LAVA Discussion Book Candidates for 2015
These candidate books come from several sources, including suggestions from LAVA members, lists of award-winning books, favorites of other book clubs, the Harvard Bookstore’s best-seller list, literary blogs, etc. Several were carried over from the previous voting list. There are 26 books on this list, but we will choose only 8 of them in this balloting, which unfortunately means that many worthwhile books 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. That leaves us eight books to choose for the 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 Bill and Andi's house on Saturday, January 10, which will be devoted to sharing information and opinions on these books (and sharing good food).
After the January meeting and prior to the voting deadline of Sunday February 8, please "mark your ballots" and return them to Bill. First review the 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. The system works best if you provide a rating for every book on the list. If you wish, you can write your rating for each book in the margins of this document. Members often rate each book as we discuss it during the January meeting and then hand in their marked list before they leave, but you can use any method you prefer as long as you get your ratings to Bill 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 that will give us two months to read them.
Candidates for Regular Meetings (fiction)
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout. 304 pages,1998. Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge, which LAVA read in 2010. A single mother "temporarily" moves with her infant daughter to a small New England mill town in an attempt to give her life new direction. Socially isolated, she focuses her energy on her daughter, but their relationship becomes distant when the daughter becomes a teenager. When the daughter falls in love with her math teacher, who is caught taking advantage of her, the mother reacts with fury and even jealousy. They try to rebuild their relationship against the background of a gossip-ridden town with its own secrets. San Francisco Chronicle: "Every once in a while, a novel comes along that plunges deep into your psyche, leaving you breathless... This year that novel is Amy and Isabelle." New York Times: "One of those rare, invigorating books that take an apparently familiar world and peer into it with ruthless intimacy, revealing a strange and startling place." Review in the New York Times. Held over from last year. 32 copies in the library system.
The Condition by Jennifer Haigh. 390 pages, 2008. LAVA read Faith by the same author in October 2013. Publisher's description: "Unaware of the long-standing grievances harbored by their divorced parents, three adult siblings embark on a tumultuous summer when the oldest, a successful Manhattan doctor, investigates his sister's chromosomal disorder against his mother's wishes." New York Times: "Ms. Haigh has a great gift for telling interwoven family stories and doing justice to all the different perspectives they present... A remarkable accomplishment." Washington Post: "Haigh’s characters are layered and authentic... Haigh is such a gifted chronicler of the human condition." Kirkus Reviews: "Filled with genuine insight and touching lyricism." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Her tendency to get bogged down with background details about each character, and to tell instead of show their behavior, keeps her from fully succeeding. Yet the central question of the story—how a child whose genetic condition keeps her physically immature can finally be allowed to grow up—is compelling." List of reviews. Suggested by Joyce H. Held over from last year. 25 copies in the library system.
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. 379 pages, 2013. Publisher's description: "In a rural village in December 2004 Chechnya, a failed doctor Akhmed harbors the traumatized 8-year-old daughter of a father abducted by Russian forces and treats a series of wounded rebels and refugees while exploring the shared past that binds him to the child." Washington Post: "Here, in fresh, graceful prose, is a profound story that dares to be as tender as it is ghastly, a story about desperate lives in a remote land that will quickly seem impossibly close and important....I haven’t been so overwhelmed by a novel in years." San Francisco Chronicle: "Over and over again, this is an examination of the ways in which many broken pieces come together to make a new whole. In exquisite imagery, Marra tends carefully to the twisted strands of grace and tragedy....Everything in A Constellation of Vital Phenomena...is dignified with a hoping, aching heartbeat." Chicago Tribune: "...pulls together blown-out bits of a world turned inside-out to create a brutal form of beauty from chaos... its prose is also ruefully funny in places and littered throughout with dazzling poetry." Ann Patchett in the New York Times: "My favorite book of the year." Named as one of the best books of the year by several major newspapers. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize for outstanding first book. Review in Washington Post. Suggested by Andi and Beth. 26 copies in the library system.
