BookPage September 2014

AMERICA’S BOOK REVIEW

DISCOVER YOUR NEXT GREAT BOOK

RETURN TO MITFORD

Jan Karon brings back 2 beloved characters

STATION ELEVEN

Cherishing beauty after the apocalypse

A NEW POIROT

Christie’s detective cracks another case

®

SEPT 2014

A resourceful heroine leaps off the pages of a dazzling, decadespanning novel from the inventive author of ‘Cloud Atlas’

David itchell

paperback picks PENGUIN.COM

Winter of the World

The King

Dust

The Hot Zone

Picking up where Fall of Giants left off, Winter of the World follows its five interrelated families through a time of enormous turmoil—beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the great dramas of World War II, and into the beginning of the long Cold War.

Wrath finally assumes the throne after turning his back on it for centuries with the help of his beloved mate, Beth Randall. Now, with war waging, Beth wants a child, but she’s unprepared for Wrath’s response. Will true love win out...or a tortured legacy take over?

When a missing grad student’s body is found inside MIT, medical examiner Kay Scarpetta and her team find themselves up against a sinister force. The investigation leads them into the dark world of designer drugs, organized crime, and shocking corruption at the highest levels.

Working to move on from her tragic past, Sedona Snow gets a job managing a hotel and tavern on Rainshadow Island. But when her ex and a new love interest land on the island, she finds even the best laid plans are no match for the passion that springs up.

9780451468222 • $9.99

9780451417060 • $7.99

9780425270042 • $9.99

9780515154726 • $7.99

Critical Mass

Robert B. Parker’s Damned if You Do

No Tomorrow

The Highlander Next Door

While helping a close friend who escaped the Holocaust, V.I. Warshawski discovers a web of lies and secrets surrounding the atomic bomb race.

And while the secrets may be old, the people who guard them will do anything to keep them buried.

Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone’s investigation into the murder of a young woman at a seedy hotel sends him into the crosshairs of two ruthless pimps. Now, to find out how she ended up alone and defiled in that room, he must unravel the dark truth.

When Victor the assassin meets friend turned enemy, Norimov, he expects and ambush—not a plea for help.

He agrees to protect Norimov’s daughter against an unknown enemy—but the ruthless network he’s up against will lead him into a national manhunt.

Birch Callahan has sworn off men...until she meets her neighbor. But she can’t figure out how the huge cop can act like he’s from the Dark Ages one moment, then be so insightful—and sexy—in the next. It turns out that Niall has a secret—he’s a time-traveling highlander.

9780451468185 • $9.99

9780425270073 • $9.99

9780451469656 • $9.99

9780515153224 • $7.99

“The erotic, gripping series that has defined an entire genre.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author J.R. Ward Zev Hunter was an elite warrior, a dark-blood dealer of death to rogue Lycans who preyed on mankind. He was a loner, never given to personal attachments, and fierce at his job. But Zev begins to question his past and his purpose when he awakens in the darkness of the sacred cave of warriors—and is soothed back to consciousness by the sensuously familiar voice of one woman, the woman who has haunted his fantasies for centuries. She was Branislava, member of the Dragonseeker clan…

For this half-mage, half-Carpathian temptress, the ritual of awakening Zev to the council of warriors was the only way to save him. Locked away for his own protection, the time has now come for his rebirth, for his blood to stir with that of the ancient warriors before him. He has been assured by Branislava that their fates are entwined, that their spirits are woven together for eternity and that his new purpose in life is beyond imagining.

Now, with a blood-sworn vow of honor, mercy and endurance—and under the influence of a siren as bewitching as Branislava—Zev begins to wonder what his purpose is, what it means for the future of the Carpathians and what it is about his rebirth that he has to fear.

NEW IN HARDCOVER

9780425271445 • $26.95

contents

SEPTEMBER 2014 B O O K PA G E . C O M

features

12

14 MATHEW PRICHARD & SOPHIE HANNAH

David Mitchell’s ambitious and enthralling new novel, The Bone Clocks, explores our societal fear of aging.

Agatha Christie’s beloved Hercule Poirot returns

16 JAN KARON Readers return to Mitford to reunite with Father Tim and Cynthia

16 CHELSEA CAIN Meet the author of One Kick

17 GRAPHIC NOVELS Four new books illustrate life from the female perspective

24 CAITLIN DOUGHTY A mortician’s mission to bring us closer to death

28 CECE BELL Reflections on childhood hearing loss

29 CHILDREN’S BIOGRAPHIES Inspiring picture books on remarkable lives

31 AARON BECKER Meet the author-illustrator of Quest

columns 04 04 05 06 07 08 08 10

LIFESTYLES WELL READ LIBRARY READS WHODUNIT BOOK CLUBS ROMANCE COOKING AUDIO

On the cover

Novel

READS

from

Avon Romance

Cover photo © Paul Stuart

reviews 18 FICTION

top pick:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

also reviewed:

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas The Story of Land and Sea

by Katy Simpson Smith The Future for Curious People

by Gregory Sherl Fives and Twenty-Fives by Michael Pitre Neverhome by Laird Hunt Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer

23 NONFICTION

top pick:

A Life Intercepted by Charles Martin The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami Lock In by John Scalzi The Furies by Natalie Haynes The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton The Children Act by Ian McEwan We Are Not Ourselves

by Matthew Thomas

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

also reviewed:

Daring by Gail Sheehy What If ? by Randall Munroe Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy

by Karen Abbott Epilogue by Will Boast Dr. Mütter’s Marvels

by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

The Human Age by Diane Ackerman The Impulse Society by Paul Roberts I’ll Drink to That by Betty Halbreich City of Lies by Ramita Navai After Lincoln by A.J. Langguth

27 TEEN

30 CHILDREN’S

top pick:

top pick:

also reviewed:

also reviewed:

100 Sideways Miles

by Andrew Smith

Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire Six Feet Over It by Jennifer Longo I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Brown Girl Dreaming

by Jacqueline Woodson

Telephone by Mac Barnett Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms

by Katherine Rundell The Turtle of Oman

by Naomi Shihab Nye The Fourteenth Goldfish

by Jennifer L. Holm The Categorical Universe of Candice Phee by Barry Jonsberg

A M E R I C A’ S B O O K R E V I E W PUBLISHER

MARKETING CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Mary Claire Zibart ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Sukey Howard CONTROLLER Julia Steele Sharon Kozy CHILDREN’S BOOKS Allison Hammond EDITOR Lynn L. Green CONTRIBUTOR Roger Bishop MANAGING EDITOR Trisha Ping PRODUCTION Penny Childress ASSOCIATE EDITOR Cat Acree SUBSCRIPTIONS Elizabeth Grace Herbert ASSISTANT EDITOR Lily McLemore AD COMMUNICATIONS EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sada Stipe Michael A. Zibart

Hilli Levin

EDITORIAL POLICY BookPage is a selection guide for new books. Our editors evaluate and select for review the best books published in a variety of categories. Only books we highly recommend are featured. Book­ Page is editorially independent and never accepts payment for editorial coverage.

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All material © 2014 ProMotion, inc.

AVONROMANCE.COM 3

columns

LIFESTYLES

WELL READ

BY JOANNA BRICHETTO

BY ROBERT WEIBEZAHL

Coffee is calling We’re living in a coffee culture.

Café signs—now visible on almost every block of certain cities—point to a growing pandemic of caffeine addiction. There’s no denying our thirst for perfect brews and expert espresso. Author and dis­ tinguished coffee roaster Anette Moldvaer has gleefully taken the “blue bean,” charting a global, all-encompassing matrix of coffee.

Coffee Obsession (DK, $22, 224 pages, ISBN 9781465419552) is the title of the book and the name

of the game. Coffee lovers are not content any longer to sit and sip a cuppa. We have to know where the beans came from, how they were harvested, what constitutes their complex flavoring and how they can be brewed, dripped, pressed, siphoned, phin-ed or ibrik-ed (these last two being the names of brewing devices from Vietnam and the Middle East, respectively). We also want to know how to make cute foam hearts on our lattes.

Moldvaer shares everything about coffee, and she gives it to us on a cross-cultural, time-traveling, ­recipe-inventorying saucer. The only thing missing is a chapter on ethical and ecological aspects of coffee production and marketing, but a growing awareness in coffee­ house signage and point-of-sale packaging puts customers in the know.

ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Professional web designer Alannah Moore understands that expediency is of the essence in our web-based culture. Whereas your grandparents may have taken years to establish a viable business, now you can Create Your Own Online Store in a Weekend (Princ­ eton Architectural Press, $24.95, 176 pages, ISBN 9781616892364).

For those of us who have not yet

4

Why ‘Gatsby’ is great grasped the fact that the Internet has now become a compre­ hensive way of transact­ ing our lives, Moore is the ulti­ mate guru. You want to sell things online? No prob. E-commerce basics help you home in on your “unique selling point” and choose the best-fit system: a storefront like Amazon or eBay, a webstore pro­ vider like Wix, a software system like Wordpress or one of the other marketplac­ es like Zazzle or CafePress. From options for taking payment, to building web pages, to writing your text and optimizing your market­ ing, this book is your e-Bible. And all it takes is one weekend! Better make lots of coffee.

TOP PICK IN LIFESTYLES At the opposite end of the technological spectrum from creating your own online store stands Charlotte Rivers’ Little Book of Book Making (Potter Craft, $22.99, 176 pages, ISBN 9780770435141) with its array of “Timeless Techniques and Fresh Ideas for Beautiful Handmade Books.” Rivers has culled—from every region of the world—the very best examples of the ancient art of bookbinding. Yes, the art is ancient, but the emphasis in this delightful (and delightfully made) book is on creative innovation.

There is something both old and new—both storied and novel—in the Coptic stitches Cairo-based artist Gina Nagi uses to make her gorgeous volumes. As for Ameri­ can bookbinder Erica Ekrem—who binds seashells together and gives ­­them an inner lining of recycled paper—the world of words is her oyster. The final chapter includes tutorials for “bookmaking in prac­ tice”: sew and no-sew books, cover treatments and techniques for paper decorating.

Millions of readers love The Great Gatsby, but perhaps none more than Maureen Corrigan. In her enthusiastic new book, So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures (Little, Brown, $26, 352 pages, ISBN 9780316230070), the NPR book reviewer and Georgetown University lecturer makes an impassioned case that Fitzgerald’s novel should be a strong contend­ er for the “Great American Novel.”

Fair enough.

She also ar­ A flop when gues that while it was first most educated published, readers have Fitzgerald’s read the book, few have given classic novel has worldwide it the consid­ eration it de­ appeal. serves. In view of its enduring stature and sales, this is a hard claim to disprove, but, certainly, few of us have spent as much time with the novel as Corrigan, who, by her own estimate, has read Gatsby some 50 times.

So We Read On is a marvelous mix of the high and the low: solid literary criticism delivered in a user-friendly manner, coupled with the back story of the book’s creation, replete with the sordid details of Scott (and Zelda) Fitzger­ ald’s sad, unfulfilled promise. What we now recognize as Fitzgerald’s greatest work was met with critical indifference and commercial failure when published in 1925; at the time of Fitzgerald’s death in 1940, most of the second printing of the novel was gathering dust in the Scribner warehouse. Corrigan undertakes some literary detective work to discover when and why public opinion turned back in Gatsby’s favor. She identifies a con­ fluence of circumstances—a post­ humous critical push from friends like Edmund Wilson and Dorothy Parker, the advent of cheap pa­ perbacks and the inclusion of the book in a series of Armed Services Editions given to service person­ nel during and after World War II, and the brevity of the book, which made it perfect for course adop­

tion. As for its lasting popularity, she suggests that Gatsby speaks to a singular brand of yearning that permeates the American experience (and attracts readers around the world).

Fans of the book will appreciate Corrigan’s close reading of symbols and motifs, which never hinges on the academic, despite her years in the classroom. Moving well beyond the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock or the eyeglass­ es of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg looking down like an unforgiving God, she writes on the importance of water imagery throughout the book, the geography of the novel and its quintessential New York setting, and the complicated relationships between characters. Corrigan has a personal connection with Gatsby— she grew up in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge that serves as the link between the promise of Manhattan, the desolation of the Valley of Ashes and the aching splen­ dor of East Egg and West Egg beyond. She returns to the Cath­ olic high school she attended in Queens to observe English classes and hear what kids today are saying about Gatsby, Daisy, Tom and Nick.

Corrigan takes on any naysayers who argue that Gatsby is a thin nar­ rative. “Simply put, the intricacy of The Great Gatsby is staggering,” she writes. “Once you become aware of how deliberate even the most throwaway moments in the novel are, you develop a double vision to­ ward Gatsby, admiring its smooth surface while sensing the fathoms that abide beneath.” With So We Read On, Corrigan for the most part is preaching to a choir of aco­ lytes already at the altar of Gatsby, but it is a sermon as smooth and palatable as the novel itself.

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 September.

#1

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES by Caitlin Doughty Norton, $24.95, ISBN 9780393240238

A young mortician with a quirky sense of humor lifts the curtain on her curious profession in a gloriously macabre and thought-provoking memoir.

BookPage review on page 23.

STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel

Knopf, $24.95, ISBN 9780385353304 Set years after a devastating flu decimated the world’s popu­ lation, this remarkable novel is both an adventure story and a compelling exploration of what remains after loss. BookPage review on page 18.

THE SECRET PLACE by Tana French

Viking, $27.95, ISBN 9780670026326 In her latest book, this talented suspense writer delves into the secret-filled world of an all-girl’s school, which just might be harboring a murderer. BookPage review on page 6.

ROOMS by Lauren Oliver

Ecco, $25.99, ISBN 9780062223197 The popular YA author makes her adult debut in this story of a family who inherits an old house—along with two invisible tenants.

THE CHILDREN ACT by Ian McEwan

Nan A. Talese, $25, ISBN 9780385539708 A judge must balance religion and law to make a ruling that could save a child’s life in McEwan’s timely new novel. BookPage review on page 22.

THE DISTANCE by Helen Giltrow

Doubleday, $26.95, ISBN 9780385536998 In this fast-paced debut thriller, a London socialite’s secret criminal past comes back to threaten her future.

HORRORSTOR by Grady Hendrix

Quirk, $14.95, ISBN 9781594745263 Horror haunts a Scandinavian furniture superstore in this sly satirical novel, which manages to deliver laughs and thrills.

THE PAYING GUESTS by Sarah Waters

Riverhead, $28.95, ISBN 9781594633119 In Waters’ latest historical novel, a formerly well-to-do family must take in boarders after their fortunes change—which leads to tension and a forbidden love. BookPage review on page 18.

THE WITCH WITH NO NAME by Kim Harrison

Harper Voyager, $26.99, ISBN 9780061957956 Bounty hunter Rachel Morgan must pay a heavy price to save the ones she loves in Harrison’s latest paranormal adventure.

SEASON OF STORMS by Susanna Kearsley

Sourcebooks Landmark, $16.99, ISBN 9781402258732 When an actress agrees to take the lead in a play staged at an isolated Italian villa, she ends up discovering secrets from her own past.

LibraryReads is a recommendation program that highlights librarians’ favorite books published this month. For more information, visit libraryreads.org.

5

columns

WHODUNIT

BY BRUCE TIERNEY

An embarrassment of fine mysteries

S

eptember is a big month for mysteries this year, both in terms of excellence and page count (close to 2,000 pages in the four books here—truly a reviewer’s marathon!). If ever there were a month deserving of four Top Picks, this is it.

First up is The Long Way Home (Minotaur, $27.99, 384 pages, ISBN 9781250022066), by Louise Penny, whose Chief Inspector Gamache has retired to Three Pines, a village so tiny it appears on no map. The change in scenery is nice for him, but it is unlikely that hard-line suspense aficionados will be pleased with tales of gardening triumphs, wood­ land walks with a dog and scones well baked. No worries, though, because Three Pines has just offered Gamache a mystery of the

first order. After a falling out, local artist Peter Morrow and his wife, Clara, agreed to meet in one year to assess the possibilities of a future

ever taken on. His search leads him to an ominous part of the province known as The Land God Gave to Cain, a fitting appellation, for fewer will return from the journey than embarked on it.

Excellent as always, this is a character-driven tour-de-police-force

by Canada’s favo(u)rite suspense writer.

together, but the deadline passed without a word from Peter, and Clara fears the worst. Gamache soon finds himself embroiled in a case as compelling as any he has

The theme of mostly retired police inspectors carries over into Darkness, Darkness (Pegasus Crime, $25.95, 352 pages, ISBN 9781605986166), John Harvey’s final thriller featuring Charlie Resnick, the sandwich-chomping jazz aficionado protagonist of 11 previous police procedurals set in and around Nottingham, England.

