LAVA Discussion Book Candidates for 2009

This list comes from several sources, including suggestions from LAVA members, “Minister’s Picks” at the First Unitarian bookstore, favorites of other book clubs, critics’ lists of “The Year’s Best Books,” etc.  Several were carried over from the previous voting list.  There are 25 books on this list, but we will choose only 8 of them in this balloting, which means that many worthwhile books unfortunately will be excluded from next year’s reading schedule.  As before, the most popular runners-up will be included in the next list of candidates.

Why do we need to choose only 8 books to cover 12 meetings?  We don’t read a book for January because that month is occupied with choosing the next list of books.  In March we read the book chosen by Writers and Books for the “If all of Rochester Read the Same Book” program.  In July and September we see a film at The Little Theater instead of discussing a book.  Therefore we need to choose only 8 books to cover a full year.

LAVA members are encouraged to research these book candidates in bookstores, libraries, on the web, etc.  Bring this list and your thoughts to the special January meeting at my house at 5 PM on Saturday, January 10, which will be devoted to sharing information and opinions on these books (and eating good food!)

After the January 10 meeting and prior to the voting deadline of Sunday February 1, please “mark your ballots” and get them to me.  First review our guidelines for choosing LAVA discussion books, which reflect some of the things we have learned about choosing books over the years.  Then, using a system similar to the one used in the Olympics, rate each book individually on a scale of 1 to 10, using 10 to indicate books that you think would generate the best Lava discussions.  If you wish, you can write your rating for each book in the margins of this document.  Last year, several members marked their rating for each book while we discussed it during the January meeting and then handed their list to me as they left, but you can use any method you prefer as long as you get your ratings to me by the voting deadline.

The candidates are divided into three groups: shorter fiction, shorter nonfiction, and longer works.  This division doesn’t affect how you cast your vote, but it does affect how the final schedule is created.  If no nonfiction book is among the top vote-getters, the most popular nonfiction book will go on the list anyway to assure that we get a little variety in our reading.  Any of the longer books among the top vote-getters will be assigned to the August and October meetings because we will have two months to read them.

Candidates for Regular Meetings (fiction)

American Pastoral by Philip Roth. 423 pages, 1998. An all-American boy marries Miss New Jersey and they seem to settle into the perfect life. During the Viet Nam war, however, their teen-age daughter turns to terrorism as a means of protest. This novel won the Pulitzer Prize and is part of a trilogy that includes The Human Stain, which LAVA read in November 2008 (and liked very much). New York Times: "One of Roth's most powerful novels ever...moving, generous and ambitious...a fiercely affecting work of art." Boston Globe: “a wrenching, compassionate, intelligent novel." Additional critical comments: http://www.answers.com/topic/american-pastoral-critical-overview 17 copies in the library system.

Eventide, by Kent Haruf.  300 pages, 2004.  Like Plainsong, which we read in 2001, the setting is a small town in Wyoming, and a major theme is the possibility of building a “created family” from caring friends.  Publishers Weekly: “Haruf's follow-up to the critically acclaimed and bestselling Plainsong is as lovely and accomplished as its predecessor. . . While there is much sadness and hardship in this portrait of a community, Haruf's sympathy for his characters, no matter how flawed they are, make this an uncommonly rich novel.”  Kirkus Reviews describes it as “melancholy truths set to gorgeous melody.”  Washington Post: “A kind book in a cruel world. . . [with] honest impulses, real people and the occasional workings of grace.”  The New York Times said it has, “The lovely, measured grace of an old hymn.”  Here are several reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/eventide. 37 copies in the library system.

The Master, by Colm Toibin. 338 pages, 2004. This imagined portrait of Henry James, author of several classics (including Turn of the Screw, which LAVA read in 2005), won the 2007 International Dublin Literary Award, was short-listed for the Booker Prize and was designated as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times. Washington Post: “Say, with due reverence, ‘the Master’ and any serious novel-reader instantly knows you are referring to Henry James. . . . Colm Toibin has written a superb novel about a great artist, and done it in just the right way.” Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, which LAVA read in 2001, says, “In The Master, Colm Toibin takes us almost shockingly close to the soul of Henry James and, by extension, to the mystery of art itself. It is a remarkable, utterly original book.” Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/the_master. Suggested by Bill and Andi. 16 copies in the library system.

