Category Archives: Books

On the shelf: ‘The Dirty Life’ by Kristin Kimball

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By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

You’re a vegetarian journalist living in New York City. You are assigned to write an article about an organic farmer working in Pennsylvania. Within 24 hours of meeting the farmer, you are eating sausage, working the fields, slaughtering a pig and falling in love.

 

Author Kristin Kimball’s life changed when she interviewed that farmer. As their relationship bloomed, so did her understanding and respect for agriculture. Soon, she gave up her career, cute shoes, and NYC apartment and started an organic farm, Essex Farm, with Mark in upstate New York.

 

This memoir chronicles the first year of getting the farm off the ground—from buying plow horses to till the fields, hand milking the cows twice a day and developing a sustainable CSA—all while planning a wedding. Kimball brings to life the daily back-breaking work of running a farm, the cycle of life and death, and how community can support and uplift one another.

 

Her writing is rich and you feel that you are on the farm with her. When I was done with the book, I missed Essex Farm and Kristin and Mark. I wanted to know how their story continued to unfold. This book will make you appreciate what you buy at the farmers market even more.

 

On the shelf: ‘Ugly Pie’ by Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Heather Solomon

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By Debbie Hoskins, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

Michigan author Lisa Wheeler has cooked up a delightful cumulative story with a song. Ol’ Bear wakes up with a hankerin’ for ugly pie. As he visits his neighbors, they all show him the pies they have made and donate an ingredient. At the end all the neighbors smell the pie and come and eat Ol’Bear’s “scrumptious-truly wondrous-beautiful Ugly Pie!”

 

The book is illustrated with delightful, colorful paintings created with water color, acrylic, and collage on paper. At the end of the book is an Ugly Pie recipe that you and the grandcubs could make. Perfect for the grandchildren ages 3 through 7.

 

 

On the shelf: ‘Silken Prey’ by John Sandford

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By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library

 

Lucas Davenport and crew have done it again, and the 23rd book in Sandford’s Prey series is a winner. If you like to read in the police/thriller genre, to paraphrase one reviewer, “some of the books are very good and some are great”.  Hey–that’s as good as it gets for that long of a run! They’re well-written and -plotted, with crisp dialogue, and interesting main characters who have just enough humorous side stories going on, to leven the loaf a bit, what with all the grisly murders and all.

 

I was thinking of how I would enjoy reading it on my vacation, but made the mistake of just taking a peek… The tale of political dirty tricks gone wrong, and a Machiavellian narcissist plotting her rise through the senate, and the question of a double or triple cross, was just too interesting to set aside.

 

So, if you are looking for a great travel/vacation read, don’t open it before the trip…

 

 

On the shelf: ‘The Amber Room’ by Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy

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By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

 

In 1717, Prussian emperor Frederick I presented Peter the Great with a remarkable treasure: enough wall-sized panels covered with meticulously carved amber to decorate an entire room. Eventually installed in a palace near St. Petersburg, the Amber Room was stolen by the Nazis during the 1941 siege of Leningrad and hidden in Konigsberg, now Kaliningrad—after which little is known.

 

Scott-Clark and Levy recorded their investigation into the whereabouts of the Amber Room in an effort to both educate and fascinate the world. By searching through Romanov archives, Soviet files, and secret documents of the East German Police, the authors retrace the history and disappearance of one of the world’s major art pieces. During a time when amber was more valuable than gold, the Amber Room vanished into thin air.

 

While the first chapters seem heavy with material as the authors set up the history of the Amber Room, once the clues begin to fall into place, Scott-Clark and Levy fascinate readers as they trace the Amber Room all over Europe. They investigate not only rumors of the location of the pieces but also known facts. Interviews and archival documents help to further tell the story of one of the most famous lost artifacts of World War II.

 

On the shelf: ‘This Heavy Silence’ by Nicole Mazzarella

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By Ruth Van Stee, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

Nicole Mazzarella’s story, beautifully written and wonderfully told, takes place in the 1960s, when family farms in the Midwest were in crisis and many were lost to expanding cities and suburban development. Dottie, at the center of This Heavy Silence, works and fights to keep her father’s farm, trying to prove to her deceased father, herself, and the community that a woman can be a successful farmer.

 

Dottie’s work is interrupted by the death of her friend and the arrival of that friend’s eight-year-old daughter, who lives with Dottie for the next ten years. Even with the child present, the farm is Dottie’s main focus and all decisions and dreams she holds for the child are based solely on keeping the farm going. This finely developed main character is often not very likable, and readers will want to shake and yell at her, but once in a while, when Dottie makes a small, warm gesture or when her pain rises to the surface, readers will want to comfort her.

 

Mazarella teaches creative writing at Wheaton College in Illinois, but while this novel falls within the Christian fiction genre, it is not a “safe” book, nor the kind of story with an improbable happy ending. Instead, with a desperate hope for the girl’s forgiveness, Dottie takes a step towards change and grace abounds.

 

On the shelf: ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak

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By Mary K. Davis, Grand Rapids Public Library, Yankee Clipper Branch

 

Death as narrator. He doesn’t carry a scythe or wear a black robe. He doesn’t get involved in human lives—except once as he watches a young girl steal her first book. This is the story of that girl, Liesel Meminger.

 

Liesel is sent to live with a foster family in working class Mulching, Germany in the late 1930’s. It is World War II and Death is very busy. Still, he manages to tell Liesel’s story—her joys, sorrows, interesting cast of friends and family, and of her thievery. This is a beautiful and haunting story about the power of words.

 

Death does not enjoy his job; he carries children’s souls in his arms, and he doesn’t always welcome those souls seeking him out. Published as a young adult title, The Book Thief is a novel for adults as well, receiving starred reviews in School Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews and critical acclaim on NPR’s All Things Considered. In this soulful book, Death may surprise you.

