Staff Recommendations

 

GIRLS OF A TENDER AGE
MARY ANN TIRONE-SMITH
(Free Press, $14)
In this memoir, novelist Mary-Ann Tirone Smith recounts growing up in a working class neighborhood in Hartford Connecticut in the late 1950s. When a serial pedophile murders her fifth grade classmate, her world and that of her family is forever changed. It’s a story of a loss of innocence, where blind trust is no longer prudent and doors are locked tight at night. It is also the story of her family adjusting to her younger brother, a boy with extreme autism, at a time when the affliction was mostly unrecognized and little understood. Mark LaFramboise

LET THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ERASE YOUR NAME
VENDELA VIDA
(Ecco, $24.95)
Clarissa is a young woman who finds that she cannot return to normal life after her father dies. He has kept a secret from her that throws her life into disarray. To find out who she really is, she travels to Lapland. Venela Vida’s straightforward prose is to the point, but never lacking in insight or emotional depth. Besides, how many novels take you to Lapland? It is a part of the world I knew nothing about. The mood of the book seems to echo the landscape in which it takes place. Mostly though, this is a book about seeking the truth and about overcoming the past. Susan Skirboll

AMERICA GONE WILD
TED RALL
(Andrews Mcmeel, $12.95)
Ted Rall is famous (perhaps infamous) for his cutthroat comics. He is blessed (or cursed) with the insight to see through those who seem above criticism. His 20/20 vision, however, gets Rall into trouble. America Gone Wild features some of Rall’s recent controversial work and goes into detail about the criticism it sparks – including death threats. One example is his scathing “terror widows” series in which he accuses some of the wives of 9-11 victims of being exploitive gold diggers. The collection of strips is enough to make this book entertaining, but his commentary about the scandals surrounding his work makes it worth the read. Anna Sellheim

IN PERSUASION NATION
GEORGE SAUNDERS
(Riverhead, $14)
George Saunders possesses a truly original wit. These stories are way out-there, as usual, hovering somewhere between the hilarious and the nightmarish. Saunders delivers his critique of our media-saturated, pop-cultured lives in comedy-coated bits, which would be easy to swallow if the reader weren’t convulsing with laughter. His ability to parrot the all-nonsense conversational style of adolescents is absurdly funny, a skill that is surely enhanced by his experience as a professor. I suggest you read this collection back-to-front; the darkly comic Commcomm, which rounds out the book, was actually the first Saunders creation that I consumed. I’ve been ravenous ever since. Brian Hodgdon

THE RAW SHARK TEXTS
STEVEN HALL
(Cannongate, $24)
Meet Eric Sanderson, the second. Not Eric Sanderson II, just the second Eric Sanderson, a blank slate left behind by a giant memory-eating shark that all but devoured the first Eric Sanderson. Conceptual fish are chasing our hero, and only words protect him. What the…? I know, but trust me, it will become clear, and you will not be able to put this book down. Steven Hall’s thrilling first novel is as good as it is hard to describe. Katherine Broadway

RED WEATHER
PAUL TOUTONGHI
(Three Rivers, $13)
Red Weather is a funny and touching story about a Latvian family who immigrated to Milwaukee. Father Rudolph Balodis works for Jack Baldwin Chevrolet as a janitor on the night shift and drinks bourbon the rest of the time. Yuri, their high school son, becomes entwined with the Grahams and their beautiful daughter, who are organizing for the International Socialist Organization. Needless to say, Rudolph is not enthusiastic about Yuri distributing pamphlets extolling the virtues of socialism. At the heart of the book is Yuri's gradual understanding of the world around him and particularly his parents. Carla Cohen

LOST CITY RADIO
DANIEL ALARCÓN
(HarperCollins, $24.95)
This powerful first novel is the story of an unnamed Latin American country fresh from a decade of civil war. It’s a moving depiction of a traumatized society that retains its essential humanity; there’s brutality and betrayal, but also generosity and hope. To help people find their missing loved ones (or help them live with their losses), Norma—whose husband has disappeared—hosts a radio program devoted to naming names. Her own losses take surprising turns when a village boy comes to the capital and contacts her. Alarcón’s writing is strong and lyrical. He’s as adept at evoking the physical realities of jungle and city as he is at showing the psychological complexities of hurt, angry, and weary people. (See also Alarcón’s outstanding story collection, War by Candlelight.) Laurie Greer