The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson. 294 pages, 2006. Long-listed for the Booker Prize, this novel was written by the author of Crow Lake, which LAVA read in February, 2008. Publishers Weekly: “In this follow-up to her acclaimed Crow Lake, Lawson again explores the moral quandaries of life in the Canadian North. At the story's poles are Arthur Dunn, a stolid, salt-of-the-earth farmer, and his brother, Jake, a handsome, smooth-talking snake in the grass.” The Washington Post: “The Other Side of the Bridge is an admirable novel. Its old-fashioned virtues were also apparent in Crow Lake-- narrative clarity, emotional directness, moral context and lack of pretension -- but Lawson has ripened as a writer, and this second novel is much broader and deeper. The author draws her characters with unobtrusive humor and compassion, and she meets one of the fiction writer's most difficult challenges: to portray goodness believably, without sugar or sentiment.” Penelope Lively in The Guardian: “An enthralling read, both straight-forward and wonderfully intricate.” Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/other_side_of_the_bridge. 20 copies in the library system.

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. 258 pages, 2005. Translated from Norwegian. ”An early morning adventure out stealing horses leads to the tragic death of one boy and a resulting lifetime of guilt and isolation for his friend, in this moving tale about the painful loss of innocence and of traditional ways of life that are gone forever.” Sunday Telegraph: "By the end, when all the pieces fall into place, we can see how elegantly Petterson has constructed matters, letting us live in a mystery we don't know needs solving until the solution is presented." New Yorker: “Petterson’s spare and deliberate prose has astonishing force.” Named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times. Winner of several awards, including the 2007 International Dublin Literary Award. New York Times review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/books/review/McGuane.html?pagewanted=all 19 copies in the library system.

The Sea by John Banville. 2005, 195 pages. Won the Booker Prize for 2005. Max Mordent is “a middle-aged Irishman who has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child to cope with the recent loss of his wife. It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well-heeled family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. What Max comes to understand about the past, and about its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, gorgeously written novel.” The Independent: “[Banville] is prodigiously gifted. He cannot write an unpolished phrase.” The Scotsman: “This is a novel in which all Banville’s remarkable gifts come together to produce a real work of art, disquieting, disturbing, beautiful, intelligent, and in the end, surprisingly, offering consolation.” The Sunday Telegraph: “With his fastidious wit and exquisite style, John Banville is the heir to Nabokov. . . . The Sea [is] his best novel so far.” Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/sea 31 copies in the library system.

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles. 335 pages, 1949. Two young people travel through the Sahara in hope of overcoming their world-weariness and recapturing the love they once shared. The indifferent desert, however, is more than they can understand or handle. This classic from the Existentialist/Beat period was made into a movie in 1990 starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich. Bowles lived the last 50 years of his life in Morocco. Tobias Wolff: "[The Sheltering Sky] is one of the most original, even visionary, works of fiction to appear in this century." Sunday Observer: “Now and then….a novel appears which does not repeat the pattern of commonplace existence…but makes us realize that our life is extraordinary. The Sheltering Sky is such a novel.” A contemporary review by Tennessee Williams: http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/bowles-sheltering.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Suggested by Ertem. 11 copies in the library system plus four videos.

The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar. 2005, 321 pages. “Thrity Umrigar's poignant novel about a wealthy woman and her downtrodden servant offers a revealing look at class and gender roles in modern day Bombay. Alternatively told through the eyes of Sera, a Parsi widow whose pregnant daughter and son-in-law share her elegant home, and Bhima, the elderly housekeeper who must support her orphaned granddaughter, Umrigar does an admirable job of creating two sympathetic characters whose bond goes far deeper than that of employer and employee.” Washington Post: “Artists know very well that a good way to depict overwhelming social problems is to tell the story of an individual who represents many others…. India's complex struggle with poverty, class and overpopulation amid political change poses special challenges in this regard, but Thrity Umrigar has created two wonderfully sympathetic characters who do much to make that country's complex nature comprehensible…. Umrigar is a skilled storyteller, and her memorable characters will live on for a long time.” Booklist: “[An] elegant tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate.” Alice Walker: “The Space Between Us is a great book; I love it.” Suggested by Tess’ friend’s book club in Chicago. Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/space_between_us. 16 copies in the library system.

