Lydia by Tim Sandlin

I admit it. I'm a sucker for brightly colored book covers. It may not make me read them but it usually makes me pick them up and read the jacket at least. This book is orange so I brought it home from the library. To add to the allure of the cover color was a blurb from Christopher Moore (whose books I love) mentioning how well Sandlin does comic fiction. There were a lot of things going on at once in the book. At one point you were following story lines stretching across two continents and a hundred years, and including a very odd road trip. Lydia is the narrator's mother, a feminist recently released from prison. She was captured after a decade on the run and convicted of trying to poison President Reagan's dog. (You've got to read it for all the salient details.) Community service is a part of her parole conditions and she ends up recording a centenarian's oral history to satisfy the requirement. His story alternates with what's happening in present time. Adding to the absurdity of the situation is a narrator runs a home for pregnant teens, a former hippie and psychopath hunting a main character and a visit to Lompoc prison. I liked the book and may eventually read more of his work.

The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern

Cecelia Ahern is a British writer who was chosen by Oprah's book club for another of her books. (I didn't know that until after I read this one, it may have stopped me if I had.) Amazon describes the Oprah book as a gothic thriller and this one is in the same vein. A spoiled Dublin teenager's father kills himself and leaves the family bankrupt. Sixteen-year-old Tamara and her mother are forced to move to the Irish countryside to live with her aunt and uncle. She knows immediately that strange things are happening but her life has changed so drastically that it takes some time to figure out what is going on. Her mother is almost catatonic with what she thinks is grief, her aunt hovers unbearably around them, her uncle is mostly absent and Tamara is left with the alien landscape of the country, the castle ruin nearby and a nun who lives in a small convent nearby and befriends her. In the midst of this she finds a blank journal in which she can read every morning what will happen the next day. The journal helps her solve the mystery and save her family. It's not nearly as strange as it sounds, but it does kind of read like a period thriller instead of something in the present.

A Covert Affair: The Adventures of Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS by Jennet Conant

This is another book I heard about on NPR. I loved the movie Julie & Julia, and it really gave me my first information on the Childs' life before she was a famous chef. I do think the book's title is misleading. My theory is that the author wanted to write a book about McCarthyism and anti-communist witch hunts targeting OSS agents active in the Far East during World War II, and specifically about a colleague of the Childs' from that time. The book feels like she pitched that to an editor and they said, no, not enough interest for a book there. I imagine her telling the editor "But Paul and Julia Child were there, and he was questioned about communist ties." I see the editor's ears perk up, and him telling her to put THAT in her book. Like Lost in Shangri-la, the book opens a window on life during World War II, especially women and how they participated in non-military roles in the Pacific and Asia. I'm glad I read two WWII books that dealt with the Pacific and Asia theaters because I was sorely uneducated in that area. The book also functions as a nice chronicle of the Childs' meeting, friendship, eventual courtship and life together. (I just think that should be an aside, not a subtitle!)

The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent

I'm not entirely sure what kind of book Kent was writing here. It started out as fairly straight-forward historical fiction about a soldier turned royal executioner who fled to the English colonies in America, and mercenaries who attempt to find him and bring him back to England to face justice. The female main character meets the soldier who is now an indentured worker for her cousin. The book follows their rocky courtship and gives a detailed look at how people lived in colonial New England.

The one problem I had with the book is a scene about midway through it. It's as if it was dropped in for no good reason, and almost has a supernatural or dreamlike air to it. Within a chapter or two, I went back to re-read it in case I missed something. The writer then seemed to return to her original plan after that one scene and no more was said about it. The only explanation given was in the afterword where the author explained that some of the characters were real people and the female lead was later involved in the Salem witch trials.

So, my verdict: I liked the book for the historical detail but I feel like I may have missed something.

Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff

I wonder if you really need to write the book if you have a subtitle that long. I mean, it is fairly self-explanatory.

It's probably going to sound like I had a summer reading list focused on World War II (see A Covert Affair and The Soldier's Wife). I didn't do it on purpose, but they were interesting. I think I heard about Lost in Shangri-la on an NPR interview. The book followed two servicemen and a WAC who were the only survivors of a plane crash in the New Guinea interior near the end of World War II. The plane was on a sightseeing flight to see a hidden valley (dubbed Shangri-la by one of the first pilots to see it) as reward for their hard work and long hours. Zuckoff researched the background of both the victims and survivors and gave an in-depth portrait of their lives before, during and after the war. The crash survivors were incredibly lucky - not only did they survive the crash into the jungle mountainside when 21 of their compatriots did not - they also scavenged what they could from the wreckage, made it to a clearing where they were spotted and managed to take care of themselves until help arrived and a rescue plan was formulated.