CURSES
KEVIN HUIZENGA
(Drawn and Quarterly, $21.95)
In my favorite of the comics in Curses, Glenn Ganges and his wife, Wendy, are faced with infertility. In a desperate attempt to conceive a child, Glenn must pluck a feather from the ogre who lives beneath the surface of the commercial sprawl of 28 th Street. He’s helped in his magical quest by a career waitress, a gas station attendant, and an employee at a box store (one of the “lost boys” of Sudan.) Like “28 th Street,” all of the stories in this collection have an eerie and perfect balance of the ordinary and the mythical. Each of Huizenga’s quirky, funny, fascinating comics stands alone, but they also combine to create a collective impression, a strong narrative thread, and—underneath it all—a phantom storyline of the life of Glenn and Wendy’s child. Emily Ellerbe

HOW TO BREATHE UNDERWATER
JULIE ORRINGER
(Vintage, $12.95)
Julie Orringer's collection of nine short stories captivated me completely. She explores human emotions from many different angles, and every perspective resonates. How to Breathe Underwater takes the reader through various landscapes and voices, tinged with bitterness and hope. In "Note to Sixth-Grade Self" an older woman directs her younger self through the trials of elementary school: "Do not look at Patricia and Cara as they extend their tongues at you …Forget you weigh sixty-nine pounds; stop wanting breasts so badly. So what if you wear glasses? So what if your skirt is not Calvin Klein?" When I read her stories I feel a bittersweet pang —like when summer ends or when friends break up. These are changes that sting at first, but soon make us who we really are and become the stories we tell. Becca Kirk

PERFUME
PATRICK SÜSKIND
(Vintage, $13.95)
Revisit this macabre tale from German writer Patrick Süskind before viewing Tom Twyker’s (Run Lola Run) long-awaited film adaptation. Süskind’s creation Grenouille is the ultimate lurker; he is born with no bodily scent, emitting instead a palpable wrongness that even the most resilient of caretakers cannot abide for long. The misfit is eventually apprenticed to a Parisian perfumer, where he hones his ironic counter-trait - a nose preternaturally adept at identifying and cultivating pleasing scents – to a point of obsession. We descend with the antihero through provincial France on his madman’s quest to distill the essence of life wherever he sniffs it out, at whatever cost to the living source. This is a stunning literary exploration of beauty’s pull and the power of the most evocative of senses. Brian Hodgdon

TRANSPARENT
CRIS BEAM
(Harcourt, $25)
Cris Beam went to L.A. with her partner and volunteered at a high school for LGBT youth where she commenced her own education in the lives of the transgender youth there. Beam’s prose kept me hooked throughout the moving narratives of the young trans women with whom she came to share her life. Likewise, although Beam does not call this a piece of sociology, I was grateful for the larger history and background on the experiences of transgender people both in the US and the world. If you’re curious to learn something new about the transgender experience, this book is a good place to start. David Quick

GRAVITY’S RAINBOW ILLUSTRATED
ZAK SMITH
(Tin House Books, $39.95)
This brash collection of sketches, paintings and the occasional photograph form an impressive companion to Pynchon’s stunning masterwork. Smith is well-steeped in both punk culture and comic book artistry, and the works herein are duly brazen and unflinching. The artist’s bold pen is particularly suited to render Pynchon’s super-sexual war narrative, with its numerous carnal couplings/groupings and its sadomasochistic theme of military dominance. The ladies are prevalent, the rockets are fueling and the chaos is paramount. Brian Hodgdon

EMMA’S WAR
DEBORAH SCROGGINS
(Vintage, $15)
A good friend suggested that I read this book about Emma McCune, a British aid worker in Sudan who marries the leader of one of the military factions in the ongoing civil war there. Scroggins lays out Sudan’s tragic colonial history which laid the foundation for the current war. But while telling that history, she casts a critical gaze at this idealistic woman who was unprepared for the power that came to her. In telling this captivating and disturbing story, Scroggins raises the question of whether anyone involved in a mission to another culture, whether religious, military, or humanitarian, is prepared for that experience. David Quick

THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN
PAUL ELIE
(FSG, $16)
If you missed Paul Elie’s unique four-part biography when it first came out, take another look. Although Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy knew each other only through their work and reputation, Elie’s assertion is that the lives of these four American Catholic writers were intimately connected and represented a distinctly Catholic American voice in the first half of the last century. My friends and I shared this book with each other excitedly, perhaps recreating some of the zeitgeist that Elie describes in the book. I think we were all simply captivated by and grateful for Elie’s reverence for these writers’ work and the part that they played in American history. David Quick 

AFTERLANDS
STEVEN HEIGHTON
(Houghton, $14.95)
Powerful plot, vivid characters, beautiful and evocative prose—any one of these would be enough for a memorable novel. Afterlands has all these attributes and more. Based on an actual incident from 1872-73, it tells the story of 19 people—Americans, Germans, Inuit—castaway in the Arctic and struggling to survive winter on an ice floe. Facing starvation, illness, paranoia, divided loyalties, and filth, the group is as unstable as the constantly shifting and splitting ice it depends on. Everyone survives, and Heighton traces the lives of the three central characters as they go their separate ways, deeply marked by their experiences. At once an adventure tale, a fierce psychological drama, and a love story, Heighton’s fiction is a stunning portrait of human nature, with its volatile mix of selfishness and generosity, openness and secrecy, love and treachery. Laurie Greer

CONTINENTAL DRIFT
RUSSELL BANKS
(Perennial, $15)
Russell Banks’ first critical success, Continental Drift follows a New England man who moves to Florida in search of a better life and a group of Haitian immigrants traveling north on the same mission. With both the ambition and authority of great American voices like Steinbeck or Bellow, Banks describes the unseen forces that move people to act and how those forces send them drifting—sometimes together, sometimes apart. From the first lines to the last you will be spellbound. Dan Rivas

FINGERSMITH
SARAH WATERS
(Riverhead, $15)
Now that the holidays are over, you need a good book to get you through the bleak midwinter. Grab yourself a comfy chair, a blanket, something good to drink and open up Fingersmith. Sue Trinder, a poor girl in Victorian London, is raised by a family of thieves. She is persuaded to pose as the maid of Maud Lilly, rich young woman in order to help steal her inheritance. But as Sue gets to know Maud, she finds that she has second thoughts about going through with the plot. What follows is an intense story of female friendship and betrayal, complete with exciting twists, turns, and unexpected revelations. WARNING: this book may cause late night reading and sudden cases of unputdownedness: approach with caution. Susan Skirboll

THE COLLECTED STORIES OF AMY HEMPEL
(Scribner, $27.50)
Being called a “writer’s writer” can be a kind of curse: it means unique, precise, distinctive talent that is critically acclaimed but not commercially successful. Sometimes this is only due to publishers’ inability to estimate the appeal of a writer’s work. How wonderful that Amy Hempel’s collected stories have been recognized by the New YorkTimes as one of the year’s 10 Best. These funny, heartbreaking stories are beloved by Hempel’s many admirers, but her work deserves a wider audience. Virginia Harabin

THE LONG MILE
CLYDE W. FORD
(Midnight Ink, $13.95)
John Shannon is an ex-cop who has been convicted of killing of a DEA officer. When he’s freed on a technicality, he returns to NYC hoping to find the person who framed him. But his homecoming is not a happy one. He’s arrested as soon as he’s released. Then his son is kidnapped. Not one to give himself over to a system that he feels has failed him, he sets out to find his son and tie the pieces together that landed him in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. This is a real page-turner introducing a character that you’ll want to read more about as the series unfolds. Deb Morris

UTOPIA PARKWAY
DEBORAH SOLOMON
(MFA, $22.50)
First considered surrealist, then abstract expressionist, and later, pop, Joseph Cornell’s intricate shadow boxes and collages in truth belong to the category of the wonderful. What was he like, this unique artist who constructed miniature stage sets with images of ballerinas, birds, movie stars, and even Susan Sontag? This fascinating biography doesn’t try to explain the work, but presents the artist as a complicated, obsessive, painfully lonely man, one who lived nearly all his life with his mother; was devoted to his younger, disabled brother; who worked in his basement; never threw anything away; and suffered continual, torturous infatuations, even as what he created from his longing gained an audience, and he counted as friends the leading figures of the art world.
(Cornell’s work is on exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through February 19, 2007—don’t miss it!) Laurie Greer

