The imperfectionists - Tom Rachman

The imperfectionists- Rachman, Tom

Summary: Preoccupied by personal challenges while running a struggling English-language newspaper in Rome, an obituary writer confronts mortality, an eccentric publisher obsesses over his basset hound and other staff members uncover the paper's founding by an impulsive millionaire. A first novel. - (Baker & Taylor)



Kirkus Reviews
An English-language newspaper headquartered in Rome brings together a strongly imagined cast of characters in journalist Rachman's first novel. Lloyd Burko used to be a stringer living in Paris. He's still in Paris, but now he's just an impoverished former journalist who pretends to have a computer and whose latest wife has moved in with the guy across the hall. Arthur Gopal is languishing as an obituary writer until a death in his own life enables his advancement by erasing his humanity. Hardy Benjamin is a business writer, savvy and knowledgeable about corporate finance but utterly hapless in romance. What they have in common is the never-named paper, whose history is doled out in brief chapters beginning in 1953. The novel's rich representation of expatriate existence surely benefits from the author's experiences as an AP correspondent in Rome and an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris; his thoroughly unglamorous depictions of newsroom cubicles and editorial offices will resonate with anyone who's had a corporate job. But, while the newspaper is its unifying factor, the narrative's heart beats with the people who work there. Rachman's ability to create a diverse group of fully formed individuals is remarkable. Characters range from a kid just out of college who learns the hard way that he doesn't want to be a reporter, to an Italian diplomat's widow. Some are instantly sympathetic, others hard to like. Each is vivid and compelling in his or her own way. The individual stories work well independently, even better as the author skillfully weaves them together. Cameo appearances become significant when informed by everything the reader already knows about a character who flits in and out of another's story. The novel isn't perfect. The interpolated chapters about the paper's past aren't very interesting; the final entry ends with a ghastly shock; and the postscript is too cute. Nevertheless, it's a very strong debut. Funny, humane and artful. Agent: Susan Golomb/Susan Golomb Agency Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
  
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Never let me go - Ishiguro

 Never let me go - Ishiguro

Summary: A reunion with two childhood friends draws Kath and her companions on a nostalgic odyssey into their lives at Hallsham, an isolated private school in the English countryside, and a confrontation with the truth about their childhoods. 



Kirkus Reviews
An ambitious scientific experiment wreaks horrendous toll in the Booker-winning British author's disturbingly eloquent sixth novel (after When We Were Orphans, 2000).Ishiguro's narrator, identified only as Kath(y) H., speaks to us as a 31-year-old social worker of sorts, who's completing her tenure as a "carer," prior to becoming herself one of the "donors" whom she visits at various "recovery centers." The setting is "England, late 1990s"-more than two decades after Kath was raised at a rural private school (Hailsham) whose students, all children of unspecified parentage, were sheltered, encouraged to develop their intellectual and especially artistic capabilities, and groomed to become donors. Visions of Brave New World and 1984 arise as Kath recalls in gradually and increasingly harrowing detail her friendships with fellow students Ruth and Tommy (the latter a sweet, though distractible boy prone to irrational temper tantrums), their "graduation" from Hailsham and years of comparative independence at a remote halfway house (the Cottages), the painful outcome of Ruth's breakup with Tommy (whom Kath also loves), and the discovery the adult Kath and Tommy make when (while seeking a "deferral" from carer or donor status) they seek out Hailsham's chastened "guardians" and receive confirmation of the limits long since placed on them. With perfect pacing and infinite subtlety, Ishiguro reveals exactly as much as we need to know about how efforts to regulate the future through genetic engineering create, control, then emotionlessly destroy very real, very human lives-without ever showing us the faces of the culpable, who have "tried to convince themselves. . . . That you were less than human, so it didn't matter." That this stunningly brilliant fiction echoes Caryl Churchill's superb play A Number and Margaret Atwood's celebrated dystopian novels in no way diminishes its originality and power.A masterpiece of craftsmanship that offers an unparalleled emotional experience. Send a copy to the Swedish Academy.First printing of 100,000; author tour. Agent: Deborah Rogers/Rogers, Coleridge & White Copyright Kirkus 2005 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.


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Medium raw - Anthony Bourdain

Medium raw - Bourdain, Anthony

Summary: Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood, Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he's seen, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food.


Staff Review  
I will read anything Tony Bourdain decides to publish, so I'm lucky that he makes them good!  His fame and TV shows have not reduced the wit or charm with which he tells these great stories.