 

On the shelf: ‘The Patron Saint of Liars’ by Ann Patchett

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By  Laura Nawrot, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

This story, told from three different perspectives through the voices of Rose, Son, and Sissy, asks as many questions of the reader as it answers. Is Rose running from her destiny, or to it? If you were in Sissy’s shoes, (or Rose’s or Son’s), would you make the same choices? Is there a path that each individual is designed to follow? Do we forge our life’s path through free will alone or by the choices we make? Or is it some combination of both?

 

Rose, a devout Catholic girl, believes that her two life choices in the mid-sixties are to become a wife or a nun, and that God will provide her with a sign at the appropriate time. It is immediately apparent that Rose believes she misunderstood the sign, for the story opens with Rose driving across the country, alone, three years into a marriage she entered at age nineteen. The narrative quickly unfolds, and the questions rise through Ann Patchett’s wonderful writing. She paints her characters with such depth and compassion that they become a part of the reader, and the reader truly shares their world. Patchett’s portraits and her vivid description work together to make this a book to read more than once.

 

The Patron Saint of Liars is Ann Patchett’s first novel and was made into a television movie in 1998. She has since written several more novels and most recently a work of non-fiction, Truth & Beauty, about women and friendships that endure beyond a lifetime.

 

On the shelf: ‘Barolo’ by Matthew Gavin Frank

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By Melissa Fox, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

In Barolo, Matthew Gavin Frank takes readers on a trip to explore the food and wine of the Barolo Region of Italy. Frank stays in a tent in a friend’s garden and works at a vineyard, picking grapes for vintner Luciano Sandrone.

 

This book is rich with details of the history and process of wine making, the Piemontese region of Italy, and of the many people the author meets, restaurants he eats at, and friends he makes along the way.

 

Barolo is both travelogue and memoir, unique to its time and place in Frank’s life, so that only he could share these stories in this way.

 

 

 

 

On the shelf: ‘Excellent Women’ by Barbara Pym

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By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

How to explain the soothing yet buoyant effect that Barbara Pym’s two best novels have on one? Excellent Women and Some Tame Gazelle are both wonderfully therapeutic reads for people fed up with modern life. And also for those who just love relationship novels laced with dry humor. I re-read Excellent Women every ten years or so since it is so enjoyable, and I was delighted to see that cutting-edge literary critics have decided that Barbara Pym is once again making a comeback. She’s made a couple of comebacks since her books were published in the ’50s, as new generations discover her subtle charm.

 

Set in post World War II England, Excellent Women lets us share in the joys and disappointments of one Mildred Lathbury, who leads a mild-mannered life, as one of those “excellent women” who is always helping out in the parish. There are many uncomfortable life situations that Mildred is drawn into that she believes exceed her experience of men and relationships, but she carries on admirably, much to her surprise.

 

From the gently mysterious beginning to the satisfyingly concluded ending Excellent Women is a wonderful throw-back of a story.

 

 

On the shelf: ‘The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt’ by Caroline Preston

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By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library

 

In 1920, Frankie Pratt graduates from high school and receives a scrapbook as a gift. Intent on becoming a writer, she attends Vassar College, and finds work in New York and Paris. Told through Frankie’s eyes, the life of a young woman trying to find her place in the world comes to life. The remarkable thing about this book, however, is the way the story is told.

 

The entire book is formatted as Frankie’s scrapbook. It is filled with ephemera such as postcards, letters, magazine ads and more. The story of her life is told through her scrapbook entries and the style of the 1920s is vivid. The reader wants to be able to touch the items in the scrapbook, to ask Frankie questions, and to see the story from the viewpoint of other characters. But this is Frankie’s story and we see her world only from her perspective through what she shares in her scrapbook. This is a fun book and a quick read, but you will linger, looking at the beautiful and detailed layout of each page.

On the shelf: ‘Boy 30529: A Memoir’ by Felix Weinberg

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By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

At age 82 Felix Weinberg started writing down the history that he had tried to forget for 65 years.

 

“Anyone who survived the extermination camps must have an untypical story to tell. The typical camp story of the millions ended in death…”

 

The writing is simple and eloquent, and the story unfolds with a detachment that lends it a somber power, as if he is describing events from a hellish dream world.

 

Weinberg explains, “In the camps I tried to acquire the ability to look without seeing, listen without hearing and smell without taking in what was around me. I cultivated a kind of self-induced amnesia. I feared that being made to look at hangings, seeing piles of corpses on a daily basis, would somehow contaminate my mind permanently.”

 

In a reversal of our usual consciousness, he credits his night-time dreams of his beloved childhood in Czechoslovakia, with sustaining him during the bizarre waking hours.

 

The democratic republic of Czechoslovakia was short lived, and Weinberg’s happy life, along with the whole Czech Jewish community, came to an end with Hitler’s invasion of the Sudeten. His father was able to get out to England, but the rest of the family was detained, and the author’s teenage years from 12 to 17 follow the terrible road from the relocation to local Jewish ghettos, to the camps, and finally to the Nazi’s insane “final solution”.

 

The cover of the book speaks of depths of emotion that could never be adequately expressed. A beaming little boy, gazes admiringly, lovingly, at his older brother, as they stand together holding hands. Neither his brother nor his mother survived the camps.

 

“My brother was too young to work. I am convinced that, given the choice, my mother would have gone to the gas chambers with him but I doubt that was an option. I believe she died in some other slave labour camp. All my attempts to trace her, all my searches of archives for further information, have proved futile. It does not do to dwell on these thoughts if one wants to live the semblance of a normal life, but I invite anyone who wishes to share my nightmares to picture that group of children, including my terrified little brother, being herded into the gas chamber.”

 

Felix’s youth and strength aided him, and a large amount of luck, when so many died at every turn, going from Terezin, to Auschwitz-Birkenau, to Blechhammer, and the final death march to Gross-Rosen. He takes no credit for his survival, and often thanks others for every small kindness. There are many different kinds of holocaust stories, and all are deeply effecting.  Felix Weinberg’s tale is one that no one should miss.

