Reading Year Calendar 2011 - 2012

Bay Area Discussion Group Reading Calendar 2011-2012



Date: September 17, 2011
Title: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
Author: Erik Larson
Book Manager: Andrea Brambila
Host(s): Alice Heather/ Judy Robertson

Date: October 15, 2011
Title: Olive Kitteridge
Author: Elizabeth Strout
Book Manager: Jennifer Koutralatkis
Host(s): Melanie Beecroft/ Karen Marino

Date: November 19, 2011
Title: Wolves at The Door: The Trials of Fatty Arbuckle
Author: David Kizer (Author will attend)
Book Manager: Teri Titus
Host(s): Heidi Louwaert

Date: December 17, 2011
Title: The Finkler Question
Author: Howard Jacobson
Book Manager: Heidi Louwaert
Host(s): Terri Coffino/ Heidi Louwaert

Date: January 21, 2012
Title: Strength in What Remains
Author: Tracy Kidder
Book Manager: Karin Marino
Host(s): Jennifer Koutralatkis/ Ann Parks-Council

Date: February 18, 2012
Title: Dead Man’s Switch
Author: Tammy Kaehler (Author will attend or skype)
Book Manager: Ann Parks-Council
Host(s): James Draper/ Robert Council

Date: March 17, 2012
Title: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Author: Laura Hillenbrand
Book Manager: Judy Robertson
Host(s): Carolee Chan

Date: April 21, 2012
Title: Namesake
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Book Manager: Parissa Peymani
Host(s): Rosalba Navarro

Date: May 19, 2012
Title: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Author: Amy Chua
Book Manager: Rosalba Navarro
Host(s): Parissa Peymani

Date: June 16, 2012
Title: bel canto
Author: Ann Patchett
Book Manager Robert Council
Host(s): Martina Akerman

Date: July 21, 2012
Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Book Manager: ?
Host(s): Janice Cervantes

Reading Year 2011 - 2012

The following books have been selected for the reading year 2011-2012. Usually we select 10 books, however this time we have 2 special events.

1. A review and discussion of selected works by Philip Roth. I anticipate that his event will occur in the spring of 2012 in one meeting. We will review and discuss several books by Mr. Roth. Participation in voluntary but it would be great if as many members as possible would each select a different work. We could examine his body of work. One of the detailed listing is at this site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Roth) . Please email me with the name of the book you selected.

2. A discussion of Colombian Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. This event will occur in July 2012 prior to the selection of the 2012-2013 books.

The regular meetings will be on the 3^rd Saturday of each month at 4 pm. We are still finalizing dates for invited guests and will be able to finalize the calendar within the week.

The September 17 meeting will be hosted by Alice Heather/Judy Robertson at Judy’s home,

The book manager will be Andrea Brambila. She will be facilitating a discussion of The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that changed America written by Erik Larson.

The other titles are listed below by categories not by dates.

NON-FICTION
TITLE	AUTHOR	BOOK MANAGER
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother	Amy Chua	Rosalba Navarro
Strength in What Remains	Tracy Kidder	Karen Marino
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America	Erik Larson	Andrea Brambila
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption	Laura Hillenbrand	Judy Robertson
Wolves at The Door: The Trials of Fatty Arbuckle	David Kizer	Teri Titus
FICTION
TITLE	AUTHOR	BOOK MANAGER
bel canto	Ann Patchett	Robert Council
Dead Man’s Switch	Tammy Kaehler	Ann Parks-Council
Namesake	Jhumpa Lahiri	Parissa Peymani
Olive Kitteridge	Elizabeth Strout	Jennifer Koutralatkis
The Finkler Question	Howard Jacobson	Heidi Louwaert
One Hundred Years of Solitude	Gabriel Garcia Marquez	Janice Cervantes
Selected Works of Philip Roth (to be determined)	Philip Roth

from Parissa

Fiction Recommendation:

The Final Testament of the holy bible by James Frey

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

People of the book by Geraldine Brooks

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Snow Flowers and the secret fan by Lisa Lee

The dry grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Non-Fiction Recommendation:

The Woman Who Can't Forget by Jill Price

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

A New Earth: Awakening to your life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

from Alice --- Votes

I also will not be able to attend this Saturday.