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The man from Beijing - Henning Mankell

 The man from Beijing - Mankell, Henning

Summary: Hudiksvall, January 2006, police find eighteen people massacred in a small village. They think it's the work of a mad man but Birgitta and August believe they were killed by the same person who killed their mother.




Booklist Reviews
Mankell's latest stand-alone thriller lacks the tight focus of his Wallander novels, but it still delivers plenty of suspense and a compelling protagonist. Birgitta Roslin, a district-court judge in the Swedish city of Helsingborg, finds herself involved in the horrific slaughter of 19 people in a small hamlet in rural Sweden. Roslin, who has a family connection to one of the victims, travels to the scene of the crime and makes inquiries with the local police. In two short days, she traces the only clue—a red silk ribbon—to a local Chinese restaurant and to a Chinese man who stayed at a hotel near the restaurant. That small strand of ribbon takes Roslin to Beijing, where she attempts to trace the mystery man, is assaulted, and encounters a government official, Hong Qui, who is conducting her own investigation into corruption at the highest levels of Chinese society. But China is only the beginning of Mankell's narrative globe-trotting. The plot also careens to Mozambique and to London, not to mention lengthy flashbacks to the nineteenth-century U.S., where two Chinese brothers, sold into slavery, are building railroads. The various strains of this massive plot are skillfully interconnected, but there are too many stories—each of which could have been its own novel—and Mankell spends far too much time laying out his position on modern Chinese and African politics. Still, the opening set piece, in which the murders are discovered, is a stunner, and the finale, in a London restaurant, is equally gripping. Yes, Mankell overextends himself here, but he also shows why he remains a must-read for anyone interested in the international crime novel. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.


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The hunger games - Suzanne Collins

 The hunger games - Collins, Suzanne

Series: The Hunger Games 

Summary: In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

Staff Review

Brutal, exciting, vivid.  The Hunger Games is set in a future where young adults must compete in deathly games to secure food for their community.  Author Suzanne Collins does an amazing job of creating very real characters put in unthinkable situations, and making us really feel for them.  My workmate has already recommended the second in the trilogy, "Catching Fire" to you, and I do as well.  (Third in the trilogy, "Mockingjay" is due out August 24th.)

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No impact man - Colin Beavan

 No impact man : the adventures of a guilty liberal who attempts to save the planet, and the discoveries he makes about himself and our way of life in the process - Beavan, Colin

Summary: Bill McKibben meets Bill Bryson in this seriously engaging look at one man's decision to put his money where his mouth is and go off the grid for one year--while still living in New York City--to see if it's possible to make no net impact on the environment. In other words, no trash, no toxins in the water, no elevators, no subway, no products in packaging, no air-conditioning, no television. After this mad endeavor, Beavan explains to the rest of us how we can realistically live a more "eco-effective" and by turns more content life in an age of inconvenient truths.
  
Booklist Reviews
When it comes to saving the planet, can one person really make a difference? Define difference. For Beavan, his wife, and their infant daughter, it meant trying to live for a year in New York City without producing any trash, consuming any nonlocal foodstuffs, or traveling by any method other than footpower. It meant not buying anything new, giving up coffee, going off the grid. From their first baby steps (no takeout) to their giant leap (no toilet paper), the Beavans' experiment in ecological responsibility was a daunting escapade in going green to the extreme. Along with the frustrating practicalities of schlepping a two-year-old, a dog, and a bike up and down nine flights of stairs came the exhilarating rush of success as each new challenge was met and conquered. Yet throughout, Beavan experienced overwhelming crises of faith in both himself and his mission. So fervent as to make Al Gore look like a profligate wastrel, Beavan's commitment to the cause is, nonetheless, infectiously inspiring and uproariously entertaining. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews


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The Perry bible fellowship almanack - Nicholas Gurewitch

The Perry bible fellowship almanack - Gurewitch, Nicholas

Summary: A collection of the abstract "The Perry Bible Fellowship" comic strips includes a selection of never-before-published strips. - (Baker & Taylor)

