Blue Back Book Break group recommendations (alphabetical by title)
April 21, 2008

"Edith's Story" by Edith Velmans
[Recommended by Edith Booth - "A perfect story of courage, faith and love.  A wonderful example for our youth today."]
From Kirkus Reviews... This significant Holocaust memoir of a girl hiding in Holland will be compared to Anne Frank's diary, though it is very different. Yes, Edith went into hiding in the same city and same month as Anne Frank, and her mother even met Miep Gies, who hid the Franks. But while the Frank diary took decades to get recognized, this book (largely in diary format) was condensed by Reader's Digest, won a literary award in England, and will be published in four other languages. Anne was also a precocious preteen, but more famous for diary entries on her family's psychology and philosophical musings. Edith isn't analytical, but her description is superior. Because she was, at 14, an ordinary teenager, she talks about boys, skating, school, and clothes. A very secular person with a Jewish grandmother, Edith sees herself as Jewish when Nazi laws forbid her from attending school or riding her bike. In another major difference from Anne Frank, Edith survives to double her diary's content with adult comments. A valuable opportunity to see the situation just outside Anne's attic.
239 pages
1569471789

"Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality" by Pauline W. Chen
[Recommended by Joseph Cadieux]
From Publishers Weekly... Like most physicians, Chen, a transplant surgeon and former UCLA faculty member, entered medicine in order to save lives. But as a medical student in the 1980s, she discovered that she had to face death repeatedly and "found disturbing inconsistencies" as she learned from teachers and colleagues "to suspend or suppress any shared human feelings for my dying patients." Chen writes with immaculately honed prose and moral passion as she recounts her quest to overcome "lessons in denial and depersonalization," vividly evoking the paradoxes of end-of-life care in an age of life-preserving treatments. Chen charts her personal and professional rites of passage in dealing with mortality, from her first dissection of a human cadaver, through the first time she pronounces a patient dead, to having to officially took responsibility for the accidental death of a patient in her care. Focusing on the enormous moral and psychological pressures on doctors and on the need for greater empathy in hospital end-of-life care, Chen also reports on signs of change within the profession, stemming from both criticisms of training and institutions and from physicians' initiatives to bring a greater sense of shared humanity to their work.
288 pages
Vintage; Reprint edition (January 8, 2008)
ISBN: 030727537X

"The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai
[Recommended by Aileen Sperber - "A well written book with great insight into the eternal situation of the immigrant."]
From Publishers Weekly... Starred Review. This stunning second novel from Desai (Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard) is set in mid-1980s India, on the cusp of the Nepalese movement for an independent state. Jemubhai Popatlal, a retired Cambridge-educated judge, lives in Kalimpong, at the foot of the Himalayas, with his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and his cook. The makeshift family's neighbors include a coterie of Anglophiles who might be savvy readers of V.S. Naipaul but who are, perhaps, less aware of how fragile their own social standing is?at least until a surge of unrest disturbs the region. Jemubhai, with his hunting rifles and English biscuits, becomes an obvious target. Besides threatening their very lives, the revolution also stymies the fledgling romance between 16-year-old Sai and her Nepalese tutor, Gyan. The cook's son, Biju, meanwhile, lives miserably as an illegal alien in New York. All of these characters struggle with their cultural identity and the forces of modernization while trying to maintain their emotional connection to one another. In this alternately comical and contemplative novel, Desai deftly shuttles between first and third worlds, illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a better life, when one person's wealth means another's poverty.384 pages
Grove Press (August 29, 2006)
ISBN: 0802142818

"Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen" by Bob Greene
[Recommended by Martha Church]
From Publishers Weekly... Chicago Tribune columnist Greene (Duty) provides a moving, detailed remembrance of North Platte, Neb., and its residents' selfless contribution to the war effort during WWII. The town, located in the middle of the middle of the country, was situated on the rail line to western military bases. Ignited by a letter printed in a local newspaper, the town's residents organized a canteen for soldiers headed for the front lines, bringing food, cigarettes and magazines. Beyond the wartime recollections, Greene reflects on his travels in the region, skillfully chronicling its citizens, evolution and love for its past, using the intimate, engaging writing style familiar to readers of his syndicated column. Those intrigued with WWII lore will find this well-crafted book an entertaining snapshot of a simpler, kinder America. Greene's skill makes this homage not just a time capsule but a work that will strike a resonating chord in those seeking to remember the generosity and selflessness of many when faced with adversity and peril.
272 pages
William Morrow; 1st ed edition (May 28, 2002)
ISBN: 0060081961

"War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" by Chris Hedges
From Library Journal... This moving book examines the continuing appeal of war to the human psyche. Veteran New York Times correspondent Hedges argues that, to many people, war provides a purpose for living; it seems to allow the individual to rise above regular life and perhaps participate in a noble cause. Having identified this myth, Hedges then explodes it by showing the brutality of modern war, using examples taken from his own experiences as a war correspondent in Latin America, the Middle East, and the Balkans. These examples highlight the devastating effects of war on life, community, and culture and its corruption of business and government. Hedges is not a pacifist, acknowledging that people need to battle evil, but he thoughtfully cautions us against accepting the accompanying myths of war. This should be required reading in this post-9/11 world as we debate the possibility of war with Iraq. For all libraries.
192 pages
Public Affairs (September 3, 2002)
ISBN: 1586480499

"When the Emperor Was Divine" by Julie Otsuka
[Recommended by Beverly Lavendar - "It simplicity brings the characters into clarity.  We are reminded there is cruelty in any political system, including ours."]
Review... Otsuka researched historical sources and her own grandparents' experiences as background for this spare yet poignant first novel about the ordeal of a Japanese family sent to an internment camp during World War II. Its perspective shifts among different family members as the story unfolds. We see the mother numbly pack up the family's middle-class belongings to leave behind in their Berkeley home. The dehumanizing train trip to the camp, and the bleak internment in the alkaline Nevada desert, as related by the young son and daughter, become mythic events. Otsuka's clear, elegant prose makes these themes accessible to a range of reading levels from young adult on. Highly recommended for all libraries
160 pages
ISBN: 0375414290

"Wild Nights!: Stories About the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway" by Joyce Carol Oates
[Recommended by Ruth Schoppert - "Sophisticated horror, but very intriguing."]
The New York Times review... dysfunction is the subject of [this] hilarious and harrowing new collection, Wild Nights! With a title borrowed from Emily Dickinson's fiery poem of longing...these stories ingeniously imagine the last documented days (or nights) of Dickinson and four other writers: Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Henry James and Ernest Hemingway. It's a gem of a book...about creativity and age and the complicated, anxiety-ridden relationship between the two.
HarperCollins Publishers
Pub. Date: April 2008
ISBN: 9780061434792
238pp

back to Blue Back Book Group page