before their relationship can progress, he needs to get to the bottom of why his friends tossed him out like a piece of garbage. So Tsukuru embarks on an international pilgrimage to visit each of his friends for an explanation behind the breakup, in order to move on with his life and find closure. Traveling from Northern Japan through Tokyo and over to Finland, Tsukuru is immersed in the type of nostalgia where one feels homesick for a past that cannot be recreated or reclaimed, no matter how hard one might try. Those who have suffered a loss of friendship (and who can say that they haven’t ever been ousted by a clique?) will find this book hits particularly close to home. As the ending of this sorrowsteeped novel approaches, a beautiful future for Tsukuru is only guaranteed by a close examination of the secrets that have stained his past.
Rene Steinke, a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award for her novel Holy Skirts, makes an awaited return with Friendswood. Located outside of Houston, the town of Friendswood, Texas, is definitely all-American. The citizens are high on religion, high school football and the oil business. But then a hurricane uncovers not just buried toxic chemicals, but secrets and moral ambiguities that are crippling the town. Steinke’s narration skips among four different narrators, but the most dynamic characters are middle-aged Lee and teenaged Willa, both of whom want to challenge the status quo in a community where people are clearly encouraged to “go with the flow.” Lee’s daughter, Jess, died tragically from a blood disorder that Lee is convinced was caused by the oil company’s toxic waste. She is a woman with a mission, but many think her charges against the oil companies are unfounded. Willa was raised by a conservative family that believes everything their preacher espouses. In an effort to garner attention from the cool boys, she attends a party where she is drugged and gang raped—yet her parents and pastor advise her to forget what happened to her and not make a spectacle of herself. The two women’s struggles to bring the truth to light make for an exciting read. Lee will go to any length, legal or not, to fight against the groups that refuse to acknowledge the chemicals infecting their town. Willa works to find her voice and the courage to expose the boys that hurt her. Friendswood is full of morally complex characters that will keep you engaged until the final page.
—MEGAN FISHMANN
—ELISABETH ATWOOD
FRIENDSWOOD By Rene Steinke Riverhead $27.95, 368 pages ISBN 9781594632518 eBook available
FICTION
reviews
NONFICTION POWERS OF TWO By Joshua Wolf Shenk
IN THE KINGDOM OF ICE
HMH/Eamon Dolan $28, 368 pages ISBN 9780544031593 eBook available
Marooned in the ice BY HENRY L. CARRIGAN JR.
CREATIVITY
On July 8, 1879, cheering throngs watched as the USS Jeannette set out from San Francisco and sailed off like a “long dark pencil of shadow standing straight up against the vivid sunset.” Under the command of officer George Washington De Long, the steamer and its crew were attempting to reach the North Pole and confirm a then-popular theory that the polar sea remained ice-free and open north of the Bering Strait. The expedition was funded by James Gordon Bennett Jr., the wealthy and eccentric owner of the New York Herald, who had also financed Stanley’s mission to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone. Drawing on newly available letters, diaries, journals and other archives, crackerjack storyteller Hampton Sides (Hellhound on His Trail) vividly chronicles the tale of the Jeannette, the excitement and optiBy Hampton Sides Doubleday, $28.95, 480 pages mism surrounding the expedition, the contentious arguments regarding ISBN 9780385535373, audio, eBook available scientific theories about the Arctic and the fate of the ship and its crew. The expedition’s great hope of sailing unimpeded by the ravages of HISTORY ice floes is shattered when the Jeannette becomes trapped in ice, and the crew must spend long, lonely weeks in unending darkness jammed fast. Two years into the voyage, ice breaches the hull, the ship sinks, and the crew finds itself thousands of miles from land. De Long leads a heroic march toward safety over unforgiving ice and in conditions that punish every crew member’s body. The tale of De Long’s struggle for survival is also the tale of his wife Emma’s struggle to maintain heroic hope during his absence. Weaving her letters to her husband—which he never received—through the narrative, Sides captures this gnawing anxiousness and stoic optimism. Compulsively readable, In the Kingdom of Ice brilliantly recreates a world, invites us to enter it and to experience the isolation, fear and hope of the people in it, and leads us back to our worlds with a clearer understanding of what motivates those who undertake daunting but heroic challenges.