In the mid-1980s, Resnick found himself on the front lines of the violent confrontation between striking coal miners and the British government (a fictional hero in a real-life situation). Amid the turmoil, a young instigator named Jenny Hardwick disappeared with­ out a trace. Some 30 years later, her bleached bones turn up beneath some new construction. Who better to look into the matter than Resnick, one of the few “old guard” cops with the insight and history to ferret out a murderer three de­ cades after the fact? Resnick’s last case is also his best.

ONE LAST HURRAH

Three very different women.

One dangerous journey.

And a future that seems just out of reach.

BAD GIRLS’ CLUB

n 6

AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD ALSO AVAILABLE IN e BOOK FORMAT

Nobody does teenage girl dia­ logue better than Tana French. This is a dialogue-driven book, and she simply nails it—the insecurities, the eye-rolling flouting of authori­ ty, the depth of the friendships, the ruthless bitchiness of the enemies.

Eight girls in an Irish boarding school make up the core cast of The Secret Place (Viking, $27.95, 464 pages, ISBN 9780670026326),

and one of them holds the key to solving a murder.

It will be up to two cops to extract that knowledge. The storyline alternates between past and present, with the “past” chapters keyed to the time remaining in the life of young Chris Harper and the events that will inexorably lead to his death.

The “present” chapters take place largely from the perspective of the police investigation. Thus the big reveal of Harper’s killer takes place for the reader (in a “past” chapter) at almost the exact time it becomes clear to the cops (in a “present” chapter). This must be the longest book I have ever read in one sitting, but I just could not put it down!

TOP PICK IN MYSTERY Pretty much everyone who reads this column should be intimately familiar with James Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet, four of the finest sus­ pense novels of their time. Perfidia (Knopf, $28.95, 720 pages, ISBN 9780307956996) is the first book of Ellroy’s Second L.A. Quartet, and it is a hell of a good start to the new series. Set in Los Angeles in 1941, the narrative begins the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Anti-Japanese rhetoric is on the upswing when the LAPD is handed a political hot potato: the murder (or is it?) of a Japanese family, by the traditional samurai disembowelment ritual called seppuku. Many of the characters from the initial L.A. Quartet appear here, but a new character captures the limelight: Hideo Ashida, a budding expert in the new field of criminal forensics, and the only Japanese in the LAPD. Ashida gives a face to the egregious wrongs visited upon the Japanese in WWII-era America: loss of livelihood; confiscation of property; internment into concen­ tration camps. Perfidia (Spanish for “betrayal”) is an apt title for this ambitious novel, as shifting allegiances abound, and the only thing you can be sure of is that you cannot be sure of anything.

BOOK CLUBS

BY JULIE HALE

New paperback releases for reading groups

RESCUE MISSION At the Bottom of Everything (Vintage, $15.95, 288 pages, ISBN 9780345803177), Ben Dolnick’s im­ pressive third novel, tells the story of two friends and the divergent paths their lives take as they grow older. Adam and Thomas become buddies in prep school. Thomas is a quirky brainiac; Adam, mean­

while, possesses the social skills his friend lacks. When Thomas bails on college and goes to India, his mother turns to Adam for help.

But Adam is too busy sorting out his own troubles to get involved.

Haunted by his ex-girlfriend and dissatisfied with his work as a tutor, he isn’t sure where his life is going. Yet he and Thomas are bound by a dark incident from their schooldays that had terrible repercussions for everyone in­ volved. When Adam finally heads to India to locate Thomas, the two friends come to terms with the past. Dolnick has created a pair of multilayered, complex characters, each with his own idiosyncratic personality. This insightful tale of old friends in search of themselves will resonate with readers of all ages.

BEHIND ENEMY LINES Brian Payton’s compelling book, The Wind Is Not a River (Ecco, $15.99, 320 pages, ISBN 9780062279989), is a powerful historical novel about secrets, survival and love. Journalist John Easley is struggling to make sense of World War II, which has claimed the life of his brother. Leaving his wife, Helen, in Seattle, he travels to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, which have been invaded by the Japa­ nese. Although the invasion has

been kept under wraps by the U.S. govern­ ment, John is deter­ mined to find out what he can about it. But when he joins a crew of American flyers for a bombing mission and their plane is shot down, he winds up strand­ ed on the island of Attu. Heart­ broken over John’s disappearance and resolved to find him, Helen signs on with a U.S.O. troupe headed for Alaska. Payton writes about Helen’s search and John’s fight for survival with compassion, detail and insight. Bringing a little-known chapter in military history to vivid life, he has written a classic wartime narrative that’s deeply personal and masterfully crafted.

Fall into Great Reads The next book in Mary McNear’s New York Times and USA Today bestselling Butternut Lake series.

“Engaging and true to life, Butternut Summer offers a story not limited just to a beach read.”

—New York Journal of Books

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train comes a novel about friendship and the memories that haunt us.

“Christina Baker Kline artfully crafts this absorbing book.”

—Chicago Tribune

TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS More than three years after it was originally published, Lau­ ra Hillenbrand’s terrific second book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Random House, $16, 528 pages, ISBN 9780812974492), is available in paperback. In this acclaimed bestseller, Hil­ lenbrand tells the true story of Louis Zamperini, a track star from California who excels at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and endures incredible hardship during World War II. In May 1943, Zamperini’s bomber takes a plunge into the Pacific Ocean. After the crash, along with two other survivors, he hoists himself onto a life raft and begins a long fight to stay alive. He pulls through, only to be taken prisoner by the Japanese.

Hillenbrand recounts Zamperini’s incredible trials with the same narrative aplomb she demon­ strated in Seabiscuit. Zamperini is an unforgettable character, and in Hillenbrand’s hands, his story takes on timeless proportions. A movie adaptation of the book is set to hit screens this Christmas.

A witty and heartfelt novel from a former application-whisperer about the madness of the college admissions race.

“An engrossing novel.”

—People

New from Courtney Miller Santo, author of The Roots of the Olive Tree.

“Santo’s lush descriptions, rich dialogue, and vivid characters will sweep you away.”

—Redbook Magazine

PERFECT FOR BOOK CLUBS @WilliamMorrowPB

@bookclubgirl

William Morrow Paperbacks

Book Club Girl

BookpgSep14_AD_JT3.indd 1

7 7/29/14 12:26 PM

columns

ROMANCE

COOKING

B Y C H R I S T I E R I D G WAY

BY SYBIL PRATT

When a lover returns

Curry in no hurry

An estranged couple is reunited in Not Quite a Wife (Zebra, $7.99, 368 pages, ISBN 9781420127164), the latest in Mary Jo Putney’s Lost Lords series. Spymaster James, Lord Kirkland, married young after falling in love at first sight. But after a blissful honeymoon, his young wife witnessed his darker side—and abruptly left him. Ten years of loneliness and longing

Neela Paniz, Mumbai native, suc­ cessful California restaurateur and cookbook author, had a few reser­ vations about using a slow cooker for traditional Indian cooking, but she discovered that, given the right prep (browning onions, quickly sizzling spices), a slow cooker is an excellent way to put the splen­ dor of traditional Indian food on American dinner tables. And, as

appear to come to a close when he finds himself in her care as fever strikes. In his half-delirium, their still-vigorous physical attraction leads to a night of rekindled pas­ sion. But by morning, he believes it was just a dream as his wife bids him goodbye.

Laurel is planning to forget her momentary lapse in self-control— until she finds herself pregnant.

Honor means she must admit the truth, and when her husband presses for reconciliation, she agrees to try. Older and wiser, both James and Laurel take a second look at their past . . . and past mistakes. As they realize their love still burns strong, an outside threat might take Laurel from the man she now holds so dear. A pure ro­ mance, this book will stir readers’ hearts.

Rainshad­ ow, and Cyrus and Sedona team up to explore the island’s secrets. But Sedona’s escape from captivity comes back to haunt her when she learns why she was taken and discovers that an evil doctor wants her back. Cyrus isn’t the kind of man to leave a woman hanging, however, and when Sedona realizes this, she also realizes she’s fallen hard for the man known as “Dead Zone” Jones. Scary monsters, intriguing psychic powers and a spooky graveyard (complete with underground tunnels) serve to make this a rip-roarin’ adventure of a love story.

TOP PICK IN ROMANCE

Maine’s tiny Peregrine Island, the setting of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Heroes Are My Weakness (Morrow, $26.99, 384 pages, ISBN 9780062106070), contains secrets, tragedies and more than its fair share of colorful characters. Broke and recovering from pneumonia, Annie Hewitt takes up residence at Moonraker Cottage to search for the legacy left by her de­ ceased mother. Nearby, in the big, brooding house on the cliff, lives Theo Harp, Annie’s first love—and deadly nemesis. Now a writer of horror novels, Theo seems to have stepped right out of the Gothic novels she’s always loved. But he’s OTHERWORLDLY LUST flesh and blood—and possibly dangerous. As Annie becomes Jayne Castle—aka Jayne Ann Krentz—creates an imaginative and enmeshed in winter island life, she can’t avoid Theo . . . and then she well-detailed paranormal world doesn’t want to. Just like so long in The Hot Zone (Jove, $7.99, 352 ago, Theo is drawn to Annie. But pages, ISBN 9780515154726). After his past is studded with regret, and being kidnapped and subjected he doesn’t know how to handle to terrifying medical experiments, Sedona Snow retreats to Rainshad­ his feelings for her. Throughout ow, an island of happy misfits. She’s this delightful romance, these tough-yet-vulnerable characters accompanied by her faithful dust banter with detached sophistica­ bunny sidekick and is looking for­ tion even as their hearts become ward to Halloween when the mys­ deeply engaged. From start to terious Cyrus Jones enters her life. finish, it’s a charming pleasure.

At the same time, disaster strikes

8

with all dishes left to do their thing in an untended slow cooker, this method allows you to do your thing while super suppers and delicious dinners simmer to perfection. In The New Indian Slow Cooker (Ten Speed, $19.99, 144 pages, ISBN 9781607746195), Paniz concen­ trates on regional curries, creamy dals topped with vibrant chutneys, vegetable sides and fragrant rice pulaos, biryanis and khichdi (rice and lentils). There’s a quick review of essential Indian spices, and then you’re off to create Mulligataw­ ny Soup, Kerala Fish Curry, Pork Vindaloo, Kashmiri Potato Curry and sweet-sour Date and Tamarind Chutney.

GET SERIOUS September is always back to reality—a time to be a bit more se­ rious about life and, maybe, about food. So, it might be the right time to take a serious look at Seriously Delish (HMH, $29.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780544176492), popular blogger Jessica Merchant’s un­ abashedly enthusiastic, cheerfully chatty, charmingly confessional ode to her love of food and to her mantra—“absolutely everything in moderation.” Merchant, who loves to eat and cook more than most, shares her “must-haves” and “quick & dirty tips” for her faves like brown butter, bacon grease and coconut oil, then gets to the serious business of making her del­

ish dishes.

Merchant’s devotion to flavor has pro­ pelled her to con­ coct some razzle-dazzle combos.

Consider Baked Breakfast Risotto; Smoked Salmon BLTs with Her­ bed Mayo; Amaretto-Butternut Squash Soup with Cinnamon Toast Croutons; glowingly healthy Double-Herb Kale Pesto; Caramelized Peach, Dark Choco­ late & Mascarpone Grilled Cheese; Mushroom, Leek & Brussels Pizza with Fried Eggs—and that’s just for starters.

TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS Laden with the symbolism of home and hearth, of basic and essential sustenance, bread is far more than the sum of its parts and, fresh from the oven, it’s as divine as any food can be. Kathleen Weber started making bread because she loved it, and it became her liveli­ hood and her passion. She and her husband opened the acclaimed Della Fattoria almost 20 years ago, with Thomas Keller as one of their first clients. Now, in Della Fattoria Bread (Artisan, $29.95, 336 pages, ISBN 9781579655310), Weber shares her unique knowledge of ar­ tisanal bread-baking by taking you on her journey from home baker to celebrated pro, from making simple breads to more compli­ cated ones, from straightforward yeasted breads to enriched doughs, pre-­fermented and naturally leavened breads, plus crackers, breadsticks, pizza doughs and flatbreads. Weber teaches you to think like a baker about the whole process—including ingredients, equipment and techniques. Once you get started, she cheers you on with time-tested baking tips, detailed, step-by-step instructions, 63 superb, inspiring recipes and photos fabulous enough to spread with butter and eat.

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

A young man returns home to Thunder Point— to face his mistakes and claim the life he was meant to live.

At nineteen, Seth Sileski had everything.

A superb athlete and scholar, he was the pride of Thunder Point—until the terrible accident that ended his football career.

Seth has come to terms with the turns his life has taken. And now he has a chance to show his father—and the town—he’s become a better, humbler version of his former self.

Will Seth be able to convince everyone that he’s finally ready to be the man who will make them all proud?

Pick up all three today!

“Funny, touching…this beautifully descriptive story gets Carr’s latest series off to a wonderful start.”

—Library Journal, starred review, on THE WANDERER

columns

AUDIO

BY SUKEY HOWARD

Europe’s dark shadow If Alan Furst, grandmaster of WWII espionage thrillers, calls his latest Midnight in Europe (Simon & Schuster Audio, $29.99, 9 hours, ISBN 9781442368163), you know that when day breaks, it will bring war. In the dark hours of 1938, Cristián Ferrar, a Barcelona-born lawyer in the Paris office of an esteemed international firm, is recruited by the Spanish Embassy

to buy arms for the beleaguered Republican Army fighting Franco and fascism. To procure weapons, elegant Cristián and a mysterious, multilingual, Middle-European colleague must descend into the murky world of criminals, du­ plicitous agents, hijacking and shootouts. It’s first-class Furst, an intricate, intriguing story with fas­ cinating details about the Spanish Civil War set against the broader sweep of 20th-century history, with just enough champagne sipped, Gitanes smoked, alluring women romanced and real suspense con­ jured. Daniel Gerroll narrates in a honeyed, British-accented voice, evoking the mood and atmosphere of that time of political peril and personal bravery, of dedication and desperation.

MURDER IN MAINE If you haven’t met Mike Bowditch yet, don’t worry: You’ll catch up on his past as The Bone Orchard (Macmillan Audio, $39.99, 8.5 hours, ISBN 9781427240972), Paul Doiron’s fifth in the series, hurtles through a rural Maine landscape so well evoked you can feel the black flies biting and hear the warblers in the bushes. Mike isn’t a game warden anymore, but he doesn’t seem all that happy as a bearded, flannel-shirted fishing guide either. When his mentor, Sgt. Kathy Frost, is shot at the door of her farmhouse, his own happiness

10

has to take a backseat.

Mike, who was at the scene, is compelled to join the search for the shooter, to use his in­ vestigative savvy to look beyond the obvious and delve into Kathy’s past.

There are twists and turns and false leads galore, a convinc­ ing cast of characters— including po­ tential killers and former lovers—and subplots that make Mike’s quandary about his future as understandable as his quest for Kathy’s would-be assas­ sin. Henry Leyva reads.

TOP PICK IN AUDIO Kim Philby is endlessly fasci­ nating, and the list of books on Philby, though not quite endless, is very long. Still, Ben Macintyre’s A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal (Random House Audio, $40, 11 hours, ISBN 9780553397888) should go right to the top, especially in this totally compelling audio version nar­ rated by John Lee, whose clipped upper-class English cadences perfectly mirror Philby’s world.

And it’s through the prism of that privileged Cambridge-cricket-club milieu, always well lubricated with cocktails and port, that Macintyre looks at Philby’s incredibly daring, incredibly successful years of deceit, spying for the Soviets while rising in the British Secret Intelli­ gence Service. We see him through the eyes of his closest friends, Nicholas Elliott, his MI6 colleague from the get-go, and James Jesus Angleton, who became chief of the CIA. Both men admired the double agent enormously and, even when it was becoming difficult not to see the truth about his betrayal and its horrific ramifications, they still found it almost impossible to be­ lieve one of their own could betray class and country.

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cover story

DAVID MITCHELL

As youth fades, exploring what endures

G

iven his tendency to experiment with form (in novels such as Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten), it’s probably no surprise that when we spoke with David Mitchell about his enthralling new book, The Bone Clocks, he had just written a short story to be published 140 characters at a time on Twitter.

“It was an absorbing enterprise,” Mitchell said of the story, “The Right Sort,” which is set in the same world as The Bone Clocks.