Waiting, by Ha Jin.  308 pages, 1999.  This novel won the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and one of the author’s other novels was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A young Chinese doctor agrees to an arranged marriage that he soon regrets.  He falls in love with another woman and asks for a divorce, but his wife refuses.  Legally he must wait 18 years before he can force the divorce and consummate his love.  What personal price does an individual (and, by implication, an entire society) pay for adhering too unquestioningly to the rules?  Boston Globe: “A subtle beauty…. a sad, poignantly funny tale.”  New York Times: “A suspenseful and bracing tough-minded love story…. We're immediately engaged by its narrative structure, by its wry humor and by the subtle, startling shifts it produces in our understanding of the characters and their situation.” The scenes alternate between city and village life, showing many details of contemporary life in China. A detailed commentary: http://www.answers.com/topic/waiting-novel 28 copies in the library system

The World to Come by Dara Horn. 314 pages, 2006. A man steals a Chagall painting that once hung in his bedroom as a child, convinced that it still rightfully belongs to his family. This is the second novel for Horn, who is a doctoral candidate in Hebrew and Yiddish literature at Harvard. It explores a wide variety of topics, including Chagall’s life, ancient Jewish mysticism and the tumultuous experience of Jews in Russia immediately after the communist revolution. The phrase “the world to come” refers both to the afterlife and to this life as seen from the viewpoint of those who have not yet been born. Booklist: “A compelling collage of history, mystery, theology, and scripture, The World to Come is a narrative tour de force crackling with conundrums and dark truths.” Los Angeles Times: “An accomplished work that beautifully explains how families - in all their maddening, smothering, supportive glory—create us.” Kirkus Reviews: “An appealing journey into the past…An engrossing adventure…a remarkably coherent, finely crafted tale.” Washington Post: "Captivating and startling... it stays aloft in the mind like a dream you can't decide was sweet or frightening.” Recommended by Andi’s fiction book club. Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/world_to_come. 16 copies in library system.  

Candidates for Regular Meetings (non-fiction)

Benjamin Franklin. For this discussion, LAVA members would have the choice of reading any of the following books. When you vote, you will be giving a single rating to this entire section, not to each individual book in it.

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. From 145 to 160 pages, depending on the edition, 1771. “One of the most famous and influential examples of autobiography ever written.” 12 copies in the library system.
• Benjamin Franklin by Edmund Morgan, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University. 314 pages 2002. Joseph Ellis, London Review of Books: "While several previous biographies provide fuller accounts of Franklin's life, none rivals Morgan's study for its grasp of Franklin's character, its affinity not just for his ideas, but for the way his mind worked." New York Review of Books: "Superb... The best short biography of Franklin ever written. A concise and beautifully written portrait of an American hero." A Notable Book of the Year according to The New York Times; a best book for 2002 according to the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly; a finalist for the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography; and a New York Times Bestseller. Review in Foreign Affairs: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030101fabook10252/edmund-s-morgan/benjamin-franklin.html 15 copies in the library system.
• Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. 493 pages, 2004.
• The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands. 716 pages, 2000.

Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for New York Times who lives in Brighton. 336 pages, 2007. “How did our strong and growing economy give way to job uncertainty, debt, bankruptcy, and fear for millions of Americans? Acclaimed reporter David Cay Johnston reveals how government policies and spending have reached deep into the wallets of the many to benefit the top 1% of the wealthiest.” John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard family of mutual funds: “If you’re concerned about congressional earmarks, stock options (especially backdated options), hedge fund tax breaks, abuse of eminent domain, subsidies to sports teams, K Street lobbyists, the state of our health-care system, to say nothing of the cavernous gap between rich and poor, you’ll read this fine book—as I did—with a growing sense of outrage. Free Lunch makes it clear that it’s high time for ‘We the People’ to stand up and be counted.” Kirkus Reviews: “An exhaustive litany of federal, state and even local giveaways to the very wealthy.” Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cay_Johnston Suggested by Tess, who read one of Johnston’s earlier books and is his neighbor. Tess says Johnston has agreed to come to the LAVA discussion if we choose this book. 45 copies in the library system.

Here If You Need Me: A True Story by Kate Braestrup. 2007, 211 pages. After the death of her husband, Braestrup became a Unitarian Universalist minister, serving as chaplain to the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts search-and-rescue operations that deal with everything from lost hikers to missing children, accidents, murders and suicides. Washington Post: "A superbly crafted memoir of love, loss, grief, hope and the complex subtleties of faith.... [Braestrup is] remarkable, steady, peaceful and wise." Boston Globe: "As gripping as any police thriller." Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Even the most jaded secularist would fall for the chaplain of the Maine Warden Service.” This best-selling memoir was suggested by Mary Lyubomirsky, music and arts coordinator at the church. Here is an excerpt: http://www.uuworld.org/spirit/articles/50622.shtml 30 copies in the library system.

