Paperback: 672 pages
copyright 1946
ISBN: 0156004801
[RECOMMENDED by Carol Matzke: This story of how
power in politics can corrupt the souls of mankind is still relevant today even
though the setting is America in the 1930s.]
Summary...This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized
account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the nation's most astounding
politicians. All the King's Men tells the story of Willie Stark, a southern-fried
politician who builds support by appealing to the common man and playing dirty
politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. Though Stark quickly sheds
his idealism, his right-hand man, Jack Burden -- who narrates the story -- retains
it and proves to be a thorn in the new governor's side. Stark becomes a successful
leader, but at a very high price, one that eventually costs him his life.
The award-winning book is a play of politics, society and personal affairs,
all wrapped in the cloak of history. Author Robert Penn Warren, (1905-1989),
who was America's first Poet Laureate, won three Pulitzer Prizes and virtually
every other major award given to American writers.
At Large and At Small: Familiar
Essays by Anne Fadiman
Hardcover: 240 pages
Straus and Giroux; (June 12, 2007)
ISBN: 0374106622
[RECOMMENDED by Martha Church: This collection of essays is like opening
a book of gourmet assorted chocolates - each one is a delight to be savored. Before
you bite into each one you have no idea what you will find inside - exquisitely
written.]
From Booklist... Fadiman begins her second essay collection by quoting her
father, the waggish intellectual of page, radio, and television Clifton Fadiman,
lamenting the impending demise of the "familiar essay." Decades
later, Anne is happy to report that the essay has survived, even if the familiar
essay is now less, well, familiar than the critical or personal essay. A
familiar essay is a confiding, inquiring, and witty reflection on a passionately
considered subject. This intimate form was perfected by Charles Lamb, a writer
Anne adores. With Lamb and her father serving as muses, Fadiman writes funny
and keen essays that seemingly without effort mesh the personal with the
literary and historical to surprising and edifying ends. Fadiman finds lessons
for living in the contemplation of ice cream and coffee, the adventures of
an Arctic explorer, and the collecting of butterflies. A master of the tangential,
a close observer, and a lover of language, Fadiman is blithely brilliant
in her pursuit of beauty and meaning as she wrestles with questions of life,
death, and rebirth.
The Custom of the Country by
Edith Wharton
Paperback: 368 pages
[RECOMMENDED (along with Edith Wharton's "The Reef") by Carole
Giebitz]
Synopsis...Highly acclaimed at its publication in 1913, "The Custom of
the Country" is a cutting commentary on America’s nouveaux riches,
their upward-yearning aspirations and their eventual downfalls. Through her
heroine, the beautiful and ruthless Undine Spragg, a spoiled heiress who looks
to her next materialistic triumph as her latest conquest throws himself at
her feet, Edith Wharton presents a startling, satiric vision of social behavior
in all its greedy glory. As Undine moves from America’s heartland to
Manhattan, and then to Paris, Wharton’s critical eye leaves no social
class unscathed.
The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary
Life of Christopher Hogwood by Sy Montgomery
Paperback: 272 pages
Ballantine Books (April 17, 2007)
ISBN: 0345496094
[RECOMMENDED by Jampa Williams: Delicious writing,
full of truth and joy and intelligence--and I LOVE animals. The writer
is both a scientist and a lover of all life, as well as a superb writer. What's
not to love?!]
From Booklist...*Starred Review* No less an authority
than the great biologist E. O. Wilson has affirmed the significance of our intrinsic
affinity for other living organisms, our biophilia, and it's obvious from naturalist
Montgomery's unforgettable books about tigers, pink dolphins, and the golden
moon bear that she is an animal lover of the first order. Now she chronicles
the life of the animal her life revolved around for 14 years, a pig named Christopher
Hogwood: 750 pounds of bliss, affection, and good cheer. Even as a runt he had
a special aura, and once Montgomery and her husband, the writer Howard Mansfield,
nursed him into robust health on their New Hampshire homestead, he proved to
be an exceptionally intelligent, sociable, and loving companion, if rather demanding.
It took a village to keep Christopher fed and entertained, and Montgomery's
descriptions of Christopher's amazing adventures and celebrity status are hilarious,
enchanting, and deeply affecting. Joyful and serene, smart and friendly, Christopher
soothed many a troubled heart, and Montgomery writes with extraordinary lucidity,
candor, and grace about what this good, good pig taught her and others about
life, love, happiness, and all that we share with our fellow species on this
precious planet.
In an Instant:
A Family's Journey of Love and Healing by Bob & Lee Woodruff
Paperback: 304 pages
Feb. 2007
Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN:
0812978250
[RECOMMENDED by Barbara Groundwater]
From Publishers Weekly... Starred Review. There's
a reason Lee Woodruff's name comes first in this collaboration. While this
celebrity memoir revolves around the war injuries suffered by ABC News anchor
Bob Woodruff, it's really his wife's story. Drawn from the journals she kept
during his recovery and also delving deeply into the history of the couple's
courtship and family life, this gritty memoir is well served by Lee's capable
and compelling speaking voice. Woodruff's vocal control is strong, even mesmerizing,
and she peppers the grave reminiscences with funny stories and witty observations.