A SPY AMONG FRIENDS By Ben Macintyre Crown $27, 384 pages ISBN 9780804136631 Audio, eBook available
ESPIONAGE
Real life spy Kim Philby had a level of charm that fictional spy James Bond could only aspire to. To meet Philby, it seemed, was to fall under his convivial sway. Thus, when it was disclosed in 1963 that this very proper, well-placed and Cambridge-educated Englishman had been spying for the Soviet Union since 1934, two people were particularly shaken by the revelation: Nicholas Elliott, his longtime drinking buddy and colleague at
MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, and James Angleton, the zealous spymaster at America’s Central Intelligence Agency. Both men had regarded Philby as the supreme exemplar of their shadowy trade. Of course, he was. The focus of A Spy Among Friends is the fragility of trust in the spy business. Apart from the pain of losing his best friend when Philby was outed and subsequently fled to Russia, Elliott also suffered the embarrassment of having brought Philby back into MI6 after he had been nearly exposed as a spy a few years earlier. Angleton never recovered from Philby’s betrayal, which made him paranoid and suspicious of everyone he worked with. Both Elliott and Angleton tried to rewrite history to show that Philby hadn’t fooled them as completely as the records show
he did. From Philby’s perspective, though, his story was of unwavering allegiance to the noble cause of worldwide communism, a goal that trumped nationalism and friendship. That dozens, maybe hundreds, of undercover agents were killed as a direct result of his dissembling never appeared to bother him. British author and historian Ben Macintyre (Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat) does a masterful job of bringing these intriguing personalities to life and of recreating the World War II and Cold War milieus that forged their passions and alliances. Spy novelist John le Carré, who served under Elliott in MI6, provides a poignant afterword concerning his former superior’s attempts to purge himself of Philby’s ghost. —EDWARD MORRIS
Joshua Wolf Shenk offers an intriguing look at the nature of creative partnerships in Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs. His subjects range from the musical (Lennon and McCartney) to the scientific (Watson and Crick), from the literary (Melville and Hawthorne) to the technical (Jobs and Wozniak). From these dozens of case studies, Shenk synthesizes the patterns. What happens when creative pairs meet? (Hint: It’s often like falling in love.) When does the really good work get going? Why do such partnerships often end? There’s a certain gossipy pleasure in learning the backstory of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album or details about the sex life of Marie and Paul Curie. But the book distinguishes itself by explaining how the beguiling quirks of a few famous people reveal larger patterns in how innovation happens. Creative advancement is always tied up in the social. Everyone—from ballet dancers to physicists—finds critical peers whose presence makes their work stronger, better and more complete. (J.R.R. Tolkien said that he never would have finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy without C.S. Lewis’ constant prodding.) Shenk further enriches his narrative by introducing academic research so interesting you will want to bring it up at the dinner table. (Did you know that we match our voices to each other in conversation—and the more passive partner will match the dominant partner’s pitch?) Powers of Two is a book that will capture readers’ imaginations from the opening pages and help us to see our world—and the most important people in our lives—differently. — K E L LY B L E W E T T
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reviews IN A ROCKET MADE OF ICE By Gail Gutradt
Knopf $25.95, 352 pages ISBN 9780385353472 Audio, eBook available
MEMOIR
In a Rocket Made of Ice is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary place. Wat Opot Children’s Community is a Cambodian orphanage started with $50 by Wayne Matthysse, a former Vietnam medic driven to make life better for children in war-torn countries. The orphanage is home to children and women affected by HIV and AIDS, where they can get the powerful antiretroviral drugs they need to stay healthy, as well as education and a community in which they belong. Gail Gutradt, a Maine native who has spent several stints volunteering at Wat Opot, paints an achingly beautiful portrait of the place, which may not have many material resources, but is imbued with a much-needed sense of family for children who have been orphaned by AIDS. “In truth, daily experience at Wat Opot is complex and chaotic,” she writes. “I wake up early in the morning and someone comes running up to me for a hug. Often there are several kids hanging off my arms on the way to breakfast. Most of the day it is kids playing, running in packs, sulking, hugging, laughing, dancing, studying, doing what children do. You play with them, pick them up when they cry, let them nap on your shoulder. It is easy to forget that some are HIV positive. . . . It’s totally normal in some ways, while at the same time it is exceptional.” The ultimate goal of Wat Opot is not just to get kids healthy, but to instill in them a belief that they can live and thrive among other Cambodians, where the stigma of HIV and AIDS lingers. Many of the children go on to university, a testament to the powerful work being done on a shoestring and a prayer.
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NONFICTION Gutradt has given us an inspiring, unforgettable book. —AMY SCRIBNER
MONA LISA By Dianne Hales Simon & Schuster $28, 336 pages ISBN 9781451658965 eBook available
ART HISTORY
own effort to uncover Lisa’s life by taking us along on her visits to Lisa’s old neighborhoods and to contemporary scholars. Hales even introduces us to the present-day Italian aristocrats descended from Lisa, the Guicciardini Strozzi family, who are as charming as one would hope. And might that be a special smile on the príncipe’s lips? —ANNE BARTLETT
THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE By Rick Perlstein