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, who is both a doctor and a writer for The New Yorker. 279 pages, 2005. The church bookstore has a copy that you can browse through. “In this myth-shattering work, Jerome Groopman explores the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. He pinpoints why doctors succeed and why they err. Most important, Groopman shows when and how doctors can—with our help—avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health.” San Francisco Chronicle: “A fascinating exploration of the subconscious forces that influence how doctors approach illness.” Washington Post: “Groopman catalogues the many species of clinical errors, a whole taxonomy of misperceptions and wrong conclusions illustrated with real examples offered as representative types. All are fascinating, a few are chilling.” Journal of the American Medical Association: “It could easily be used as a study guide for medical residents and fellows to teach pitfalls in cognitive and communicative skills or as entertaining educational material to improve one’s diagnostic acumen. Either way, it is a joy to read.” New England Journal of Medicine: “Engaging and accessible to the lay reader but also thoroughly credible and interesting to a professional audience.” New York Times: “This is medicine at its best, ‘a mix of science and soul.’” Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/how_doctors_think/ 34 copies in the library system.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs. 200-250 pages, depending on the edition, 1861. Library Journal: “Published in 1861, this was one of the first personal narratives by a slave and one of the few written by a woman. Jacobs (1813-97) was a slave in North Carolina and suffered terribly, along with her family, at the hands of a ruthless owner. She made several failed attempts to escape before successfully making her way North, though it took years of hiding and slow progress. Eventually, she was reunited with her children.” Suggested by Tess: “If folks are feeling like they already know Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs presents an equally compelling but less well-known story.  Like Frederick, she also lived for a time in Rochester and worked on the North Star publication.” You can browse through the book here: http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Harriet_Jacobs/Incidents_in_the_Life_of_a_Slave_Girl/ 18 copies in the library system.

The Moral Instinct, by Steven Pinker. 10 pages, 2007. Last year’s voting list included The Language Instinct, a 448-page book by Steven Pinker. As an experiment, Bill is suggesting in its place a ten-page essay by Pinker, The Moral Instinct, which is available for free on the web at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Psychology-t.html. Does morality come from God? Is it just a trick of the brain? If neither of those, then just what is it? If we say that morality is a product of evolution, does that belittle it? Why do moral judgments involve so much more emotion than other kinds of opinions about how people ought to behave? Why is it that liberal morality often focuses on issues of not doing harm (environmentalism, for example) while conservative morality often focuses more on purity (chastity, for example). Pinker is a highly respected psychologist at Harvard and the author of several serious yet accessible books on how the mind works.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis. 301 pages, 2003. Because the Oakland Athletics baseball team has one of the smallest budgets in the big leagues, they can’t afford the enormous salaries demanded by the best players. So how can they possibly compete? Journalist Michael Lewis closely observed the team’s managers for months as they applied a deep understanding of baseball statistics and an instinct for clever trading to assemble a winning team from players no one else wanted. New York Times: “Lewis has hit another one out of the park… You need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of his thoughts about it.” From the publisher: “Michael Lewis has written not only ‘the single most influential baseball book ever’ (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what ‘may be the best book ever written on business’ (Weekly Standard).” Suggested by Ken’s friend. Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/moneyball/ 21 copies in the library system.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass. 85-100 pages, depending on the edition, 1845. Bruce Catton, in American Heritage, wrote: “Douglass… was aware that he had been born somewhere around 1817; he had seen his mother ‘to know her as such’ no more than four or five times in his life, usually very briefly and at night, and he grew up knowing nothing better than the life of the stalled ox or the mule, a wholly owned creature with no rights that anyone was bound to respect. More than one hundred years later, [this] account of the things men can do to those who are completely in their power is something to make the blood run cold.” From the publisher: “No book except perhaps Uncle Tom’s Cabin had as powerful an impact on the abolitionist movement as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. An astonishing orator and a skillful writer, Douglass became a newspaper editor, a political activist, and an eloquent spokesperson for the civil rights of African Americans. He lived through the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the beginning of segregation. He was celebrated internationally as the leading black intellectual of his day.” Here is a brief bio of Frederick Douglass: http://www.frederickdouglass.org/douglass_bio.html Recommended during the November, 2008, LAVA meeting. About 80 copies in the library system.

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, by Karen Armstrong. 306 pages, 2004. A former nun, Armstrong is the highly unorthodox author of A History of God and other explorations of religion. This book is about the troubled years that followed her decision to renounce her vows, including the long and difficult period during which she suffered from misdiagnosed epilepsy. Elaine Pagels, author of The Origin of Satan, which LAVA read in 2006, said, “I loved this powerful and moving account, and read it nonstop.” A reviewer on a religious web site says the book’s underlying theme is that, “rational people no longer believe God actually exists, and that metaphysical truth was never what the religions were on about anyway.” The Ottawa Citizen: "Armstrong’s attitude toward doctrine means that she can draw on the spiritual wisdom traditions of the West as well as Buddhism…. This is a book for those who believe that, to be authentically ourselves, we must live for others." This was a “Featured Book” in the church bookstore. New York Times review: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E1D9143BF936A15757C0A9629C8B63&scp=1&sq=%22karen%20Armstrong%22%20spiral&st=cse 20 copies in library system.  

