LAVA Discussion Book Candidates for 2008

This list comes from several sources, including suggestions from LAVA members, the “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 26 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 the coming year’s reading schedule.  As before, the most popular runners-up will be included in the next list of candidates.

(Why do we choose only 8 books to cover 12 meetings per year?  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 instead of discussing a book.  Therefore we need to choose only 8 books to cover the next 12 months.)

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 6 PM on Friday, January 4, which will be devoted to sharing information and opinions on these books (and eating good food!)

After the January 4 meeting and prior to the voting deadline of Friday January 25, 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 list.  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 the list 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 (we see films during July and September instead of discussing books). 

Candidates for Regular Meetings (fiction)

Behind the Scenes at the Museum, by Kate Atkinson. 333 pages, 1995. Winner of the Whitbread Prize and translated into twelve languages, this novel follows the lives of four generations of British women with an approach that one reviewer described as “Galsworthy meets García Márquez.” New York Times: “Full of the grimness, grit, and grandeur of Yorkshire life …. one of the funniest works of fiction to come out of Britain in years.” Boston Globe: "Really comic, really tragic, bracingly unsentimental . . . What a triumph!” 8 copies in the library system; is this enough? Amazon has lots of used copies for sale.

Divisadero, by Michael Ondaatje. 288 pages, 2007. LAVA has read three of Ondaatje’s books: The English Patient (which won the Booker Prize), Running in the Family and Anil’s Ghost, and we also heard him speak at RIT. His most recent work is named after Divisadero Street, which “divides” yet connects two parts of downtown San Francisco. Early in this unconventional novel, a single act shatters the tight bonds between two sisters and their lives begin to separate. One of the sisters later comes across an entirely different family history in France with odd echoes of her own family’s story. Pulitzer-Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri said: “My life always stops for a new book by Michael Ondaatje. I began Divisadero as soon as it came into my possession and over the course of a few evenings was captivated by Ondaatje's finest novel to date.” Washington Post: “What an unusual, and unusually rich, experience it is to read Divisadero.” Bookmarks: “Critics uniformly praised Ondaatje's graceful language and poetic imagery, but agreed on little else. Some applauded the nonlinear plot structure, while others found the constantly shifting times, places, and narrators confusing…. The critics who enjoyed Divisadero the most were those who approached it as a work of art rather than a conventional novel.” 37 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 constructing family from friendships.  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.”  37 copies in the library system.

The Human Stain, by Philip Roth.  361 pages, 2000.  The main character of this PEN/Faulkner Award-winning book is an elderly professor named Silk who is forced to resign because of a remark that is wrongly interpreted as racist.  Publisher’s Weekly: “Then, in a dazzling coup, Roth turns all expectations on their heads, and begins to show Silk in a new and astounding light, as someone who has lived a huge lie all his life, making the fuss over his alleged racism even more surreal.  The book continues to unfold layer after layer of meaning.  There is a tragedy, as foretold, and an exquisitely imagined ending.”  Nadine Gordimer, in The Times Literary Supplement (International Book of the Year Selection): "Philip Roth's The Human Stain is the best novel he has written."  This novel was chosen by a New York Times poll of 200 prominent writers, critics and editors in 2006 as one of the best works of American fiction in the past 25 years. 34 copies in the library system.

Intuition, by Allegra Goodman. 385 pages, 2006. A worker at research lab seemingly discovers a powerful weapon in the fight against cancer. Did he deliberately suppress evidence that disputes his claim? Do those who attack him have ulterior motives? Layer by layer, the author peels apart her characters’ personalities and motivations. Kirkus Reviews: “There’s something of the breadth and generosity of a Victorian ‘three-decker’ novel in the skill with which Goodman threads her ingenious plot through an ambitious mobilization of terse confrontations and detail-crammed scenes...Top-notch in every respect. A superlative novel.” The Guardian: “Believe it or not, a thriller and a page-turner about scientific fraud. Brilliant." Designated as one of the best books of 2006 by the San Francisco Chronicle. 41 copies in the library system.