Leonardo da Vinci was an outlier in so many ways: a peripatetic polymath, handsome, unmarried, an innovator, unquestionably an artistic genius. He doesn’t typify his era any more than geniuses ever do. Leonardo was a party of one. Ah, but then there’s Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo: Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa”—probably. Other candidates do exist, but most experts now believe this Florentine merchant’s wife was the model for the iconic portrait in the Louvre, arguably the world’s most famous painting. And as author Dianne Hales notes in the engaging Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, Lisa was an ordinary woman, albeit one with a wealthy husband. Her life provides an excellent entry point into early Renaissance Florence. Hales, an experienced journalist, weaves the stories of Lisa, her older husband Francesco and Leonardo into a rich tapestry of family life, mercantile society, politics and artistic development. Hales acknowledges that we really don’t know anything about Lisa’s inner life, but we do know a good bit about her ancestry and circumstances, and the author is able to make some informed guesses. Thanks to public records, Francesco comes through more clearly as a sharp-elbowed opportunist. He likely met Leonardo when he was dickering with the artist’s notary father over a financial dispute with a monastery represented by Ser Piero da Vinci. Particularly enthralling are Hales’ near-cinematic descriptions of Florence’s lively social life—its street festivals, baptisms, weddings. She also lets us in on her
Simon & Schuster $37.50, 880 pages ISBN 9781476782416 Audio, eBook available
POLITICS
The 1970s were a tumultuous time in the U.S, defined by such events as the Vietnam War; the Watergate scandal; the Arab oil boycott; serious economic problems; and shocking revelations about illegal activities by our intelligence agencies. At one point, a Gallup poll found that 68 percent of Americans believed the government lied to them. All of this happened as the nation, somewhat dispirited, celebrated its bicentennial. Drawing on a vast array of sources, Rick Perlstein captures all of this and more in his sweeping, insightful and richly rewarding The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. His riveting narrative continues the author’s efforts to chronicle the ascendancy of conservatism in American political life (following the acclaimed Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus and Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America). At the heart of Perlstein’s book is the question of what kind of nation we want to be. The turbulence of the 1960s and ’70s had given Americans an opportunity to reflect on our power and what some considered our arrogance. Many reasoned we should become more humble, question authority and have a greater sense of limits. Poli-
ticians, labeled “Watergate babies,” were elected to Congress, pledged to reform the country’s broken institutions. But that approach did not prevail. Among major political figures, only Ronald Reagan took a different path. He rarely discussed Watergate and Vietnam and, when he did, he downplayed their place in history. Instead, he emphasized that the U.S. was “the greatest nation in the history of the world.” The Invisible Bridge examines how such rhetoric came into being and how such hubris has come to define us. The most important political expression of this belief was Reagan’s announcement that he would challenge Gerald Ford, the sitting president of his own party, for the presidential nomination in 1976. Reagan and Ford believed many of the same things, but they had very different styles. Every major distinction between the two had to do with the kind of nation America was. Ford liked the idea of national modesty; Reagan felt that the world’s rules didn’t necessarily apply to America At more than 800 pages, Perlstein’s book is a work of prodigious research. It is also a fascinating, extremely readable account of an important decade in America’s political history. —ROGER BISHOP
BLUE-EYED BOY By Robert Timberg Penguin Press $27.95, 384 pages ISBN 9781594205668 eBook available
MEMOIR
Journalists typically don’t like to write about themselves. It comes from years of writing in the third person and striving for objectivity. And with so many critics of the press, reporters assume no one likes them. Robert Timberg grapples with this issue in his moving memoir, Blue-Eyed Boy. After nearly 40 years as a journalist and three noteworthy books, perhaps
NONFICTION he has a story to tell. But he also has self-doubts. Then he looks in the mirror and sees his disfigured face. It is an image he has been trying to forget since 1967, when as a young soldier in Vietnam, just days away from the end of his tour, he suffered third-degree burns from a land mine explosion. He finally decides to confront this defining moment of his life. “I want to remember how I decided not to die,” he writes. “To not let my future die.” Journalism is a seductive profession. Each day is a new story. There is fame and notoriety. And it’s easy to lose oneself during long hours in the newsroom. Timberg did just that during a long stint at The Baltimore Sun. He wrote about the Iran-Contra Affair, penned books about Oliver North and John McCain, and destroyed two marriages along the way. He was able to forget about his disfigurement. Then in retirement, he had time to reflect. This was the catalyst for his fast-moving, crisply written memoir. In Blue-Eyed Boy, Timberg at long last examines the physical and emotional pain he experienced, and how it shaped his life. He realizes that it motivated him to be the best at his profession. He also understands how his singular drive hurt some people along the way. Blue-Eyed Boy is a fascinating look at how a tragedy that would make most men crumble instead drove the author to survive, and on many levels, succeed.
Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature, librarian-bloggers Betsy Bird, Julie Danielson (also a BookPage reviewer) and their late co-author Peter D. Sieruta thoroughly debunk that notion. In chapters focusing on book challenges, gender and sexuality, the lasting effect of the Harry Potter phenomenon and other topics on which authors, readers and arbiters of taste have often clashed, the co-authors present a history of the personal stories, sociopolitical debates and subversive details that underlie classic and contemporary books for children and teens. Both longtime fans of children’s lit and relative newcomers will find something to appreciate here, including a risqué image hidden in a Trina Schart Hyman illustration, a discussion of the apparently equally disturbing presence and absence of underwear in books for young readers and varying opinions as to whether or not Nancy Drew will topple civilization. The chatty, humorous text is broken up by text boxes, “Pushcart Debates” between the authors, rare sketches related to well-known works and, of course, line drawings of mortified-looking fluffy bunnies. Source notes and an extensive bibliography make the book ideal for university courses, but the audience for Wild Things! is much broader than just students. Anyone who loves children’s books will relish the historical facts, insightful interpretations and wild anecdotes in this highly recommended addition to the literature about children’s literature.