INFRASTRUCTURE: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape
BRIAN HAYES
(Norton, $35)
Look out the window and enjoy the scenery. Take a second look at that pig-launcher. If you get your mind right, Jersey’s as beautiful as any other place. End of story. Virginia Harabin

AFRICA
OLIVIER FOLLMI
(Abrams, $55)
The photograph on the cover is of a young shepherdess named Habiza from Burkina Faso. Hers is one of the dozens of portraits in the beautiful book. So many books on Africa focus on the wildlife, and this book contains some of those shots, it focuses more on the beauty of men and women from Namibia to Senegal. It’s a stunning book! Deb Morris

HOUSEKEEPING VS. THE DIRT
NICK HORNBY
(Believer Books, $14)
Nick Hornby’s column in the literary magazine The Believer is the first thing I turn to every month. His wise, witty, self deprecating voice makes me feel like I have a friend in the author. Hornby’s newest book, Housekeeping vs. the Dirt is a collection of the monthly essays that chronicle his reading habits – what he buys, what he reads, what he wants to read, and what he thinks about the literary world in general. Hornby’s passion for books and charismatic humor are not to be missed. Morgan McMillian

RICHARD COOK’S JAZZ ENCYCLOPEDIA
RICHARD COOK
(Penguin, $30)
The best thing about Richard Cook’s Jazz Encyclopedia is that it is so opinionated. In the mostly biographical entries about jazz, he pulls no punches in his assessments. On the saxophonist Archie Shepp, “A few recent performances on record have been close to embarrassing. . . .” Along with these observations, he gives a comprehensive look at the music and provides an important recording at the end of each biographical entry. And there are explanations of musical terms that are part of the lexicon of jazz. It’s educational and fun! Deb Morris

THE USES OF ENCHANTMENT
HEIDI JULAVITZ
(Doubleday, $24.95)
“What happened to Mary Veal when, at 16, she went missing from her girls prep school in Massachusetts?” This is the question at the center of Heidi Julavitz’ novel, The Uses of Enchantment. Chapters alternate between narratives of “What Might Have Happened” when Mary went missing in 1985, notes of the psychiatrist who treated Mary upon her return, and Mary’s return home to attend her mother’s funeral in 1999. This psychological thriller is shot through with the reverberations of the Salem witch trials and New England Puritanism. Katherine Broadway

THE BOOK AS ART
KRYSTYNA WASSERMAN
(Princeton Architectural Press, $55)
For years the National Museum of Women in the Arts has promoted artists’ books. It has a permanent collection devoted to the Book as Art containing over 800 works. This book highlights the work of women featured in an exhibition running through February 4 th. While it is well worth it to see these amazing works in person, this book provides views of the featured work and the rationale for the work of artists from all parts of the globe. They are beautiful, curious, funny, and thought-provoking works. The Book as Art is also a wonderful introduction to this art form. Deb Morris

MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS
KELLY LINK
(Harvest, $14.95)
Kelly Link’s collection of short stories is quirky and strange, spooky and funny. Her characters inhabit worlds that would seem familiar if it wasn’t for the zombies, magical handbags, and creepy bunny rabbits. Link creates believable scenarios out of outrageous material. “The Great Divorce” features a different sort of marriage counselor: Sarah Parminter is a medium who delivers the news to Alan Robley (living) that his wife Lavvie (dead when he met her, dead when he married her) wants a divorce. My favorite story is the first in the volume, “The Faery Handbag”, in which an entire village escapes destruction by relocating to a large handbag. Katherine Broadway

UNHOLY LOVES
LISA APPIGNANESI
(McArthur & Company, $19.95)
While this is not a sequel to Paris Requiem, it features the Comtess de Landois, Marguerite from that book. She is called home to the family estate by her husband who tells her that he plans to adopt an abandoned child that he has found. He also wishes that she resume her wifely duties. The smart and worldly Marguerite has no intention of giving up the life she has enjoyed in Paris, so she sets out to find the child’s true parentage. She becomes embroiled in murder, kidnapping and incest. Where does the Catholic Church fit in all this? Marguerite is a strong intelligent woman with a good detective’s instincts. I hope there will be more books about her adventures. Deb Morris