On the shelf: ‘A Stronger Kinship’ by Anna-Lisa Cox

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By Tim Gleisner, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

Every so often I feel compelled to suggest a book solely not only for the skill of the author’s writing ability, but for it’s social importance as well. The book, A Stronger Kinship by Anna-Lisa Cox, is just such a one.

 

A true story set in the town of Covert Michigan, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it tells the tale of the town’s unique population. Covert is a small town of roughly 1,000 people in Van Buren County just outside of South Haven. It is a typical rural community in Southwest Michigan. People settled the area because the land was plentiful and could provide an income. Agriculture, in various forms, has sustained this community from the very beginning — first lumber, then fruit farming. Families went to church, school, formed businesses, all in all a community within the norm of American life. The quality that set this town apart was that the population of Covert was integrated at a time when America was not.

 

Building on the lives of runaway slaves, freed blacks, and abolitionist New Englanders, the reader encounters a group of people who felt that one was equal regardless of color. This attitude was nurtured while the Midwest was experiencing racism in various forms. Families lived on farms side by side, as well within the town. You learn of the first elected African-American official, of the town’s business leaders who came from both sides of the color line, and from families that were integrated and accepted by the populace as a whole. What is remarkable is that to this day this community has stayed true to the original conviction of the pioneer generation. It conveys the sense that intentional community is not always impossible, and that one’s morals can be lived out in ordinary life.

 

Anna-Lisa Cox is the recipient of numerous awards for her research. She is an active historian, writer, and lecturer on the history of race relations in the nineteenth-century Midwest.

On the shelf: ‘Kabul Beauty School’ by Deborah Rodriguez

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By Michelle Hannink, Grand Rapids Public Library

 

Deborah Rodriguez is an author who hails from Holland, Mich. originally. Hers is a warm, amusing story of her life’s liberation and journey of self-discovery in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001. This is also a memoir of discovery of the Afghan people and culture, the observation of the many daily hazards in the fallout of war and political upheaval.

 

I enjoyed her memoir of life events because although she recounts her early life in an abusive marriage and the demeaning, poor and sometimes violent lives of Afghan women, her telling is full of humor and unflinching honesty. The Afghans have a rich and fascinating culture and family tradition. It is interesting to learn such traditions as marriage arrangements and wedding planning. There are still very defined roles for each gender and the clash of modern influences, social change and tradition provide amusing stories to tell. Still, I found incredible and alarming the purposes of parents and potential grooms for the future lives of very young teen girls in marriage.

 

Ms. Rodriguez goes to Afghanistan to serve with a non-profit humanitarian group in disaster and medical relief. However, Miss Debbie as she came to be known, is not a medical professional but rather a hairdresser. As a hairdresser she has a natural gift for gab and befriending people of all kinds; she easily fits in with Afghans and Westerners alike. In no time at all she is overwhelmed with requests for hair care. Soon she discovers the local salons were shut down by the Taliban, or operating secretly under shortages and lack of cleanliness. Miss Debbie realizes the need for training and support of new hairdressers and salons in Kabul, and her future mission is set. She searches out financial and products support from international manufacturers and sponsors.

 

Throughout her struggles to start and run the new Kabul Beauty School, Miss Debbie determines to help bring empowerment, self-respect, and self-support to Afghan women, many whom she came to love as friends. You will find as I did the many individual stories —  heartbreaking, incredible, or hilarious at times as you discover life behind the burqa veil in Kabul Beauty School.

On the shelf: ‘Stiff’ and ‘Spook’ by Mary Roach

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By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library

 

Eventually, we are all going to die. But what happens to our bodies and our spirits after we pass on? Well, apparently there are a lot more options available than you might have realized. Author Mary Roach explores the subject in her two books, Stiff and Spook.

 

Roach’s first book, Stiff, examines what happens to our bodies after we die. She looks at the traditional embalming and funeral route, but also looks at the alternatives that a person can choose. For example, if you donate your body to science, you could become an anatomy lesson for a medical school student, or you could be involved in other types of research. In one chapter, Roach looks at cadavers that are used in car crash tests. Researchers have found that by using a real body rather than a crash test dummy, they can more accurately see how a person is injured in an accident. This has led to the development of technology that helps save lives.

 

Before reading this book, I would have never considered donating my body to science, but after reading about all the cool things your body can do after your spirit has passed on, (Help real-life CSI investigators solve a case! Get a post-mortem facelift!), I’m all for donation.

 

In her second book Spook, Roach investigates what happens to our souls after we die. She travels to India to talk to a newly reincarnated person; she opens the last existing box of ‘ectoplasm’ used by mediums at the turn of the century; visits a haunted castle in England; and talks to researchers trying to determine the weight of our souls. She attends séances, ghost hunts and even enrolls in medium school.

 

Roach uses a journalistic eye to explore death. She is never disrespectful of the dead or of a person’s beliefs and she presents various aspects of dying and the afterlife with a dead-on combination of irreverent humor and informative respect. Both books are fascinating reads.

On the shelf: ‘The Last Kingdom’ by Bernard Cornwell

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By Grand Rapids Public Library

 

It was a time when men’s gods called them to terror and war. A time when the strong felt it was their destiny to cull the weak, and the prayer offered up across Britain was, “Deliver us, O Lord, from the fury of the Norsemen…”

 

After the Romans left in 410, the Jutes, Anglos, and Saxons came and settled, and now, four centuries later, a gathering storm is building in the Scandinavian lands that will soon rip apart the weakened and divided kingdoms that make up Britain.

 

In fact, in the next three centuries, the vikings will spread across Europe, into Russia, and as far as Greenland and Labrador.

 

Bernard Cornwell, one of our greatest historical adventure writers, directs his gaze to the English theater during these critical ninth and tenth centuries, and how King Alfred’s reign was a pivotal time when Britain was almost swallowed up by the Norsemen.

 

The history is complex and bloody, filled with alliances, strategies, betrayals, and the battles that raged across the land.