The soft-spoken English au­ thor isn’t typically active on social media and seems unlikely to dive headlong into the Twitterverse.

In conversation, he’s almost the opposite of Twitter: thoughtful, expansive, engaged and gen­ erous with his replies. Still, he says, speaking from his home in Cork, Ireland, that Twitter “has the potential for beauty as well as anything else.”

That Mitchell would play with a medium known for its brevity and fleeting nature is especially fitting in light of The Bone Clocks, where time and impermanence are key themes.

The novel centers on Holly Sykes, who is a spirited teen when we meet her in Gravesend, England, in 1984. Holly has a huge fight with her mother that leads to anoth­ er fight with her boyfriend, and impulsively, she takes off. Furious

THE BONE CLOCKS

By David Mitchell

Random House, $30, 620 pages ISBN 9781400065677, audio, eBook available

LITERARY FICTION

12

and heartbroken, she hoofs it along the Thames, not sure where to go.

As she’s walking, brief flashbacks reveal that when she was a little girl, Holly heard voices—the Radio People, she called them—until she was cured by a mysterious Dr. Marinus. It soon becomes clear that the Radio People and their strange world have not quite “We live in a finished with youth- and her.

For most beauty-adoring of its 620 society that pages, over dismisses age several as something continents and into the of no value. It’s year 2043, almost a crime the novel to age.” takes place in a realistic world that is recognizably ours. But strangeness lurks in the margins, where a secret war is going on among a handful of immortal beings with a particular interest in Holly Sykes. Without revealing too much, it’s safe to say that these immortals, or “atemporals,” are defined by youth: Some embody it, others feed on it. The battle at the heart of the book comes down to opposing views of the fair price for eternal youth. How far will someone go to fend off old age and death?

“It’s my midlife-crisis novel,” Mitchell says, only half-joking. He’s 45, and, he says, “these themes are knocking about in my mind a lot.”

“You have to get choosy about your photographs,” he adds, still joking—sort of. “You look in the mirror and your dad’s looking out at you.”

There’s a point about a third of the way into the book where the pace quickens and suddenly teenage Holly is grown: She has gray in her hair, she’s guarded,

she’s a mother, her bones ache. You can’t help wanting to slow everything down—having so recently been so close to young Holly, the jump to an older version registers as a palpable loss. It’s extremely effective— the reader’s response is almost physical.

But Holly is still Holly. If anything, she’s better, smarter, tougher. Gradually, the point sinks in: Aging scares us, but it isn’t the loss we imagine.

“We live in a youth- and beauty-adoring society that dismisses age as something of no value,” Mitchell says. “It’s almost a crime to age. And this is wrong, this is no good.”

Writing The Bone Clocks al­ lowed him to address the topics of death and aging in a world that prefers not to discuss it. Western cultures, like the U.S. and U.K., “do some things very, very well, but they’re pretty rubbish at death,” he says. “And the longer our life ex­ pectancies have become, the more afraid of it we’ve become. Our culture won’t help us with this. We have to do it individually, one by one by one. We have to make a re­ lationship with death. And in a way The Bone Clocks is one step for me along the path of doing that.”

As Holly goes from teenager to middle-aged author to scrappy grandmother, doing her best to forget what she’s seen of the atem­ porals and their ongoing war, she crosses paths with some characters who will be familiar to Mitchell’s fans. Dr. Marinus made an appear­ ance in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and Hugo Lamb, who had a bit part in Black Swan

PAUL STUART

INTERVIEW BY BECKY OHLSEN

Green, gets a leading role here.

Mitchell brings his characters back for several reasons. “I’ve lived with the people, of course, when I write them, so they never really go away,” he says. “They fade, but I remember they’re there. . . . I like to do it, that’s one reason.”

Secondly, encountering a character you already know adds a sense that what you’re reading is real: “So if you’ve read Black Swan Green already, and you believed in that world, and in walks this guy, the fact that you believed that Black Swan Green was real makes The Bone Clocks feel a degree or two realer.

“Thirdly,” he says, “it’s vanity, in a way.” Mitchell doesn’t want to spend his entire writing life making one huge Middle Earth-size world in a single book. “I’m too much of a magpie.” He prefers to write all different sorts of books. “Howev­ er,” he adds, laughing, “I am vain enough to kind of want to. And I’ve realized that’s kind of what I’m doing; all of my books are sort of chapters in a greater überbook.”

Did he have a sense while writ­ ing Black Swan Green that Hugo might reappear?

“Never,” Mitchell says. “He was only ever a minor character. I’d started The Bone Clocks and then

the vacancy came up and I thought, ‘I know who’s about the right age and who has the amoral, Ripley-es­ que credentials to fill that position.’

So, I invited him to the interview, and within a couple of minutes had decided that the job was his.”

And rightly so: Hugo, with all his charms and weaknesses, his cold­ ness and his capacity to surprise, is an excellent villain. He’s complex, even sympathetic, and he perfectly embodies the icky wrongness of misplaced youth-worship.

He also provides Holly with a nice foil in terms of gender. Mitch­ ell often writes female characters, though he says he does so “cagily and cautiously.”

“It’s a big divide, is the gender divide,” he says. “What gets taken for granted on one side is not nec­ essarily what gets taken for granted on the other.”

Men are “kind of clunkier ob­ servers, I feel,” he continues. “And patriarchy does not do us favors.

Patriarchy does not teach us to listen as attentively and observe as acutely as I feel that patriarchy obliges women to listen and see.

I’ve got more lost ground to make up, as a man, I think.

“I should read more women,” Mitchell adds. “It should be 50-50.”

His reading habits are largely guided by what he’s writing, he says. Some of his well-traveled novels require months or years of research.

“It depends how far away the fictional world is to mine,” he says.

“

“But it’s not a hardship, it’s highly enjoyable to read well-written books by people who know what they’re talking about.”

“You use a tiny fraction of what you learn, of course,” he adds, oth­ erwise the book becomes didactic.

“But somehow you still need to know it even if it doesn’t go in the book. You need to know a lot to know what not to put in.”

The idea that characters con­ tinue on after their main story ends—that what we’re reading is just a brief window onto a whole life—carries over into the ending of The Bone Clocks. Without, again, revealing too much, the story doesn’t have the tidy conclusion one might expect.

“It’s quite odd, isn’t it?” Mitchell acknowledges. “Well, I suppose one thing is that life does not end after momentous battles. There’s still years to be lived. In biographies of stars, I’m always interested in what happens afterwards, when the light of fame is fading. What do they do with that? That’s more interesting to me in a way than just the blaze.”

“It’s not an obvious ending,” he says. “But I feel it’s—if I can use this word in a book that is shot through with fantasy and the supernatu­ ral—it’s a realist ending.”

Ultimately, he says, the book is about survival: “who gets to survive, and why and how, what decisions do you have to make, what compromises do you have to make, and maybe what crimes do you have to commit to survive.”

An excerpt from The Bone Clocks Dr. Marinus was the first Chinese person I ever met, apart from the ones at the Thousand Autumns Restaurant where me and Brendan were sometimes sent for takeaways if Mam was too tired to cook. Dr. Marinus spoke in posh, perfect English, quite softly, so you had to pay close attention to catch everything. He was short and skinny but sort of filled the room anyway. First he asked ’bout school and my family and stuff, then moved on to my voices. Mam was all, “My daughter’s not crazy, if that’s what you’re implying—it’s just concussion.” Dr. Marinus told Mam that he agreed, I wasn’t remotely crazy, but the brain could be an illogical place. To help him rule out a tumor, she had to let me answer his questions on my own. So I told him about the Radio People and Susan Hillage and Miss Constantin. Mam went all jittery again but Dr. Marinus assured her that auditory hallucinations— “daymares”—were not unusual in a girl my age.

13

interviews

MATHEW PRICHARD & SOPHIE HANNAH

No red herring: Poirot is back

Q

uestion: How does one possibly attempt to add to the crime canon of Agatha Christie, whose 80 mystery novels and short story collections have sold more than two billion copies, trailing only the Bible and her countryman William Shakespeare?

Answer: Very. Very. Carefully.

In fact, since Christie’s death in 1976, Mathew Prichard, the only child of the only child of the queen of crime fiction, who has overseen her literary estate for decades, was dead set against the idea of any author attempting a Christie continuation novel.

But through “a very happy string of coincidences,” the literary world—including those diehard Christie enthusiasts who were “a bit nervous” about the pros­ pect—is poised to fall in love with Dame Agatha all over again, thanks to The Monogram Murders, a darkly twisted new Hercule Poirot mystery crafted by best-selling psychological thriller writer Sophie Hannah (Kind of Cruel).

The Monogram Murders trans­ ports us to a coffeehouse in 1920s London, where the idiosyncratic Belgian detective’s supper has been interrupted by a woman who fears for her life. Poirot soon learns why: Three guests at a nearby hotel have been murdered by poison and carefully laid out with a single monogrammed cufflink tucked in

THE MONOGRAM MURDERS

By Sophie Hannah

Morrow, $25.99, 384 pages ISBN 9780062297211, audio, eBook available

MYSTERY

14

their mouths. With Scotland Yard investigating officer and doubt­ ing-Thomas apprentice Edward Catchpool at his side, Poirot once again calls upon his “little grey cells” to suss the meaning of every delicious twist in the bizarre case.

Throughout, Hannah’s pitchperfect dialogue and mastery of misdirection combine to weave a tangled tapestry that delights with its period detail, flashes of humor and grim Noted suspense glimpses into our darker writer Sophie nature.

Hannah puts The novel’s her own spin birth took an equally circu­ on Christie’s quirky Belgian itous course, dating back crime-solver, several years Hercule Poirot. to when Prichard was editing his grandmother’s letters and photographs for The Grand Tour, a travelogue of Christie’s 1922 yearlong tour of the British Empire.

“I suppose that editing those wonderful, charming letters of my grandmother that had never been published before drew my atten­ tion back and did have the effect of thinking about Agatha Christie anew,” he admits.

Slowly, his resolve against au­ thorizing further works under the Christie imprimatur gave way to the realities of modern publishing.

“Our advice was that if we took our courage in both hands and allowed a new Poirot to be writ­ ten and published, one of the big spinoffs would be a renewal of interest in the real Poirot books,” Prichard says. “So I think in some ways, this is a double event. Ob­ viously, the publication of a new Poirot by Sophie Hannah is an event all on its own, but we also hope it will help renew interest in the real Poirot stories.”

As luck would have it, Hannah’s

PHILLIPA GEDGE

B Y J AY M AC D O N A L D

agent was speaking over lunch with a HarperCollins representative who mentioned Agatha Christie’s grandson, Mathew Prichard (left), gives the family seal in passing that of approval to the new Poirot mystery by writer Sophie Hannah (right). the Christie es­ tate was mulling over a continuation project. from what you usually do, when you “My agent knew I’d had a couple go back to what you usually do, you ideas in mind that I’d always think about it more consciously. It’s thought of as Agatha Christie-ish, been really good in that sense.” but I’d never quite gotten them One question weighs on every­ to work in my regular titles,” says one’s mind: Is the world ready for Hannah. “So when my agent more Agatha Christie? suggested that I write a historical, “We have promised ourselves that’s what won me.” to give the first one time to get The happenstance sent Hannah launched and get a reaction, not back to the Christie collection only from critics but from the real that had inspired her own career fans as well, before making up our trajectory. She knew she wanted minds on what we’re going to do,” to set half the book in London, the Prichard explains. “It would sur­ other half in a rural English village, prise me if, occasionally, we didn’t with Poirot on the case rather than do something like this again, but Christie’s venerable Miss Marple. don’t worry; it won’t be every year Prichard could not have been or anything like that. I don’t think happier with the results. that would be right.”

“I think it’s her portrait of Poirot How would his famous grand­ that is certainly one of my favorite mother have felt about The Monoparts of the book,” he says. “I think gram Murders?

Sophie got Poirot exactly right; “My grandmother was a very there is the humanity, the flashes intelligent person, and I think if of humor—and maybe, although you had asked her five years ago she might deny this, even the whether she wanted someone occasional moment of irritation, to write more Poirot stories, she which I think is very much a part would unquestionably have said of Poirot. Her great sensitivity to no,” Prichard admits. “But if you the various settings in the book, had told her that if she wanted to the hotel and the towns outside of prolong the enjoyment that her London, are very like Agatha Chris­ readers still have for the stories she tie. But some of my favorite bits are herself wrote, and that one of the pure Sophie Hannah as well.” modern ways of doing this was to The process of re-reading the publish a new version of her char­ Christie novels to prepare for the acter by somebody who is a great daunting task of filling the shoes fan and admirer of hers, I think of the queen of crime fiction left that at the very least she would Hannah a changed person. have understood the reasoning.”

“It definitely made me realize So, somewhere Dame Agatha is afresh what a brilliant writer she is, smiling? and it helped change my attitude “I’m sure she’s doing that,” he toward my own life,” she says. “If chuckles. “She was very good at you do something very different smiling.”

richly imagined enchanting unforgettable Novelist Anne Girard introduces the unforgettable woman behind the greatest artist of our time, Pablo Picasso.

Madame Picasso

“Early twentieth-century Paris and Picasso’s lost love come to enchanted, vivid life in Madame Picasso.

With a deft eye for detail and deep understanding for her protagonists, Anne Girard captures the earnest young woman who enthralled the famous artist and became his unsung muse.”

—C.W. Gortner, bestselling author of THE QUEEN ’S VOW

Pick up your copy today.

q&a

Q:

LAURA DOMELA

the title of your new book?

Q: What’s

At home with Father Tim

M

illions of readers have lived, laughed and loved alongside the residents of Mitford since the 1990s.

ow would you describe the book H in one sentence?

© CANDACE FREELAND

meet CHELSEA CAIN

JAN KARON

BY TRISHA PING

After a five-year absence, Jan Karon brings back Father Tim and Cynthia in Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good (Putnam, $27.95, 528 pages, ISBN 9780399167447).

he book’s heroine, Kick Lannigan, can pick locks, escape Q: Tfrom handcuffs and walk without making a sound. If you shared Kick’s talents, what would you do with them?

Q: What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read?

Q: What’s your personal obsession?

Q: In what place do you feel most free?

You say in an author’s note that the title of this book “expresses in just five words what we all long for.” Could you talk a little more about its significance?

Somewhere safe. I want to be there, don’t you? With somebody good.

Absolutely. These two components make up a satisfying whole. The line comes from a love letter Cynthia writes to Father Tim on their ninth anniversary and which expresses her life’s desire.

In the new book, Father Tim is, in his own words, “trying to hammer out what retirement is for.” What do you think it means for a man to give up a vocation like Tim’s?

Well, of course, he doesn’t give it up entirely, he has “supplied” as they say, numerous pulpits. He greatly loved the focus of a single pulpit, a sin­ gle flock. It is how he is wired, he cannot resist. His calling to help others serves to build the kingdom and—this is key—to help himself.

Small-town life is a recurring element in American fiction. Other than Mitford, what do you think is the best small town in literature?

Lake Wobegon is a charm.

Do you think about readers and their reactions when you write?

Always. When I am laughing my head off with a scene I am writing, I’m hoping my readers will find it as funny. I really do wish to make people laugh. It is such a simple gift to extend. Also, will my tears be theirs?

Q: Words to live by?

ONE KICK The author of the best-selling Portland-based Archie Sheridan thrillers (Heartsick, ­Sweetheart, etc.), Chelsea Cain launches her highly anticipated Kick Lannigan series with One Kick (Simon & Schuster, $25.99, 320 pages, ISBN 9781476749785), a nail-biting portrayal of the search for two missing children. Cain and her family live in Portland.

16

Many readers regard Cynthia and Father Tim as friends or even family after all these years. What is it like to write about these characters for so long?

It’s like growing up, changing, living through differ­ ent passages in life. They change, the author chang­ es. Or is that vice versa? And I do love my characters in an oddly intimate and authentic way.

Faith is important to your stories, but it never overwhelms them. How do you incorporate Christianity without making it feel didactic?

If it is didactic, it is not Christianity. Many are scared to death of faith and perhaps especially the Christian faith, which is radical, dangerous and exhausting. But of course it is also joyful, healing and transforming.

A lot to chew, this Christianity, it is not for sissies.

What is your favorite simple pleasure?

Umm. Ice cream? Salted caramel? Talking with people who are not afraid to feel their feelings. Sitting on the porch with someone I love. Jeans that still fit after 10 years. A watercolor-blue and cloudless sky. Old dogs and puppies. A really wonderful fragrance, like 31 Rue Cambon or mown hay or bacon frying or babies or the smoke off an autumn hearth fire.