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. 349 pages, 2009. This novel won the National Book Award. In 1974, a high-wire artist created a sensation by stealthily stringing a cable between the two towers of the World Trade Center and walking between them. Starting from that actual event, this fictional story follows several widely varied characters whose lives become entwined in its aftermath. The publisher describes it as "A rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s." Booklist: "McCann's hallucinatory descriptions of a great city tattooed and besmirched with graffiti, blood, and drugs in the midst of a financial freefall are eerie in their edgy beauty, chilling reminders of how quickly civilization unravels... [E]ach of his finely drawn, unexpectedly connected characters balances above an abyss, evincing great courage with every step." New York Times: "One of the most electric, profound novels I have read in years." San Francisco Chronicle: "McCann…both resurrects and redeems the horrors of Sept. 11, creating a metaphorical landscape of human endurance in the face of unspeakable tragedy…. This is McCann's gift, finding grace in grief and magic in the mundane." The Washington Post, however, didn't like it, saying "his theme is stale and the exhaustive back stories he gives each character never pay off." Suggested by Ken. List of reviews. 30 copies in the library system.
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. 369 pages, 2012. Publisher's description: "Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is... A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?" New York Times: "Moyes's story provokes tears that are redemptive, the opposite of gratuitous. Some situations, she forces the reader to recognize, really are worth crying over." Review in the New York Times. Suggested by Vicki. 85 copies in the library system.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. 291 pages, 2004. After an arranged marriage in India, a young couple moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts and names their newborn son after a Russian writer. Boston Globe: "[A] tricultural collision awaits Gogol from his first few days of life. He has to endure a Russian name he cannot bear in an America he cannot penetrate with Indian parents he cannot fully accept or understand. All these ambiguities make for a novel of exquisite and subtle tension, spanning two generations and continents and a plethora of emotional compromises in between." New York Times: "The Namesake is that rare thing: an intimate, closely observed family portrait that effortlessly and discreetly unfolds to disclose a capacious social vision." Washington Post: "This is a fine novel from a superb writer.... In the end, this quiet book makes a very large statement about courage, determination, and above all, the majestic ability of the human animal to endure and prosper." Lahiri's collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize. Several reviews. Suggested by Vicki. 43 copies in the library system.
Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger. 337 pages, 2012. Amazon: "In The Newlyweds, we follow the story of Amina Mazid, who at age twenty-four moves from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York, for love... [T]his is an arranged marriage for the twenty-first century: Amina is wooed by—and woos—George Stillman online... But each of them is hiding something: someone from the past they thought they could leave behind. It is only when they put an ocean between them—and Amina returns to Bangladesh—that she and George find out if their secrets will tear them apart, or if they can build a future together." (Incidentally, Amina gets a job at the Starbucks on Monroe Avenue.) Los Angeles Times: "For all its global sophistication, the most remarkable accomplishment of this hugely satisfying novel is Freudenberger’s subtle exploration of the stage of adulthood at the heart of The Newlyweds, and all the compromises with selfhood those early years of love and marriage entail." Seattle Times: "The Newlyweds is about all sorts of complex relationships: between parents and children; with first loves; with the places we depart and those we adopt, and 'the many selves' this fluidity creates. Freudenberger does an especially lovely job creating Amina’s worlds—her emotional terrain, her wonder and bewilderment adjusting to America, her life in Bangladesh." Freudenberger was recently named to the New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list of young writers with promising futures. This novel was given a favorable front-page review in the New York Times Sunday book review section. List of reviews. Held over from last year. 38 copies in the library system.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. 