that confounds most Americans. Readers who have failed to crack its code will find comfort in John Bemelmans Marciano’s Whatever Happened to the Metric System? How America Kept Its Feet, an intriguing look at why the system failed to take hold here. The metric system is a surprisingly inflammatory topic—an issue with political, social and financial implications that has generated plenty of heat across the centuries. Marciano traces the system back to Revolutionary-era France, when a restructuring of measurements resulted in metrics as we know them today. Cutting through the confusion and antipathy that have long surrounded the issue in America, Marciano provides a clear-eyed account of how Americans hung onto their inches, ounces and pounds. In 1875, Congress signed the Treaty of the Meter, which led to the establishment of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the agency that oversees the metric system, but Americans still had the option of using customary English units of measurement. A century later, when President Gerald Ford sanctioned the Metric Conversion Act, transition to meters and kilos seemed like a sure thing. But America stepped back from the brink again when the act met its end during the budget cuts of the early 1980s. Today, the United States is one of only three nations in the world that have not adopted the met—J O H N T. S L A N I A ric system. Yet Marciano makes important points about America’s — J I L L R A T Z A N adherence to tradition. “To be for a WILD THINGS! metric America is to be for a global monoculture,” he says. Through By Betsy Bird, Julie WHATEVER HAPPENED TO the use of its customary system, Danielson and THE METRIC SYSTEM? America is “preserving ways of Peter D. Sieruta thinking that were once common Candlewick By John Bemelmans to all humanity.” $22.99, 288 pages Marciano Marciano’s narrative provides ISBN 9780763651503 Bloomsbury an overview of measurement in $26, 384 pages CHILDREN’S all its manifold forms, including ISBN 9781608194759 LITERATURE currency, clock and calendar. eBook available Anyone whose life involves Each chapter is broken up into HISTORY children’s literature has probably easy-to-absorb sections that bring encountered the assumption that fluidity and logic to a complex tale. books for children are all sweetly Weighty stuff, but the gifted Marsentimental tales of selfless trees Ah, the metric system—the ciano makes light work of it. and fluffy bunnies. In Wild Things! logical way of meting out the world —J U L I E H A L E
THE END OF ABSENCE By Michael Harris Current $26.95, 256 pages ISBN 9781591846932 eBook available
COMPUTERS
I read The End of Absence with interest, because I am a member of what author Michael Harris calls the “Straddle Generation,” the generation born before 1985, the last one to remember adult life before the Internet. Harris compares this moment in history to the advent of the Gutenberg press in the 15th century, when the written word became universally available. “Young and old,” he writes, “we’re all straddling two realities to a certain degree. In our rush toward the promise of Google and Facebook—toward the promise of reduced ignorance and reduced loneliness—we feel certain we are rushing toward a better life. We forget the myriad accommodations we made along the way.” Through constant connectivity, he argues, we have lost our “daydreaming silences,” giving up times of solitude and wonder. Harris’ book is a sometimes humorous, sometimes disturbing look at the relationships we have with the technology in our lives, as well as the human beings we know and love and increasingly view through the lens of our various technologies. As he points out, “When we don’t want to be alone and yet don’t want the hassle that fellow humans represent either, the digital filter is an ideal compromise.” What’s more disturbing, Harris argues, is that we are allowing ourselves to be reshaped unconsciously, even biologically, sacrificing the ability to be completely absorbed by a story, keenly aware of life’s smallest details or attuned to silence. On a hopeful note, Harris offers his own attempts to regain the gift of absence as a roadmap for those of us who want it back. —MARIANNE PETERS
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interviews
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFÓN
A Gothic favorite comes stateside
M
ost of the time, interviews about an author’s new novel take place a year or so after the book’s completion. So it might take a bit of doing for an author to feel up-to-date, especially if he or she is already ears-deep into the next project. Carlos Ruiz Zafón had to travel much further back in time when he spoke with BookPage from his home in Los Angeles about his fourth young adult novel, Marina: A Gothic Tale, which was first published in his native Spain in 1999.