What’s next for you?

Lord only knows, as we say down South. Maybe just taking a deep breath, summoning the courage to show my arms or finally taking a trip on the Orient Express. And Visit BookPage.com to read a review of some writing, of course.

Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good.

features

GRAPHIC NOVELS

BY HILLI LEVIN

Drawing women into focus

T

he world of comics and graphic novels may hold stigma as a male-centric genre, but these four new books explore the pains of growing up, moving on and embracing the messy parts of life—all from the female point of view.

Cartoonist and writer Mimi Pond is best known for writing the very first episode of “The Simpsons,” but her foray into the world of graphic novels may quickly over­

earning the nickname “Madge.”

With casual prose and dreamy aqua watercolor, Pond gets to the heart of the restaurant’s curious al­ lure: hilarious banter between staff and customers, cheap and hearty food, recreational drug use in the back of­ fice, the steady stream of staff hookups and hastily organized poetry nights. If the ’70s usually conjures up thoughts of disco, gold chains and general excess, then Pond offers a refreshingly different side of the story.

LATE BLOOMER From a different per­ spective on the comingof-age tale, we move to the story of a 30-something’s struggle for identity. Anya Ulinich follows up her debut novel, Petropolis, with a text-heavy graph­ ic work, Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel (Penguin, $17, 368 pages, ISBN Illustration from Seconds, © 2014 by Bryan Lee O’Malley.

9780143125242). After her marriage, “a 15-year-long shadow her career’s early years— war,” finally reaches its end, Lena Finkle finds herself attempting to perhaps deservedly so. In her make sense of sex and dating as fictionalized memoir, Over Easy (Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95, 272 a 37-year-old single mom in New pages, ISBN 9781770461536), Pond York. What constitutes a flirty text message? Is it wrong to wear the reflects on the oft-misunderstood same dress on every date? Can she 1970s and her waitressing years at Mama’s Royal Café (referred to here have a one-night stand? These and as the Imperial Café), which served other questions swirl in her head as she struggles to stay afloat in the as a beacon for burgeoning punks world of online dating. Her trial and the last wave of bohemians in by fire comes in her relationship Oakland, California. Pond’s alter ego is Margaret, an art school drop­ with “the Orphan”—a seemingly out itching to supplement her edu­ modest craftsman with a secret cation with some honest, blue-col­ inheritance he is loath to rely on.

His easy detachment soon clashes lar life experience. Cue L ­ azlo, the with Lena’s desire for dependability messianic manager of the café, and love. She finds herself nursing who offers her a spot among his a year-long heartbreak, during mouthy, ragtag staff. The job is which Ulinich, with equal parts grueling, but she toughs it out and poignant and comic effect, portrays taps into a well of self-reliance, Lena as a tiny, helpless duckling. eventually making waitress and

and the quest for answers to those questions that arise on sleepless nights.

A ROCK STAR’S RETURN

Bryan Lee O’Malley has been an absolute rock star in the comic world since his Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, stuffed to the gills With a Shteyngart-esque eye for humorously conveying the Russian with wit, whimsy and pop cul­ immigrant experience, especially in ture references, garnered cultish reverence after they debuted in her interspersed snapshot com­ ics—“The Glorious People’s Sex 2004. Now, five years after the series Education” and “The USSR ’80s”— conclusion and a big-budget film Ulinich captures a woman’s earnest adaptation, O’Malley treads similar, search for self between two cultures. yet more grounded territory with Seconds (Ballantine, $25, ISBN MILLENNIAL ANGST 9780345529374). Weighing in at Similarly understated and a 300-plus pages and with some of bit bleak is Michael Cho’s debut, the most gorgeous color work in Shoplifter (Pantheon, $19.95, recent memory, Seconds is a titan 96 pages, ISBN 9780307911735). standalone in the graphic world.

After getting a degree in English, Katie, a 29-year-old, scrappy, Corrina Park moves to the big city self-made chef and restaurateur, is preparing to open her very own with stars in her eyes, convinced restaurant. Her talent and charisma she’s on track to chase her dream of writing highbrow literature. have earned her top marks in the city’s dining scene, and she’s the Instead, she lands a job at a soul-sucking ad agency where she’s envy of her younger protégé, but been grinding out copy for the past her drive often serves as a distrac­ tion from her regrets and lost love. five years. She still doesn’t have When exactly, did she take these any friends outside of work, and wrong turns, and how did she end it’s all fumbles on her nights out, so she mainly keeps company with up having to face this version of her grumpy rescue cat. Her main reality? After a particularly terrible thrill comes from the occasional day unfolds, Katie discovers a single bout of shoplifting at her nearest red mushroom that can alter the corner store—which is increasingly course of time, and, of course, all depressing in the context of Corri­ hell breaks loose. Katie’s type-A per­ na’s self-conscious, kind-hearted sonality can’t handle the power, and demeanor. She’s toeing the line she begins an obsessive pursuit of of resigning to this life, until she perfection. But the consequences snaps. During a brainstorming start to creep in, and the restaurant meeting for a perfume aimed at soon becomes the home of a dark preteens, she realizes the reliable and threatening spirit. O’Malley paycheck isn’t worth it anymore, fans won’t be disappointed with and this whole treading water rou­ this existential fable; he success­ tine—waiting for her big moment fully tackles the quarter-life crisis to wander by—isn’t going to work. with just enough blunt honesty and With lovely two-tone illustrations self-deprecating wit, and there’s throughout, this debut nails the even a “Buffy” reference or two to feeling of millennial uncertainly keep things from getting too heavy.

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reviews STATION ELEVEN

FICTION

Creating beauty amid the ashes REVIEW BY ELIZA BORNÉ

The end of the world might seem like an odd time to care about music and art; why worry about Shakespeare when civilization has col­ lapsed? But in Canadian writer Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, it seems perfectly plausible that a Traveling Symphony would cross the wasteland that exists 20 years after most of the world’s population has died from a flu epidemic. They perform in parking lots, traveling from settlement to settlement and raiding long-abandoned houses for costumes. The musicians care for each other like family and work to hone their craft, because as Mandel writes early in this suspenseful and haunting novel: “What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still so much beauty.”

The narrative moves back and forth in time—before the col­ lapse and after, introducing and reintroducing characters at dif­

By Emily St. John Mandel ferent moments in their lives. This nonlinear structure contrib­ Knopf, $24.95, 352 pages utes to the novel’s quick (and addictive) pace. A Hollywood actor ISBN 9780385353304, audio, eBook available dies during a production of King Lear, then the man who tried LITERARY FICTION to revive him attempts to save himself from the quickly spread­ ing flu. Kirsten, a child actor in Lear, survives the sickness and grows up to join the Traveling Symphony. A dangerous prophet gains power, and a British expat builds a museum of artifacts from the world before the collapse. Somehow, these disparate threads nest and connect, often returning to an exquisite graphic novel that links several of the storylines.

Though apocalyptic societies in literature may seem a bit tired, Station Eleven feels like something spe­ cial and fresh: a story that occasionally has the adrenaline of The Hunger Games, bolstered by gorgeous sen­ tences and complex characters who mourn for the fallen world, yet find joy in what remains. After playing Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Kirsten reflects on “the state of suspension that always came over her at the end of performances, a sense of having flown very high and Visit BookPage.com for a Q&A landed incompletely, her soul pulling upward out of her chest.” Upon with Emily St. John Mandel. finishing Mandel’s wonderful novel, readers will know the feeling.

THE PAYING GUESTS

By Sarah Waters Riverhead $28.95, 576 pages ISBN 9781594633119 Audio, eBook available

HISTORICAL FICTION

It is 1922, and England and her citizens are still recovering from the upheaval of the First World War: High unemployment, disillusioned ex-soldiers and severely strained circumstances are commonplace.

Twenty-seven-year-old Frances Wray and her mother are living in South London. Both of Frances’ brothers died in the war, and her father’s recent death left the two

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women close to financial ruin. Even with the dismissal of servants and Frances taking over the housework and meals, the Wrays no longer have enough to live on. Their deci­ sion to take in lodgers, or “paying guests” as they genteelly refer to them, leads to an event as ultimate­ ly life-altering as the war itself.

The Wrays’ lodgers are a young married couple, Leonard and Lillian Barber. The lack of privacy and the added noise prove trou­ blesome, but Frances, who is cut off from people her own age, puts up with Leonard’s overly familiar conversation and is drawn to Lily’s artistic nature and seductive good looks. The budding friendship between the two women deepens, and when Frances confesses her sexual attraction to women, Lily is intrigued and reciprocates. Their

affair reveals the cracks in the Bar­ bers’ marriage as well as the depths of Frances’ loneliness. When a mar­ ital argument leads to a fatal acci­ dent, the novel swiftly transforms from a romance about forbidden love to a fast-paced courtroom drama, and Frances finds herself in the middle of an ethical dilemma that casts a deep shadow on her relationship with Lily.

Fans of Sarah Waters’ previous novels (Fingersmith, The Little Stranger) know that she is a gifted storyteller with a way of bringing historical eras to life. She is sensi­ tive to the telling details of charac­ ter and class. Some of the strongest sections of The Paying Guests depict Frances’ discomfort as she navigates uneasily between her mother’s expectations and those of the Barbers; as bold as she may be

in her desires, she is easily discom­ fited by the middle-class lodgings and speech of Lily’s mother and sis­ ters. In addition, the hidden nature of the women’s relationship proves a double-edged sword—though Frances wishes she could proclaim her love out loud, she also knows that its very invisibility keeps her safe. With the swiftly shifting mores of postwar British society as a back­ drop, Waters once again provides a singular novel of psychological tension, emotional depth and his­ torical detail.

—LAUREN BUFFERD

BARRACUDA

By Christos Tsiolkas

Hogarth $26, 448 pages ISBN 9780804138420 eBook available

POPULAR FICTION

Dan Kelly, the protagonist of Christos Tsiolkas’ latest novel, is not a likable character. He’s not lik­ able in the novel’s first pages, when he’s a scholarship student at a posh boys’ school in Australia, and he remains unlikable at the end, when he’s a 30-something who doesn’t know what to do with his life.

However, by the end of the book, we understand Dan, a little. This is why you will stay with Barracuda, why you will keep turning the pag­ es even as you grit your teeth.

As a child, Dan showed great promise as a swimmer and was singled out by his coach as being the fastest, strongest and best of all the boys on the team. Unfortunate­ ly, it seems like the adoring Coach Torma either never informs Dan that he’s going to lose a few races even at the height of his powers, or the admonition never sinks in. So when Dan loses one race, he gives up swimming—it will be years be­ fore he even swims for pleasure.

Though Dan is called Barracuda because of his swimming chops, he also resembles the fish for his sheer viciousness. He attacks everyone around him, verbally, mentally and even physically. His aggression

FICTION doesn’t even stop with his loved ones, who include his worshipful mother, a Greek immigrant, his brother, sister and hardworking Dad, an immigrant from Scotland.

Only Dan’s best friend, Demet, can stand up to him, and that’s because she’s as mean as he is.

But Barracuda also has in­ sightful things to say about the immigrant experience in Australia and the persistence of family and friendship bonds. This exploration of the mind of a bitter man who destroyed his own dreams is an absorbing if difficult work.

—ARLENE MCKANIC

THE STORY OF LAND AND SEA

By Katy Simpson Smith Harper $26.99, 256 pages ISBN 9780062335944 Audio, eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

selves continuously at odds, each wanting the other to forgive him for unspoken sins. John, whose truest happiness in life was borne on the waves, leaves the sea behind to deal with his grief. Asa, who has resented the sea since it returned to him a daughter who would die soon after, restores a small boat and teaches himself to row, seeking the solace of the salt water that Helen had found years before.

Still only in her 20s, New ­Orleans-based Smith received a Ph.D. in history from the Universi­ ty of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before earning her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminar. The Story of Land and Sea is a striking debut novel that reads like poetry and will linger like mythology, as Simpson’s language and metaphors weave threads of magic through each sentence.

—HALEY HERFURTH

THE FUTURE FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE

By Gregory Sherl

The Story of Land and Sea fol­ lows three generations of a Revolu­ tionary-era family struggling with life and death, freedom and slavery as they make a life in a small coastal town in North Carolina.

Ten-year-old Tabitha is enthralled by her father’s stories of the sea and of his elopement aboard ship with her mother, Helen, whom she never knew. John gave up the sea when Tabitha was born and Helen died, returning to it only when he feels his last hope lies in the heal­ ing salt air.

Helen was raised by her own widowed father, Asa, who taught the girl to run their plantation. He bought her a servant girl, Moll, and the two girls grew up as close to friends as a master and her slave can be. But when Helen met John, the pirate-turned-Continental sol­ dier, and fell in love, Asa watched her restraint melt away. Moll, on the other hand, is married against her will to a virtual stranger, but finds solace in her first son, Davy, whom she swears to protect from the hardships of the world.

Though John and Asa share the same losses, they find them­

Algonquin $14.95, 336 pages ISBN 9781616203696 Audio, eBook available

eccentricities work a sort of charm, creating characters that are easy to love, even if they have trouble finding love themselves.

Underneath the sci-fi elements driving the plot, The Future for Curious People is really about love.

It plays with our idea of true love, remixing it and even slightly mock­ ing it, but always with a nostalgia that makes the story more sweet than sour. It gently reminds us that knowing the future isn’t the answer, but never judges us for wishing we knew more.

Is destiny real? Do soul mates exist? Is fate immutable? The Future for Curious People toys with these questions without drawing crystal-clear conclusions. In that way, it’s a lot like love itself.

—C A R R I E R O L LWA G E N

FIVES AND TWENTY-FIVES

By Michael Pitre Bloomsbury $27, 400 pages ISBN 9781620407547 eBook available

LITERARY FICTION

DEBUT FICTION

Poet Gregory Sherl’s first novel, The Future for Curious People, is set in a world much like ours, but with one key difference: A scientific breakthrough has made it possible to see the future of relationships.

A simple doctor’s visit and insur­ ance co-pay is all it takes to see if the first-date awkwardness will melt into love or misery, to know if a relationship is worth saving, or even to see if your partner will have an awkward hairstyle 20 years in the future.

Enter Godfrey and Evelyn, two people who are lonely despite their seemingly happy relationships, romantic souls living in a world where they just don’t seem to fit.

These are characters defined by their quirks—he wears mittens and has mother (and father) issues, she has a kleptomaniac best friend and a job as a librarian—but their

Michael Pitre’s unforgettable debut, while not a memoir, is just as brutally honest as one in its depiction of the Iraq War, to which the author was twice deployed before leaving the Marine Corps in 2010. Pitre’s harrowing story cen­ ters on three men: two ex-Marines now forging new lives back in the States, and an Iraqi who served as their interpreter and is now trying to gain asylum in this country.

Lt. Pete Donovan was in charge of a Road Repair Platoon, whose daily mission was to fill potholes in the roads crisscrossing Al Anbar Province. The first step was checking them for IEDs: first in a five-meter circle in every direc­ tion, then 25 meters—the distance in which anyone on the ground would be killed if an IED exploded.

Lester “Doc” Pleasant was Donovan’s corpsman—the medical guy assigned to the platoon. When he returns to New Orleans after a dishonorable discharge for illegal

procurement and use of drugs, Doc still carries his trauma bag with him everywhere . . . and keeps the programs from the memorial ser­ vices of all his colleagues who died in chronological order in a cigar box, along with his dog tags.

Kateb, nicknamed Dodge by the Marines, was the platoon’s Iraqi interpreter. Immersed in American pop culture from heavy metal bands to Mark Twain, Dodge always carries a paperback copy of Huckleberry Finn in his back pocket—the subject of his thesis for a professor who was killed by insurgents.

In chapters alternating among the voices of these three men and moving back and forth in time, Pitre delves into the horrors they’ve experienced in the war and how they’re barely coping in the present. The novel is full of scenes that the reader will find hard to forget—like Doc frantically avoid­ ing the New Year’s Day fireworks in New Orleans, their sounds like a machine-gun firing range; or Pete choosing to drink alone, since when his tongue loosens, “even the memories that seem funny in my head come out sounding like the summer vacation of a psychopath.”

Pitre’s depiction of the war, both in Iraq and in its reverberations back home, is obviously intensely personal—but at the same time, its messages are universal and time­ less. Fives and Twenty-Fives is a highly recommended novel of this controversial and protracted war.