At that time interior New Guinea was usually only accessible by air and even then, rarely. Hazards included the terrain, Japanese soldiers hiding in the mountains, lack of food and potable water and the unknown disposition of the native peoples. (They were rumored to be cannibals.) In addition to the historical research that the author did for the book, he also traveled to New Guinea and made his way to the village near the crash site. He interviewed some of the villagers who witnessed the crash and rescue, and the descendants of others who have since died. Zuckoff matched up what the survivors understood of the villagers' actions with what the villagers actually meant with their non-verbal communication. Anthropologically it's an eye-opening book. The Americans really didn't know how lucky they were. The rescue mission was a harrowing thrill - I can't imagine how it actually worked.

World War Z by Max Brooks

Years ago I stumbled across Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide. It was good mainly because it was so deadpan as it described the best ways to outsmart and defeat the zombie menace. When I heard that Brad Pitt was making a movie out of World War Z, I decided to pick it up for our trip to the beach.

I understand that this is not a book for everyone. It is an oral history of the zombie war. Two things make it good: one, as a former history grad student, the oral history part is dead on. Two, there is no tongue-in-cheek here. If you just took out the word "zombie" and inserted "Communist" or "Fascist," etc., it would sound just like a real history book.

So, if you are so inclined, and this sounds interesting to you, check it out. But don't say I didn't warn you. Interesting author note: Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. He has also written for Saturday Night Live.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

I picked up this book that's a few years old because the author has a new one out that looked interesting and the library didn't have it yet. To explain the title, the devil is a serial killer and the White City is the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. I thought it would be interesting because of the true crime part but the world's fair information is fascinating. So many inventions and people got their start at the fair - the Ferris Wheel, architects like Louis Sullivan who had Frank Lloyd Wright as an intern briefly. Walt Disney's father Elias helped to build the exposition buildings and it is believed that this perfect city they build on the edge of the lake inspired him to build Disneyland.

The crime story is interesting, too. It's awful to think about what happened and what criminals got away with before forensics and modern communications. The book alternates between the two sides of the story. It's a lengthy book but I thought it was worth the time to read it.

The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure

Okay, if you don't know what the book is about, the title is fairly misleading. The author is a fan of the Little House on the Prairie series of books and becomes obsessed with them. I guess you would call it obsessed, unless you were a writer. Then I think it becomes your next book idea.

I was a big fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books when I was young. (I had the series in paperback but I have no idea where they are now. Hmm, guess I need to ask Mom if she's seen them in the past 20 years or so.) Anyway, over about a year the author delves into all things Wilder. She re-reads not only the books in the series but almost everything she can get on the series, the author's life, the real settings of the books, cookbooks with recipes from the books - everything.

Then she goes a step further. She churns her own butter and makes a recipe from The Long Winter. That doesn't quite satisfy the obsession, so she decides to make a couple of pilgrimages to places where the Ingalls family lives. She and her long-suffering but good natured husband travel from Chicago to South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota to see what is left of the places mentioned in the book. They have varying degrees of success. Some places have reverted to prairie, but there are also replicas, similar structures moved from elsewhere and a wide spectrum of museums and memorials devoted to the books and the TV show.

I agree with the author about the TV show.

10th Anniversary by James Patterson

I know, I know, he's very formulaic. But I've invested in reading the first nine books of the Women's Murder Club series, so I'm not about to stop now. I don't know how James Patterson cranks out books the way he does, but they are good summer reading!

The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh

Sometimes one book will lead you to another one. I was reading one on forensic science a few weeks ago, and it referenced this book. (Sorry, this is one of my obsessions. I'm convinced that I am qualified to either catch or be a serial killer by now!) Anyway, this is an older non-fiction book about a serial murderer in England caught by DNA testing. It was the first case where it was used and successful.

In the mid-1990s two girls from small towns in the English countryside were raped and killed, about a year apart. Despite a huge police task force, massive publicity and thousands of tips, the killer wasn't caught for 3 years. During the investigation a suspect was arrested, seemed to confess and was held in jail. His father didn't believe that he'd killed the girls. (The guy was guilty of being creepy but was not a murderer.) While he was in police custody his father remembered reading about a British scientist who had developed "genetic fingerprinting" using DNA. They had a blood type for the killer and samples enough to do his DNA profile.

What they did next still amazes me. I'm pretty sure you couldn't do it now, at least in America. The police sent out letters to every man who fell into a certain age at the time of the murders who lived in the small rural area and asked them to come in voluntarily to have their blood tested for a DNA match. While they knew that the killer probably wouldn't come in on his own, they thought they might get lucky. They were also watching for those who refused to come in, or who protested.

In the end, they found the killer. The ins and outs of how it happened were very interesting.