In the intervening years, Zafón (who also has a home in his native Barcelona) has become best known for his three (and counting) adult novels, worldwide mega-sellers The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game and The Prisoner of Heaven. His books have been published in some 45 countries, and translated into 40-plus languages. (His English translator is Lucia Graves, novelist and daughter of poet Robert Graves.) But Zafón’s career was launched in the YA realm when his first book, The Prince of Mist (Spain 1992; U.S. 2010), won Spain’s Edebé Literary Prize for Young Adult Fiction. “It never crossed my mind that I wanted to be a YA writer,” he says. “My first novel happened to win an award for young adult fiction, but when I wrote it . . . it was just a tale of adventure that had young characters in it.” But Zafón’s liter-
MARINA
By Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Little, Brown, $19, 336 pages ISBN 9780316044714, audio, eBook available Ages 12 and up
HORROR
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ary magic was met with a captive audience: His next two YA books, The Midnight Palace (Spain 1994; U.S. 2011) and The Watcher in the Shadows (Spain 1995; U.S. 2013), found success around the world. Marina is sure to follow suit, thanks to a mix of mystery, adventure, suspense and horror, plus a touching story of love, both romantic and familial. It’s an exciting read with a lot to take in—which makes sense, since the story’s protagonist, 15-year-old Oscar, is overwhelmed, excited, intrigued, besotted and terrified, often in the same 24-hour period. Oscar has no idea what’s to come one day in 1979 when he, as is his habit, leaves the grounds of his Barcelona boarding school to explore an abandoned section of the city. His imagination is already on high alert when he encounters a well-fed gray cat and hears beautiful music coming from a decrepit mansion. His curiosity about these signs of life in the seemingly abandoned house proves impossible to squelch, and he ultimately learns that the lovely, enigmatic Marina Drai lives there with her father, Germán, an artist (and with the cat, Kafka). Thus begins a tale of adventure and suspense, as the teenagers’ romance blossoms against a decidedly unusual backdrop. They follow a mysterious woman who goes to the cemetery every month to wordlessly perform a strange ritual. Soon they find themselves venturing into the long-hidden Barcelona underworld and the terrifying history of a man whose desire to heal turned into something twisted and gruesome. Zafón doesn’t shy away from the grotesque, and there’s no short-
age of scary scenes in Marina; under his skilled hand, readers will push forward even as they fear something scarier waiting around the corner. It’s deliciously thrilling, with echoes of Dickens, as well as Shelley’s Frankenstein. That’s intentional, the author says. “As a kid, I read everything I could get my hands on . . . Dickens, Tolstoy, 19th-century classics, Stephen King, Peter Straub, crime novels.” He adds, “I tend to go for the Gothic—a lot of my influences come from that, and I tend to pay homage. . . . I always like to look back, because there’s something in those works, that world, that appeals to me and my personal sensibility.” And, Zafón says, whether in his YA works or his more recent adult fiction, “One of my ambitions has been to go back to what those great authors were doing then, and try to reinvent . . . the language through deconstruction and reconstruction. That’s always the direction I’m trying to hit. Marina on a small scale tries to do that, to bridge that sensibility of old Victorian Gothic tales and reconstruct them in a modern way.” Speaking of modern, Zafón’s work appeals to fans of—and draws comparisons to—Stephen King’s novels. Not least, Zafón explains, because, “As a child in Spain in the ’70s, I always felt many of the things I was interested in were not available to me because I was born in Spain, so I was forced to learn English to access certain books, magazines and newspapers.” He adds, “I would go to newsstands and buy paperbacks they were sell-
ISOLDE OHLBAUM
BY LINDA M. CASTELLITTO
ing for tourists, usually bestsellers and mass market paperbacks. In the beginning, it was like going to the Rosetta Stone—I didn’t understand anything, I’d get a headache—but I began to figure it out, and I’d read a lot of Stephen King paperbacks. I’ve always said he was my English professor.” Zafón adds, “He’s extremely good at creating character and dialogue, and I learned a lot of idioms . . . and from the perspective of someone learning a language, I became aware of how different people and different registers work. On top of that, he’s a great storyteller.” King thinks the same about Zafón; they haven’t discussed storytelling in person, but King wrote a lovely review of The Shadow of the Wind. “For me, he’s such a great figure, and he wrote a very generous article,” Zafón says. “On top of that, he exactly nailed things. . . . It’s the only time in my life I’ve gone to a newsstand, bought a magazine, cut the page out and kept it.” Perhaps the two authors will meet someday soon—say, at a book-centric event where Zafón is promoting his upcoming novel, the fourth in the adult fiction series set in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books? “I’m working on it right now. . . . It closes the circle,” he says. “It’s the big one.” Here’s hoping both stories get a happy ending.
reviews ISLA AND THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER
TEEN
Aubade for young, wild hearts REVIEW BY NORAH PIEHL
By Austin Aslan
Wendy Lamb Books $17.99, 384 pages ISBN 9780385744027 eBook available Ages 12 and up
SCIENCE FICTION
ral people into makeshift camps, Leilani and her father realize that they must find their way back to Hilo on their own. Thus begins their desperate, horrifying struggle to return home, island by island. Recommended for fans of Graham Salisbury’s evocative Hawaiian historical thrillers, Austin Aslan’s debut novel, the first in a series, is an action-packed adventure, rich with details about Hawaii’s geological diversity, cultural hostilities and ecological crises.
The siren screaming through Hilo, 16-year-old Leilani’s hometown on Hawaii’s Big Island, is her —DIANE COLSON first warning of coming catastrophe. But she and her father stick LIKE NO OTHER to their planned trip from Hilo to Honolulu, where she is to underBy Una LaMarche go tests for her epilepsy. They fly Razorbill to the island of Oahu, and that’s $17.99, 352 pages when the world veers off course: ISBN 9781595146748 The president appears on televieBook available sion in a frightened state. Satellite Ages 12 and up and electrical networks collapse. ROMANCE Commercial airline flights cease. At the same time, Leilani is having epileptic episodes filled with visions of ancient Hawaiian gods. “Can we choose each other?” It’s When the military begins to cor- a question without an easy answer:
— K I M B E R LY G I A R R A T A N O
LET’S GET LOST
If you’ve read Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door, you know that Stephanie Perkins is both a talented writer and a true romantic. You’ll also be pleased to discover that Perkins’ latest offers some brief (and satisfying) glimpses of the main characters from her earlier books. And if you haven’t? You’re still in for an unforgettably romantic journey in this love story that stands on its own. Isla has had a crush on moody artist Josh since their freshman year at an exclusive Parisian boarding school. So when, in an unguarded moment the summer before senior year, she flirts with Josh, she’s mortified—and then shocked to find Josh flirting right back. Josh is an aspiring graphic artist with a very particular vision for his future; Isla finds it hard to imagine any sort of future plans, especially By Stephanie Perkins one that doesn’t involve either Paris or New York. Isla is whip-smart, Dutton, $17.99, 352 pages thoughtful and kind, the kind of girl who loves adventure (at least in ISBN 9780525425632, audio, eBook available the pages of a book) and who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. So why Ages 14 and up does she second-guess Josh’s feelings for her? And will her insecurities ROMANCE doom their own storybook romance? It’s hard to imagine a more romantic tale than Isla and the Happily Ever After. With evocative settings like Paris, Manhattan and Barcelona, Perkins’ latest will leave readers swooning, sobbing—and rooting for Isla and Josh to write their own happy ending.