—DEBORAH DONOVAN

NEVERHOME

By Laird Hunt

Little, Brown $26, 256 pages ISBN 9780316370134 Audio, eBook available

HISTORICAL FICTION

It’s estimated that around 500 women passed themselves off as men so they could fight in the Civil War. In the haunting Neverhome, Laird Hunt deftly imagines one such situation and its heartbreak­

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reviews ing repercussions.

She calls herself Ash Thomp­ son, a farmer who enlists to fight for the Union. Ash quickly earns a reputation as a brave and stoic soldier, even in the direst of battles.

But Ash is actually Constance, an Indiana farmer’s wife who left her husband behind to fight. Her rea­ sons become clearer as this beauti­ fully paced novel unfolds, and Ash goes from a war hero to a broken woman looking for a way home.

After Ash is revealed as a woman and accused of spying for the South, she is jailed in deplorable conditions, nearly going mad while awaiting a chance to escape. On her trek back to her farm, many of those she encounters help her in their own ways: a trio of orphaned sisters; the wife of the General who commanded Ash. Others stick to their own path, fighting their de­ mons as they make their way home from war. “Here and there you would cross a discharged veteran still had bombs and bullets flying in his eyes,” she said.

Hunt is at the top of his game with Neverhome, a mesmerizing book whose quiet surface belies its rich depths, up until its heart­ breaking conclusion. His impecca­ ble ear for authentic Civil War-era dialect—and his vivid battle scenes—breathe life into a novel that explores what happens when the call of duty collides with the lure of home.

—AMY SCRIBNER

FIVE DAYS LEFT

By Julie Lawson Timmer

Amy Einhorn Books $26.95, 352 pages ISBN 9780399167348 Audio, eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

What would you do if you knew you would have to say a final goodbye to someone you love?

When is it the right time to let go, and when should you hold on?

Julie Lawson Timmer tackles these questions with fierce emotion in her first novel, Five Days Left. It’s

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FICTION the moving story of a countdown for two characters who never meet in person, but have become friends through a parenting website.

Mara Nichols has a plan to end her life. She has already chosen a date—five days from now, her birthday. The “garage cocktail” will put an end to the suffering she has endured since being diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. Mara’s husband and 5-year-old daughter, Lakshmi, are unaware of Mara’s plan. Though Mara doesn’t want to leave her family, she also doesn’t want to wait for Huntington’s to take over her body, a progression Timmer describes in brutal prose.

Mara’s hands move uncontrollably; she develops a drunken-looking gait; she can no longer drive. All these things solidify Mara’s resolve to take her life.

Scott Coffman also has just five days left—but his countdown in­ volves time spent with his preco­ cious and endearing foster child, Curtis, who is to be returned to his birth mother once she finishes a sentence in prison. But a sud­ den turn of events causes Scott to consider a future with Curtis. His pregnant wife is reluctant, and Scott finds himself faced with a choice between Curtis’ needs and those of his wife.

Five Days Left presents the kind of ethical dilemma that readers love. The characters are relatable; their choices will be the topic of fierce debate at the next book club.

Timmer’s novel is a heartbreaker, but it is also a stirring debut.

—ELISABETH ATWOOD

A LIFE INTERCEPTED

By Charles Martin Center Street $26, 336 pages ISBN 9781455554669 eBook available

INSPIRATIONAL FICTION

Matthew “the Rocket” Rising is living the dream: He is one of the top-ranked quarterbacks in the history of college football, the #1 NFL draft pick and madly in

love with and married to his high school sweetheart. But this incred­ ible string of luck ends abruptly, and Matthew finds his perfect life turned into a modern-day tragedy.

Best-selling author Charles Martin’s latest novel, A Life Intercepted, begins as Matthew leaves prison after serving a sentence for a crime he insists he did not commit, but which nonetheless has plunged the football hero from the height of his glory days to the depths of ignominy and shame literally overnight.

Matthew is determined to find his heartbroken wife, Audrey, who disappeared after her husband’s trial, fleeing the relentless barrage of media to seek solace with a group of nuns. But Audrey’s escape is tempered when she meets a teenage football player whom she takes under her broken wing—and who might be key to bringing the couple back together.

Avid football fans will be reward­ ed, as there are plenty of episodes detailing the finer points of the game, from strategies and plays to the particular mindset required to become a star. Still, Martin never lingers too long on sports details before tugging the narrative back to the heart of his tale, which is equal parts crime thriller/mystery and old-fashioned love story.

—KAREN ANN CULLOTTA

THE MOOR’S ACCOUNT

By Laila Lalami

Pantheon $26.95, 336 pages ISBN 9780307911667 eBook available

HISTORICAL FICTION

A sweeping saga that revisits the Spanish conquest of the New World in the 1500s, The Moor’s Account is told through the eyes of a Moroccan man named Mustafa, born as a Muslim and reborn as a Christian named Estebanico when he is sold into slavery. Stripped of his freedom, Estebanico travels far across the ocean in the service of the legendary Narváez expe­ dition to seize the modern-day Gulf Coast—and all its incumbent riches—in the name of Spain. But in this foreign land, everything that can go wrong—from hostile Indi­ ans and debilitating disease—does.

A mission bent on conquest soon turns into a desperate bid for sur­ vival, and Estebanico finds himself questioning who the savages really are and what it means to truly be free.

The backbone of Estebanico’s story is a brutal one that even the most disinterested history student will be familiar with. And yet, with Estebanico as the narrator and Lalami at the helm, the events take on such a deeply personal tone that it is all too easy to believe that The Moor’s Account is actually a long-lost memoir written from a shamefully overlooked perspective.

Lalami spent more than four years dwelling in the murky excised portions of historical accounts to piece together this story, based on actual events. The compelling end result rings so true, it feels like one of history’s silent witnesses has finally been given back his voice.

Whether you have a special inter­ est in this period of history or not, Estebanico’s miraculous journey is not to be missed.

—STEPHENIE HARRISON

LOCK IN It is said that truth is often stranger than fiction, but what happens when truth can only be found in the pages of fiction?

Readers of Laila Lalami’s latest novel, The Moor’s Account, may find themselves asking exactly that question, as fact and fantasy coalesce in a masterful story that shines a new light on one of the darkest eras of history.

By John Scalzi

Tor $24.99, 336 pages ISBN 9780765375865 Audio, eBook available

SCIENCE FICTION

An intriguing hybrid of Asimo­ vian I, Robot-flavored sci-fi, the

FICTION quasi-contemporary speculative fiction of William Gibson and the enjoyable detective/crime proce­ dural work of . . . well, countless writers, John Scalzi’s latest novel, Lock In, interweaves the threads of a number of familiar genre conven­ tions to impressive effect.

Exhibit one: the society-threat­ ening plague—in this case, a highly contagious virus called Haden’s Syndrome that has left millions “locked in,” fully conscious but incapable of any movement or response to stimulus. Then there’s the allusion to the well-trod sci-fi terrain of A.I. and androids: The plight of the locked-in has led to the creation of embedded neu­ ral nets and Personal Transports (dubbed “threeps,” after a certain golden robot of the silver screen).

Finally, Scalzi brings it all together in that most fleet and engaging of forms: the whodunit.

Lock In introduces readers to FBI agents Chris Shane (a Haden)

and Leslie Vann as they arrive at a crime scene. The victim lies dead in a room, and the chief suspect is the Integrator in the room with him. (Integrators have the ability to allow Hadens to experience physical sensations.) From there, things get complicated in all the ways one wants detective fiction to get complicated.

Through it all, the Hugo Award-winning Scalzi shows that being a master storyteller isn’t so much about finding new ingredi­ ents as it is about combining old standards in ways that are fresh and engaging. But here Scalzi does both, and his novel twist on robot lit alone would make Lock In worth the read.

Scalzi’s world-building is decep­ tively simple, accomplished while keeping the reader fully enmeshed in the murder mystery that propels the story. Ultimately, the Hadens and Integrators of Lock In each may be as fanciful a construct as

the more standard sci-fi fare of androids and aliens. But thanks to Scalzi’s talent, it certainly doesn’t seem that way.

—MICHAEL BURGIN

THE FURIES

By Natalie Haynes St. Martin’s $25.99, 304 pages ISBN 9781250048004 eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

With The Furies, British writer Natalie Haynes has delivered an addictive, dark and suspenseful— yet sensitive—debut about death, obsession and fate.

After a sudden tragedy shatters her happy life as an actress and the­ ater director in London, Alex Morris

moves to Edinburgh to teach at a “last-chance” school for troubled teens. When she faces down her most intimidating class, a group of fierce personalities who convene in the school’s basement classroom, she finds common ground with them by teaching classic Greek drama. At first, the students seem interested only in the stories’ sensa­ tional plot developments, but as time passes they grow more intent, more fascinated—and more likely to take the tales of revenge, fate and fury to heart.

Haynes explores the twisting relationship between Alex and her students not just through Alex’s narration, but also through the diary entries of her most atten­ tive pupil. The result is a novel of dueling perspectives, a dance of two tragic lives intertwining in ever more fascinating, ever more destructive ways.

The novel generates a whirlwind pace and a psychological ten­

From New York Times bestselling author

Jeaniene Frost comes the first in a stunning new series, A Broken Destiny

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reviews sion as it darts between points of view, but the boldest thing about The Furies is the way Haynes explores something universal in a very intimate way. She laces the psychological tragedies at the heart of her plot with a sense of deep vulnerability and humanity in her characters as they explore not just the white heat of tragedy, but the never-ending throb of grief.

—MATTHEW JACKSON

THE MINIATURIST

By Jessie Burton Ecco $26.99, 416 pages ISBN 9780062306814 Audio, eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

FICTION ing objects that Nella never asked for and which the miniaturist could not have possibly seen: their whippets, the oil paintings in their bedchamber and finally, replicas of the members of the household.

Nella demands that the miniaturist stop, but the exquisitely crafted items keep arriving, slowly morph­ ing to reveal lethal secrets that hide in the Brandts’ walls.

The fantastical elements of the story are intriguing; however, the novel takes a disappointing turn with an unsatisfying resolution to the mystery of the miniaturist.

Regardless, The Miniaturist excels in depicting Amsterdam and its wealthy upper class, and lovers of art and of Amsterdam will be drawn to Burton’s imaginative story, which flows as effortlessly as water down a canal.

—MEGAN FISHMANN

Fans of historical fiction will be drawn to The Miniaturist, a fantastical tale from British debut novelist Jessie Burton that takes place in 17th-century Amsterdam.

The story begins as 18-year-old Nella Oortman arrives at the home of her wealthy merchant husband, Johannes Brandt. Surprisingly, though, he is nowhere to be found.

In his stead is his strictly religious sister, Marin; housemaid Cornelia; and his manservant, a former slave named Otto. Nella, a country girl, is forced to forge her way alone as head of the household.

Upon Johannes’ return, he doesn’t seem remotely interested in visiting the marriage bed. Marin is reluctant to hand over the reins to the household and continues to decide what foods they must eat (plain, cold herring) and how much money they are allowed to spend (practically none, in spite of their wealth). Still, Johannes surprises his new bride with an exorbitant gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home, based on an actual doll house owned by the real-life Petro­ nella Oortman, which can be seen at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Disregarding Marin’s monetary anxiety, Nella commissions a min­ iaturist to furnish her doll house.

The artisan’s work is exquisite, but soon the miniaturist begins creat­

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Visit BookPage.com for a Q&A with Jessie Burton.

THE CHILDREN ACT

By Ian McEwan

Nan A. Talese $25, 240 pages ISBN 9780385539708 Audio, eBook available

LITERARY FICTION

Displaying the economical style of his novels Amsterdam and On Chesil Beach, in his 13th novel best-selling author Ian McEwan upends the life of a respected judge with two crises—one personal, one professional—to create a penetrat­ ing character study.

Fiona Maye prides herself on be­ ing the kind of jurist who “brought reasonableness to hopeless situ­ ations” in the Family Proceedings Court of London’s High Court. But what she isn’t prepared to con­ front on the verge of turning 60 is her husband Jack’s request for permission to engage in an affair with a woman young enough to be his daughter, his self-help remedy for the “slow decline of ardour” in

their childless marriage.

With her personal life in turmoil, Fiona is assigned the case of Adam Henry, a 17-year-old Jehovah’s Wit­ ness suffering from leukemia who has declined, on religious grounds, the blood transfusion that may save his life.

Beginning The pleasure with Fiona’s of this visit to Adam’s quiet novel hospital room, McEwan flows from fashions a McEwan’s completely keen judgment plausible of human relationship character and between these two charac­ his ability to ters, using translate it it to explore so deftly. the demands of faith and to portray a young man groping toward maturity.

Though there’s little inherent drama in the daily work of a judge, McEwan succeeds in bringing Fiona to life as she works with integrity and efficiency to decide, in another case, whether to permit the separation of Siamese twins, knowing that doing so will be a death sentence for one of them.

The equally fateful choice she faces in weighing whether to order Ad­ am’s transfusion, like much of her work as a judge of family disputes, inevitably is refracted through the lens of her knowledge that she will never have children of her own.

The novel’s other plot line—the intricate marital dance that ensues after Jack’s stunning announce­ ment—is handled with the same assuredness. A scene in which McEwan describes the tension be­ tween husband and wife using the almost imperceptible movement of a coffee cup is a masterpiece of dramatic writing.

Despite its subject matter, The Children Act doesn’t simply cap­ italize on a controversial issue to build artificial suspense. Instead, the pleasures of this quiet novel flow from McEwan’s keen judg­ ment of human character and his ability to translate it so deftly that through his characters we can see ourselves with new eyes.

We Are Not Ourselves, Mat­ thew Thomas’ epic first novel, was 10 years in the making and, upon completion, the subject of a vigorous publishers’ bidding war.

Readers will understand why.

Thomas’ novel is a 600-page Irish-American family saga that empathetically presents day-today life in the outer boroughs and suburbs of New York City during the late 20th century. At the story’s center is Eileen Leary, née Tumulty.

Born in 1941 in Queens, Eileen is the daughter of recent Irish immi­ grants. As the novel cannily drama­ tizes, her fierce, upwardly mobile aspirations are formed in reaction to the difficult, working-class lives of her hard-working mother and her charismatic, hard-drinking father. Eileen, who, pragmatically, trains as a nurse, wants a different life. And Edward Leary, the young scientist she marries, seems to offer a path to that life.

But Ed is a sort of abstemious idealist. He turns down lucrative job offers because he believes the students he teaches at Bronx Com­ munity College deserve as good an education as students at NYU. He sees no need to move from their Queens home as the complexion of the neighborhood changes. And then, as their only child Connell becomes a teenager, Ed gives Ei­ leen her biggest challenge yet.

Eileen is dedicated, responsi­ ble, loving, but also frustrated, sometimes angry and emotionally distant. Readers will no doubt differ on whether Eileen is noble or obtuse—or maybe both in the same moment. The possibility that all or none of these opinions about Eileen is correct is what makes We Are Not Ourselves such an inter­ esting read.

—HARVEY FREEDENBERG

—ALDEN MUDGE

WE ARE NOT OURSELVES

By Matthew Thomas

Simon & Schuster $28, 640 pages ISBN 9781476756660 Audio, eBook available

DEBUT FICTION

NONFICTION WHAT IF?

By Randall Munroe

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

Looking death straight in the eye REVIEW BY ALDEN MUDGE

SCIENCE

“So, really, what’s a nice girl like me doing working at a ghastly ol’ crematory like Westwind?” Caitlin Doughty asks near the beginning of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory, her by turns shockingly gruesome, mordantly funny and, ultimately, richly thought-provoking memoir about working in an Oakland, Cali­ fornia, mortuary and crematorium.

It’s an excellent question. Part of the answer, we learn, lies in the death obsession Doughty developed as an 8-year-old after witnessing a child’s plunge from an escalator in a shopping mall in Hawaii where she grew up. One flowering of that obsession was a plan to create a slick, modern, hip—fun, even—mortuary she would call La Belle Mort.

But, Doughty soon discovers that “the day-to-day realities of work­ ing at Westwind were more savage than I had anticipated.” And she

By Caitlin Doughty proceeds to write graphically—and wittily—about those realities: the Norton, $24.95, 272 pages ISBN 9780393240238, eBook available transportation, embalming and cremation of all shapes, sizes and ages of dead bodies and body parts. Here is one of the less graphic passag­ MEMOIR es: “For those of you who have not had the privilege of smelling Eau de Decomposition, the first note of a putrefying human body is of licorice with a strong citrus undertone. Not a fresh, summer citrus mind you—more like a can of orange-scented industrial bathroom spray shot directly up your nose.”