184 pages, 2007. Talking to a silent American listener, a young man in Pakistan tells the story of his former life: his happiness at Princeton, his success on Wall Street and his romance with a beautiful American. Then 9/11 happens. The New York Times: "His resentment is at least in part self-loathing, directed at the American he'd been on his way to becoming... The fundamentalist, and potential assassin, may be sitting on either side of the table." Toronto Star: "The Reluctant Fundamentalist is at least as much about the apparent unease felt by the listener—and reader—in hearing the story, as it is about the growing sense of cultural displacement described by Changez. Hamid... makes it impossible for the reader to know for certain what danger actually lurks or whether the reader's perceived sense of dread and underlying malice is nothing more than the product of an overactive, media-fed imagination." New York Review of Books: "Ambiguity starts out as the delicate organizing principle of his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. By the end of the book it has turned into the disturbing payoff." London Times: "Hamid manages marvelously well in creating a novel that's rendered entirely in terms of the spoken word, and governed by the shape of what's evaded or not uttered." This novel was short-listed for the Booker Prize. List of reviews (page down). 18 copies in the library system.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. 258 pages, 2012. On the Gulf coast of Mississippi, four children prepare for a looming hurricane with no mother and an undependable father. Library Journal: "Ward uses fearless, toughly lyrical language to convey this family's close-knit tenderness [and] the sheer bloody-minded difficulty of rural African American life... It's an eye-opening heartbreaker that ends in hope." Washington Post: "Without a hint of pretention, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy . . . A palpable sense of desire and sorrow animates every page here . . . Salvage the Bones has the aura of a classic about it." New York Times: "…a taut, wily novel, smartly plotted and voluptuously written. It feels fresh and urgent, but it's an ancient, archetypal tale... It's an old story—of family honor, revenge, disaster—and it's a good one." This novel won the 2011 National Book Award. List of reviews. 25 copies in the library system.
Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen. 261 pages, 2014. A middle-aged New York woman who once was a world-famous photographer moves to a rural part of NY so she can pay her parents' nursing home bills by renting out her expensive New York apartment. There, according to the library description, she "bonds with a local man and begins to see the world around her in new, deeper dimensions while evaluating second chances at love, career, and self-understanding." New York Times: "There comes a moment in every novelist’s career when she... ventures into new territory, breaking free into a marriage of tone and style, of plot and characterization, that’s utterly her own. Anna Quindlen’s marvelous romantic comedy of manners is just such a book... [It] proves all the more moving because of its light, sophisticated humor. Quindlen’s least overtly political novel, it packs perhaps the most serious punch." Review by National Public Radio. Suggested by Beth. 71 copies in the library system.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. 272 pages, 2012. A shy, retired British brewery salesman, burdened by guilt, walks out of his house to post a letter to Queenie, a dying friend who lives 600 miles away. On a sudden impulse, he walks past the post office and decides to keep on walking in an attempt to deliver the letter in person. During the arduous journey he mulls over his past destructive actions and suffers a "dark night of the soul." He also inspires the people he meets, some of whom are quite strange. Times (London): "Harold’s journey is ordinary and extraordinary; it is a journey through the self, through modern society, through time and landscape. It is a funny book, a wise book, a charming book—but never cloying. It’s a book with a savage twist—and yet never seems manipulative." Publishers Weekly gave it a mixed review: "Early chapters of the book are beguiling, but a final revelation tests credulity, and the sentimental ending may be an overdose of what the Brits call 'pudding.'" This novel was one of a dozen on the longlist for the 2012 Booker Prize. Held over from last year. Suggested by Vicki. Review in the Washington Post. 43 copies in the library system.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. 326 pages, 2013. Amazon: "Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears." New York Times: "Comedy heaven.... The tightly constructed Where'd You Go, Bernadette is written in many formats: e-mails, letters, F.B.I. documents, correspondence with a psychiatrist and even an emergency-room bill for a run-in between Bernadette and Audrey... You could stop and pay attention to how apt each new format is, how rarely she repeats herself and how imaginatively she unveils every bit of information. But you would have to stop laughing first." San Francisco Chronicle: "Semple's most ridiculous characters are convinced that they're the normal ones, and it's wonderful fun to watch as they behave abominably, believing themselves blameless.... It's the rare book that actually deserves the term 'laugh-out-loud funny,' but I found myself reading passages from almost every page to anyone who would listen, even as I could barely articulate the words through my own laughter." Review in the Guardian. Held over from last year. 36 copies in the library system.