March, by Geraldine Brooks. 280 pages, 2005. This Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel retells Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women from the viewpoint of the girls’ father, Mr. March. The author bases March’s character on Alcott’s father, Amos Bronson Alcott, who was an abolitionist and a friend of such New England luminaries as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In Little Women, the girls receive a letter from their father, who is serving in the Civil War, which said little "of the hardships endured, the dangers faced, or the homesickness conquered.” This letter becomes the starting point for March, which fictionalizes both Alcott’s Civil War experiences and his earlier life. Chicago Tribune: “A very great book. It breathes new life into the historical fiction genre... I give it a hero's welcome.” 29 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), was short-listed for the Booker Prize and 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.” From the publisher: “Toibin captures the loneliness and longing, the hope and despair of a man who never married, never resolved his sexual identity, and whose forays into intimacy inevitably failed him and those he tried to love. . . . Time and again, James, a master of psychological subtlety in his fiction, proves blind to his own heart.” 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.” 16 copies in the library system.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin. 236 pages, 1798. Austin’s first novel has been described as a “gothic parody.” The heroine is a young woman with an overactive imagination who visits a country estate and begins to suspect foul deeds there. The introductory quote for Ian McEwan’s Atonement, which had a similar theme, comes from this novel. In contrast to Atonement, however, Northanger Abbey doesn’t have a tragic outcome; it focuses more on the sometimes amusing misunderstandings that emerge as her characters search for the right (that is to say, rich) mate. 9 copies in the library system; is this enough?

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. 367 pages, 2007. Like The Kite Runner, which LAVA read in 2006, this story takes place in contemporary Afghanistan, but it is told from a woman’s point of view. From the book description: “With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.” Washington Post: “Just in case you're wondering whether Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns is as good as The Kite Runner, here's the answer: No. It's better.” Over 50 copies in the library system.

Three Junes, by Julia Glass.  353 pages, 2002.  The New Yorker: “This enormously accomplished début novel is a triptych that spans three summers, across a decade, in the disparate lives of the McLeod family…. Glass is interested in how risky love is for some people, and she writes so well that what might seem like farce is rich, absorbing, and full of life.”  New York Times Book Review:  “Three Junes brilliantly rescues, then refurbishes, the traditional plot-driven novel. . . Glass has written a generous book about family expectations, but also about happiness.” Three Junes won the 2002 National Book Award for Fiction.  Over 50 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 scene alternates between a major city and a small village, providing the author with many opportunities to present details of life in China. 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 in the 1920s. 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.” 16 copies in library system.  

Candidates for Regular Meetings (non-fiction)

Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for the New Yorker.  265 pages, 2005.  Booklist:  “Gladwell maps the ‘adaptive unconscious,’ the facet of mind that enables us to determine things in the blink of an eye. He then cites many intriguing examples, such as art experts spontaneously recognizing forgeries; sports prodigies; and psychologist John Gottman's uncanny ability to divine the future of marriages by watching videos of couples in conversation…. But there is a ‘dark side of blink,’ which Gladwell illuminates by analyzing the many ways in which our instincts can be thwarted, and by presenting fascinating, sometimes harrowing, accounts of skewed market research, surprising war-game results, and emergency-room diagnoses and police work gone tragically wrong.”  The New York Times Book Review had a mixed opinion: “If you want to trust my snap judgment, buy this book: you’ll be delighted. If you want to trust my more reflective second judgment, buy it: you’ll be delighted but frustrated, troubled and left wanting more." Gladwell also wrote the best-selling The Tipping Point.  More than 50 copies in the library system.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. 284 pages, 2007. In 1854 London suffered a cholera epidemic that was initially blamed on the smelly air. Pioneering physician John Snow brought the epidemic to a halt by tracing the actual cause to a neighborhood water pump that was emitting contaminated water. Publishers Weekly: “Against considerable resistance from the medical and bureaucratic establishment, Snow persisted and, with hard work and groundbreaking research, helped to bring about a fundamental change in our understanding of disease and its spread. Johnson weaves in overlapping ideas about the growth of civilization, the organization of cities, and evolution to thrilling effect… an illuminating and satisfying read.” Washington Post: “By turns a medical thriller, detective story and paean to city life, Johnson's account of the outbreak and its modern implications is a true page-turner.” This best-seller was a New York Times Notable Book. The author is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University's Department of Journalism. 19 copies in the library system.