Doughty’s very unsentimental education at Westwind and, later, in mortuary school has turned her into a forceful and eloquent advocate for confronting the reality of death, as readers will discover in the final chapters of this memoir. “I went from thinking it was a little bizarre that we don’t see dead bodies anymore to believing their absence was a root cause of major problems in the modern world,” she writes. “Death should be known. Known as a difficult mental, physical and emotional process, respected and feared for what it is.” Smoke Gets in Your Eyes offers a path toward that knowledge.

Sheehy’s on-again, off-again romance with Clay Felker, leg­ endary editor and founder of New York, is the emotional center of this memoir as it was of her life. A pow­ erful and influential figure, Felker was an early mentor for Sheehy, before becoming her lover and, after many years, her husband. Her decade spent caring for Felker at the end of his life offers an unfor­ gettable portrait of the evolution of love over a lifetime.

Sheehy’s theme for her memoir is “daring”; she suggests that the way to thrive is to dare to make changes as we move through adulthood. This fascinating memoir also suggests that our lives mirror our times, and that we flourish by looking outward as well as inward.

Upon hearing that Randall Munroe, NASA roboticist turned webcomic all-star, is writing a collection of “What If?” columns, a number of you will immediately make plans to buy the book. Don’t worry, you’ll love it. But this review is for the rest of you, who are curi­ ous if a bit confused.

Munroe draws the extremely popular webcomic xkcd. You may think you’ve never seen it, but pull it up online and you might well exclaim, “Oh, THAT guy!” (At least, that was my response). What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions brings Munroe’s stick figures and low-key hilarity to a formidable task: answering reader-submitted questions like, how many arrows would it take to blot out the sun like in the movie 300? Or, what would happen if everyone on Earth crowd­ ed into the same space and jumped together, landing at the same time?

(Answers: It’s complicated; and not much, but the traffic jam when everyone tried to go home would be our undoing). The book includes both new questions and some fa­ vorites from the website, including a puzzler about whether each of us has a soul mate.

As the book’s subtitle indicates, Munroe uses real science to get to his answers, many of which are ter­ rifying (do NOT try to collect all the elements in the Periodic Table), but his drawings leaven the prospect of total annihilation.

However you approach What If?, you’ll end up someplace differ­ ent after reading it. I went from enjoying the humor to wanting to learn and understand more (while still laughing a lot). The perfect book for someone with insatiable curiosity, What If? is funny and fascinating in equal measure.

—CATHERINE HOLLIS

—HEATHER SEGGEL

Read a Q&A with Caitlin Doughty on the next page.

DARING

By Gail Sheehy

Morrow $29.99, 496 pages ISBN 9780062291691 Audio, eBook available

MEMOIR

Pioneering journalist Gail Sheehy has lived a life jam-packed with work, love, politics and writ­ ing. Best-selling author of 1976’s Passages, which revolutionized the way Americans thought about the phases of their adult lives, Sheehy has spent a lifetime documenting American culture. Now in her 70s, she casts a retrospective eye on the chapters of her own life in an

absorbing new memoir.

Daring: My Passages is a “life and times” memoir: It’s as much about journalism, politics and culture as it is about her life.

Sheehy had a career-long knack for capturing the zeitgeist in what we now call long-form journal­ ism. Back in the late 1960s at New York magazine, they were calling it “the new journalism,” as famously practiced by Tom Wolfe.

For New York, Sheehy put on hot pants and walked the streets with prostitutes in the early ’70s; she wrote about divorce and the Black Panthers; she found herself in the middle of the shooting in Belfast on Bloody Sunday. But she really hit her stride with Passages, which touched a nerve with readers and has been the template for many of her subsequent books.

HMH $24, 320 pages ISBN 9780544272996 Audio, eBook available

23

q&a

CAITLIN DOUGHTY

BY ALDEN MUDGE

A mortician’s tell-all

T

he voice behind the popular web series “Ask a Mortician” exposes the grisly, hilarious details of working in a crematorium—and argues that everyone needs to be more closely connected to the realities of death.

Your book is often vividly gruesome—and just as often very funny.

What do you think is the source of your “gallows humor”?

My parents are both very clever people. I grew up around humor. It just made sense to apply it to conversations about death and mortal­ ity. Especially since these heavy topics can often be easier to take in if they’re delivered with a lighter touch.

You write that the day-to-day realities of working in a crematorium “were more savage than I had anticipated.” What surprised you most in your first days at the crematory?

The bodies were savage, in the sense that I had never seen so many corpses in one place. But the real savagery was that the corpses were essentially abandoned. Our funeral home came to pick them up and take them away from their families and store them in a giant freezer. I was the only person there when the bodies were cremated. Most peo­ ple have no idea they can be much more involved in the death care of the people they love.

Your obsession with death began when you were 8 years old and saw a child plunge from an escalator in a shopping mall. Working in the mortuary seems to have brought some resolution to your obsession.

Was writing the book also cathartic in some way?

Absolutely. Part of writing the book was to let other people know that we’re all obsessed with death, to a degree. Death is the human condi­ tion, and it’s perfectly OK to be fascinated by it, perfectly OK to want information about what goes on behind the scenes. It’s not morbid, or deviant, or wrong. In a way, writing the book helped me to fully embrace that idea as well.

You’re critical of the modern American funeral industry. But you are also critical of Jessica Mitford’s landmark exposé of funeral home practices, The American Way of Death (1963). What’s your beef with Mitford’s book?

I try to make it clear that I have a great deal of respect for what Mit­ ford did. However, I think she was so focused on subverting the old men of the traditional funeral industry that the book ended up being pro-direct cremation. Direct cremation (cremation with no services of any kind) is the cheapest alternative, but it doesn’t allow for some­ thing I believe we need, which is to care for and interact with our dead bodies. To have the body just disappear can hurt the grieving process.

You’re on a kind of mission in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Why is it so important that people have a closer connection with death?

I am on a mission! I would never claim to be an objective reporter.

Death affects everything we do as humans, and we’re much healthier when we understand this. Other than television and film, we never see death any more, it’s not a part of our daily lives. We view this as “progress” but I don’t believe it is. We need the reality of death to remind us that we are not immortal, and our actions have real conse­ quences.

24

reviews LIAR, TEMPTRESS, SOLDIER, SPY

By Karen Abbott

Harper $27.99, 528 pages ISBN 9780062092892 Audio, eBook available

HISTORY

You can get away with quite a lot if no one takes you very seriously.

Like carrying military intelligence about the Union army through enemy lines to deliver it to the Confederates. Or hiding Union POW escapees in your attic while Confederate officers are boarding downstairs at your home.

You get the picture: Women were largely dismissed as flighty, inferior creatures in Victorian times. That attitude helped several become some of the most effective spies of the Civil War. Again and again, the women who are the focus of Karen Abbott’s exciting Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War came close to discovery or death, only to be saved by their enemies’ sexism.

Not that Belle Boyd, Rose Green­ how, Emma Edmonds and Eliza­ beth Van Lew were ordinary wom­ en. They were all strong-minded, daring and difficult. Edmonds was perhaps the most astonishing: Escaping an abusive father in Can­ ada, she masqueraded as a young man and joined the Union army.

She kept up the game so well that she became an army scout, “crossdressed” as a woman.

Confederates Greenhow and Boyd were flamboyant women who used sexual attraction in the service of their cause and were too indiscreet to retain their effective­ ness. Pro-Union Van Lew, how­ ever, was a wealthy, circumspect middle-aged spinster. She carefully built a large, lasting spy and pris­ oner-escape network in Richmond, even infiltrating an African-Amer­ ican secret agent into Jefferson Davis’ house as a servant.

This is compelling material, and Abbott, best-selling author of Sin in the Second City, cross-cuts among the stories to produce dra­

NONFICTION matic cliff-hangers. Her depiction of Greenhow’s tragic end will move any reader, whatever one may think of the Confederate cause.

—ANNE BARTLETT

EPILOGUE

By Will Boast

Liveright $25.95, 288 pages ISBN 9780871403810 eBook available

MEMOIR

In most biographies, an epilogue provides the story of what happens after the subject of the book has died or somehow left the scene.

It’s a wrapping up, a life-after-life afterthought.

Will Boast, whose Power Ballads: Stories (2011) won the Iowa Short Fiction Award, cannily reverses this usual order by turning the epilogue into the entire story of his life until now. In Epilogue: A Memoir, Boast plunges into the depths of his own heart to probe the ragged mysteries that bring families together, hold them up through the years and cause them to fall apart.

Having already lost his younger brother to an auto accident and his mother to cancer, Boast, at 24, loses his father to complications of alcoholism. Muddling through his father’s papers, seeking conso­ lation in women and wine and generally wondering what life will bring next, Boast stumbles upon secrets his parents had kept from him. He learns that his father had been married, with two sons, before he met and married Boast’s mother. As he attempts to get to know his half-brothers in England, he contemplates the light that these new relationships can shed on the truths of his own childhood, and he imagines rewriting his own family story.

Absorbing and agonizing at the same time, Boast’s narrative refuses to cover raw wounds, instead leav­ ing them open to the fresh breezes of love and renewal that blow into his life after his father’s death.

—HENRY L. CARRIGAN JR.

NONFICTION DR. MÜTTER’S MARVELS

By Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz Gotham $27.50, 384 pages ISBN 9781592408702 eBook available

MEDICINE

While there’s something fascinat­ ing about old medical equipment and collections of oddities, it’s harder to truly appreciate the reali­ ty of life before modern surgery, let alone the ostracism and pain faced by individuals who suffered from conditions routinely corrected today. In this compelling biography of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter (18111850), Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz brings a poet’s sensibilities to the life of an American surgeon who was at the forefront of advances in medical education and reconstruc­ tive surgery.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s medical college, Mütter was a brilliant and in­ ventive teacher who introduced Socratic methods into his lectures, unusual for his time. He also be­ came known for tackling complex surgical cases.

One of the most compelling as­ pects of Dr. Mütter’s Marvels is the inclusion of detailed accounts of actual surgeries Mutter performed.

In one instance, the young sur­ geon tries to repair the severe cleft palate of 25-year-old Nathaniel Dickey, whose face is literally “split down the middle.” The surgery is made even more dangerous and difficult because it is being done without anesthesia—if Nathaniel vomits, for instance, the delicate surgical work could be ruined.

Similarly, Mütter undertook to help women whose disfiguring burns in all-too-common household fires left them as “monsters” in the eyes of society.

Sadly, Thomas Mütter died at 48.

His legacy lives on at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, which in­ cludes his own collection of unusu­ al medical specimens, as well as exhibitions dedicated to exploring and preserving medical history.

Dr. Mütter’s Marvels is both an insightful portrait of a pioneering surgeon and a reminder of how far medicine has come.

—DEBORAH HOPKINSON

THE HUMAN AGE

By Diane Ackerman

Norton $27.95, 352 pages ISBN 9780393240740 eBook available

ENVIRONMENT

Ah, we humans, what have we wrought? Essayist and natural­ ist Diane Ackerman (author of A Natural History of the Senses, The Zookeeper’s Wife and many other books) tackles this musing—and not merely rhetorical—question in The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us, examining what geologists are calling our current epoch, the Anthropocene, or Hu­ man Age. This is serious ground, but Ack­ erman treads it with her customary graceful, imaginative and witty prose, infusing this manifesto-like look at the positive and negative impacts human beings are having on the planet with realism—and optimism. “Today, instead of adapting to the natural world . . . we’ve created a human environ­ ment in which we’ve embedded the natural world. . . . Without meaning to, we’ve created some planetary chaos that threatens our well-be­ ing,” she writes.

Ackerman avows, however, that she holds enormous hope for man’s future: “Our new age, for all its sins, is laced with invention.”

And, true to her statement, the author takes us on a breathtaking tour of our “sins,” our successes and the incredible work and ex­ plorations that are shaping a new vision of life.

Five impressively researched sections frame our Anthropocene impacts (with considerable focus on climate change); discuss the innovations that might ameliorate those impacts; enumerate man’s interaction with (read: manip­

ulation of) and influence upon nature; outline the intersection of our technological advances and nature; and explore our mind-bog­ gling tinkering with the human body and psyche.

Ackerman’s immense knowledge of the natural world and her poetic and ethical sensibilities embellish an incredible journey that shows us orangutans playing with iPads, oceangoing farmers experimenting with mariculture, a botanist-artist who fashions living, breathing walls of plant life in cities; a project that puts animal DNA on ice for the future; and the newest work in the modeling of human body parts (3-D printing) and in epigenetics.

Who, what and where will we be as we lurch onward in this human-driven age? Perhaps all depends upon our ability “to think about the beings we wish to become. What sort of world do we wish to live in, and how do we design that human-made sphere?”

Spoiler alert: This book ends opti­ mistically, but with a caveat: “We still have time and imagination . . . and a great many choices. . . . [O]ur mistakes are legion, but our talent is immeasurable.”

days, he argues, when manufac­ turing has fled, borders are porous to both labor and capital and the financial sector dictates the rules of the game. That game, it turns out, is finding ways to maximize profits for the few by squeezing and manipulating the many.

At first it appears that Roberts is blaming the victims for their social insularity—for turning away from community and immersing themselves in technological gad­ getry, for overextending them­ selves financially and for shirking political engagement. But he goes on to show that these are all the inevitable consequences of a system that values profit above all else. If we act on impulse instead of reflection, it’s because there is more profit to be made from impulse. The system lures, nudges or bludgeons us into buying things we don’t need and often can’t af­ ford. And via its extension of easy, pay-later credit, the system allows

—ALISON HOOD

THE IMPULSE SOCIETY

By Paul Roberts

Bloomsbury $28, 320 pages ISBN 9781608198146 eBook available

ECONOMICS

Global and ravenous, modern capitalism has turned American citizens into mere consumers, peo­ ple who are focused principally on their own gratification and essen­ tially indifferent to the needs of the larger society. This, in a nutshell, is Paul Roberts’ thesis in The Impulse Society.

He contends that when capital­ ism in the U.S. was driven by man­ ufacturing, and most buying and selling of goods took place within national borders, economic growth benefited everyone. Not so these

25

reviews us to find immediate delight in our own economic enslavement.

A political realist, Roberts doesn’t go so far as to counsel a revolt against capitalism. He does suggest a series of palliative measures— moderation of political rhetoric, re-imposition of banking regula­ tions, acts of individual communi­ ty-building—but they sound more like wistful wishes than practical plans. Ultimately, he fails to con­ front the paramount question of how national actions can hope to stem—much less turn back—the rapacious global phenomenon he has so skillfully anatomized.

—EDWARD MORRIS

I’LL DRINK TO THAT

By Betty Halbreich Penguin Press $27.95, 304 pages ISBN 9781594205705 eBook available

FASHION

Eighty-six-year-old personal shopper Betty Halbreich stole the show in a 2013 documentary called Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf ’s. Her slightly haughty demeanor was belied by a twinkle and a smile playing at her lips. There’s more to this story, she seemed to be saying.

Is there ever. In her deliciously candid memoir, I’ll Drink to That, Halbreich recounts her life in fash­ ion. Born into a wealthy Chicago family, Betty was a lonely only child who adored but rarely saw her glamorous parents. A classic beauty, she was married at 20 to a dashing and wealthy New Yorker, Sonny Halbreich. Her only job was to dress well for their extravagant life.

But when infidelity cracked their marriage open after several years and two children, Halbreich attempted suicide and was briefly hospitalized. As she adapted to life as a single, middle-aged mother, she got her first-ever job. Using her legendary ability to put her own twist on an outfit, she worked her way up in the fashion world before joining Bergdorf Goodman (“Xana­

26

NONFICTION du. Candy Land.”) in 1976.

Upper management soon took note of her ability to find the perfect ensemble for every lady who came through the door—no matter her shape or budget. After being put to the test by successful­ ly dressing the legendarily stylish Babe Paley, Halbreich got her own personal shopping department.

“I took the lady of leisure style off my back and put it on others, par­ ticularly women who didn’t have only wealth but also big lives,” she writes. “With charities, multiple households around the world, and complicated families to run, they wanted to be fashionable but not look like everyone else. And they certainly couldn’t be seen in the same dress twice—in the past I never would have either.”

Halbreich shows very little sign of slowing down. She styles celebri­ ties, socialites and the now-grown children of women she’s worked with, all of whom seek her trade­ mark honesty and sharp eye.

In this superbly entertaining, surprisingly poignant memoir, Hal­ breich proves that fashion is about so much more than clothes: It’s a reflection of personal identity and self-worth, whether you buy your outfits at Walmart or Bergdorf.