Archangel by Robert Harris

The history major in me is a fan of Robert Harris. His first book, Fatherland, imagined a world where the Third Reich won World War II. Enigma was a fictional version of the codebreakers based in England during WWII (trying to solve the Enigma machine messages). Archangel is the first of his books, at least that I've read, set in the present.

The main character is an historian who specializes in Soviet era Russian history. While he is at a conference in Moscow he stumbles upon information that he believes that will lead him to a secret notebook that belonged to Stalin. It's almost a Cold War thriller in that there are still a lot of those same elements at work in Russia today. What he eventually finds is much more than a notebook.

The book really captures the spirit of the old saying about those who are doomed to repeat history. And, of course, my all time favorite Faulkner quote: "The past is not dead; it is not even past."

Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz & David Hayward

Lisa Lutz is one of my favorite writers. She's written a series of books about the Spellman family who are dysfunctional private investigators. (They're great investigators but a crazy family.) This is her first book without the Spellmans. I was reading it to tide me over to her next one.


Her co-writer is a former boyfriend who is also a poet and editor. They alternate chapters throughout. The book is good, and it's funny, but sometimes a little wildly confusing. Sort of like the game you played as kids where one person starts a story, then it goes around the circle with everyone adding on to it. Within the chapters the alternate co-writer leaves footnotes and at the end of each chapter you get to see the notes that they wrote each other on what just happened or what should happen next. The notes get more acrimonious as the book wears on. It all comes together in the end, but you wonder if they were speaking. Apparently, so, because they've done an interview on NPR and are now on a book tour.

The Scent of Rain & Lightning by Nancy Pickard

I can honestly say I had no idea "whodunit" until the author revealed everything near the end. I like that in a book. Partly set in the present day but mostly involving events 23 years earlier, you and the main character try to figure out what happened to her parents when she was a toddler. Her father was killed during a violent storm in a town on the Kansas plains. Her mother (or her body) was never found. When the presumed killer is released from prison after the governor commutes his sentence, their daughter tries to find out what really went on that night. In her small town where everyone knows everything about her it seems as if they all want to protect her, or keep her from digging too deep in the past. It was fascinating. And with all the vivid storm descriptions in the book, I felt like it was raining outside while I read it.

The Guynd by Belinda Rathbone

This book is by an American writer who marries a Scotsman and goes to live with him on his country estate. She vividly describes what a mixed blessing/curse it is to have the land and big house but not the money and servants that it was designed for, and needs to run. My only disappointment with it was that there were no photos. And, I had to go online afterwards to look at that and find out a little more about what happened in the author's personal life. Not only was the house a difficult proposition, the husband was, too. It was like Art's pack-rat-edness multiplied exponentially. Oh, and the title (and house) is pronounced so that it rhymes with "wind."

Billy & Milly: Short & Silly by Eve Feldman

Very exciting! This is the first library book that Alex can read all the way through by himself. Hurray! It has about a dozen or so three or four word stories in the book. (Example of a story about a pinata: pack, whack, crack, snack.) He's proud of himself and I am too!

Helen Lester

A month or two ago Alex came home from school with loads of penguin knowledge. His class studied them for a week. One of the books they read during that time was "Tacky the Penguin." I got to read it one day when I volunteered in his class. It was pretty funny. Tacky lives up to his name - he's just not as polished or well-behaved as his debonair iceberg-mates. Luckily (at least for some members of the household) the author has written many Tacky books: "Tacky and the Emperor," "Tacky in Trouble," "Tacky and the Winter Games," "Tackylocks and the Three Bears," "Tacky Goes to Camp," etc. If anyone in your house likes penguins and silliness, Tacky may be for you. As the end of most of the books goes, he's an odd bird but a nice bird to have around.

Georgia Bottoms by Mark Childress

I've never read anything by this author, but I definitely have to get his other books now. (He also wrote Crazy in Alabama, which could also serve as a good description of this plot, too.) The title character's family name was Butts until her grandmother changed it to Bottoms because it sounded nicer. They live in a tiny southern Alabama town that only has a half-size Belk's. To say her life is "interesting" wouldn't do it justice by half. Georgia has a regular "date" with different prominent (and married) men each night of the week. Except for Mondays which are just for her. She does all of these in strict secrecy from most of the town all while appearing, to most people anyway, to be an upper class modern Southern belle. The book covers her mid to late 30s and what happens when all the secrets come undone. I highly recommend it!

Clara and Mr. Tiffany - Susan Vreeland

I like history, so I like historical fiction. Okay, so maybe that doesn't always follow. I don't think Art likes historical fiction at all. Or fiction, much, for that matter. Anyway, this book is about the time of the design and manufacture of Tiffany lampshades. I had no idea that they employed a department of women to do the lampshades, stained glass windows, desk sets, etc. The women were considered to have smaller hands and more delicate movements for the very delicate work. Only single women were allowed to work in the department in this pre-voting rights, pre-equal rights, pretty much pre-any-kind-of-rights for women. The female workers also had to fight the prejudice of the male workers who thought they should be at home and leave the work to them, even though they worked on a totally different sort of work. The descriptions of what they made were wonderful. You could almost see them.