Publishers Weekly Reviews
For more than 20 years, various cartoonists have jostled for the title of "spiritual heir to Gary Larson," the famously weird creator of the groundbreaking strip The Far Side. Web cartoonist Gurewitch is a solid contender for the title. His preferred subject matter certainly tracks Larson: murderous mimes, vengeful T. Rexes and adulterous rolls of coins all make appearances. Gurewitch also enjoys subverting a number of hackneyed cartoon tropes, including cuckolded husbands, mischievous voyeurs and confused Grim Reapers. But it is his exquisite sense of timing that sets him apart as a budding comic genius. Gurewitch has mastered the "soaker," the joke that stays with the reader for several minutes before finally sinking in, making it all the funnier as a result. As hard as the soaker is to pull off consistently, Gurewitch's timing and supreme confidence in refusing to telegraph punch lines, allows him to hit the mark almost every time. It's particularly instructive to read the appendix "Lost Strips" to see the still funny but broader strips that did not make the cut. He alternates between a number of art styles—all gorgeous; his selection is always in service to the joke. Subtle, sly and deeply, deeply weird, The Perry Bible Fellowship is one of the best comics out there. (Apr.)
[Page 26]. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

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Abraham Lincoln: vampire hunter- Seth Grahame-Smith

Abraham Lincoln : vampire hunter- Grahame-Smith, Seth

Summary: Reveals the hidden life of the sixteenth U.S. president, who was actually a vampire-hunter obsessed with the complete elimination of the undead, and uncovers the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of the nation.


Booklist Reviews
Capitalizing on the runaway success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), Grahame-Smith introduces an irreverent "biography" of Abraham Lincoln chock-full of that other horror-genre staple: vampires. Everyone knows that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and saved the country from disunion, but very few were privy to the fact that Honest Abe was an honest-to-goodness vampire hunter; that is, until Grahame-Smith unearthed Lincoln's secret journal, an intimate document detailing the lifelong battle he waged against the undead. Motivated by the vampire-initiated death of his mother, 11-year-old Abe vowed to "kill every vampire in America." True to his pledge, he spent the next 50 years honing his skills and stalking his prey. Recognizing an inextricable link between slavery and vampires, he expanded his mission to include destroying the "peculiar institution." And the rest, as they say, is history. Grahame-Smith's breezy narrative style makes this a quick and easy read guaranteed to tickle the funny bone. Vampires are hot, so expect high demand (except from, probably, die-hard history buffs, who may not be amused). Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Her fearful symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger

Her fearful symmetry - Niffenegger, Audrey

Summary: When Elspeth Noblin dies, she leaves everything to the 20-year-old American twin daughters of her own long-estranged twin, Edie. Valentina and Julia, as enmeshed as Elspeth and Edie once were, move into Elspeth's London flat and through a series of developing relationships a crisis develops that could pull the twins apart.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Niffenegger, a Chicago artist and writer with an elegantly romantic and otherworldly sensibility, earned international acclaim for The Time Traveler's Wife (2003). This season the film version of her best-selling debut will be quickly followed by this cunning and enrapturing ghost story. As evident in her exquisite, fairy tale–like illustrated novels, The Three Incestuous Sisters (2005) and The Adventuress (2006), Niffenegger has a discerning eye and a slyly gothic sensibility, elements that shape this tragicomic fantasy about two generations of twins. Valentina and Julia, inseparable, 20-year-old "mirror image" twins, are still living with their parents outside Chicago when they inherit a flat in London from Elspeth, their mother's long-estranged twin. Unaware of the painful secret that has kept Edwina and Elspeth apart, ethereal Julia and Valentina arrive in London to find they'll be living beside the historic Highgate Cemetery. The flat below theirs is occupied by Elspeth's broken-hearted, younger lover, Robert; the flat above is home to Martin, a crossword puzzle–maker plagued with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it seems as though Elspeth is still in residence as a meddlesome ghost. With a sumptuously mournful mise-en-scene (Robert is a cemetery guide, as is the author), Niffenegger tells a gorgeously rendered, utterly bewitching, and profoundly unnerving tale of the mysteries of selfhood and death and the way love can be both a radiant and malevolent force. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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Joan Jett - Todd Oldham

Joan Jett - Oldham, Todd

Summary: Rock-and-roll goddess Joan Jett holds a beloved place in the world of music. She started her first band, The Runaways, at age fifteen and has blazed a trail that has inspired and thrilled her fans to this day. AMMO Books is proud to release this authorized, loving tribute conceived and authored by designer Todd Oldham. The book chronicles all aspects of her career and passions through images --from forming The Runaways to her years of touring with her band, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts. Features many never-before-seen photos, ephemera, and excerpts from thirty years worth of interviews, carefully curated with Joan herself, covering the multi-decade career of a real rock-and-roll icon. A thoughtful introduction written by renowned indie rocker and Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna brings context to this exciting title. --Amazon.com

Staff Review
From Kathleen Hannah's heartfelt introduction, to photographs of a leather clad Joan ready to rock at age fourteen (chubby cheeks and all), Oldham has put together a beautifully designed piece of work  which explores the inspiring story of a young girl who was determined to dedicate her life to music and managed to become an icon in the process.