I do want to "vote" for the following books:

1. Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

2. Unbroken: A WWII Story of Survival by Laura Hillenbrand

3. The Chosen by Chaim Potok

4. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolv

5. Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

6. Indigination by Philip Roth

7. Dead Man Switch by Tammy Kaehler

8. Wolves at the Door: The Trails of Fatty Arbuckle by David Kizer

from Carolee --- votes

I'd like to offer my votes on the following books:

Guitar Man - Buzzy Martin
The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
The Chosen - Chaim Potak
Flawless - Scott Andrew Selby
Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand
Portobello - Ruth Rendell
Dreams of Joy - Lisa See
Dead Man's Switch - Tammy Kaehler

from Andrea

Absentee votes:

Never Let Me Go
Yiddish Policemen's Union
Through Black Spruce
People of the Book
Book of Negroes/Someone Knows My Name
Deafening
The Human Stain
The Plot Against America
A Stolen Life
Room
The Chosen
The Sins of Brother Curtis
Packing for Mars
The Disappearing Spoon
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

My recommendations:

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis (non-fiction)

In this brilliant #1 "New York Times"-bestselling account of how the U.S. economy has been driven over the cliff, the author of the bestseller "Liar's Poker" explains how the free fall of the American economy occurred and who, exactly, is to blame.The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (non-fiction)

"Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" is an awe-inspiring, often hilarious, and unerringly honest story of one mother's exercise in extreme parenting, revealing the rewards--and the costs--of raising her daughters the Chinese way.An awe-inspiring, often hilarious, and unerringly honest story of one mother's exercise in extreme parenting, revealing the rewards-and the costs-of raising her children the Chinese way.

All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. What Battle Hymn of the Tiger Motherreveals is that the Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that. Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions and providing a nurturing environment. The Chinese believe that the best way to protect your children is by preparing them for the future and arming them with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Motherchronicles Chua's iron-willed decision to raise her daughters, Sophia and Lulu, her way-the Chinese way-and the remarkable results her choice inspires.

Here are some things Amy Chua would never allow her daughters to do:

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin

The truth is Lulu and Sophia would never have had time for a playdate. They were too busy practicing their instruments (two to three hours a day and double sessions on the weekend) and perfecting their Mandarin.

Of course no one is perfect, including Chua herself. Witness this scene:

"According to Sophia, here are three things I actually said to her at the piano as I supervised her practicing:

1. Oh my God, you're just getting worse and worse.

2. I'm going to count to three, then I want musicality.

3. If the next time's not PERFECT, I'm going to take all your stuffed animals and burn them!"

But Chua demands as much of herself as she does of her daughters. And in her sacrifices-the exacting attention spent studying her daughters' performances, the office hours lost shuttling the girls to lessons-the depth of her love for her children becomes clear. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Motheris an eye-opening exploration of the differences in Eastern and Western parenting- and the lessons parents and children everywhere teach one another.

Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life by Michael Krasny

KQED Radio's Michael Krasny is one of the country's leading interviewers of literary luminaries, a maestro for educated listeners who prefer their discourse high and civil. He is a writer's interviewer.

But it didn't start out that way.

InOff Mike, Krasny, host of one of public radio's most popular and intellectually compelling programs, talks of his strong desire to become a novelist in the footsteps of Bellow and Philip Roth, and then discovering his real talent as a communicator—a deft ability to draw others out as an interlocutor.

In a mix of memoir and reportage, Krasny takes readers inside his world. He gives an account of the polarizing transformation of talk radio, from his early days at KGO commercial radio, through to his current role at NPR, where he manages to keep the flow of talk in his San Francisco based show animated and politically balanced.

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson (non-fiction)

Erik Larson—author of #1 bestseller IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS—intertwines the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (fiction)

At the center of this "cracking good read"4 is clever, deadpan Blue van Meer, who has a head full of literary, philosophical, scientific, and cinematic knowledge. But she could use some friends. Upon entering the elite St. Gallway school, she finds some-a clique of eccentrics known as the Bluebloods. One drowning and one hanging later, Blue finds herself puzzling out a byzantine murder mystery. Nabokov meets Donna Tartt (then invites the rest of the Western Canon to the party) in this novel-with "visual aids" drawn by the author-that has won over readers of all ages.Marisha Pessl graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (fiction)

A lost book reappears, drawing together the lives of the irrepressible Leo Gursky who has arrived at the end of his life, a locksmith searching for the son who's never known him, and young Alma Singer, desperate to find her namesake and a cure for her mother's loneliness. Gradually their stories merge into a single triumph of the imagination over loss.A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.

Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has her hands full—keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild—she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together their stories.

This extraordinary book was inspired by the author's four grandparents and by a pantheon of authors whose work is haunted by loss—Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and more. It is truly a history of love: a tale brimming with laughter, irony, passion, and soaring imaginative power.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (fiction)

A banquet for all the senses," said "Newsweek" of this bestselling and Booker Prize-winning literary novel--a richly textured first book about the tragic decline of one family whose members suffer the terrible consequences of forbidden love.Compared favorably to the works of Faulkner and Dickens, Arundhati Roy’s debut novel is a modern classic that has been read and loved worldwide. Equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama, it is the story of an affluent Indian family forever changed by one fateful day in 1969. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevokably by the arrival of their beautiful young cousin, Sophie. It is an event that will lead to an illicit liaison and tragedies accidental and intentional, exposing “big things [that] lurk unsaid” in a country drifting dangerously toward unrest. Lush, lyrical, and unnerving, The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.

from Martina

After watching the Jacee Dugard interview last night, I do want to make one more sugestion for a non fiction read.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Stolen Life.
"In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.
For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse.

For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.

A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it."
-Jacee Lee Dugard
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personally, It's books like this that makes me want to read. It's a true life story, one that will move us all, possibly in different ways, and will for sure teach us all something valuable about what it means to be human. It will inspire us to be better people, and it will make us appreciate the things in our own lives that we tend to take for granted.
I don't know if any of you watched the interview with Diane Sawyer last night, but I did and it really moved me.
I hope it would be a book that the rest of you might find worth our attention.

from Robert -- 20 titles

Below is a list books to be considered for future reading. Following the titles and author names is a more detailed description of each book.

Title Author

1. The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid

2. Indignation Philip Roth

3. Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro

4. True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey

5. Yiddish Policemen’s Union Michael Chabon

6. The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett

7. Through Black Spruce Joseph Boyden

8. Three Day Road Joseph Boyden

9. People of the Book Geraldine Brooks

10. Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri

11. Elegance of the Hedgehog Muriel Barbery

12. Cutting for Stone Abraham Verghese

13. Book of Negroes/Someone Knows My Name Lawrence Hill

14. bel canto Ann Patchett

15. Corrections Jonathan Franzen

16. Every Man Dies Alone Hans Fallada

17. Deafening Frances Itani

18. Lacuna Barbara Kingsolver

19. The Human Stain Philip Roth

20. The Plot Against America Philip Roth

SUMMARIES

1] The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid

At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting . . .

Changez is living an immigrant’s dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by the elite "valuation" firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his infatuation with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore.

But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.

2] Indignation Philip Roth

Against the backdrop of the Korean War, a young man faces life's unimagined chances and terrifying consequences. .

It is 1951 in America, the second year of the Korean War. A studious, law-abiding, intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, Marcus Messner is beginning his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio's Winesburg College. And why is he there and not at the local college in Newark where he originally enrolled? Because his father, the sturdy, hard-working neighborhood butcher, seems to have gone mad -- mad with fear and apprehension of the dangers of adult life, the dangers of the world, the dangers he sees in every corner for his beloved boy.

As the long-suffering, desperately harassed mother tells her son, the father's fear arises from love and pride. Perhaps, but it produces too much anger in Marcus for him to endure living with his parents any longer. He leaves them and, far from Newark, in the Midwestern College, has to find his way amid the customs and constrictions of another American world.

3] Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro

As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed–even comforted–by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham's nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now.

4] True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey

Ned Kelly's name resonates in Australia the same way the name Jesse James does in America. Was he a crusading folk hero or murderous horse thief and bank robber? Who was the real Ned Kelly? As the impoverished son of an Irish convict, Kelly was cheated, lied to, and abused by the English. Committed to fighting back against oppression, Kelly and his gang of outlaws eluded police for nearly two years. Brilliantly novelized by Peter Carey, the story of the Kelly Gang unfolds from a series of 13 compassionate letters written, while on the run, by Kelly to his infant daughter. Building from this historical legend and testing our sympathies, Carey crafts a deeply humanistic piece of historical fiction, a tale of injustice and violence.