The one drawback to the book: it tackles every major social issue in the 10 years or so that it covers. It felt a little like Forrest Gump. Every new chapter brought something new to confront: women's rights, labor unions, poverty, racism, homosexuality, etc. It was a bit much sometimes. A busy book but still good.

The Radleys by Matt Haig

I know, I know, another vampire book? This was different, though. A middle-aged English couple living in the 'burbs have never told their teenagers the real reason they're "allergic" to sunlight and garlic, and always sickly. Until they find out by accident. It has a sly humor and intersperses passages from "The Abstainer's Handbook" with the chapters. My favorite pop culture reference: The Lost Boys is their favorite movie.

Woolbur by Leslie Helakoski

Woolbur describes what would happen if Alex were a sheep. Young Woolbur goes to school every day and each evening Maa tells Paa about "a little problem" at school that day. Woolbur doesn't want to be sheared. Maa and Paa worry, Grandpaa tells them not to. It goes on as Woolbur goes against the stream through wool carding, weaving and flock etiquette. Finally, everyone else in his class decides to try it his way. It's a nice message and Woolbur looks cool - kind of a rebel sheep with dreadlocks.

Latest guilty pleasures

Regency era British romance novels by Mary Balogh. Think Jane Austen but rated PG-13.

Ape House by Sara Gruen

This is a new book by the author of Water for Elephants. I haven't read that one yet, but it's being made into a movie with Robert Pattinson now. This book is about six bonobo apes who are "liberated" from their cushy life at a research center. They end up on a reality TV show run by a sleazy television mogul.

The book follows their former keeper (who was terribly injured during their escape/kidnapping) as she tries to find them and get them away from their new public life. She's helped by a newspaper reporter who wants to follow the story he started before it was stolen from him and her vegan activist assistant who may or may not have been involved with the liberation. There's also a pit bull named Booger and a stripper named Ivanka. Very interesting.

Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

The author is a Mississippi native and the title comes from how I (and countless other children)was taught to spell Mississippi: M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-humpback-humpback-I. I found this book on the Lemuria Books blog and got it from the library. (This is the only one that the library had by the author but I hope they get more.)

The story takes place in the present but is heavily influenced by events of 30 years ago, when the main characters were in high school. Back then a teenage girl disappeared when she was supposed to be on a date with one of the protagonists, but was really with the other. To make things even more difficult, one was black and one was white. The girl was never found and all these years later another teenager has disappeared.

The white man has lived with the town's suspicion all this time and is accused once again. The black man is now the town's police officer and investigating the disappearance. It was fascinating. I loved the way the author writes dialogue - it's very natural and sounds like people really talk, especially in that part of the world.

The Royal Spyness mystery series - Rhys Bowen

I just read the fourth book in the Royal Spyness series - Royal Blood. (The earlier ones are Her Royal Spyness, A Royal Pain and Royal Flush.) The series is set in 1930s Britain and Europe. Lady Georgiana Rannoch is a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and 34th in line for the throne. Her family is almost destitute except for their titles, Scottish castle and large house in London. Georgie is trapped in that while she has no money she can't go out and get a job due to social convention, not to mention the world-wide depression.

Over the four books, Queen Mary summons Georgie and asks her to do things for her, like spy on Wallis Simpson or entertain German princesses for the summer. All on a shoestring budget and with no way to refuse royal requests. The whole series is entertaining, fairly light and I like the era that it's set in. Nothing heavy here, just fun and interesting to see a world that I'd never really thought about.

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

While it isn't a lot like it, this book reminded me an awful lot of The Time Traveler's Wife. Ann Brashares also wrote The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The two main characters, Sophia and Daniel, are old souls who have been reincarnated several times over hundreds of years and thousands of miles. Daniel narrates that reincarnation happens all the time but that most people have no memory of their past lives, except in random flashes or in their dreams.

Daniel is one of the rare few who does remember his pasts, and feels the burden heavily. He met Sophia in one of his first lives and has tried to find her in each one since. This may sound like science fiction or New Age drivel, but the book is so well written, and the characters so interesting, that I really wanted to read it and find out what happened. Daniel struggles to convince Sophia (in each of her successive forms) that they know and love each other.

I will warn anyone who wants to pick it up, though, the ending is one of those non-endings that leaves you vaguely unsatisfied. I'm not sure if there is a sequel planned, or if the author had another purpose. I did see on her website that the book is going to be made into a movie.