Mapping Human History: Genes Race and Our Common Origins, by Steve Olson.  275 pages, 2002.  This book covers recent scientific discoveries that tell us where and when the first humans appeared in Africa and how we spread from there across the globe.  In evolutionary terms, all this happened quite recently.  All humans are, quite literally, cousins.  Genetic differences among the human “races” are amazingly small; the genetic variation among chimpanzees on one hillside is greater than among all the humans on earth.  Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences: “Beautifully written and carefully researched.”  A Discover Best Science Book of the Year.  Olson has worked for the National Academy of Sciences and has been a science journalist for more than 20 years.  Only 8 copies in the library system.  Is this enough?

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).” 21 copies in the library system.

Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals by Robert Sapolsky. 209 pages, 2005. From the publisher: “A curious and entertaining collection of essays about the human animal in all its fascinating variety, from Robert M. Sapolsky, America's most beloved neurobiologist/primatologist.” It “poses such interesting questions as: When and why do our preferences in food become fixed? Why do desert cultures tend to be monotheistic and sexually repressed, whereas rainforest cultures tend to be sexually relaxed and polytheistic?” Publishers Weekly: “Wry, witty prose… written by an author who could be as much at home holding court at the local pub as he is in a university lab.” The New York Times Book Review: "A hit . . . Sapolsky lets his obsessive curiosity wander amiably. . . . Most compelling when the animal behavior he is reckoning with is our own." Only 6 copies in the library system; is this enough?

The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin.  304 pages, 1988.  Native Australians once found their way across vast distances by memorizing songs that contained clues about the landscape, enabling them literally to sing their

way across the continent.  Australia is criss-crossed by hundreds of these songlines.  New York Times: “Part adventure-story, part novel-of-ideas, part satire on the follies of ‘progress,’ part spiritual autobiography, part passionate plea for a return to simplicity of being and behavior, The Songlines is a seething gallimaufry [hodgepodge] of a book.”  Chatwin quit his high-ranking job at Sotheby’s art auction house in the 1960s to begin a life of travel and to develop a new kind of travel writing.  One of his earlier works, On the Black Hill, won the Whitbread Literary Award.  12 copies in library system.  

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, by Karen Armstrong. 306 pages, 2004. A former nun, Armstrong is the deeply religious but 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 a long period during which she suffered from misdiagnosed epilepsy. Booklist noted that, “Even among readers who embrace doctrines Armstrong dismisses (such as the reality of a personal God), this candid memoir will clarify thinking about the search for the sacred.” 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.” Currently a “Featured Book” in the church bookstore. 20 copies in library system.  

Who Wrote the Bible, by Richard Friedman. 260 pages, 1989. Scholars have determined that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, sometimes called the Books of Moses, combine the writings of several unknown authors who are known now simply as J, P, E, and D. Friedman, a professor and a leading Bible scholar, describes the two-century-long process of unraveling the Biblical text in a lively book that reads much like a detective story. New York Times: “A contemporary classic that is a thought-provoking [and] perceptive guide [to the Bible's authorship]." Los Angeles Times: "Brilliantly presented: There is no other book like this one. It may well be unique.” 10 copies in the library system.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. 336 pages, 2007. Weisman approaches environmental issues from an unusual angle: what would happen to the earth if humans suddenly disappeared? Booklist says he “traveled the world to consult with experts and visit key sites, and his findings are arresting to say the least. He learned that without constant vigilance, New York's subways would immediately flood, and Houston's complex "petroscape" [oil refineries, etc] would spectacularly self-destruct…. His superbly well researched and skillfully crafted stop-you-in-your-tracks report stresses the underappreciated fact that humankind's actions create a ripple effect across the web of life.” The book also discusses the earth’s ability to heal itself given enough time. It is an expansion of an essay that Weisman wrote for Discover magazine called “Earth Without People,” which was designated as Best American Science Writing 2006. Weisman is a journalist who teaches journalism at the University of Arizona. 31 copies in the library system.