5] Yiddish Policemen’s Union Michael Chabon

The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a 2007 novel by American author Michael Chabon. The novel is a detective story set in an alternative history version of the present day, based on the premise that during World War II, a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Sitka, Alaska, in 1941, and that the fledgling State of Israel was destroyed in 1948. The novel is set in Sitka, which it depicts as a large, Yiddish-speaking metropolis

6] The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett

The title's "uncommon reader" (Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom) becomes obsessed with books after a chance encounter with a mobile library. The story follows the consequences of this obsession for the Queen, her household and advisers, and her constitutional position.

7] Through Black Spruce Joseph Boyden

Will Bird is a legendary Cree bush pilot, now lying in a coma in a hospital in his hometown of Moose Factory, Ontario. His niece Annie Bird, beautiful and self-reliant, has returned from her own perilous journey to sit beside his bed. Broken in different ways, the two take silent communion in their unspoken kinship, and the story that unfolds is rife with heartbreak, fierce love, ancient blood feuds, mysterious disappearances, fires, plane crashes, murders, and the bonds that hold a family, and a people, together.

8] Three Day Road Joseph Boyden

Three Day Road is the first novel from Canadian writer Joseph Boyden. Joseph’s maternal grandfather, as well as an uncle on his father’s side, served as soldiers during the First World War, and Boyden draws upon a wealth of family narratives. This novel follows the journey of two young Cree men, Xavier and Elijah, who volunteer for that war and become snipers during the conflict.

9] People of the Book Geraldine Brooks

One of the earliest Jewish religious volumes to be illuminated with images, the Sarajevo Haggadah survived centuries of purges and wars thanks to people of all faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, has turned the intriguing but sparely detailed history of this precious volume into an emotionally rich, thrilling fictionalization that retraces its turbulent journey. In the hands of Hanna Heath, an impassioned rare-book expert restoring the manuscript in 1996 Sarajevo, it yields clues to its guardians and whereabouts: an insect wing, a wine stain, salt crystals, and a white hair. While readers experience crucial moments in the book's history through a series of fascinating, fleshed-out short stories, Hanna pursues its secrets scientifically, and finds that some interests will still risk everything in the name of protecting this treasure. A complex love story, thrilling mystery, vivid history lesson, and celebration of the enduring power of ideas.

10] Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri

The Namesake was originally a novella published in The New Yorker and was later expanded to a full length novel. It explores many of the same emotional and cultural themes as her Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection Interpreter of Maladies. Moving between events in Calcutta, Boston, and New York City, the novel examines the nuances involved with being caught between two conflicting cultures with their highly distinct religious, social, and ideological differences.

11] Elegance of the Hedgehog Muriel Barbery

The Elegance of the Hedgehog (French: L'élégance du hérisson) is a novel by the French novelist and professor of philosophy Muriel Barbery. The book follows events in the life of a concierge, Renée Michel, whose deliberately concealed intelligence is uncovered by an unstable but intellectually precocious girl named Paloma Josse. Paloma is the daughter of an upper-class family living in the upscale Parisian apartment building where Renée works

12] Cutting for Stone Abraham Verghese

Lauded for his sensitive memoir (My Own Country) about his time as a doctor in eastern Tennessee at the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s, Verghese turns his formidable talents to fiction, mining his own life and experiences in a magnificent, sweeping novel that moves from India to Ethiopia to an inner-city hospital in New York City over decades and generations. Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a devout young nun, leaves the south Indian state of Kerala in 1947 for a missionary post in Yemen. During the arduous sea voyage, she saves the life of an English doctor bound for Ethiopia, Thomas Stone, who becomes a key player in her destiny when they meet up again at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa. Seven years later, Sister Praise dies birthing twin boys: Shiva and Marion, the latter narrating his own and his brothers long, dramatic, biblical story set against the backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia, the life of the hospital compound in which they grow up and the love story of their adopted parents, both doctors at Missing. The boys become doctors as well and Verghese’s weaving of the practice of medicine into the narrative is fascinating even as the story bobs and weaves with the power and coincidences of the best 19th-century novel.

13] Book of Negroes/Someone Knows My Name Lawrence Hill

Kidnapped as a child from Africa, Aminata Diallo is enslaved in South Carolina but escapes during the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan she becomes a scribe for the British, recording the names of blacks who have served the King and earned freedom in Nova Scotia.

But the hardship and prejudice there prompt her to follow her heart back to Africa, then on to London, where she bears witness to the injustices of slavery and its toll on her life and a whole people.