 

The author brings all his masterful storytelling skills to bear to breath life into the history through his protagonist, Uhtred, who is only 10 years old when we meet him. Second son of the Earl of Bebbanburg in Northumbria, he becomes the first son, and then the heir, when both his brother and father are killed by the raiders in the dragon boats.

 

Amused by the boy’s rage and courage during the battle, Uhtred is captured by the Danish chief. Although taken as a slave, he is soon treated as a son, and he spends his youth as a Dane. But Uhtred can’t forget the beautiful wild lands of Bebbenburg, and the struggle between his loyalties makes for a great read.

On the shelf: ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ by Rebecca Skloot

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By Jeanessa Fenderson, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

Rarely does a scientific cultural study read the way that The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks does. Rebecca Skloot takes the reader neatly from the piqued curiosity of a sixteen-year-old high school student in biology class into the center of the social wrongs of the medical establishment with remarkable ease. This true story reads like a novel thanks to Skloot’s compassionate and thorough research and storytelling abilities.

 

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks finally decides to get treatment for the “knot up inside of her” that has plagued her for years.  She’s poor and black. So, she goes to Johns Hopkins hospital, one of the only hospitals in Maryland that will treat patients like her. There she learns that the knot that has been bothering her is cervical cancer. A sample of those cancer cells is placed in a petri dish and Henrietta is treated for her disease. While Henrietta’s life comes to an end, the life of her cancer cells has just begun.

 

This is the story of HeLa cells, the immortal human cells that have fueled — and continue to fuel — more than half a century of medical advancements from the polio vaccine to HIV/AIDS research. These cells have produced over 50 million metric tons of material to provide scientists and researchers with an endless supply of human cells for testing vaccines, medicines and treatments for an untold number of diseases. It is the story of one woman’s dogged curiosity and persistent research. It is the story of a social wrong committed against a disadvantaged family. It is also the story of the beauty and complexities of science and human life.

 

Skloot developed an interest in HeLa cells in her junior year biology class when her instructor told the class about the cells, the name of the woman they belonged to, and her race. With no other information, Skloot’s natural curiousity was raised. Over the years as she established a career for herself as a scientific journalist, she heard about HeLa cells and their role in medical research repeatedly and she made the decision to write about Henrietta Lacks. Skloot scaled the walls of a rightfully defensive and jaundiced American family and those of the medical establishment to shed light on just who Henrietta Lacks was, how her cells came to be a basis of modern medical science and what effect this had on the family she left behind.

On the shelf: ‘Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls’ By David Sedaris

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By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

I love any writer that can make me laugh — it’s a difficult skill to master, and without it, a writer can’t hold my attention. I recently tried to read a book combining three of my favorite subjects, touted as “hilarious”, but the humor was so poorly written that I could label each remark as to category, and why it fell flat.

 

This made me all the more grateful that David Sedaris is still writing books. Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls is wonderful, making me think of him as some sort of wine or cheese,  mellowing out over time, and developing more complex flavors.

 

Great humorists are often philosophers at heart. Surprised and pained by the outrages of life, they offer us a way to carry on. Some, like Sedaris, give vent to our worst thoughts, while also demonstrating restraint in action, which serves for a convoluted moral instruction. Something about his style, combining a self-deprecating narrator, with a wishful homicidal one, rings true. He writes about long lines at the airport, his take on the European healthcare system,  picking up trash along the road…

 

This book is a better, more even read than his previous Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, perhaps because there’s no need to use animals to illustrate human quirks and conceits — we can do that well enough by ourselves.

 

I liked the fact that Sedaris doesn’t try to go after a younger audience per se, he writes about his life now, but also dips back into the past, where his family has always provided plenty of material. And O magazine still calls him, “the funniest man in America”.

On the shelf: ‘The Customer is Always Wrong’ edited by Jeff Martin

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By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

Ever work a customer service job? Then this book is for you! Twenty-one authors have written short essays about their experience in working in retail. The book starts with a piece from Saugatuck-based writer Wade Rouse, who describes in all-too-painful detail his sales job at Sears. From his lisping manager to bratty kids, his tale makes working in a mall as about as appealing as gum in your hair, and yet it is easy to see ourselves as both the customer and the worker. It is hard to admit, but we’ve all been the ‘bad customer’ every now and then.

 

Other authors talk about working in a video store, restaurant, liquor store. Customer service jobs abound and almost every author references how happy they were to have their career in retail end. Stewart Lewis describes his stint working in a high-end spa and Wendy Spero reminisces about the summer she spent selling knives door-to-door. Some stories are funny, others make you wince and still others make you feel a little melancholy. Yet all the stories remind us that people are behind those counters and they are underpaid, under-appreciated, and take a lot of abuse.

 

This is a great book for everyone who has ever worked a cash register, taken an order, or shelved merchandise. To quote the film Clerks, “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!”

On the shelf: ‘Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood’ by Oliver Sacks

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By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

“Many of my childhood memories are of metals…”.  Has there ever been a better first sentence since, “Call me Ishmael.”? The opening line from Dr. Sacks’ childhood memoir boils down everything I love about his books. They’re so open, honest– written in prose that’s a pure joy to read, and yet mysterious, suggesting a mind that operates on a whole different level than mine. His books are often enlightening and captivating, as he works with patients with complex neurological conditions. There’s also a certain emotional and personal connection forged, since he doesn’t hesitate to use his own experiences to illustrate some of the conditions.

 

So I was very excited to see what a book of his boyhood memories would be. Published in 2001, it’s the type of memoir that I can re-read every few years, without any decrease in enjoyment. From the opening sentence to the last chapter, the author demonstrates the unusual personality and creativity that one discovers in all his books.

 

Born in London in 1933, to parents who were both doctors, Oliver was the youngest of four, and he grew up surrounded by an extraordinary extended family. Life was paradise until the war,  when he was sent away (at six!) to an unbelievably cruel boarding school for four years. When he returned home at ten, the deprivation and abuse had changed him.  Recognizing this, his family encouraged his passion for chemistry, and his “Uncle Tungsten” became his mentor.