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks. 308 pages, 2002. Inspired by a true story, this novel is about the outbreak of plague in an isolated English village in 1666. Some of its inhabitants add to the community's disintegration by engaging in witch-hunting, forcing a housemaid with healing skills to take the lead in dealing with the crisis. New York Times: "She gives us what we want in historical fiction: a glimpse into the strangeness of history that simultaneously enables us to see a reflection of ourselves." The Guardian: "Year of Wonders is a staggering fictional debut that matches journalistic accumulation of detail to natural narrative flair." LAVA has read these novels by Brooks: March (which won the Pulitzer Prize) in 2008, People of the Book in 2011 and Caleb’s Crossing in 2013. Review in the Guardian. Suggested by Connie. 45 copies in the library system.
Candidates for Regular Meetings (non-fiction)
Alcott, Louisa May. For this discussion, LAVA members would have the choice of reading any biography of Louisa May Alcott. When you vote, you will be rating this proposal, not each individual book in it. The author of Little Women, Alcott had an idealistic father who was part of the brilliant Transcendentalist circle in Massachusetts but who found it difficult to get his own life organized enough to support himself and his family. In 2008 LAVA read March by Geraldine Brooks, a novel whose main character is loosely based on Alcott's father. Held over from last year. Suggested by Tess. These recent biographies are recommended:
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard. 301 pages, 2012. Four months after being elected president, James A. Garfield was shot by a deranged gunman. His death two months later was caused more by his doctors' missteps than the bullet. New York Times: "One of the many pleasures of Candice Millard’s new book, Destiny of the Republic, [is] that she brings poor Garfield to life—and a remarkable life it was… Millard has written us a penetrating human tragedy." Cleveland Plain Dealer: "She vividly captures an era of savage political infighting, lax security for public figures and appalling medical ignorance….This wonderful book reminds us that our 20th president was neither a minor nor merely a tragic figure, but rather an extraordinary one." Millard is also the author of The River of Doubt, which LAVA read in April 2014. Suggested by Tess. Review in the New York Times. 31 copies in the library system.
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian Nation by Samuel C. Gwynne. 319 pages, 2010. The Comanche Indians fought a forty-year war with the U.S. military, holding back the westward march of settlers. One of the most successful of those warriors was Quanah Parker, the son of a Caucasian woman who had been kidnapped by the Comanche as a child and who refused to leave them afterwards. Publishers Weekly: "Rigorously researched and evenhanded, the book paints both the Comanches and Americans in their glory and shame, bravery and savagery." New York Times: "Gwynne… pulls his readers through an American frontier roiling with extreme violence, political intrigue, bravery, anguish, corruption, love, knives, rifles and arrows... This book will leave dust and blood on your jeans." Dallas Morning News: "Among the strengths of this powerful book are the author's novelistic skills, the unstoppable pace of the narrative, and the vivid delineation of its historical characters." This book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Suggested by Beth. List of reviews (page down). 21 copies in the library system.
Just Kids by Patti Smith. 306 pages, 2010. In 1966 Patty Smith, an aspiring visual artist with almost no money, moved to New York City, sleeping in parks and scrounging for food. Through a chance encounter she became the roommate and lover of a department store worked named Robert Mapplethorpe. Both eventually became famous, Smith as a rock musician and Mapplethorpe as a photographer. As they developed their talents, they hung out with people like Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Sam Shepard and William Burroughs. Mapplethorpe died from AIDS at the age of 42. New York Times: "Terrifically evocative and splendidly titled...the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print....This enchanting book is a reminder that not all youthful vainglory is silly; sometimes it’s preparation." Newsday: "A remarkable book—sweet and charming and many other words you wouldn’t expect to apply to a punk-rock icon." San Francisco Chronicle: "One of the best memoirs to be published in recent years: inspiring, sad, wise and beautifully written." Washington Post: "One of the best books ever written on becoming an artist." This book won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Suggested by Bill and Andi. List of reviews (page down). 25 copies in the library system as of May 2014.