MASON’S RETREAT
CHRISTOPHER TILGHMAN
(Random House, $14.95)
I am a big fan of Christopher Tilghman. He writes about families and their complications. In Mason’s Retreat, newly reissued, you learn a little of the history of the Eastern shore of Maryland. I went to Chestertown after I read this because I was so interested in this old, old part of our nation, right by our door that I don’t know much about. Mason’s Retreat also deals with race relations. That part of Maryland is really Old South and you feel it. Carla Cohen

THE LAW OF DREAMS
PETER BEHRENS
(Steerforth, $24.95)
The Law of Dreams tells the story of Fergus, a young man roaming the Irish countryside in 1847, struggling to survive at the height of the Great Famine. The language is stark and lyrical, but the most remarkable thing about the novel is the narrative drive. The law of dreams, mentioned in the title is “never stop moving,” for if you stop moving you die. The author seems to have taken this to heart when he plotted the story because it unfolds at an unflinching pace and is really a great adventure story. Mark LaFramboise

TRAVELOGUES
BURTON HOLMES
(Taschen, $39.95)
They say travel broadens the mind. For Burton Holmes that was certainly true. He began traveling with his family as a small child. By the time he died in 1958, he had traveled the world over many times. He’s the man many believe responsible for the travelogue. He would travel to China or Spain and come back with pictures and present lectures about his travels. There’s a wonderful picture of Japanese schoolchildren in 1940 looking at a book called Burton Holmes and the Travelogue. He bought one of the first movie cameras so he could film his travels. There are hundreds of photos in this book, some of them stunning. Each one is a step back in time, from the Kaiser in the trenches to the beautiful Feluccas on the Nile in 1906. It’s great fun! Deb Morris

UP IS UP BUT SO IS DOWN
BRANDON STOSUY
(NYU Press, $29.95)
Up Is Up chronicles the scene in downtown Manhattan during the period from 1974 to1992. Throw your mind back to when it was common to see posters for fundraisers for women’s health clinics. There’s one here! There’s poetry that spans the decades from Patti Smith to Eileen Myles to Lydia Lunch. Stories by Kathy Acker, Sarah Shulman and Lynne Tillman are here too, as is work by writers and artists lost to AIDS like Keith Haring, Miguel Pinero and David Wojanarowicz. There’s an early appearance of Swimming to Cambodia by Spaulding Gray. For those of you who lived there and experienced it, it’s a trip down memory lane. For those who didn’t, it’s a fascinating look the avant-garde art scene of a great city. Deb Morris

ANGELS IN AFRICA
BETH O’DONNELL
(Vendome, $35)
What struck me first was the photo of the beautiful young woman on the cover. She is Edina Yahana an environmental activist in Tanzania who’s teaching the men and women of her country the importance of growing trees. She is one of the seven women featured in this book, all working on issues that are important to their country’s development from care of AIDS patients to protection of orphans. Aminate Dieye created a program that trains young girls in non-traditional jobs. In Senegal, that’s not an easy thing to do. O’Donnell who’s a photographer has given us a look into the work each of these women is doing. Kimberley Sevcik wrote the text. There is also information on providing assistance to the women and their work. Deb Morris

KNITTING WITH BALLS
MICHAEL DEL VECCHIO
(DK Adult, $20)
D. C. knitter Michael del Vecchio has written a book that fills a hole in the universe of knitting resources: a knitting guide for men. In addition to his lovely history of men's contribution to the craft, Michael has collected wonderful patterns that will appeal to knitters of all skill levels and genders, ranging from whimsically practical beer bottle and iPod cozies to simply beautiful hats, sweaters, and vests. And, most importantly, Michael writes clear and helpful instructions. David Quick

CROSS-X
JOE MILLER
(FSG, $26)
Though I don’t read non-fiction regularly, I was drawn to Cross-X by the cover, and I did not pick up another book until I finished it. Joe Miller visited the Kansas City Central High School (Kansas City, Missouri) debate team thinking he might like to write a newspaper feature on the team. He was taken on a journey that changed his world view and led him to break the boundaries associated with journalistic objectivity to become an assistant coach for the team. Kansas City Central has been known as one of the worst inner-city public schools in the nation. The debate team, however, has beaten the odds to win national titles. Cross-X is at once an expose of the hardships and racism of the Kansas City public school system and a celebration of one of the nation’s top debate teams. Katherine Broadway

