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2012

January
2012

PEACE LIKE A RIVER
By Leif Enger

In the winter of Rube’s 11th year, two schoolyard bullies break into his house, and Rube's big brother Davy guns them down with a Winchester. Shortly after his arrest, Davy breaks out of jail and goes on the lam.   Shortly after Davy's escape, Rube, his younger sister Swede, and their father hit the road too, traveling across Minnesota and North Dakota, determined to find their lost outlaw Davy.  But the FBI is following Davy as well, and Reuben has a part to play in the finale of that chase.

The journey comprises the action in the novel, but this is not really a book about adventures on the road. Rather, it is a story of relationships in which the exploration of character takes precedence over incident. Enger's profound understanding of human nature stands behind his compelling prose.

February
2012

Zeitoun
By Dave Eggers

Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a successful Syrian-born painting contractor, decides to stay in New Orleans after Katrina to protect his property while his family flees. After the levees break, he uses a small canoe to rescue people, before being arrested by an armed squad and swept powerlessly into a vortex of bureaucratic brutality. When a guard accuses him of being a member of Al Qaeda, he sees that race and culture may explain his predicament. Eggers, compiling his account from interviews, sensibly resists rhetorical grandstanding, letting injustices speak for themselves. 

Eggers employs a poetic, declarative style, shaping the narrative with subtlety and grace.  Though Zeitoun’s story could have been a source of cynicism or despair, Dave Eggers’s clear and elegant prose manages to deftly capture many of the signature shortcomings of American life while holding onto the innate optimism and endless drive to more closely match our ideals.

March
2012

THE TIGER’S WIFE
By Te’a Obreht

Natalia Stefanovi, a doctor living in an unnamed country is on an ill-advised "good will" medical mission at an orphanage on what is suddenly the "other side," now that war has broken out, when she learns that her grandfather, a distinguished doctor forced out of his practice by ethnic divides, has died far from home. She is beset by memories, particularly of her grandfather taking her to the zoo to see the tigers. We learn the source of his fascination in mesmerizing flashbacks, meeting the village butcher, the deaf-mute Muslim woman he married, and a tiger who escaped the city zoo after it was bombed by the Germans.

Moments of breathtaking magic, wildness, and beauty are paired with chilling episodes in which superstition overrides reason; fear and hatred smother compassion; and inexplicable horror rules. Every word, every scene, every thought is blazingly alive in this many-faceted, spellbinding, and rending novel of death, succor, and remembrance.

April
2012

THIRTEENTH TALE
By Diane Setterfield

There are two heroines here: Vida Winter, a famous author, whose life story is coming to an end, and Margaret Lea, a young, unworldly, bookish girl who is a bookseller in her father's shop. Vida has been confounding her biographers and fans for years by giving everybody a different version of her life, each time swearing it's the truth. Because of a biography that Margaret has written about brothers, Vida chooses Margaret to tell her story, all of it, for the first time.  Contending with ghosts and with a (mostly) scary bunch of living people, Setterfield's sensible heroine is full of repressed feeling—and is unprepared for both heartache and romance.

A wholly original work told in the vein of all the best gothic classics.  Lovers of books about book lovers will be enthralled.

May
2012

I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS
By Maya Angelou

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “poor white trash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age–and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.

Poetic and powerful, this is a modern American classic that will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.