Mayflower: a Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. 358 pages, 2007. A pivotal event in this history is the rarely discussed King Phillips War, which began in 1675 and resulted in the death of about 8% of the population of the Plymouth Colony and more than half of the native population of the surrounding area. Library Journal: "Mayflower is a jaw-dropping epic of heroes and villains, bravery and bigotry, folly and forgiveness. Philbrick delivers a masterly told story that will appeal to lay readers and history buffs alike. Clearly one of the year's best books; highly recommended." New York Times: "Mayflower is a surprise-filled account of what are supposed to be some of the best-known events in the American past but are instead an occasion for collective amnesia." Philbrick won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2000 for another book. Held over from last year. List of reviews. 50 copies in the library system.
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor. 385 pages, 2010. The memoirs of Sonia Sotomayor, the third woman and the first Latina to become a Supreme Court Justice. She was diabetic from the age of seven, but she was valedictorian of her high school class and graduated summa cum laude from Princeton. She got her law degree from Yale, worked as a prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney, and became a federal district judge before the age of forty. Washington Post: "Anyone wondering how a child raised in public housing, without speaking English, by an alcoholic father and a largely absent mother could become the first Latina on the Supreme Court will find the answer in these pages. It didn't take just a village: It took a country." Nina Totenberg on NPR: "This is a page-turner, beautifully written and novelistic in its tale of family, love and triumph. It hums with hope and exhilaration." Review in the New York Times. Suggested by Beth. 57 copies in the library system.
Summer in a Glass: the Coming of Age of Winemaking in the Finger Lakes by Evan Dawson. 266 pages, 2012. This book tells the story of wine making in the Finger Lakes. Dawson is the managing editor the New York Cork Report. After serving for several years as the morning anchor of 13 WHAM News, he moved to WXXI, both in Rochester, NY. Library Journal: "Dawson stitches together diverse portraits to compose a useful travel guide, lessons in Wine 101, and, most important, a reminder of what makes wine so alluring. A fast, engaging read for wine lovers." Wine Spectator: "The final effect of this illuminating book is a heightened understanding of the human effort behind the wine in your glass." This brief review in the New York Times says, "Mr. Dawson is an empathetic listener and understated observer who weaves together the various strands with great skill and insight." Suggested by Paula. 23 copies in the library system.
Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, by Ann Patchett. 257 pages. 2005. Patchett's memoir about her intense and difficult friendship with Lucy Grealy. Publisher's description: "This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty, and being lifted up by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest." The Guardian: "Theirs is a love story, a first-love story, an account of devotion so intense that it compares to conventional friendship as closely as double cream does to Dream Topping... What Ann and Lucy had in common was their belief in writing as a means of salvation. Poetry for Grealy and fiction for Patchett were going to save their lives." Washington Post: "These may be the best-natured, most loyal and generous, most optimistic writers ever to have their humble beginnings recounted in a memoir. Or at least Patchett herself is. Lucy Grealy, her best friend, had ample reason for a darker side. In her own memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Grealy documented her battle with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare cancer that caused her to lose part of her jaw as a child and undergo endless painful (and ultimately unsuccessful) surgeries for the disfigurement. Grealy died in 2002, at age 39, of a heroin overdose. Truth & Beauty is Patchett's tribute to Grealy, at once a grief-haunted eulogy and a larger meditation on the solace—and limitations—of friendship." Suggested by Tess. Several revews. 24 copies in the library system in May 2014.