Longer Books (suitable for August and October)

We read no more than two of these books per year, and we reserve them for our August and October discussions, which gives us two months to read them. This does not imply that our August and October books must come from this section. If all of the top choices are shorter books, then that is what we read all year.

Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters. 579 pages in the hardback edition (softback not out yet), 2008. The New Yorker: “An unusually ambitious and successful book. …suffused with an emotional intensity…it belongs to a part of American culture that Walters helped invent.” Publishers Weekly: “Alternating between tales of her personal struggles, professional achievements and insider anecdotes about the celebrities and world leaders she's interviewed, this mammoth memoir's energy never flags.” New York Times review: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/books/05masl.html Suggested by Joyce H. 65 copies in the library system.

Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser. 458 pages, 2001. “Antonia Fraser’s lavish and engaging portrait of Marie Antoinette, one of the most recognizable women in European history, excites compassion and regard for all aspects of her subject, immersing the reader not only in the coming-of-age of a graceful woman, but also in the unraveling of an era.” Washington Post: “Fascinating . . . the court at Versailles comes alive.” New Yorker: “Absorbing as ever. Fraser’s blend of insight and research persuade us that this unfortunate queen deserves neither the vilification nor the idealization she has received.” Fraser is the author of several books including Mary Queen of Scots and The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Review in The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/09/24/010924crbn_brieflynoted3 18 copies in the library system.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. 1981, 553 pages. 11 copies in the library system. Won the “Booker of Bookers” prize in 2008 as the readers’ choice of the best Booker Prize winner ever. “Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. [Rushdie himself was born in India on almost the same date.] Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country.” Chicago Sun-Times: “Pure story—an ebullient, wildly clowning, satirical, descriptively witty charge of energy.” New York Times: “The flow of the book rushes to its conclusion in counterpointed harmony: myths intact, history accounted for, and a remarkable character fully alive. “ Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight%27s_Children 10 copies in the library system.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan. 450 pages, 2006. This bestseller was a “Featured Book” in the church bookstore. As omnivores, humans are able to eat a huge variety of foods, but that presents the problem of knowing how to avoid things that are bad for us and for the earth. “Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating…. [H]e deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.” New York Times (which named it as one of the top ten books of the year): “Thoughtful, engrossing . . . You’re not likely to get a better explanation of exactly where your food comes from.” Ruth Reichl, editor in chief of Gourmet magazine: “Every time you go into a grocery store you are voting with your dollars, and what goes into your cart has real repercussions on the future of the earth. But although we have choices, few of us are aware of exactly what they are. Michael Pollan’s beautifully written book could change that. He tears down the walls that separate us from what we eat, and forces us to be more responsible eaters. Reading this book is a wonderful, life-changing experience.” Suggested by Andi’s “foodie” book group. Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/omnivores_dilemma. 31 copies in the library system.

The Seven Storey Mountain, the autobiography of Thomas Merton. 424-462 pages, depending on the edition, 1948. Amazon.com: “In 1941, a brilliant, good-looking young man decided to give up a promising literary career in New York to enter a monastery in Kentucky, from where he proceeded to become one of the most influential writers of this century.” Written when the author was only 31 years old, this book has been translated into at least 15 languages. According to Wikipedia, “Merton was a prolific poet, a social activist, a student of comparative religion… Merton was a keen proponent of inter-religious understanding, engaging in spiritual dialogues with the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh and D. T. Suzuki.” Suggested by Tess. Review in The New York Times at the book’s 50^th anniversary: http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/11/bookend/bookend.html 25 copies in the library system.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. 556 pages, 2008. A mute boy on a Wisconsin dog-breeding farm is visited by his father’s ghost who says that he was murdered by his own brother. This unusual retelling of the Hamlet story quickly became the number one best-seller. New York Times: “The reader who has no interest in dogs, boys or Oedipal conflicts of the north woods of Wisconsin will nonetheless find these things irresistible. Pick up this book and expect to feel very, very reluctant to put it down.” Washington Post: “here is a big-hearted novel you can fall into, get lost in and finally emerge from reluctantly, a little surprised that the real world went on spinning while you were absorbed. “ Suggested by Bill and Andi. Reviews: http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/story_of_edgar_sawtelle. 80 copies in the library system.