 

To read about his passion for re-creating the historical discoveries in chemistry, the incredible leeway that his family afforded him in his pursuits, and the odd and beautiful discoveries that he made; it’s not just a book about the author, it’s illuminating the joy that learning can bring. Thoughtful, caring, funny, and one of the most entertaining memoirs I’ve yet to read.

On the shelf: ‘Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir’ by Margaux Fragoso

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By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

There are many different varieties of stolen childhood: through war, deprivation, poverty, drugs, abuse. There’s something of a subtler, terrible sadness when the loss is from an experienced sexual predator of young girls.

 

Margaux writes about her 15-year relationship with a man whom she felt she came to love, wanted to marry, and defended against all attackers who tried to keep them apart. The man was 51 when they met, and she was only 7. The event that finally broke them apart was his suicide at 66.

 

Fragoso writes so eloquently that we see him through her young non-judgmental eyes at the same time as we experience the disgust of what his “love” is doing to her. Sexually graphic, and yet, not at all titillating, Fragoso’s book is a reminder of the pathologies of the spirit that are often hidden in plain sight.

On the shelf: ‘What the Dead Know’ by Laura Lippman

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By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

 

To be honest, I do not think I had heard of Laura Lippman’s work before What the Dead Know. As is the case with most readers, I looked at that inside cover summary in the hopes of finding a new and exciting book to read. From the very first page it becomes clear why Lippman has won so many writing awards for her other titles.

 

The story of the Bethany girls has captivated people for nearly thirty years. Two young girls, Sunny and Heather, taking a bus to the mall to see a movie on a Saturday afternoon turns into a nightmare when both girls vanish. Neighbors, colleagues, and family of the girls’ parents all suffer as the investigation reveals cracks in the family’s perfect facade.  Where was their mother that Saturday? Continuing her affair with her boss. Where was their father? Drinking in a bar after finding out about the affair from the man’s own wife.

 

Intermixed into the story is a woman who causes an accident with a SUV. She drives off and finally pulls over only to try walking to some unknown destination. When the police locate her, it is her words that form the true mystery –“I am one of the Bethany girls.” Over the course of several days the young woman finally admits to being Heather Bethany. Investigators are uncertain. Her own mother is terrified to believe it.

 

Heather’s tale of abuse and murder could chill anyone’s heart. But facts still seem to be missing. Heather says Sunny was murdered that same day, but her body was never found.  Heather details the man who kidnapped them: a cop. Things continue to add up but not equal out. Finally, the girls’ mother returns from Mexico. The plan is for the police to walk Heather by her to see if mothers can really know their children. With this final piece, it all falls into place in a way no one expected.

 

The book is fictional though based on a real abduction, but Lippman’s allusions to famous abduction/murder cases help to build the reality of life after Sunny and Heather vanish. She holds back nothing — the father who cannot bear to give up, and the mother who cannot stand to hope. This story gives the reader a new take on those stories on the news. A realization that what we hear is not the end no matter what the police find. Lippman has another award contender in What the Dead Know.

On the shelf: ‘The Whites’ by Richard Price (writing as Harry Brandt)

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By Grand Rapids Public Library

 

Price’s retro NYPD police procedural skips back and forward from the early “run and gun days” of the ’90s, to 20 years ahead, as a police group known as the Wild Geese lurch into middle age.

 

They’ve left the bad old days behind them (almost, kind-of — ok — never), as they continue on with new jobs, and struggle with past collateral damage. Because while they got the job done, and close relationships were forged, mistakes may have been made…

 

Detective Billy Graves is the only member of the Wild Geese still on the force, exiled to the Night Watch, after a fatal shooting. The world has definitely worn him out, and as he catches his reflection in a security camera he sees a man, “football burly but slump-shouldered, his pale face with its exhaustion-starred eyes topped with half a pitch-fork’s worth of prematurely graying hair. He was only forty-two, but that crushed-cellophane gaze of his combined with a world-class insomniac’s posture had once gotten him into a movie at a senior citizen’s discount.”

 

Once a month Billy’s old crew gets together for dinner, and talk often turns to the “whites”, the ones who got away with murder and eluded capture. As ill-fated an obsession for the Wild Geese as the whale was to Melville’s captain of the Pequod…

 

Price says that he “likes to use crime as a backbone” in telling his stories, which are more literary, psychological, and nuanced than I was expecting in a detective novel. We pay attention to one-on-one murder in a way that few other events command, and once Price has our attention he turns a spotlight on the everyday tragedies and triumphs of our lives. Nature or nurture? Society or our own inescapable biology? Ahab or Macbeth?

 

Blitzkrieg plotting, fine characterization, and dialogue are Price hallmarks, with side characters that lend an absurd touch of dark humor. Map out a few nights that you can stay up late, because once you get started, this is a novel you can’t put down.

On the shelf: ‘The Rook’ by Daniel O’Malley

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By Kristen Krueger-Corrado, Grand Rapids Public Library

 

It is not very often that I finish a book and want to run out and tell the world about it. When I finished The Rook a year ago, I immediately encouraged everyone I knew to read it. I am still talking about this book. It is that good.

The book starts Myfawny (rhymes with Tiffany) Thomas waking up in a body that is not her own. In a park. During a rainstorm. Surrounded by dead people wearing rubber gloves. Luckily the former owner of the body left her a letter instructing her on where to go and what to do. Ultimately, Myfawny is given a choice—to start a new life or to continue to live the life of the body’s former owner. Choosing the later, she discovers that she is a high ranking official (a Rook) in the Chequy, a secret government agency that protects Britain from supernatural threats.

O’Malley, a MSU graduate, deftly combines science fiction and humor. Even if science fiction isn’t your thing, read it anyway. The writing moves quickly and the story and characters are completely engaging. By the end of the book, I wanted to call him up and yell at him for not having the next book written. So what are you waiting for? Go read this book.