Her voice sometimes breaks with emotion, whether describing her fears after
learning of her husband's condition or earlier heartaches when coping with
a miscarriage or learning of the profound hearing loss of one of their twin
daughters. Bob intervenes occasionally to describe his family, various career
ups and downs, and what he remembers about the incident that rendered him a
casualty of war. Listeners may wish to have a tissue or two on hand while they
listen to this beautiful story of marriage for better and for worse.
Saving
the World by Julia Alvarez
Paperback: 400 pages
A Shannon Ravenel Book (April 27, 2007)
ISBN: 1565125584
[RECOMMENDED by Ruth Schoppert]
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com:
Julia Alvarez isn't afraid to ask hard questions. "Saving the World," as
the title suggests, confronts one that's troubled every great religion: how
to deal with social inequity. How can a person of sensitivity and conscience
justify being one of "the lucky ones," as Alvarez puts it, when so
many people elsewhere in the world haven't got the means to live, let alone "to
be a human being"? Who can be saved, and how? Alma Rodriguez Huebner,
the heroine of this novel, is a writer without a story. Drowning in midlife
depression, she's years behind on a book she's unable to write, and she's struggling
to meet the demands of increasingly dependent but distant parents. The bonds
of friendship and marriage seem more tenuous to her by the day. "Saving
The World" depicts the need to belong to something greater and more enduring
than ourselves, whether that something be a social commitment, a world-saving
expedition or a book. Whether we respond to the troubling question of inequality
from a religious perspective (it's not an accident that "Alma" is
the Spanish word for "soul") or a secular one -- Alvarez's search
for that answer is a remarkable examination of conscience.
Small Island by
Andrea Levy
448 pages
Picador (February 24, 2005)
ISBN: 0312424671
[RECOMMENDED by Edie Booth: Set in post-war England. The
characters are enchanting, a fast-moving story of migration with racial overtones.]
From
Publishers Weekly... Starred Review. After winning the Orange Prize and the Whitbread
Book of the Year Award, Levy's captivating fourth novel sweeps into a U.S.
edition with much-deserved literary fanfare. Set mainly in the British Empire
of 1948, this story of emigration, loss and love follows four characters—two
Jamaicans and two Britons—as they struggle to find
peace in postwar England. After serving in the RAF, Jamaican Gilbert Joseph
finds life in his native country has become too small for him. But in order
to return to England, he must marry Hortense Roberts—she's got enough
money for his passage—and then set up house for them in London. The pair
move in with Queenie Bligh, whose husband, Bernard, hasn't returned from his
wartime post in India. But when does Bernard turn up, he is not pleased to
find black immigrants living in his house. This deceptively simple plot poises
the characters over a yawning abyss of colonialism, racism, war and the everyday
pain that people inflict on one another. Levy allows readers to see events
from each of the four character's' point of view, lightly demonstrating both
the subjectivity of truth and the rationalizing lies that people tell themselves
when they are doing wrong. None of the characters is perfectly sympathetic,
but all are achingly human. When Gilbert realizes that his pride in the British
Empire is not reciprocated, he wonders, "How come England did not know
me?" His question haunts the story as it moves back and forth in time
and space to show how the people of two small islands become inextricably
bound together.
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old
Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson by
Mitch Albom
192 pages
Broadway (October 8, 2002)
ISBN: 076790592X
[RECOMMENDED by Janice Montgomery: The relationship between two generations,
that developed as student and professor, is a delight!]
Summary...This true story about the love between a spiritual mentor and his
pupil has soared to the bestseller list for many reasons. For starters: it
reminds us of the affection and gratitude that many of us still feel for the
significant mentors of our past. It also plays out a fantasy many of us have
entertained: what would it be like to look those people up again, tell them
how much they meant to us, maybe even resume the mentorship? Plus, we meet
Morrie Schwartz--a one of a kind professor, whom the author describes as looking
like a cross between a biblical prophet and Christmas elf. And finally we are
privy to intimate moments of Morrie's final days as he lies dying from a terminal
illness. Even on his deathbed, this twinkling-eyed mensch manages to teach
us all about living robustly and fully. Kudos to author and acclaimed sports
columnist Mitch Albom for telling this universally touching story with such
grace and humility.
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Hardcover: 160 pages
ISBN: 0375414290
[RECOMMENDED by Selma Lobel: “Wonderful insight
to the horrors inflicted on American Japanese during the second world war--and
so applicable to our country today."
From
The New Yorker...This exceptional first novel is about a Japanese family in
Berkeley, California, during the Second World War. After the father is arrested
for treason, the mother, daughter, and son are sent to an internment camp,
where the girl tells her brother bedtime stories about the desert beyond the
barbed-wire fence, and the boy whispers the forbidden name of the Japanese
emperor when he thinks no one is listening. Otsuka skillfully dramatizes a
world suddenly foreign, from the "No Japs Allowed" sign at the movie
theatre to the horse meat served at dinner in the camp. The implicit questions
about culpability resonate with particular power right now, but Otsuka's incantatory,
unsentimental prose is the book's greatest strength. It turns our ideas of
beauty on their head, as when the boy uneasily remembers a treasured glimpse
of the horses he now eats: "They had long black tails and dark flowing
manes and he had watched them galloping in the moonlight across the flat
dusty plain and then for three nights in a row he had dreamed of them."
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