THE ISLANDS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
can select any college he wants, but he hasn’t found his passion yet. Like No Other is a contemporary romance about finding first love, but just as important, it’s a story about finding oneself.
Jaxon is black, and Devorah comes from a strict Hasidic community. She’s not allowed to be alone in a man’s company before marriage, let alone date a non-Jewish boy, and marriage is arranged by one’s parents. These are the norms in Devorah’s world, and she’s never questioned them—until she and Jaxon find themselves stranded in an elevator during a power outage. How can Devorah and Jaxon choose each other, when to do so could ostracize Devorah from the only world she’s ever known? Like No Other is a lighter, less intense version of Eleanor & Park, and is just as good. Despite the struggles Jaxon and Devorah face regarding their love, the story never loses its wit and humor. Devorah’s religious life is not without limitations, and though she loves her faith and her family, she hopes to go to college and enjoy the same freedoms as her non- Hasidic counterparts. Meanwhile, Jaxon worries that he won’t live up to everyone’s expectations. Smart, charming and responsible, Jaxon
By Adi Alsaid
Harlequin Teen $17.99, 352 pages ISBN 9780373211241 Audio, eBook available Ages 12 and up
FICTION
Crisscrossing the American landscape, Let’s Get Lost is an insider’s view of one girl’s epic journey to witness the Northern Lights and the stories of the lives she selflessly changes along the way. Our sneak peek into Leila’s adventures begins with her car tune-up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where she meets Hudson, the auto mechanic’s son. Their attraction is instant, but when their short fling turns from sweet to sour, she resumes her journey north without exchanging phone numbers. As we meet new people along Leila’s wandering road trip, we jump feet-first into their trials while getting only elusive snippets of Leila’s story. She reveals a bit about the curious scar on her neck to hitchhiking Bree near Kansas City; a few vague truths from her less-than-perfect love life to Elliot in Minneapolis; and shares her “I’ve been there, too” strength in Hope, British Columbia, with guilt-stricken Sonia, who’s found new love so soon after a large loss. But it’s not until Leila is in Fairbanks, Alaska, and lying under the Northern Lights that we learn the true reason for her life- affirming excursion. Adi Alsaid weaves together the distant and disparate stories of his multiple characters, using Leila as the bright red thread to sew the patchwork quilt of their lives. The final product is beautiful, moving—and nothing like it would have been if kept separate. —J U S T I N B A R I S I C H
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reviews WHAT IF...?
CHILDREN’S
Childhood anxieties run wild REVIEW BY JULIE DANIELSON
There are lots of picture books about children who worry, ones that try in various ways to reassure children that everything, in the end, will be OK. But I can promise you that you haven’t seen one quite like Anthony Browne’s What If . . . ? In a story that manages to be offbeat, cryptic and comforting all at once, a young boy named Joe heads to his first big birthday party. He’s apprehensive, and to make matters worse, he’s lost the invitation and the birthday boy’s house number. One has to wonder if he intentionally misplaced them, but either way, his mother convinces him that they’ll be able to find the house and that it will be great for him to meet new children. They take a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood, and at each house, his mother stops to ask, “Do you think that’s Tom’s house?” By Anthony Browne No, says the boy, as we readers stare along with mother and son at the Candlewick, $16.99, 32 pages bizarre, dreamlike goings-on through a window of each home. In one, ISBN 9780763674199, ages 5 to 8 it appears an elderly man and woman sit and read, but look closely, and you’ll see a floating teacup next to the man and small, bizarre alien PICTURE BOOK protrusions on the man’s head, as well as the dog’s. In the next house, a giant elephant stares from the window, and in another, one very madcap, Carroll-esque tea party takes place. It’s as if the titular “what if” question serves two purposes: to reassure the boy (things could always be worse, or at least weirder), as well as to prompt his imagination, thereby calming his anxieties on the way to the shindig. In an all-too-real twist, once the boy arrives at the party, it’s his mother who worries about his well-being as she heads home, but all’s well that ends well. When she picks him up, he’s had a blast. Surreal and delightfully droll, this one’s a rare bird. Illustration from WHAT IF…?. Copyright © 2013 by AET Browne. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.