14] bel canto Ann Patchett

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots.

15] Corrections Jonathan Franzen

After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives.

The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man-or so her mother fears.

Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

16] Every Man Dies Alone Hans Fallada

Every Man Dies Alone or Alone in Berlin (German: Jeder stirbt für sich allein) is a novel by German author Hans Fallada. It is based on the true story of a working class husband and wife, Otto and Elise Hampel, who committed acts of civil disobedience in Berlin during World War II before being caught, tried by infamous Nazi judge Roland Freisler, and executed in Plötzensee Prison. Fallada's book was one of the first anti-Nazi novels to be published by a German after World War II.

17] Deafening Frances Itani

In Deafening, Canadian writer Frances Itani's American debut novel, she tells two parallel stories: a man's story of war and a woman's story of waiting for him and of what it is to be deaf. Grania O'Neill is left with no hearing after having scarlet fever when she is five. She is taught at home until she is nine and then sent to the Ontario Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, where lifelong friendships are forged, her career as a nurse is chosen, and she meets Jim Lloyd, a hearing man, with whom she falls in love.

A deaf woman teaching a hearing man to make sounds again is only one of the wonders in this book. Because Itani's command of her material is complete, the story is saved from being another classic wartime romance--a sad tale of lovers separated. It is a testament to the belief that language is stronger than separation, fear, illness, trauma and even death.

18] Lacuna Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolver's ambitious new novel, her first in nine years (after the The Poisonwood Bible), focuses on Harrison William Shepherd, the product of a divorced American father and a Mexican mother. After getting kicked out of his American military academy, Harrison spends his formative years in Mexico in the 1930s in the household of Diego Rivera; his wife, Frida Kahlo; and their houseguest, Leon Trotsky, who is hiding from Soviet assassins. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison returns to the U.S., settling down in Asheville, N.C., where he becomes an author of historical potboilers (e.g., Vassals of Majesty) and is later investigated as a possible subversive. Narrated in the form of letters, diary entries and newspaper clippings, the novel takes a while to get going, but once it does, it achieves a rare dramatic power that reaches its emotional peak when Harrison wittily and eloquently defends himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee (on the panel is a young Dick Nixon).

19] The Human Stain Philip Roth

It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser.

Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unravelled.

20] The Plot Against America Philip Roth

When the renowned aviation hero and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt by a landslide in the 1940 presidential election, fear invaded every Jewish household in America.

Not only had Lindbergh, in a nationwide radio address, publicly blamed the Jews for selfishly pushing America toward a pointless war with Nazi Germany, but upon taking office as the thirty-third president of the United States, he negotiated a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler, whose conquest of Europe and virulent anti-Semitic policies he appeared to accept without difficulty.

What then followed in America is the historical setting for this startling new book by Pulitzer Prize–winner Philip Roth, who recounts what it was like for his Newark family—and for a million such families all over the country—during the menacing years of the Lindbergh presidency, when American citizens who happened to be Jews had every reason to expect the worst.

from Ann

I would like to nominate for your consideration, a first novel by Tammy Kaehler, Dead Man Switch. I have known Tammy since she was a toddler and it is very exciting to see her achieve one of her life’s goals. I’m attaching a review and a few videos by Tammy discussing her book. It will be released August 2nd. It will be in hardback, paperback and audio. It is a murder mystery set in the world of NASCAR racing. Her hope is to become the Dick Frances of NASCAR racing mysteries. Please see the following review:

http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/archives/9962

Two short videos: one about Tammy and writing and one about Dead Man's Switch. Check them out!

http://tammykaehler.blogspot.com/2011/06/videos.html

Direct links on YouTube:

Introducing TK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9lfeecqmqU

Dead Man's Switch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKpqCBFyu8Y

For more information her website is www.tammykaehler.com.

I will be delighted to be the book manager, and if we would like to have her via skype, see if she is available.

Thank you,

Ann

from Heidi -- My Reading List

My Reading Choices for 2011-2012 Heidi Louwaert

Fiction

FAITHFUL PLACE by Tana French

In 1985, 19-yearold Frank Mackey and his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, made secret plans to elope to England and start a new life together far away from their families, particularly the hard-drinking Mackeys. But when Rosie doesn't meet Frank the night they're meant to leave and he finds a note, Frank assumes she's left him behind. For 22 years, Frank, who becomes an undercover cop, stays away from Faithful Place, his childhood Dublin neighborhood. When his younger sister, Jackie, calls to tell him that someone found Rosie's suitcase hidden in an abandoned house, Frank reluctantly returns. Now everything he thought he knew is turned upside down: did Rosie really leave that night, or did someone stop her before she could? French, who briefly introduced Mackey in The Likeness, is adept at seamlessly blending suspenseful whodunit elements with Frank's familial demons.