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Young romantics : the tangled lives of English poetry's greatest generation - Daisy Hay

Young romantics : the tangled lives of English poetry's greatest generation - Hay, Daisy

Summary: Examines the interlinked lives of English Romantic poets from an alternate perspective that analyzes their youth, drive for companionship, individuality and radical political beliefs, in a study that includes coverage of such figures as Lord Byron, John Keats and Mary Shelley. A first book. - (Baker & Taylor)



Library Journal Reviews
The lives of the second generation of English Romantic writers—Leigh Hunt, Percy and Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats—are the stuff of melodramatic romance and legend: antiestablishment rebels; successions of wives, mistresses, and lovers; the struggle for recognition; exile; and early death. Following a broadly chronological movement, this debut by Hay shifts back and forth among the circles of friends and families of these writers, from the imprisonment of Hunt to the death of Shelley and its aftermath. While Hay breaks no new ground, Young Romantics is a vigorously written, well-informed, and popularizing page-turner. VERDICT The chief limitation of the book—a problem that hampers a number of recent literary biographies—is that it focuses on the human dimensions of the poets rather than the greatness of their poetry. It is accessible, however, and highly recommended for the general reader interested in the lives behind the poems but less so for the specialist.—T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah

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The women - T.C. Boyle

 The women: a novel - Boyle, T.C.

Summary: Recounts the life of Frank Lloyd Wright as told through the experiences of the four women who loved him: the Montenegrin beauty Olgivanna Milanoff; the passionate Southern belle Maud Miriam Noel; the spirited Mamah Cheney, tragically killed; and his young first wife, Kitty Tobin



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* The women who inspired Boyle s latest fictional improvisation on the lives of historic figures are the lovers and wives of the master architect Frank Lloyd Wright. While Wright s ambition, ego, and flamboyance are legendary, the passionate women who loved him are known primarily as the victims of lurid scandals and outright horrors. Boyle delves deeply into social and emotional territory to write imaginatively and meaningfully about the operatic drama of Wright s world, an ideal subject for this protean, caring, and wisely satirical writer, whose fascination with zealots and their followers led to his novel about Alfred Kinsey, The Inner Circle (2004), and who happens to live in a famous Wright house. Boyle s rendering of Taliesin, the cursed Wisconsin home of Wright s dubious Fellowship, is positively gothic, and for all the swift fury of the plot, this is a character-driven novel in which Boyle empathically portrays Kitty, Wright s first wife and the mother of six of his children; radical and doomed Mamah; mad Miriam; and stalwart Olgivanna. And then there s Boyles piquant narrator, the loyal Wright disciple Tadashi Sato, whose Japanese heritage introduces racism to the story, a theme that reaches fully tragic proportions in Boyle s devastating take on the man who killed Mamah and her two children. Boyle is electrifying in this gorgeously novel of artistic conviction, exalted romance, and appalling moral failings. Copyright Booklist Reviews 2008.


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The shadow catcher - Marianne Wiggins

 The shadow catcher - Wiggins, Marianne

Summary: A series of tales about a photographer's developing relationship with the Native Americans he astonishes by showing them pictures of themselves is interspersed with parallel tales about an unsung soldier, a husband, and a father.



Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Wiggins is a writer who paints elegant pictures with words. So who better to tell the story of Edward Sheriff Curtis, the enigmatic photographer of the American West, protege of J. P. Morgan, and friend of Theodore Roosevelt? She chooses to tell the story from her own point of view, through a fictionalized version of herself, called by her own name. Summoned to Hollywood to discuss turning her book about Curtis into a movie, Wiggins makes it plain to the director, who wants to make him a romantic hero, that he was anything but. He paid the Bureau of Indian Affairs a fee to photograph inside the reservations that he drove to in his car, abandoning his wife and four children and spending all their money to follow his obsession. At the same time she is pitching the movie, her personal life gets a bit hectic, and the links between Curtis' past and her present intertwine, if a little too coincidentally, at least very interestingly. The book slips from Wiggins' point of view to that of Curtis' long-suffering wife, Clara. The pages are liberally sprinkled with photographs, insights, realistic pathos, and human situations. This creative novel will not disappoint. ((Reviewed May 1, 2007)) Copyright 2007 Booklist Reviews.