On the shelf: ‘When Evil Came to Good Hart’ by Mardi Link

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By Amy Cochran, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

 

I’ve been reading many true crime and thrillers lately. One standout that I thoroughly enjoyed is Mardi Link’s thorough and sensitive exploration of a 1960s Michigan cold case that has never found firm resolution.

 

The little town of Good Hart in Northern Michigan was hit by tragedy in 1968 when the Robisons, a wealthy vacationing family from Detroit, were found murdered in their summer cottage. Nearly a month after the murders, the cottage caretaker Monnie Bliss responded to neighbor complaints about a bad smell and found all six of the Robisons, Dick and Shirley and their four children, shot to death and decaying in the cabin.

 

Link goes on to detail the unfolding investigation and how investigators ruled out the locals and turned their attention to Dick Robison, delving deep into his business dealings. Over the next few years, they followed multiple leads and created a case against Dick Robison’s employee Joe Scolaro, only to have the case fall apart due to lack of evidence placing Scolaro at the scene. Scolaro committed suicide a few years later, leaving a note behind that he had not killed the Robisons. The guns used were identified but ultimately never found, and many other leads went nowhere, such as mention of a mysterious Mr. Roeberts who was supposed to be financing a huge new deal for Dick Robison.

 

The details of the case are fascinating and all the more so since Link solidly grounds the narrative in the particular time and place. Investigation techniques and attitudes have changed considerably since the 1960s: for example, the mentally ill in the area were all considered suspects simply because of their disorders. Rules on crime scene preservation were very different as well: one of the responding deputies accidentally wiped any traces of evidence off of the only weapon still at the scene, a bloody hammer.

 

I found the sense of place to be particularly strong. Link sets the stage by describing Good Hart as a “northern coastal town of well-tended cottages, ancient trees, Native American legends and a clenched fist of locals” and devotes quite a bit of the narrative to the history of the town and the culture of its residents, including contemporary attitudes towards the murders. Link’s thoughtful treatment of this tragedy is not only a fascinating true crime narrative, but also serves as a window into a small northern Michigan community through the last four decades.

On the shelf: ‘Stealing Buddha’s Dinner’ by Bich Minh Nguyen

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By Chris Byron, Grand Rapids Public Library

 

Stealing Buddha’s Dinner is a vivid, funny, charming memoir of growing up in the 1980s and assimilating into a new culture. Bich Minh Nguyen was eight months old in 1975 when her family fled Vietnam. She resettled in Grand Rapids, Mich. with her father, sister, grandmother, and two uncles. Under Jerry Ford’s encouragement, Grand Rapids was one of cities across the country that participated in the resettlement program of finding community sponsors to help the new immigrants.

 

Growing up, young Bich (pronounced “bit”) was torn between the old ways of her family and the new experiences of America. She writes about what is what like to grow up in a Vietnamese household in an “All-American” city.

 

Nguyen’s childhood resonates with the experience of two cultures’ clashing religions, habits, clothes, and, especially, foods. She wrestled with the conflicting desires for her grandmother’s native cooking and the junk food that “real” Americans ate. The allure of Pringles, Toll House Cookies and Popsicles become a metaphor for her struggle to fit in. Her father remarried a Latina woman and more cultural conflicts presented themselves. She wonders what happened to her real mother. Nguyen’s immigrant story is America’s story, retold this time in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

 

Along the way, local readers will recognize descriptions of Wyoming and Grand Rapids, of Meijer and Gas City, of Christian Reformed churches and public libraries. Stealing Buddha’s Dinner was selected by the Michigan Humanities Council as the 2009/10 “Great Michigan Read” and was chosen by the Library of Michigan as a Michigan Notable Book.

On the shelf: ‘The Shipping News’ by E. Annie Proulx

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By Amy Cochran, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

 

As the weather turns colder, I like to curl up with favorite reads of years past, especially books with settings that make me glad to be inside with a hot cup of tea. This year I turned yet again to The Shipping News and found myself as always completely immersed in the language and setting.

 

After losing his good-for-nothing wife to a car accident, Quoyle returns to his ancestral home in Newfoundland with his beloved daughters and an aunt finally ready to face her brutal upbringing.

 

This is the story of three generations of Quoyles working to climb out of past tragedy.  Proulx targets the bad choices people make in life as well as the choices that are forced upon them. Her prose style echoes the cold, tight-knit community that Quoyle settles into as she distills each sentence to its most essential message, as if relating a tale straight from the mouths of the village elders.

 

I enjoy watching Quoyle grow as a father and a man as he becomes a decent writer for the local paper, learns to love squidburgers and various types of bologna dinners and gradually surpasses his grief in order to look ahead to the future. I especially like the dark humor infused in every page, the horrifying stories melded with the amused resignation and jokes of the residents.

 

Quirky characters, a setting that sticks in the mind, and stark yet descriptive language make this a book I will continue to reread, probably during the winter, for years to come.

On the shelf: ‘Unbroken’ by Laura Hillenbrand

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By Jean Sanders, Grand Rapids Public Library

 

The author of the 2001 bestseller Seabiscuit returns with the remarkable story of Louie Zamperini. Laura Hillenbrand proves she is a gifted writer who once again strikes a perfect balance of solid research and wonderful storytelling. Unbroken examines the life of Louie from his wild days as a neighborhood prankster and petty thief to his transformation into an Olympic runner in the 1936 games.

 

In 1942, Louie became a crewman aboard a B-24 that eventually crashed into the Pacific Ocean. After surviving a record 47 days in a life raft, he was picked up by the Japanese and sent to a series of POW camps. Portions of this story are very difficult to read as Hillenbrand describes how thirst, starvation and fear of shark attacks plagued the men.