Longer Books (suitable for August and October)
We read no more than two books in this category per year, and we reserve these 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, that is what we read all year. Note that this year some of our "shorter" books are a bit on the long side, with several having more than 350 pages.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. 771 pages, 2013. Publisher's description: "A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld... The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America, and a drama of almost unbearable acuity and power. It is a story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the enormous power of art." This novel won the Pulitzer Prize. New York Times: "[A] glorious, Dickensian novel, a novel that pulls together all Ms. Tartt's remarkable storytelling talents into a rapturous, symphonic whole and reminds the reader of the immersive, stay-up-all-night pleasures of reading." Several reviews. Suggested by Vicki and Beth. 102 copies in the library system
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. 529 pages, 2002. This novel won the Pulitzer Prize. Library Journal: "Thus starts the epic tale of how Calliope Stephanides is transformed into Cal. Spanning three generations and two continents, the story winds from the small Greek village of Smyrna to the smoggy, crime-riddled streets of Detroit, past historical events, and through family secrets. The author's eloquent writing captures the essence of Cal, a hermaphrodite, who sets out to discover himself by tracing the story of his family back to his grandparents." New York Times: "A deeply affecting portrait of one family's tumultuous engagement with the American twentieth century." San Francisco Chronicle: "The most reliably American story there is: A son of immigrants finally finds love after growing up feeling like a freak." Montreal Gazette: "Eugenides has taken all the trials and joys of the traditional coming-of-age novel and made them twice (three times?) as rich." New York Times: "...an uproarious epic, at once funny and sad, about misplaced identities and family secrets.... But it's his emotional wisdom, his nuanced insight into his characters' inner lives, that lends this book its cumulative power." Held over from last year. Suggested by Joyce H. List of reviews 40 copies in the library system.
Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. 501 pages, 2013. Born in 1800, the daughter of a rich botanist becomes a botanist herself. Publisher's description: "As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction--into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist--but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life." Gilbert is also the author Eat, Pray, Love, a best-selling work of non-fiction. New York Times: "The Signature of All Things is one of those rewardingly fact-packed books that make readers feel bold and smart by osmosis." Washington Post: "[A] big, panoramic novel about life and love that captures the idiom and tenor of its age… Like Victor Hugo or Emile Zola, Gilbert captures something important about the wider world in The Signature of All Things: a pivotal moment in history when progress defined us in concrete ways." Review in the Washington Post. Suggested by Vicki. 56 copies in the library system.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. 407 pages, 2010. This is the true story of Louie Zamperini, a runner in the 1936 Berlin Olympics whose airplane crashed in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. After 47 days adrift in a lift raft, he and his buddies were captured and placed in a Japanese prisoner of war camp run by a sadistic commander who chose the defiant Zamperini as the object of special attention. Barely alive at the end of the war, he returned home and married, only to be plagued by nightmares, drinking problems and other signs of what is now known as PTSD. Eventually, however, he finds his way to peace. New York Times: "A celebration of gargantuan fortitude... full of unforgettable characters, multi-hanky moments and wild turns... Hillenbrand is a muscular, dynamic storyteller." Boston Globe: "Intense... You better hold onto the reins." Hillenbrand is the author of the best-selling Seabiscuit: An American Legend. Several Reviews. Suggested by Rod. 94 copies in the library system.
Walden (1845, about 360 pages) and Civil Disobedience (1849, about 30 pages) by Henry David Thoreau. Monroe library summary of Walden: "Perhaps the best known non-fiction book ever written by an American, Walden chronicles Thoreau's stay in a cabin by Walden Pond, on land owned by his friend and compatriot, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau stayed here for two years and two months and hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society by isolating himself from it." Amazon summary of Civil Disobedience: "Sparked by Thoreau's outrage at American slavery and the American-Mexican war, Civil Disobedience is a call for every citizen to value his conscience above his government... More than an essay, Civil Disobedience is a call to action for all citizens to refuse to participate in, or encourage in any way, an unjust institution." Suggested by Robert, who says, "Michael Meyer's introduction points out that Walden is not so much an autobiographical study as a 'shining example' of Transcendental individualism. So, too, Civil Disobedience is less a call to political activism than a statement of Thoreau's insistence on living a life of principle." Held over from last year. There are many copies in the library system.