Longer Books (suitable for August and October)

We read no more than two of these books per year, and if some of them are among the top choices, we discuss them in August and October. 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.

The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley. 452 pages,1998. The protagonist is a misfit in her Illinois town because she is an independent spirit who prefers hunting and fishing to cooking and sewing. She marries a Boston abolitionist passing through town with a wagonload of rifles for the militant anti-slavery settlements in the Kansas Territory. Reacting to tragic events in her new life there, she seeks revenge but instead discovers herself. Publishers Weekly: “….packed with drama, irony, historical incident, moral ambiguities and the perception of human frailty…. This novel performs all the functions of superior fiction: in reading one woman’s moving story, we understand an historical epoch, the social and political conditions that produced it.” New York Times Book Review: “Consistently entertaining, filled with action and ideas.” Boston Globe: “A sprawling epic… a garrulous, nights-by-the-hearth narrative not unlike those classics of the period it emulates.” An earlier novel by the author (A Thousand Acres) won the Pulitzer Prize. 34 copies in the library system.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond.  525 pages, 2004.  Publishers Weekly:  “A fascinating comparative study of societies that have, sometimes fatally, undermined their own ecological foundations.”  Boston Globe:  "Extremely persuasive . . . replete with fascinating stories, a treasure trove of historical anecdotes [and] haunting statistics."  Seattle Times:  "Diamond’s most influential gift may be his ability to write about geopolitical and environmental systems in ways that don’t just educate and provoke, but entertain."  Joyce Hensel points out that those of us who don’t have time to read the entire book would be able to read at least a few of the case studies, which should be enough for participation in the discussion.  Diamond, who is a professor of geography at UCLA, won the Pulitzer Prize for his earlier book, Guns, Germs, and Steel.  29 copies in the library system.

East of Eden, by Steinbeck.  600-750 pages depending on the edition, 1952.  Echoing the biblical story of Cain and Abel, this classic novel tells the story of sibling rivalry between twin brothers.  Set in the Salinas Valley of California at the beginning of the 20^th century, it is also a depiction of a particular time and place; one of the proposed names for the novel was The Salinas Valley.  Steinbeck considered this to be his greatest novel (even though The Grapes of Wrath is the one that most people remember). 47 copies in the library system.

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, by Stephen Pinker. 448 pages, 1993. Pinker’s book about language shows, “how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, how it evolved.” Booklist: “Pinker, a respected cognitive scientist at MIT, has given the non-student a bridge into the interesting yet still controversial world of linguistics and cognitive science. . . . Examples are clear and easy to understand; Pinker's humor and insight make this the perfect introduction to the world of cognitive science and language.” New York Times: "A brilliant, witty, and altogether satisfying book.” Kirkus Reviews: “Designed for a popular audience, this is in fact a hefty read full of wonder and wisdom.” Sunday Times (London): “I will be astonished if a better science book of any kind, let alone one accessible to the general reader, comes along this year.” 10 copies in the library system.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan. 450 pages, 2006. This bestseller (#5 on the New York Times bestseller list) is a “Featured Book” in the church bookstore. As omnivores, humans can eat just about everything, meat or vegetable. Being open to such a huge range of choices, however, presents the problem of knowing how to avoid things that are bad for you. That was true in the days before civilization, and, in a different way, it remains true today in the grocery store. Publishers Weekly: “It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. . . . Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over.” The New York Times, which named this book one of the top ten books of the year, described it as, “Thoughtful, engrossing . . . You’re not likely to get a better explanation of exactly where your food comes from.” 31 copies in the library system.