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2007

2008

January
2007

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
by Mark Haddon

Christopher Boone is an autistic 15-year-old who cannot read the emotions of others, cannot tolerate noise or confusion, and cannot control his compulsive behavior.  When he is falsely accused of killing his neighbor’s dog, Christopher decides that he will track down the killer himself.  But his efforts uncover another mystery involving his mother’s recent death.

The novel is wonderfully funny, poignant and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing is a mind that perceives the world literally.  As the story progresses, the reader gains insight into Christopher’s world and a deep empathy for this honest, funny, and lovable young man.

February
2007

THE HOURS
By Michael Cunningham

In this remarkable novel, Cunningham draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, life and death, creation and destruction…all on a single day.

Clarissa Vaughn moves about in 1990s New York City planning a party for her beloved friend Richard, an AIDS-stricken poet who is receiving an award.  Laura Brown, a Los Angeles housewife in 1949 begins to feel the constraints of a perfect home and family.  Virginia Woolf herself is recovering in a London suburb in 1923, beginning work on her novel Mrs. Dalloway.

By the novel’s end, these stories have intertwined and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace.

March
2007

SHARON AND MY MOTHER-IN-LAW
By Suad Amiry

Drawing on her personal diary entries and e-mails, Amiry, an architect living in the West Bank town of Ramallah, captures the farce and sorrow of living through a forty-three day curfew imposed by the Israeli army in the spring of 2002.  This book is an attempt to illustrate the life of a middle-class, Westernized woman in an occupied territory weathering roadblocks, barricades, body searches, gunfire, endless red tape, discourtesy and even harassment.  To add to her burden, her ninety-one year old mother-in-law shares her house!  More humorous than political, the book is full of detailed and colorful characters and complications described with wit, skill and passion.

April
2007

MY SISTER’S KEEPER
By Jodi Picoult

Anna was genetically engineered to be a perfect match for her cancer-ridden older sister.  Since she was born, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that Kate may have a chance to live.  Now she is expected to donate a kidney, but instead Anna consults a lawyer in order to be medically emancipated from her parents.  At the age of thirteen, she wants control over her own body. 

Told from multiple viewpoints, this tale is a fascinating character study framed by a complex, gripping story.  My Sister’s Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person.  The author tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.

May
2007

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
By Arthur Golden

The protagonist of this marvelously observant first novel is Sayuri, one of Japan’s most celebrated geisha, a woman who is both performer and courtesan, slave and goddess.  Readers experience her life from her origins as an orphaned girl in a fishing village in 1929 to her reminiscent old age as the distinguished mistress of the powerful patron of her dreams.  Sayuri tells her tale with such gentle courtesy and determination that the reader is quickly brought under the spell of her character.

The author Ann Beattie characterizes the book this way:  “Wonderful, involving, intelligent, fascinating, and almost Dickensian in the way the characters inhabit the landscape, and the landscape permeates the characters.  It’s a unique, beautifully written book.”

June
2007

RIVER TOWN
By Peter Hessler

July/August
2007

BANGKOK TATTOO
By John Burdett

In Burdett’s brilliantly cynical mystery-thriller, Royal Thai police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is called to investigate the brutal murder of a CIA agent.  The prime suspect is Chanya, a beautiful bar girl whom the devoutly Buddhist sleuth has loved for several lifetimes.  The plot is elaborate and manages to contain gangsters from three countries, Japanese tattooists, Muslim fundamentalists and a description of the gustatory pleasures of fried grasshoppers.

Thoroughly familiar with Thailand, the author presents the society from the inside out, with the aid of unforgettable characters, fast-paced dialogue, and cuttingly humorous observations.  Washington Post Book World says, “You will read on and on, with wide-eyed fascination, some horror…and considerable delight.”

September
2007

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
By Sara Gruen

When 23-year-old Jacob Jankowski loses his parents in a car accident, he drops out of Cornell Veterinary School just before graduating and, almost by accident, joins the circus.  Jacob learns the ins and outs of circus life under the rule of Uncle Al, who cheats the workers and deals roughly with patrons who complain about blatant false advertising and rip-off exhibits.  There he falls in love with Marlena, a star performer married to the psychotic animal trainer.  He also meets the other love of his life, Rosie the elephant.

Sara Gruen has meticulously researched life in a second-rate, depression-era circus and skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book.  Old-fashioned and endearing, this is an enjoyable, fast-paced story told by the older Jacob, now in his nineties in a nursing home.

October
2007

WHEN I WAS PUERTO RICAN
By Esmeralda Santiago

Santiago’s triumphant and artful coming-of-age memoir chronicles her childhood in a Puerto Rican barrio and her teenage years in New York City.  Her rich prose recreates the tropical splendor of Puerto Rico, the harsh conflicts between her parents, and the squalor of Brooklyn.  Her memoir ends dramatically with her audition for New York’s High School for Performing Arts.

Santiago’s narrative touches upon a number of issues that are currently the subject of intense debate:  immigration quotas, cultural imperialism, bilingual education, birth control, and many others.  She provides her readers a broad base of empathy and information with which to examine these problems as well as a poignant look at a girl taking control of her own destiny.

November
2007

ARTHUR & GEORGE
By Julian Barnes

This novelization of a true story tells the tale of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, and George Edalji, an obscure country lawyer of Indian descent.  Their paths cross when Edalji is convicted of mutilating animals and asks Doyle for help.  Realizing the immense injustice George has suffered due to racial prejudice, Arthur shakes off his grief for his recently deceased wife and, in Holmesian fashion, sets out to solve the case.

This novel of love, guilt, identity and honor is a triumph of historical storytelling as well as a morally and psychologically astute glimpse into the worlds of two men.

December
2007

ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY
By David Sedaris

David Sedaris is a wonderful storyteller of the distorted family dynamic.  These twenty-seven short essays cover diverse topics, but his best subject is himself, growing up gay, Greek, and misunderstood in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Sedaris appears just as peculiar, insecure, and narcissistic as anyone else in these essays.  What makes his work so engaging is the empathy he lavishes on his subjects.  People may be odd, and his writing might be satire, but Sedaris is never cruel in his portrayals.

Whether he is writing about overcoming a lisp, learning to play the guitar, taking an IQ test, or trying unsuccessfully to learn French, the author is both amused and amusing.