THE FINKLER QUESTION by Howard Jacobson

Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, Jacobson's wry, devastating novel examines the complexities of identity and belonging, love, and grief through the lens of contemporary Judaism. Julian Treslove, a former BBC producer who works as a celebrity double, feels out of sync with his longtime friend and sometimes rival Sam Finkler, a popular author of philosophy-themed self-help books and a rabidly anti-Zionist Jewish scholar. The two have reconnected with their elderly professor, Libor Sevcik, following the deaths of Finkler and Libor's wives, leaving Treslove-the bachelor Gentile-even more out of the loop. But after Treslove is mugged-the crime has possible anti-Semitic overtones-he becomes obsessed with what it means to be Jewish, or "a Finkler." Jacobson brilliantly contrasts Treslove's search for a Jewish identity-through food, spurts of research, sex with Jewish women-with Finkler's thorny relationship with his Jewish heritage and fellow Jews. Libor, meanwhile, struggles to find his footing after his wife's death, the intense love he felt for her reminding Treslove of the belonging he so craves. Jacobson's prose is effortless-witty when it needs to be, heartbreaking where it counts-and the Jewish question becomes a metaphor without ever being overdone.

A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan

Readers will be pleased to discover that the star-crossed marriage of lucid prose and expertly deployed postmodern switcheroos that helped shoot Egan to the top of the genre-bending new school is alive in well in this graceful yet wild novel. We begin in contemporaryish New York with kleptomaniac Sasha and her boss, rising music producer Bennie Salazar, before flashing back, with Bennie, to the glory days of Bay Area punk rock, and eventually forward, with Sasha, to a settled life. By then, Egan has accrued tertiary characters, like Scotty Hausmann, Bennie's one-time bandmate who all but dropped out of society, and Alex, who goes on a date with Sasha and later witnesses the future of the music industry. Egan's overarching concerns are about how rebellion ages, influence corrupts, habits turn to addictions, and lifelong friendships fluctuate and turn. Or as one character asks, How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat fuck no one cares about? Egan answers the question elegantly, though not straight on, as this powerful novel chronicles how and why we change, even as the song stays the same.

MATTERHORN by Karl Marlantes

Thirty years in the making, Marlantes's epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines, encountering danger from opposing forces as well as on their home turf. Marine lieutenant and platoon commander Waino Mellas is braving a 13-month tour in Quang-Tri province, where he is assigned to a fire-support base and befriends Hawke, older at 22; both learn about life, loss, and the horrors of war. Jungle rot, leeches dropping from tree branches, malnourishment, drenching monsoons, mudslides, exposure to Agent Orange, and wild animals wreak havoc as brigade members face punishing combat and grapple with bitterness, rage, disease, alcoholism, and hubris. A decorated Vietnam veteran, the author clearly understands his playing field (including military jargon that can get lost in translation), and by examining both the internal and external struggles of the battalion, he brings a long, torturous war back to life with realistic characters and authentic, thrilling combat sequences. Marlantes's debut may be daunting in length, but it remains a grand, distinctive accomplishment.

SKIPPY DIES by Paul Murray

It’s no spoiler to acknowledge that Skippy, the main character in Murray’s second novel, does indeed die, since the boy is a goner by page 5 of the prologue. Following his character’s untimely demise, Murray takes the reader back in time to learn more about the sweetly engaging Skippy—a 14-year-old student at a historic Catholic boys’ school in Dublin—and his friends Ruprecht, a near genius who is passionately interested in string theory; Mario, a self-styled lothario; and Dennis, the resident cynic. We also meet the girl with whom Skippy is hopelessly in love, Lori, and his bête noire, Carl, a drug-dealing, psychopathic fellow student who is also in love with Lori. The faculty have their innings, too, especially the history teacher Howard (the Coward) Fallon, who has also fallen in love—he with the alluring substitute teacher Miss McIntyre. And then there is the truly dreadful assistant principal, Greg Costigan. In this darkly comic novel of adolescence (in some cases arrested), we also learn about the unexpected consequences of Skippy’s death, something of contemporary Irish life, and a great deal about the intersections of science and metaphysics and the ineluctable interconnectedness of the past and the present. At 672 pages, this is an extremely ambitious and complex novel, filled with parallels, with sometimes recondite references to Irish folklore, with quantum physics, and with much more. Hilarious, haunting, and heartbreaking, it is inarguably among the most memorable novels of the year to date.