 

During the two years that Louie spent in the POW camps, he and the other prisoners were starved, brutalized and dehumanized by their Japanese captors. When Louie finally returns home he continues to face battles as he is tormented in his thoughts and dreams by memories from his war time experiences. With the help of his wife and a young Billy Graham, he eventually discovers the path which leads him from despair and eventually enables him to forgive.

 

As the subtitle suggests, Unbroken is a true tale of “survival, resilience and redemption” that will appeal to a wide range of readers.

On the shelf — ‘A Mind Apart: Travels in a Neurodiverse World’ by Susanne Antonetta

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By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

How would you experience the world if you were N’Lili, with multiple personalities — all of whom are young girls, though N’Lili herself is a physically large, tattooed male? What kind of teenager would plan very carefully to kill a young boy in a bizarre way, while making almost no attempt to disguise his guilt? How does someone go from being a suicidal heroin addict, labeled a hopeless schizophrenic at one point, to being a good wife, a gentle mom and a successful university professor?

 

These are the types of questions Antonetta raises in A Mind Apart, an extremely readable book which draws on a number of disciplines and sources to delve into the conundrum of human consciousness, especially the minds that seem alien to us. A great book for anyone who loves poetry and philosophy with their neuroscience.

 

 

On the shelf: ‘Vanishing Acts’ by Jodi Picoult

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By Megan Adres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

 

“I learned a lot that night,” Delia Hopkins remembers of a magic show her father held when she was young. “That people don’t vanish into thin air.”

 

Delia, a 32-year-old making her way in the world, uses her skills to find missing people with the help of her search-and-rescue bloodhound, Greta. One day, however, Delia has a flash of memory that she hardly understands. When the arrest of her father on kidnapping charges follows, Delia quickly finds herself overwhelmed.

 

With the help of a childhood friend turned reporter, Delia puts her life on hold, including her wedding, in order to prove her father’s innocence. Slowly Delia finds her father, Andrew, may not be as innocent as she believes. For 28 years Delia has lived one life. Yet her first four years add to the doubts surrounding her father.

 

Delia’s fiance, Eric, is a lawyer who agrees to take Andrew’s case. As the search for the truth begins, Delia and Eric battle through years of lies and deceit to find the truth that just may destroy the close relationship between father and daughter.

 

Jodi Picoult’s thirteenth book is sometimes heavy with drama but quickly engages readers. She focuses on the emotional impact of the case and lets readers wonder until the last moment who is guilty when both parents believe they were in the right. Vanishing Acts delivers all the drama, emotion, and plot twists of this year’s One Book, One County novel, My Sister’s Keeper and should hold readers in its grip long after the books ends.

On the shelf: ‘Ellen Foster’ by Kaye Gibbons

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By Stephanie M. White, Grand Rapids Main Library

 

In her first novel, Kaye Gibbons tells the story of Ellen Foster, a strong, funny, and honest girl. Or rather, she lets Ellen tell us herself. Gibbons brilliantly plays her characters’ voices, allowing each to ring true. But Ellen’s voice is strongest of all as she tells us about her family, her friends, and her search for a place and a life she can call her own.

 

Ellen begins her story with her mother’s death and continues with the journey of her own life. It is indeed a journey; while Ellen moves  from house to house and family to family,she begins to form her own traditions and ideas of how to survive in this world. She learns to take care of herself, to take care of her friends, and to decide for herself what is right and what is wrong.

 

Ellen’s story is gripping because she tells it so well. As she talks about living with different families, dealing with death, living with emotional abuse, and finding friends along the way, she convinces the reader to trust her and to be a part of her life. We come to feel sadness for a girl who must develop her own sense of who she is and where she stands in the world, as she gets little help from those around her.

 

Yet, we also trust Ellen because we can relate to her. We may not have had such tragic childhoods, nor had to address racism, alcoholism, abuse, and death at an early age, but we have all had to come to grips with these and other issues at some point. We may be five or ninety-five but, like Ellen, we will always be making choices about who we will be, what we will stand for, and with whom we will share our lives. Gibbons’ readers will learn something from Ellen, no matter who they are now and who they hope to become.

On the shelf: ‘Copper Country Postcards’ by Nancy Sanderson

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By M. Christine Byron, Grand Rapids Main Library

 

Local author Nancy Sanderson has created a wonderful treasure with her book, Copper Country Postcards: A View of the Past from the Keweenaw Peninsula. The book features almost 300 postcards from Sanderson’s extensive personal collection. The book gives a glimpse of Copper Country in the first half of the twentieth century. A foreword by Peter Van Pelt gives a brief introduction to the region.

 

By the turn of the 20th century mines and mining towns were well established in Copper Country and many immigrants had settled in the area. The popularity of postcards boomed and captured many views of places, people and events. Many postcards were mailed to family and friends and others were kept in albums as mementos. Real photo postcards documented significant events of the era. Sanderson has included a brief history of the postcard and a helpful list of postcard publishers that printed views of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

 

The first three chapters document the mining industry of Copper Country. Views include mines, shafts, smelters and mills, and machinery and operating equipment. The group portraits of miners show what a hardy breed they must have been to perform such hard labor. Scenes of the underground mine shafts are especially haunting in light of this year’s West Virginia mining disasters.

 

The chapter on the strike of 1913 features some of the rarest postcards in the book. Sanderson has collected views of the Michigan National Guard troops and their camps. The messages on the back of some of these cards give a social history of the time. There are views of protests and parades and a wonderful portrait of Annie Clemenc, the heroine of the strike. On a sadder note there are also scenes of funeral processions for the victims of the 1913 Italian Hall tragedy.

 

In the chapter on shipping Sanderson gives us wonderful postcard views of ships, freighters, and other boats. Dock scenes show workers loading copper ingots. Lighthouse views of the Canal Light House and the Portage River Light are included as well as a rare view of the U.S. Life Saving Station on the Portage Canal.

 

The second two-thirds of the book is devoted to towns and villages in the area. Chapters include Calumet and Laurium, Hancock and Houghton, Lake Linden and Hubbell and other towns. The breadth of Sanderson’s collection is shown in views of churches, schools, libraries, fire halls, banks, railroad stations hotels and more.