—AMY SCRIBNER

CITY OF LIES

By Ramita Navai PublicAffairs $26.99, 320 pages ISBN 9781610395199 eBook available

MIDDLE EAST

Ramita Navai sets it straight from the beginning: “In order to live in Tehran, you have to lie,” she writes in City of Lies, a gripping portrait of life inside Iran. “Lying in Tehran is about survival.”

The country’s oppressive reli­ gious and political atmosphere forces its citizens to lie about issues large and small, lest they face prison or death. Iranians are accustomed to lying about using alcohol and drugs, having sex

outside of marriage and about their devotion to God. “The lies,” Navai writes, “are a consequence of . . . being ruled by a government that believes it should be able to interfere in even the most intimate affairs of its citizens.”

Navai spent her childhood in Tehran, but her family left for London when the Shah of Iran was overthrown during the Islamic Revolution. She returns 26 years later to reconnect with her home­ land and launch her career as a journalist.

The book is not one of broad brushstrokes. It is a collection of smaller stories of individuals struggling with their lies while trying to discover the truth about themselves. There is Dariush, a revolutionary bent on assassinat­ ing a government official, only to encounter disastrous results. There is Somayeh, a young girl who must remain religiously devout, subser­ vient and cloaked in hijab, while her newlywed husband drinks and carouses. Or Leyla, who bucks con­ vention and becomes a prostitute and porn star, resulting in a death sentence.

The stories are real. But they are written in a lively style that reads like a novel. Navai is impressive as a reporter, finding these characters and convincing them to share their stories. She also is an eloquent writer who uses her subjects to tell the larger tale of the degradation of the Iranian culture.

—J O H N T. S L A N I A

AFTER LINCOLN

By A.J. Langguth

Simon & Schuster $28, 464 pages ISBN 9781451617320 Audio, eBook available

HISTORY

At the time Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, he did not have a definite plan for dealing with the postwar South. Although 360,000 Union troops had died during the Civil War, the North had not suf­ fered the widespread devastation

of the Southern states. The nine million white citizens and four million former slaves who lived in the former Confederacy faced a grim future.

Six weeks after he assumed the presidency, Andrew Johnson revealed his vision for uniting the country. He declared a sweeping amnesty that restored all property, except slaves, to most rebels as long as they swore to “support, protect, and defend” the Consti­ tution and the Union. To Radical Republican leaders such as Senator Charles Sumner and Representa­ tive Thaddeus Stevens, it seemed white residents of the South were treated with remarkable leniency.

In his magnificent After Lincoln: How the North Won the Civil War and Lost the Peace, A.J. Langguth takes us through the Reconstruc­ tion period and its many heroic and tragic events. Among the latter were the so-called Black Codes, stringent state laws passed after Johnson became president.

They ranged from a South Caro­ lina law requiring any black man who wanted work other than as a servant or farmer to apply for a license from a judge and pay an annual tax, to Kentucky, where all contracts had to be approved by a white citizen, to Florida where “impudence,” a form of vagran­ cy, could cause the violator to be whipped. Lynchings and the killing of innocent black citizens went unpunished.

For all practical purposes, Re­ construction ended in 1887 when Republican President Rutherford Hayes joined with Democrats in a deal that led to the removal of federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina. That arrangement brought to an end any hopes that African Americans would enjoy full equality as U.S. citizens.

Langguth skillfully illuminates the roles of key figures and offers enlightening commentary on events. After Lincoln is an excel­ lent choice for readers who want to understand why the post-Civil War period was a major disappoint­ ment and why the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not come until 99 years after the end of the Civil War. —ROGER BISHOP

TEEN

100 SIDEWAYS MILES

On our loop around the sun REVIEW BY JUSTIN BARISICH

Set near the San Francisquito Canyon in Los Angeles County, 100 Sideways Miles is the coming-of-age tale of one teen who learns to live with the tragedies and oddities of his life using his own unique type of mathematical coping.

Finn Easton is 16 years old, suffers from sporadic epileptic seizures, and is the inspiration for the main character in his father’s best-selling novel The Lazarus Door—though his father vehemently denies it.

Finn lost his mother in a freak accident that involved a truck, which was carrying a dead horse destined for the knackery, overturning on a bridge and spilling its cargo onto Finn and his mother, who were idly climbing in the creek below.

Ever since that tragic day, Finn has been calculating time by way of space.

Believing that the distance between things is far more importBy Andrew Smith ant than the time between them, Finn figures time in miles rather Simon & Schuster, $17.99, 288 pages than minutes, as they are easier for him to mentally grasp whenever ISBN 9781442444959, eBook available he comes back from “blanking out” during one of his seizures. And Ages 12 and up when Julia Bishop, the intriguing new girl in town and Finn’s first FICTION crush, finds him passed out on his den floor in a puddle of his own urine, he wants nothing more than to distance himself from her. But Julia has enjoyed sharing Finn’s time and space, and she is determined to invade both so that he can understand true closeness.

100 Sideways Miles is Andrew Smith’s ninth young adult novel, and it’s filled with the type of offbeat hilarity and superbly memorable characters found in his previous books, such as Winger and Grasshopper Jungle. Finn’s honest, natural voice reveals a young man learning to handle health issues, death and unwanted attention during a time when every action and reaction is measured by its social significance.

EGG AND SPOON

By Gregory Maguire

Candlewick Candlewick $17.99, $17.99, 496 496 pages pages ISBN ISBN 9780763672201 9780763672201 Audio, Audio, eBook eBook available available Ages Ages 12 12 and and up up

FANTASY FANTASY

Gregory Gregory Maguire Maguire steps steps out out of of Oz Oz and and into into Tsarist Tsarist Russia Russia in in this this mag­ magical ical twist twist on on the the classic classic prince prince and and the the pauper pauper folk folk tale. tale. Thirteen-yearThirteen-yearold old Elena Elena is is aa peasant peasant daughter daughter who who scrounges scrounges for for food food during during aa bleak bleak crop crop failure. failure. Her Her mother mother is is dying, dying, and and her her eldest eldest brother brother has has been been taken taken into into the the tsar’s tsar’s army. army.

Except Except for for aa few few kind kind villagers, villagers, Ele­ Elena na is is alone alone until until aa train train rolls rolls into into town. town. Aboard Aboard the the train train is is Ekater­ Ekaterina, ina, aa wealthy wealthy girl girl who who is is headed headed to to Saint Saint Petersburg Petersburg to to impress impress

the the tsar’s tsar’s godson, godson, something something she she dreads. dreads. When When the the girls girls accidentally accidentally switch switch places, places, they they each each set set off off on on an an adventure. adventure. Elena Elena goes goes to to the the city city in in hopes hopes of of finding finding her her brother brother while while Ekaterina Ekaterina runs runs into into Baba Baba Yaga, Yaga, the the infamous infamous Russian Russian witch witch full full of of anachronistic anachronistic one-liners one-liners and and crazy crazy schemes. schemes. In In order order to to avoid avoid being being eaten, eaten, Ekaterina Ekaterina agrees agrees to to accompany accompany Baba Baba Yaga Yaga aboard aboard her her enchanted enchanted house house on on legs legs to to Saint Saint Petersburg Petersburg for for an an audience audience with with the the tsar. tsar. When When the the girls girls see see each each other other again, again, their their fates fates are are forever forever entwined. entwined.

Maguire Maguire weaves weaves themes themes of of class class struggle struggle and and environmental environmental upheaval upheaval into into an an engaging engaging and and relatable relatable tale. tale. This This isn’t isn’t aa story story about about desolation, desolation, but but one one of of hope. hope.

Elena Elena and and Ekaterina Ekaterina prove prove that that with with aa little little tenacity tenacity and and bravery, bravery, people people can can change change their their lives lives for for the the better. better.

SIX FEET OVER IT

By Jennifer Longo Random Random House House $17.99, $17.99, 352 352 pages pages ISBN ISBN 9780449818718 9780449818718 eBook eBook available available Ages Ages 12 12 and and up up

FICTION FICTION

After After her her father father buys buys aa cemetery cemetery and and relocates relocates their their family family inland inland from from their their idyllic idyllic California California seaside seaside home, home, 15-year-old 15-year-old Leigh Leigh finds finds not not only only that that she’s she’s aa good good fit fit for for the the after-death after-death industry, industry, but but also also that that it it gives gives her her some some comfort. comfort.

Her Her older older sister’s sister’s cancer cancer just just went went into into remission, remission, her her artistic artistic moth­ mother er would would rather rather be be back back by by the the ocean, ocean, and and Leigh’s Leigh’s still still grieving grieving for for the the best best friend friend she she recently recently lost. lost.

When When Leigh Leigh discovers discovers aa secret secret in in — — KK II M M BB EE RR LLYY G G II A A RR RR A A TT A AN NO O the the cemetery, cemetery, her her grief grief turns turns to to

guilt. guilt. She She refuses refuses to to take take on on any any new new friends, friends, not not even even the the cool cool home­-schooled home-schooled girl girl whose whose family family provides provides flowers flowers for for the the cemetery. cemetery.

Author Author Jennifer Jennifer Longo, Longo, who, who, like like Leigh, Leigh, sold sold burial burial plots plots after after her her father father bought bought aa cemetery, cemetery, infuses infuses her her quirky quirky debut debut with with dark dark humor humor and and aa touch touch of of magical magical thinking. thinking.

While While Leigh’s Leigh’s family family members members spin spin in in their their own own set set of of problems, problems, there there is is one one person person who who understands understands her: her: Dario, Dario, the the gravedigger gravedigger who who recently recently crossed crossed the the Mexican Mexican bor­ border. der. Through Through their their tender, tender, realistic realistic friendship, friendship, Leigh Leigh learns learns the the dif­ different ferent ways ways Mexicans Mexicans honor honor their their departed. departed. With With help, help, she she may may find find aa way way to to let let death death go go and and life life in. in.

— —A AN NG G EE LL A A LL EE EE PP EE RR

I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN

By Jandy Nelson

Dial Dial $17.99, $17.99, 384 384 pages pages ISBN ISBN 9780803734968 9780803734968 Audio, Audio, eBook eBook available available Ages Ages 14 14 and and up up

FICTION FICTION

Thirteen-year-old Thirteen-year-old twins twins Noah Noah and and Jude Jude are are so so close, close, they they “smush,” “smush,” pushing pushing themselves themselves together, together, shoulder shoulder to to shoulder, shoulder, exactly exactly as as they they did did in in utero. utero. Noah Noah is is dreamy dreamy and and artistic, artistic, while while his his sister sister Jude Jude is is fearless fearless and and popular. popular. When When their their mother mother announces announces that that both both twins twins should should attend attend CSA, CSA, aa nearby nearby fine fine arts arts high high school, school, Noah Noah is is elat­ elated, ed, but but Jude Jude is is less less than than enthusias­ enthusiastic, tic, as as she she fears fears that that Noah’s Noah’s talent talent far far outweighs outweighs her her own. own. Three Three years years later, later, Jude Jude is is now now attending attending CSA, CSA, but but Noah Noah was was not not accepted. accepted. The The once-fierce once-fierce love love between between the the twins twins has has morphed morphed into into fierce fierce hatred. hatred.

The The narration narration alternates alternates be­ between tween the the perspectives perspectives of of 13-year13-yearold old Noah Noah and and 16-year-old 16-year-old Jude, Jude, and and the the twins twins unwittingly unwittingly move move in in tandem tandem despite despite their their estrange­ estrangement. ment. They They both both do do something something unforgivable. unforgivable. They They both both fall fall in in love. love.

Nelson Nelson provides provides just just enough enough pieces pieces of of past past and and future future but but withholds withholds some some delightful delightful twists twists for for the the end. end.

This This is is aa beautifully beautifully written written story. story.

— —D D II A AN N EE CC O O LL SS O ON N

27

children’s

CECE BELL INTERVIEW BY JULIE DANIELSON

Little girl, big hearing aid

A

uthor-illustrator Cece Bell has been making picture books for more than 10 years. This year she’s trying something new, as she recounts her childhood experiences with hearing loss in the touching graphic memoir El Deafo.

In the 1970s, the Phonic Ear, a bulky hearing aid that strapped to the wearer’s chest, was in vogue.

For the hearing aid to work proper­ ly, the teacher had to wear a micro­ phone, which amplified classroom discussions. The young Bell strug­ gled with standing out and fitting in, as many children do. But when her classmates discovered that she could hear her teacher as she roamed the building, Bell’s powers as El Deafo (as she dubbed herself) were revealed.

We snagged a bit of Bell’s time to ask her about her funny and moving memoir.

When did you know El Deafo needed to be a graphic memoir and not a picture book or illustrated novel?

When I got started in children’s books, I wasn’t really ready to tell this particular, personal story right away. I wanted to “make it” in the biz without being pigeonholed as “that deaf author-illustrator.”

I wanted to be known only as

EL DEAFO

By Cece Bell

Amulet, $10.95, 248 pages ISBN 9781419712173, eBook available Ages 8 to 12

MIDDLE GRADE

28

“that awesome author-illustrator.”

I’d even take “that decent author-illustrator.” Eventually, however, I was ready to tell my sto­ ry. When Raina Telgemeier’s Smile came out, I was inspired by it. May­ be a graphic novel would be a good way to tell my story, I thought. But what really sealed the deal for me was the fact that graphic novels tell so much of the story using speech balloons. What better way to show what I am hearing—or even better, what I am not hearing—than speech balloons? A speech balloon filled with words fading out means my hearing is fading; a speech bal­ loon with nonsense in it means I’m hearing gibberish instead of words; a speech balloon with nothing in it means I am hearing nothing.

I love the moment when a girl asks you if you’re “death.” Do you still find today that you have to educate people about what it’s like to have a hearing impairment?

When I meet new people, they don’t often realize I’m deaf. But in some cases, when these new people do figure it out, their countenance changes and their speech changes (over-enunciating, speaking more loudly and slowly).

This is very frustrating, because these well-meaning folks were actually easier to lip-read during the first part of the conversation, before they started changing the way they were talking. People don’t talk all LOUD and sloooow in real life. . . . I think this particular issue is partly why I wrote the book. I wanted to show people that you should speak to a deaf person as you would speak to anyone else, and then make adjustments if they are needed. If adjustments are not needed, don’t change a thing!

The scene when your friend Bonnie, who is so proud to show off her sign language to you (even though you chose not to use it),

After childhood meningitis left Cece Bell deaf at age 4, she had to wear the Phonic Ear, as seen on the left in her second-grade school photo. rings so true. As an adult, you’ve developed an appreciation for sign language. How long did it take you to get to that point?

I think I’ve always had an appreciation for it when it’s used between deaf people and between deaf people and their hearing family members and friends. I also have an appreciation of French when it’s used between French people. Do you see what I mean?

Sign language is a language—and a very important and vital one, at that. It’s just one that I don’t really know, but people assume I know it.

If your name is Pierre, do you also speak French? Hee hee. . . . But to answer your question, I think the act of writing the book meant that I was finally OK with everything to do with my deafness, the good and the bad. And I didn’t start writing the book until 2010 or so, when I was 40 years old! So yeah, it took a long time. Too long, perhaps.

How challenging was it to write about something so personal?

Parts of it were very challenging.

The hardest chapter by far to write was the one about sign language.

I wanted to make sure that I por­ trayed my attitude about sign lan­ guage back then as bratty, because the last thing I want is for deaf kids and adults to read this chapter and think that I think sign language is awful or something. I wanted to be clear why I didn’t want to use it, and I also wanted to be clear that I was aware that I was probably missing out on something that

could be really useful to me.

The other challenging part was writing about my friends, especial­ ly the ones who I had some trouble with. . . . I’ve been so long past any feelings of shame (even though I remember those feelings clearly); it was cathartic writing about them and removing them once and for all. But I do worry about what cer­ tain friends will think if they read about those old feelings of mine that concern them.

Why make yourself and all the other characters rabbits?

Rabbits have big ears and great hearing. Showing a rabbit whose ears do not work, in a crowd of rab­ bits whose ears do work, seemed like a great metaphor for someone who has lost her hearing. Also, as a kid I was so ashamed of the cords that went from my hearing aid up to my ears. When I look back at pictures of me wearing this hearing aid, however, it’s really not that dramatic looking at all. By drawing myself as a rabbit, however, I can have the cords go all the way up past my rabbit head into my rabbit ears. This dramatic representation of me and my hearing aid is more closely in tune with how it actually felt to wear a hearing aid when no one else in my class was wearing one. Plus, rabbits are bunnies, right? And bunnies are cute and fun to draw.