FRANK EINSTEIN AND THE ANTIMATTER MOTOR By Jon Scieszka
Illustrated by Brian Biggs
Amulet $13.95, 192 pages ISBN 9781419712180 Audio, eBook available Ages 8 to 12
MIDDLE GRADE
When antimatter combines with matter, it creates an explosion of energy. That’s an accurate formula for what Jon Scieszka has created with this excellent first book in his new middle grade series. Incorporating Isaac Asimov’s Three Rules of Robotics, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity and a bevy of scientific principles, Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor presents science in a subtle but
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hilarious way. Kid genius Frank Einstein toils away with piles of junk, hoping to create artificial intelligence robots. Not long after, Frank, his sidekick Watson and the goofball robots Klink and Klank are working together to create an antimatter motor for the science fair. But what’s a good tween read without a villain? Soon their mission is foiled by nefarious classmate T. Edison. Brian Biggs’ cartoon-tastic two-color illustrations add the perfect punch to the “diary” look so many young readers have come to embrace. Scieszka clearly knows his audience and plays right into their hands, as this series promises entertainment but supports it with real science. There are plenty of explosions and experiments to inspire reluctant readers to don the lab coats and start inventing! —SHARON VERBETEN
COURAGE FOR BEGINNERS By Karen Harrington
Little, Brown $17, 304 pages ISBN 9780316210485 eBook available Ages 8 to 12
MIDDLE GRADE
In 12-year-old Mysti Murphy’s imagination, she wears a beret and rides a bicycle by the Eiffel Tower. In the real world, she’s counting cans of dog food and rolls of toilet paper to help her family “hold on” until her dad comes home from the hospital. Mysti also keeps a secret: Her mother never leaves the house. To make matters worse, Mysti’s best friend, Anibal, has abandoned her to join the hipster crowd. Anyone who attended junior
high will find familiarity in author Karen Harrington’s depictions of bouncing cheerleaders and kids who are your best friend one day and consider you chopped liver the next. All the young characters struggle with self-determination and are stuck navigating day-to-day obstacles largely by themselves. Like Mysti, they aren’t getting much help from the adults in their lives. Much of Courage for Beginners rings true. Mysti’s mother, crippled by agoraphobia, can’t shelter her daughter from the changes and challenges that life will invariably throw her way. Mysti learns that courage can begin by taking just a few steps outside her own door. —BILLIE B. LITTLE
THE TIME OF THE FIREFLIES By Kimberley Griffiths Little
Scholastic $18.99, 368 pages ISBN 9780545165631 eBook available Ages 8 to 12
MIDDLE GRADE
Kimberley Griffiths Little’s new book brings all the eeriness of the Louisiana bayou into an engaging story about a girl, her family and the secrets of the past. Preteen Larissa Renaud didn’t exactly want to travel through time, but she does want to find out who the strange caller is on the disconnected phone in her family’s antique store. The caller can’t tell Larissa more than that she needs to “follow the fireflies.” When Larissa does, she finds herself observing a scene from the 1800s and learning more about her family history than her mother ever told her. As she starts to put all the pieces of the past together, the pieces of the present start to fall apart. Full of adventure, The Time of the Fireflies takes Larissa on a wild ride with just enough—but not too much—scariness for a younger reader. Little’s prose is accessible and lyrical, making her new book an enjoyable read. —J E N N I F E R B R U E R K I T C H E L
features
BACK TO SCHOOL BY JULIE HALE
Make it a grade-A year
P
utting a playful spin on school, these picture books depict life in the classroom as a grand adventure, filled with good friends, fun activities and teachers that are wise beyond words.
Fresh recruits feeling less than intrepid about maneuvering the school days that lie ahead will be heartened by Planet Kindergarten (Chronicle, $16.99, 36 pages, ISBN 9781452118932) by Sue Ganz-Schmitt and Shane Prigmore. The first day of class takes on the dimensions of a cosmic mission in this imaginative tale, as a courageous young boy leaves behind the comforts of home to explore an unknown zone: kindergarten! In class, he acclimates to an atmosphere that’s undeniably intergalactic, with a mission-control intercom and far-out friends, including a pair of pink sister-twins with long white hair, and a tall, thin figure whose bulging head is hidden inside a purple hoodie. Crisply rendered and a bit retro, Prigmore’s brilliant digital illustrations make this space-age expedition extra special.
A TEACHER TRANSFORMED A mischievous pupil butts heads with a stern instructor in My Teacher Is a Monster! (No, I Am Not.) (Little, Brown, $18, 40 pages, ISBN 9780316070294) by acclaimed author and illustrator Peter Brown. Bobby, a boy with a light-socket shock of hair and a penchant for paper airplanes, has a rocky relationship with his teacher, Ms. Kirby. In class she addresses him shrilly as “Robert” and—after an unfortunate airplane incident— deprives him of recess. Small wonder Bobby views her as a monster! Ms. Kirby is indeed a scary sight—a
creature-teacher with green skin and fangs. But when Bobby runs into her in the park, the encounter (which involves ducks, a flying hat and—yes—a paper airplane) is surprisingly pleasant. As he gets to know the real Ms. Kirby, her monster facade fades. Brown’s nifty India ink, watercolor and gouache illustrations reward careful scrutiny. This one’s destined to become a school-season staple.