ROOM by Emma Donoghue

In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time.

THE PALE KING by David Foster Wallace

"One hell of a document and a valiant tribute to the late Wallace.....Stretches of this are nothing short of sublime--the first two chapters are a real put-the-reader-on-notice charging bull blitz, and the David Foster Wallace sections...are tiny masterpieces of that whole self-aware po-mo thing of his that's so heavily imitated.... often achingly funny...pants-pissingly hilarious....Yet, even in its incomplete state...the book is unmistakably a David Foster Wallace affair. You get the sense early on that he's trying to cram the whole world between two covers. As it turns out, that would actually be easier to than what he was up to here, because then you could gloss over the flyover country that this novel fully inhabits, finding, among the wigglers, the essence of our fundamental human struggles." (Publishers Weekly )

.NON-FICTION

STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS by Tracy Kidder

With an anthropologist's eye and a novelist's pen, Pulitzer Prize–winning Kidder (Mountains Beyond Mountains) recounts the story of Deo, the Burundian former medical student turned American émigré at the center of this strikingly vivid story. Told in flashbacks from Deo's 2006 return visit to Burundi to mid-1990s New York and the Burundi of childhood memory and young adulthood—as the Rwandan genocide spilled across the border following the same inflamed ethnic divisions—then picking up in 2003, when author and subject first meet, Deo's experience is conveyed with a remarkable depth of vision and feeling. Kidder renders his subject with deep yet unfussy fidelity and the conflict with detail and nuance. While the book might recall Dave Eggers's novelized version of a real-life Sudanese refugee's experience in What Is the What, reading this book hardly covers old ground, but enables one to walk in the footsteps of its singular subject and see worlds new and old fresh. This profoundly gripping, hopeful and crucial testament is a work of the utmost skill, sympathy and moral clarity.

NOTHING TO ENVY: ORDINARY LIVES IN NORTH KOREA by Barbara Demick

A fascinating and deeply personal look at the lives of six defectors from the repressive totalitarian regime of the Republic of North Korea, in which Demick, an L.A. Times staffer and former Seoul bureau chief, draws out details of daily life that would not otherwise be known to Western eyes because of the near-complete media censorship north of the arbitrary border drawn after Japan's surrender ending WWII. As she reveals, ordinary life in North Korea by the 1990s became a parade of horrors, where famine killed millions, manufacturing and trade virtually ceased, salaries went unpaid, medical care failed, and people became accustomed to stepping over dead bodies lying in the streets. Her terrifying depiction of North Korea from the night sky, where the entire area is blacked out from failure of the electrical grid, contrasts vividly with the propaganda on the ground below urging the country's worker-citizens to believe that they are the envy of the world. Thorough interviews recall the tremendous difficulty of daily life under the regime, as these six characters reveal the emotional and cultural turmoil that finally caused each to make the dangerous choice to leave. As Demick weaves their stories together with the hidden history of the country's descent into chaos, she skillfully re-creates these captivating and moving personal journeys.

WOLVES AT THE DOOR: THE TRIALS OF FATTY ARBUCKLE by David Kizer

“Wolves at the Door” is the compelling true story of actor Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle manslaughter trials of 1921-1922. It is the narrative day by day account of the still unsolved mystery surrounding the sudden death of Virginia Rappe, four days after a drinking party in Arbuckle's rooms at the St. Francis Hotel at the height of prohibition. As seen from the perspective of Arbuckle, the judges and the attorneys, 'Wolves at the Door' combines the public's adulation with the early stars of Hollywood and the drama of courtroom confrontations and the looming presence of William Randolph Hearst.
The science of ‘CSI’ was introduced to America during the trials for the sole purpose of convicting Arbuckle. Some of the witnesses were coerced and others simply lied. The mystery of Rappe's death became the national fixation as perhaps the funniest man in the world went on trial for his life for a crime that the evidence showed he could not have committed.