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

features

CHILDREN’S BIOGRAPHIES

BY JULIE HALE

Real-life heroes teach young readers to reach for the stars

T

rue stories are often the most inspiring. These four exciting picture book biographies focus on real-life teachers, leaders and innovators and their remarkable roads to success. Their stories are sure to leave permanent, positive impressions on young readers. Don’t give up on that dream!

In Firebird (Putnam, $17.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780399166150, ages 6 to 8), the soaring debut picture book by American Ballet Theater star Misty Copeland, a young black girl who wants to dance profes­ sionally struggles with feelings of uncertainty. Illustrator Christopher Myers’ whimsical torn paper and paint collages provide a dreamy backdrop as the girl receives en­ couragement from Copeland her­ self, who takes center stage to offer advice and to explain the challeng­ es she faced as a young ballerina.

Reflecting on the demands of her vocation, Copeland passes on invaluable words of wisdom in brief, poetic lines. “Even birds must learn to fly,” she reminds the young girl. Dominated by flaming hues of orange, red and blue, Myers’ extraordinary artwork captures the mystique of the Firebird ballet and Copeland’s indomitable spirit. This is a tale that will inspire all up-andcomers.

DESIGNING A DREAM Kathryn Gibbs Davis and Gilbert Ford’s magical Mr. Ferris and His Wheel (HMH, $17.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780547959221, ages 4 to 8) is a classic beat-the-odds bio set at the end of the 19th century. In­ vention and innovation are in the

air as Chicago prepares to host the 1893 World’s Fair. Hoping to outdo the razzle-dazzle of the previous Paris-based fair, where crowds were wowed by the Eiffel Tower, event officials issue a challenge to American engineers: Design a structure that will top the City of Light’s iconic edifice. Flooded with submissions—all of them under­ whelming—the judges find them­ selves running out of time. Enter George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., whose proposal for a mighty steel wheel (circumference: 834 feet!) earns their skeptical go-ahead. Da­ vis provides an accessible account of how Ferris brought his daring project to completion despite doubters, time constraints and a lack of funding. Ford’s atmospheric illustrations, rendered in purples and greens, capture the sense of spectacle surrounding Ferris’ beloved invention. This is an en­ chanting ride from start to finish.

CREATION OF A CLASSIC With its spirit of old-fashioned inquiry and cabinet-of-curiosities charm, Jen Bryant’s The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus (Eerdmans, $17.50, 42 pages, ISBN 9780802853851, ages 7 and up) is a delightful tribute to a man of genius who changed the way the

From The Right Word, © 2014 by Melissa Sweet. Reprinted with permission of Eerdmans. world looked at language. Born in London in 1779, Peter Mark Roget was an avid reader with a proclivity for making lists—of Latin words, of weather data, of facts about the natural world. He pursued a medical career in Lon­ don, indulging his preoccupation with classification and his love of words along the way. Roget’s habits culminated in the 1852 publication of his now-ubiquitous Thesaurus, a reference volume listing words and their synonyms that sold briskly at the time and has never gone out of print. Featuring lists copied from Roget’s own notebooks, antique papers, type blocks and other ephemera, Melissa Sweet’s breath­ taking mixed-media illustrations reflect the great man’s intellect—

roving yet selective, inclusive but discerning. Young readers will love poring over this book of wonders.

LABOR OF LOVE History comes alive in Suzanne Slade and Nicole Tadgell’s With Books and Bricks: How Booker T. Washington Built a School (Albert Whitman, $16.99, 32 pages, ISBN 9780807508978, ages 7 to 10), an engaging overview of the life of the legendary educator. Washington’s dreams begin early, during his boy­ hood as a slave. A glimpse of sen­ tences on a chalkboard in the white kids’ classroom sparks his desire to learn. Washington pursues his goal as slavery ends, teaching himself to read and graduating from an institution in Virginia. From there, his dreams get bigger, as he sets out to build a first-class school for blacks from scratch—literally—out of Alabama clay. With the help of students and supporters, he makes his vision a reality, establishing the world-renowned Tuskegee Institute. Tadgell’s softly realistic pencil and watercolor illustrations add special appeal to this tale of a tireless leader whose legacy can still be felt today.

29

reviews BROWN GIRL DREAMING

CHILDREN’S

Memories held close REVIEW BY DEAN SCHNEIDER

Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1963, in a “country caught between Black and White.” John F. Kennedy was president, Martin Luther King Jr. was planning the March on Washington, and Malcolm X talked of revolution. But, like her pic­ ture book Show Way (2005), Woodson’s new memoir-in-verse, Brown Girl Dreaming, is of the ages—an African-American family’s story traced across the generations to Thomas Jefferson Woodson, perhaps the first son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and William J. Woodson, who fought for the Union in the Civil War. Her story is “his­ tory coming down through time,” narrated as if she is standing right next to us, pointing out family pictures on the wall of her childhood home.

Woodson’s father always said that “there’s never gonna be a Wood­ son that sits in the back of the bus,” but her mother yearned to move

By Jacqueline Woodson home to Greenville, South Carolina. In beautifully drawn family and Nancy Paulsen Books, $16.99, 336 pages community scenes, Woodson shows the warmth of life in the South, ISBN 9780399252518, audio, eBook available even while she learns to sit in the back of the bus, to step off the curb Ages 10 and up for white people, and not to look white people in the eye. When they MIDDLE GRADE move again, Woodson feels a sense of loss and sees New York City as “treeless as a bad dream. Who could love / this place—where / no pine trees grow, no porch swings move / with the weight of / your grandmother on them.” Readers may well find this one of the best books they have ever read, rich with a sense of time and place and glowing with the author’s passion for words.

TELEPHONE

By Mac Barnett Illustrated by Jen Corace

Chronicle $16.99, 40 pages ISBN 9781452110233 eBook available Ages 4 to 8

PICTURE BOOK

Mac Barnett, author of the Caldecott Honor-winning picture book Extra Yarn, turns a popular children’s game into a high-wire act in his latest offering. In many picture books featuring people and animals, the animal world serves as the background. In Telephone, the opening spread features a wordless panorama in which children play­ ing outside offer a clue of what’s to come for the many birds sitting on the telephone lines high above.

The game begins as a mother pigeon carrying a steaming dish says to a young baseball-playing

30

cardinal, “Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner.” The cardinal then tells an aviator Canada goose, “Tell Peter: Hit pop flies and homers.” Each subsequent spread continues with different birds, from an ostrich and pelican to a turkey and toucan, and with increasingly humorous varia­ tions of the original call to Peter.

Jen Corace, illustrator of the Lit­ tle series (Little Pea, Little Hoot and Little Oink), adds to the hilarity with watercolor, gouache and pen­ cil artwork that displays each bird’s colorful personality and message.

When a panicking golden bird relates a dire message to a so­ phisticated owl, this last—and, of course, wise—bird knows exactly what to tell Peter. The final spread comes full circle, showing different human families having dinner and one small bird flying back home.

Whether read at home or during storytime, this fun tale is sure to produce laughs and creative spinoffs.

—ANGELA LEEPER

CARTWHEELING IN THUNDERSTORMS

By Katherine Rundell

Simon & Schuster $16.99, 256 pages ISBN 9781442490611 eBook available Ages 8 to 12

some mysterious “other” place, she imbues it with color, love and vibrancy. Her heroine, Will, is born to English parents who have made Zimbabwe their true home, and Will seems utterly suited to the country’s wild landscape, fascinat­ ing wildlife and friendly people.

Rundell’s third-person narration stays just on this side of senti­ mentality, as she clearly idealizes Will’s fearlessness, independence and joie de vivre. But her affection for her heroine is contagious, and when, after a series of personal tragedies, Will is sent to an English boarding school full of students more concerned with perfecting their nail polish than with explor­ ing the world around them, readers will experience along with her a sense of disorientation, exclusion and profound homesickness. Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms offers readers a sympathetic and enticing portrait of a part of the world they might not have heard of before reading this book, but will certainly be intrigued by ever after.

—NORAH PIEHL

THE TURTLE OF OMAN

By Naomi Shihab Nye Greenwillow $16.99, 304 pages ISBN 9780062019721 Audio, eBook available Ages 8 to 12

MIDDLE GRADE

Eight-year-old Aref loves nature, making lists, his family, his grand­ father Sidi and his home in Muscat, When I was younger, I was a Oman. When his parents decide to huge fan of Frances Hodgson Bur­ finish their doctorates in Michigan, nett’s novels A Little Princess and Aref refuses to embrace the move.

The Secret Garden, in which a girl The important things—school, is whisked from darkest India to a friends, his grandfather, the sea very different environment in En­ turtle beach—do not fit in Aref’s gland, usually in the wake of a fam­ suitcase, and he finds himself ily tragedy. As captivating as those getting in his mother’s way while novels were to my preteen self, sinking into sadness. Underneath what was always missing was a real his sadness is fear: Will Sidi be here portrait, not just a glimpse, of what in three years when Aref returns? the heroine’s life was like in the Will Aref remember Muscat? exotic place from which she came.

Gently and tenderly, Sidi pulls Katherine Rundell’s Cartwheeling his grandson away from the packing and takes him out into the in Thunderstorms does exactly that. Instead of making Zimbabwe world they love. They visit beloved, MIDDLE GRADE

CHILDREN’S familiar places and have adven­ tures in new ones. They spend a night in the desert where they see the night sky free from light pollu­ tion. They meet a falconer, and Aref watches as the falcon flies away and then returns. They sleep on Sidi’s rooftop and take a boat ride into the harbor to do some fishing.

They save important stones and memories along the way.

In a world of speed and instant information, it is a blessing to slow down with Aref and his grandfather and to think about what we love and what we would miss if we had to leave it. Nye’s poetic prose is so filled with tenderness that I found myself slowing down and reread­ ing long passages just to enjoy the feel of the words on my tongue.

It’s been a long time since I have read a book that has brought me that special kind of pleasure, and I look forward to sharing this with children and adults.

—ROBIN SMITH

works doesn’t mean we should use it, right? Maybe Grandpa Melvin’s eternal youth solution isn’t the answer to everything.

Science is powerful stuff, and it can be heady. But in the hands of capable Newbery Honor author Jennifer L. Holm, it can be truly funny and touching as well. Holm seamlessly brings a science theme to a quirky book that middle grade readers will actually want to read because, after all, who doesn’t want to know what is really possible in the world? As Holm deftly shows, nothing is impossible.

meet AARON BECKER 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

—SHARON VERBETEN

THE CATEGORICAL UNIVERSE OF CANDICE PHEE

was your favorite subject in school? Why? Q: What

By Barry Jonsberg Chronicle $16.99, 176 pages ISBN 9781452133515 eBook available Ages 10 and up

was your childhood hero?

Q: Who

MIDDLE GRADE

THE FOURTEENTH GOLDFISH

Twelve-year-old Candice Phee figures that her life needs fixing.

By Jennifer L. Holm Her father and her uncle need to Random House end their longtime feud, and her $16.99, 224 pages mother needs to find a way out ISBN 9780375870644 of her depression. Also, her pen Audio, eBook available pal Denille needs to finally write Ages 8 to 12 back, and her new friend Douglas MIDDLE GRADE needs to return to the real home he claims is in Another Dimension.

Candice knows she can solve these Lots of scientists—Newton, Salk, problems, big and small, because she’s daring, determined and Galileo—changed the world. Now Ellie’s grandfather Melvin might bursting with creative ideas. be on the same track. But is that a Like Maggie in The Meaning of good thing?

Maggie, Candice reports on the world exactly as she sees it, even When 11-year-old Ellie meets if that’s sometimes different from the new, somewhat odd, boy in town, she soon learns it’s really her the perspectives of those around Grandpa Melvin, a scientist who her. (Although she shows some discovered the secret to eternal signs of autism, she insists that she’s not autistic. She’s just being youth. Masquerading as Ellie’s cousin, Melvin embarks on a secret herself.) But what stands out about Candice’s unique and well-devel­ mission to prove his scientific methods are valid. But amid the oped voice is the way she navigates adventure of it all, something just between serious subjects like the death of her baby sister and light doesn’t seem right. topics like Douglas’ pan-universal Despite her growing interest in science, Ellie begins to understand travel plans. Like the lives of her that all science has consequences, readers, Candice’s life is sometimes positive or negative. She considers messy, sometimes difficult, some­ Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb, for times funny, but always hopeful. example. Just because something —J I L L R A T Z A N

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

QUEST Aaron Becker, author of the 2014 Caldecott Honor-winning wordless picture book Journey, takes readers to the furthest reaches of the imagination with Quest (Candlewick, $15.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780763665951, ages 4 to 8). Becker lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

31

WORDNOOK

BY THE EDITORS OF MERRIAM-WEBSTER stretched to refer to an aristocratic style or bearing, and the reference becomes “to the manor born.”

The confusion is understandable because of Hamlet’s princely birth, but Shakespeare had Hamlet speak disapprovingly of a custom, not of a life of privilege.

Despite Shakespeare’s use of manner and the context in which the phrase appears, to the manor born is a commonly used variation, perhaps helped by a popular Brit­ ish sitcom of that name.

WHAT HAMLET SAID Dear Editor: Could you please settle a disagreement? Is the expression to the manner born or to the man­ or born? I’ve always thought it was to the manner born, but my husband’s explanation for to the manor born—that people born in upper-class households act in a certain way—makes sense.

F. S. Round Rock, Texas To the manner born is a phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, mean­ ing “accustomed to a practice from birth.” Hamlet, hearing the revelry that marks each drink taken by his uncle, the usurper king, acknowl­ edges that although such excess is customary, he does not approve: “But to my mind, though I am na­ tive here / And to the manner born, it is a custom / More honour’d in the breach than in the observance.”

Over time, the phrase has been

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT Dear Editor: I recently read an article about a political campaign that described one issue as the dog that didn’t bark. I’m not familiar with this expression. Can you tell me where it comes from and what it means?

P. D. Charlotte, North Carolina Something called the dog that didn’t bark is a nonaction or a non­

event which is significant precisely because it didn’t happen.

The phrase comes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. In the story “Silver Blaze,” a valuable racehorse is stolen from a stable guarded by a watch­ dog. During the investigation, Dr. Watson asks Holmes, “Is there any point to which you wish to draw my attention?” Holmes tells him, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Watson points out, “The dog did nothing in the night-time,” and Holmes replies, “That was the curious incident.”

In other words, the dog, which should have barked, did not; the thief, therefore, was probably someone the dog knew.

WAY, WAY DOWN Dear Editor: Where do we get the expression to deep-six something? Is it related to the expression six feet under?

S. E. Millinocket, Maine

The noun deep six means “a place of disposal or abandon­ ment.” It’s used especially in the phrase give it the deep six, meaning get rid of it completely; it’s hot, it’s dangerous, or it’s incriminating.

In naval slang, the phrase means to toss something overboard. It comes from the leadsman’s call by the deep six for a depth corre­ sponding to the sixth deep on a sounding line.

As a verb, deep-six attained fame in the Watergate era, when former White House counsel John Dean told the Senate Watergate Com­ mittee that his former colleague John Ehrlichman had advised him to deep six a briefcase found in the White House safe of Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt Jr.

Send correspondence regarding Word Nook to: Language Research Service P.O. Box 281 Springfield, MA 01102

Test Your Mental Mettle with Puzzles from The Little Book of Big Mind Benders go figure

puzzle Type: Number compleTIoN:

DIffIculTy: TIme: ___________

if you multiply the ages of

sHape count

puzzle Type: spATIAl compleTIoN:

DIffIculTy: TIme: ___________

How many squares of any size are in this grid?

my three kids, you get 24.

The sum of their ages is 11.

What are their three ages?

come in four sizes.

HINT: Squares

HINT: For instance, the ages 1, 2, and 12 multiply to 24 but add to 15.

square = 30 squares squares + 9 two-by-two squares + 4 three-by-three squares + 1 four-by-four

ANswer: The three ages are 1, 4, and 6, which multiply to 24 and add to 11.

ANswer: 16 one-by-one

out of orDer unscramble the letters in each word pair to make two new words with opposite meanings, like “on vs. off.”

puzzle Type: worD compleTIoN:

DIffIculTy: TIme: _____

TIDY HANG = ___________ vs. ___________ ONLY DOUG = ___________ vs. ___________ WRONG STEAK = ___________ vs. ___________ ISSUED EDITION = ___________ vs. ___________

HINT: time, age, power, location

ANswer: night vs. day; young vs. old; strong vs. weak; inside vs. outside

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7/7/14 4:51 PM