A BIG IMPRESSION A master of many genres, Neil Gaiman tackles school anxiety in Chu’s First Day of School (HarperCollins, $17.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780062223975), the delightful follow-up to his bestseller Chu’s Day. This time, the pintsized panda is fretting over his first-ever school experience. When the big morning arrives, he’s greeted by a kind teacher (a bespectacled bear) and a menagerie of animal-students, who introduce themselves and explain what they love to do: Robin likes to fly, while Pablo, the monkey, gets a kick out of climbing. Uneasy Chu sits in silence until a cloud of chalk dust forces him to share his own special ability. We won’t reveal what happens next, but suffice it to say, Chu blows his classmates away! This panda has plenty of personality thanks to artist Adam Rex, whose rollicking illustrations, executed in oil and mixed media, have depth, dimension and detail. Immanently adorable, Chu is the perfect pal for readers suffering from first-day phobia.
meet RASHIN KHEIRIYEH the title of your Q: What’s new book?
would you describe Q: How the book?
has been the biggest influence on your work? Q: Who
was your favorite subject in school? Why? Q: What
was your childhood hero? Q: Who
books did you enjoy as a child? Q: What
one thing would you like to learn to do? Q: What
message would you like to send to young readers? Q: What
THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED A FLY Iranian illustrator Rashin Kheiriyeh puts her own hilarious spin on a classic, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (NorthSouth, $17.95, 32 pages, ISBN 9780735841833, ages 4 to 8). Rashin lives in Washington, D.C.
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WORDNOOK
BY THE EDITORS OF MERRIAM-WEBSTER
SOMETHING’S BUGGING ME
Dear Editor: I have always wondered why we use a Spanish name for the insect we call the mosquito. Aren’t there mosquitos in England? T. L. Janesville, Wisconsin The name for those annoying critters we call mosquitos first appeared in English in the 1500s, having been borrowed from Spanish. In England they were originally called gnats, which applied to a number of small pesky insects. The Spanish word for this particular blood-sucking pest later took hold. The Spanish word mosquito comes from mosca, meaning “fly.” The -ito suffix turns it into “little fly.” Earlier in the same century, pest first appeared in English, but it traveled to English through French from the Latin word pestis, referring to a deadly epidemic disease, in other words, a plague or pestilence. The English word pest
originally had this same meaning. It was soon used for something similar to a plague in destructiveness, such as a plant or animal that is harmful to crops. That sense eventually softened to mean something that is mainly just annoying, like a mosquito.
DISTINCTIVELY DIFFERENT
Dear Editor: I remember my grandfather used to say that a person who showed spunk or courage had moxie. I always thought it was such an odd word. Can you tell me where moxie comes from? J. L. Bristol, Connecticut “Hot roasted peanuts! Fresh popcorn! Ice-cold Moxie!” You might have heard such a snack vendor’s cry at a baseball game— if you attended it in 1924. That was the heyday of the soft drink named Moxie, which some claim outsold Coca-Cola at the height of
Dear Editor: I have questions about those all-American menu items, the hamburger and french fry. Did french fries come from France? And why do we call the hamburger by that name when there’s no ham in it? W. G. Sanford, Florida
ing the potatoes, and not to the dish’s country of origin. One source claims that food that has been chopped into long, narrow strips has been frenched, and so the verb to French used in this way is the origin of the French in french fried potatoes. The word hamburger on the other hand, does have its origins in Europe. The term comes from the German city of Hamburg, where what was then called Hamburg steak, actually ground beef, originated. In the 1850s German immigrants brought the product and the word to the United States, where Hamburg steak came to be considered an archetypal American food. By 1889, Hamburg steak had become hamburger steak, and by 1908, hamburger.
French fries, or at least their name, seem to be a wholly American invention. Most theories about the origin of the term suggest that french refers to the way of prepar-
Send correspondence regarding Word Nook to: Language Research Service P.O. Box 281 Springfield, MA 01102
its popularity. By 1930, moxie had become a slang term for nerve and verve, maybe because some people thought the drink (something of a precursor to today’s energy drinks) could cure almost any illness and energize even the laziest person. The soft drink is still available, and some of its fans say the use of its name as a word for spunk is right on target.
BURGER & FRIES
Test Your Mental Mettle with Puzzles from Bunch of Bananas
go Bananas! level
level
Use all 21 tiles in this bunch to create a collection of connecting and intersecting common words in the grid below. Any word longer than two letters must be a five-letter word that has an R as its 2nd and 5th letter. The words may be horizontal or vertical, reading left to right or top to bottom.
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Answers:
Answers: DOE, ANT; BEE, RAT; CAT, EMU; SNAIL, HOG; ELK, COD workman.com
D A F R F R e e R Y M I e R ROR A R R R
For each word below, rearrange the letters to spell two new words that are both kinds of creatures. For example, FLOORING becomes FROG and LION.
More BananagraMs! and other Bananagrams titles are available wherever books are sold. Bananagrams is a registered trademark of Bananagrams Inc. | Workman is a registered trademark of Workman Publishing Co., Inc.
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