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2008

January
2008

THE BOOK THIEF
 By Markus Zusak

Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesl Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood.  The child arrives having just stolen her first book, The Gravedigger’s Handbook, which her foster father reads to her at night to lull her to sleep.  Reading opens new worlds to her and soon she rescues a book from a pile being burned by the Nazis. Other books come in handy as diversions during bombing raids or times of grief.

But more than the overt message about the power of words, it’s Liesl’s confrontation with horrifying cruelty and her discovery of kindness in unexpected places that tell the heartbreaking truth.  And Death has a way with words.  His narration is unsettling and unsentimental, yet ultimately poetic.

February
2008

EVERYMAN
By Philip Roth

Philip Roth won the PEN/Faulkner award for this slim novel about a sickly boy who grows up obsessed with his and everyone else’s health and eventually dies in his seventies.  This honor is only the last in an impressive string of literary awards the author has received throughout his long and illustrious career.

Roth has taken great pains to create an unremarkable yet universally recognizable character who struggles with ill health and remorse for his broken marriages and estranged sons.  Roth manages to extract love and pity for his created mortal, even though there is perhaps more to scorn than to admire about him.  Ultimately, though, the author leaves it to the reader to assess this everyman’s life.

March
2008

A WALK IN THE WOODS
By Bill Bryson

Back in America after twenty years in England, travel writer Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with the United States by walking the 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail.  The book is written in a humorous style, with an abundance of comic characters met on the trail.  The author’s buddy, Steven Katz, is completely out-of-shape and always willing to break for a cozy restaurant.

The author describes this beautiful but fragile trail and, as he tells its fascinating history, he makes a moving plea for the conservation of America’s last great wilderness.  An adventure, a comedy, and a celebration, A Walk In The Woods has become a modern classic of travel literature.

April
2008

LIGHT OF DAY
By Jamie Saul

Which is more important, honesty or loyalty?  Jack has no clear answer for his fifteen-year-old son Danny and soon after the conversation, the teenager is dead of an apparent suicide.  Jack spirals through layers of grief and despair as he is haunted by his own questions:  Why?  And what next?

Amidst his mourning, Jack recalls happier, yet troubled days with Danny’s mother, before she abandoned husband and son for a life devoted to her art.  Did this betrayal lead to Danny’s suicide ten years later?  Or is it possible Danny was murdered?  Answers are finally revealed in a gripping and heart-wrenching manner.

Jamie Saul’s writing is beautiful and concise.  He has written a powerful novel about love, loss and the darkness that lies just around the corners of everyday life. 

May
2008

John Grogan is a journalist who decided to write a little book about his dog.  After more than twenty printings and sixty-seven weeks on the New York Times best seller list, the book has become a phenomenon.  Says the author, “No one’s more surprised by it than I am.”

Marley was an impossibly cute purebred Labrador puppy when Grogan and his wife brought him home.  He quickly grew into a ninety-seven pound loveably naughty hyperactive hound who was kicked out of obedience school after humiliating the instructor.  Marley’s love and loyalty were as boundless as his troublemaking, as he inserted himself into the author’s life like no normal dog ever could.

June
2008

STRANGE AS THIS WEATHER HAS BEEN
By Ann Pancake

The novel follows several members of a West Virginia family who live below a mountain-top removal strip mine.  This living hell is evoked with great compassion and empathy in a wonderfully realized stream-of-consciousness style. 

Lace is a mother who begins to fight for her rights against corporate indifference while her three sons are touched in various ways by the collapsing economy and environment.  By tracing the devastating impact of strip-mining through the eyes of Lace and her children, Pancake’s powerfully haunting debut novel evinces an authentic respect for the land and the people who love it.

August
2008

THE RACONTEUR

This month our group went on a field trip to Metuchen to visit a bookstore. The Raconteur has been called "a literary center of gravity" by The New York Times, "a literary landmark" by Time Out New York, and a "literary sanctuary" by the London Guardian. Known for its accomplished and eclectic programming, The Raconteur hosts free weekly events (author signings, film screenings, staged readings, live music) and organizes oddball literary happenings that range from Manhattan pub crawls and arm wrestling tournaments to motorcycle rides and beard growing contests.

September
2008

LOVING FRANK
By Nancy Horan

Horan's ambitious first novel is a fictionalization of the life of Mamah Borthwick Cheney, best known as the woman who wrecked Frank Lloyd Wright's first marriage. Despite the title, this is not solely a romance, but also a portrayal of an independent, educated woman at odds with the restrictions of the early 20th century.  The novel belongs to the feminist genre not only in its depiction of a woman's conflicting desires for love and motherhood and a central role in society, but also through its sophisticated focus on the topic of feminism itself.

Loving Frank is a novel of impressive scope and ambition.  The author’s careful research allows her to get inside the mind of Wright’s “soul mate” and make their relationship real.  The novel has something for everyone—a romance, a history of architecture, and a philosophical and political debate on the role of women.

October
2008

SKINNY DIP
By Carl Hiaasen

While on a cruise to celebrate their second anniversary, Joey Perrone is pushed overboard by her husband, Chaz, who suspected that his wife had caught on to his scheme of doctoring Florida Everglades water samples on behalf of a ruthless agribusiness tycoon.   Unfortunately for Chaz, Joey had been co-captain of her college swim team, “a biographical nugget that her husband had obviously forgotten.”   Joey and her rescuer, six-times married retired cop Mick Stranahan, hatch a phony blackmail scheme, designed to drive Chaz crazy.

As in all his novels, Hiaasen warns against the depredations the Everglades continues to suffer, and hopes to provoke readers’ ire against venal politicians and unscrupulous businessmen.  However, the novel’s caper plot, over-the-top eccentric characters and its pervasive, engaging wit can be enjoyed with or without taking in the environmental message.