 

There are wonderful street scenes that capture the flavor of the town and parades that capture the spirit of the people. The postcard showing the Gay Baseball team of 1907 is a real gem. Scenic views of the Brockway Mountain Drive and Fort Wilkins State Park show the appeal the peninsula had to tourists.

 

The final chapter of the book features miscellaneous cards with such diverse views as snow scenes, the Freda Park Copper Range Railroad and the famous Cornish pasty. Advertising postcards feature some of the local organizations and businesses. A worthwhile bibliography and recommended reading list close out the book.

 

Sanderson grew up in Copper Country and has been a life member of the Keewenaw County Historical Society since the early 1980s. She has been active in the preservation of the area and in 2002 was awarded the Lauri W. Leskinen Memorial Award by the historical society for her role in developing a Commercial Fishing Museum located at the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse Museum.

 

Copper Country Postcards is a wonderful collection to be appreciated by postcard collectors or anyone interested in Upper Peninsula history. The full-size, full-color views are accurate reproductions of Sanderson’s original postcards. The captions that the author has written for the cards give relevant background information to the views. Sanderson’s generosity and commitment to the area is evident in the fact that the proceeds from the sale of the book will help fund preservation projects of the Keweenaw County Historical Society

On the shelf: Eating words

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By Melissa Fox, Grand Rapids Public Library

 

With soup season in full swing and family and friends snug in their beds, it seems the perfect time to cozy up with some delicious reading. Here are the books and authors that I return to when I want to be satiated with words.

 

Gastronomical Me by M. F. K. Fisher follows newly married Fisher and husband Al as they make a life for themselves in prewar France. We learn how Fisher came to taste and savor food and the immediate impact France and French cooking had on her life. This book is filled with Fisher’s signature prose that is as luscious and poignant as it is deftly humorous.

 

My life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme is the story of how Julia Child became Julia Child. It tells how she fell in love with France, learned how to cook, and wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Not only is this book filled with lovely images of France and food, it is also an intimate, romantic portrait of Julia and Paul Child’s early years of marriage.

 

Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, and Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl are a series of memoirs from the last editor of Gourmet magazine. This series covers much of Reichl’s life, from her childhood with her mother’s fantastic parties complete with spoiled food, to her job as New York Times food critic. Reichl’s descriptions of food and life are as unique and hilarious as are they are tender and revealing.

 

 

On the shelf: ‘Until Tuesday’ by Fmr. Capt. Luis Carlos Montalvan

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By Lisa Boss, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

 

How does a dog, partially raised in a U.S. prison, save the life of a 17-yr. Army veteran?  Well–it’s a great story!

 

Luis Carlos Montalvan is a veteran and former captain in the army, with two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart. But after two tours in Iraq, and the war wounds received there, he found his life unrecognizable. Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, along with other severe injuries, had turned his life into agony, and it stayed that way for a long time.

 

Meanwhile, Tuesday was a pup in a litter of Golden Retrievers, destined to become a Service Dog for the severely disabled, and tweaked to help veterans with TBI and PTSD. The day they met changed both of their lives.

 

This is not so much a book about a dog, as how a life that is almost destroyed, can be painstakingly put back together. Montalvan’s writing is powerful and engaging, and Until Tuesday packs a wallop in its slim 252 pages.

 

 

 

On the shelf: ‘The Floor of the Sky’ by Pamela Carter Joern

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By Laura Nawrot, GRPL Main

 

I had no idea how much I would enjoy this book when I first picked it up. The cover is a black and white photo of a farmhouse and barn huddling under what appear to be storm clouds. Pretty simple at first glance, kind of how I thought the story would play out, but I was happily surprised.

 

The story begins with Toby, a widow in her early 70s who is hosting her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Lila, at her Nebraska farm for the summer. Toby seems to be a typical caregiver kind of person because her older sister, Gertie, lives with her and Lila is pregnant and unwed. The reader quickly learns, however, that there is much more to these characters than meets the eye as the story twists deeper with each turn of the page.

 

Carter Joern narrates the novel in third person and alternates the point of view between Toby, Lila, Gertie and George. While this method of storytelling can sometimes be confusing, the author makes it very clear to the reader who is doing the telling as each voice changes by naming the character instead of numbering chapters.

 

One thing I really liked about this book is the pace set by each of the characters. At times I felt like I couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough, and other times it felt like I could savor the words on the page. The funny thing about this book was that none of the characters appeared to be remarkable in an obvious way, yet I felt very drawn into the telling of their lives, especially as more and more about each of them was revealed.

 

If you’re looking for something a little bit different, I suggest you give The Floor of the Sky a try.

 

 

On the shelf: ‘The Killer Within: In the Company of Monsters’ by Philip Carlo

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By Grand Rapids Public Library

 

The irony of being stalked by an remorseless killer is never far from Carlo’s mind, as he writes his last book,  which is the one we are reading. Diagnosed with ALS in 2005, he became even more driven to finish his projects before his “deadline”, and the result is that we are able to learn a little about life from a courageous man.

 

A true-crime writer for nearly 30 years, Carlo specialized in contract and serial killers. In this memoir he explains how his life intersected and diverged with Mafia figures at an early age. An inappropriate sexual relationship with a young female teacher led to the revelation that he was dyslexic. She helped him to read and it changed his life so much that he realized he wanted to be a writer. Later, he would  be drawn to subjects growing out of his early life in Brooklyn. Events, good and bad, shaped his journey, including a chilling series of encounters with a pedophile that almost ended his life.

 

Carlo ultimately saw his mission in unearthing and exposing the root and branch of the sociopathic personality, to understand them and  to warn others. The juxtaposition of the relentless disease process of ALS, and the “monsters” of Carlo’s acquaintance is thought provoking. Because who is not fascinated by evil? As long as humanity has struggled to understand it’s secrets, so it eludes us.