THE END OF MR. Y
SCARLETT THOMAS
(Harvest, $14)
There is no chance I would pass up the chance to read a cursed book. Neither would Ariel, the surprisingly smart narrator of The End of Mr. Y. The cursed book leads to drug-induced alternate realities chased with mind reading and laced with heavy doses of theoretical physics. I am science illiterate, but this fast-paced novel was easy to understand, engrossing and provocative. Katherine Broadway

THE LOST THOUGHTS OF SOLDIERS
DELIA FALCONER
(Soft Skull, $16)
Readers enchanted by Falconer’s first novel, The Service of Clouds, will be surprised, but not disappointed, by her second. Here, she channels the voice of the aging Captain Frederick Benteen (who really lived), a veteran of the Battle of Little Bighorn. This novel contains some stunning language—stunning for its powerful lyricism, for its moments of stillness, stunning for the brutality and coarseness it depicts.  What was it like to be a soldier with Custer? Perhaps little different from what it’s like to be a soldier today: by turns tedious and depraved. On the warpath the men kept their sanity—when they kept it—by forging a special camaraderie based on their own brand of humor, dreams, and raw earthiness. “This is what you did before a battle…you had to fold your life like a jacket you would return to, and leave it…” Laurie Greer

ST. LUCY’S HOME FOR GIRLS RAISED BY WOLVES
KAREN RUSSELL
(Knopf, $22)
In these compelling short stories, Karen Russell creates worlds that are bizarre yet familiar: feral girls experience their awkward first dance, a girl feels left out because her sister is possessed by her boyfriend, and young campers sleep away at a camp for disordered dreamers. Everything ordinary is made extraordinary--yet the reader is still able to relate to the characters, who are simply trying to make sense of their lives. These stories are darkly imaginative, heartbreaking, and beautifully written. Becca Kirk

THE 9/11 REPORT: A GRAPHIC ADAPTATION
SID JACOBSON & ERNIE COLÓN
(Hill and Wang, $16.95)
This graphic adaptation achieves the goals of accessibility and readability set by the 9/11 commission for the publication and dissemination of its findings and recommendations about the attacks on September 11, 2001. Jacobson and Colón have set the words of the commission against a stunning visual backdrop which helped to illuminate my confusion around 9/11, Al Quaeda, Iraq and national security. The report is informative, respectful of the tragedy, and broad-minded in its recommendations for domestic and foreign policy to aid in ending terrorist attacks on the United States. Katherine Broadway

THE FOURTH BEAR
JASPER FFORDE
(Viking, $24.95)
Detective Jack Spratt is back in Jasper Fforde’s second installation in the wacky Nursery Crimes Series. DCI Spratt, his assistant detective Mary Mary, and Constable Ashley (resident alien) make up the Nursery Crimes Division. When Jack is blamed for getting Red Riding Hood and her grandmother eaten by the Big Bad Wolf, he is pulled off the latest case: the 13 foot tall psychopathic Gingerbreadman has escaped from St. Bartholomew’s insane asylum. Spratt and Mary are instead forced to investigate Goldilocks’ disappearance and the possible connection to her support of local talking bears and the failed “right to arm bears” legislation. Fforde’s latest satire is full of clever references to familiar characters, such as cameos by Punch and Judy and used car salesman Dorian Gray. Katherine Broadway

SPANKING THE DONKEY
MATT TAIBBI
(Three Rivers Press, $13.95)
Just as it took a blistering monologue from comedian Stephen Colbert to voice our outrage at Bush, you need to send in a clown like Matt Taibbi to speak the truth about the mind-numbing emptiness of today’s political campaigns. Reporting for Rolling Stone, Taibbi covers the D side of what lamentably became the Bush-Kerry throwdown -- “the most prolonged insult to human dignity the world has ever seen.” Brutally funny, fearless, and insightful, Taibbi proves there is at least is a speck of sentient life left in journalism. Virginia Harabin

 

Find out how to become a member!

---