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Role models - John Waters

 Role models - Waters, John

Summary: "Here, from the incomparable John Waters, is a paean to the power of subversive inspiration that will delight, amuse, enrich--and happily horrify readers everywhere. This book is, in fact, a self-portrait told through intimate profiles of favorite personalities--some famous, some unknown, some surprisingly middle-of-the-road. From Esther Martin, the owner of the scariest bar in Baltimore, to playwright Tennessee Williams; from atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair to insane martyr Saint Catherine of Siena; from English novelist Denton Welch to timeless singer Johnny Mathis, these are the figures that helped the author form his own brand of neurotic happiness."--From publisher description.   

Staff Review  
Oh John Waters.  How can someone be "The King of Puke" and be so endearing at the same time?  I don't know, I just know I love him!  Here he lovingly talks about his role models and provides an autobiography at the same time.

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Jurassic Park: a novel - Michael Crichton

 Jurassic Park: a novel - Crichton, Michael

Summary: A wealthy entrepreneur secretly creates a theme park featuring living dinosaurs drawn from prehistoric DNA. Before opening the attraction to the public, he invites some scientists to experience the park and help calm anxious investors; but, during the visit, the security system breaks down and prehistoric creatures break out.



Publishers Weekly Reviews
An island off Costa Rica will soon be the world's most ambitious theme park--a dinosaur preserve. A visionary financier's biotechnology company has succeeded in cloning these extinct reptiles. Fifteen different species, presumably incapable of breeding, are now placidly roaming around, but Jurassic Park's resident mathematician, an expert in chaos theory, predicts that the animals' behavior is inherently unstable. When a rival genetics firm attempts to steal frozen dinosaur embryos, things go haywire. Two cute American kids, eight-year-old Tina and 11-year-old Tim, a safari guide from Kenya and a Denver paleontologist set things aright--almost. Though the dinosaurs here are more interesting than the people, Crichton ( The Andromeda Strain ) ingeniously interweaves details of genetic engineering, computer wizardry and current scientific controversy over dinosaurs to fashion a scary, creepy, mesmerizing techno-thriller with teeth. It can be read as a thought-provoking fable about technological hubris and the hazards of bioengineering. 150,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection; movie rights sold to Steven Spielberg/Universal Pictures . (Nov.) Copyright 1990 Cahners Business Information.  

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That's funny you don't look Buddhist - Sylvia Boorstein

That's funny you don't look Buddhist - Boorstein, Sylvia

Summary: Explores the intriguing relationship between Jewish and Buddhist traditions and discusses the reasons why so many Jews are drawn to Buddhism and become practicing Buddhists. 50,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo. Tour. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
Boorstein, author of It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness (1995), is a wonderfully commonsensical Buddhist teacher and an observant Jew. This combination of faiths is not uncommon; in fact, so many Jews are drawn to Buddhism, it is becoming a genuine spiritual movement. Rodger Kamenetz examined this phenomena in The Jew and the Lotus (1994), and now Boorstein devotes her newest book to answering the question, "How is it possible to be both a Jew and a Buddhist?" Warm and direct, she expresses her gratitude for knowing "two vocabularies" of faith: Buddhism is her "voice of understanding," and Judaism is the voice of her heart. Uneasy, at first, about this unsought "dual citizenship," Boorstein slowly realized that she became a more observant Jew because she has a meditation practice, that meditation brought her closer to her spiritual essence, which is, by birth, Jewish. Boorstein's mindful elucidation of her balance of faiths is inspiring and enriching. When it comes to spirituality, more is more. ((Reviewed February 15, 1997)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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On the rez - Ian Frazier

On the rez - Frazier, Ian

Summary: A writer visits the Pine Ridge Reservation with an old Sioux acquaintance and shares his observations of the heroism, humor, and tough spirit that keep these people afloat in the midst of crushing poverty. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Frazier writes urbane and witty essays for magazines such as the New Yorker, and he writes books that exemplify the best of immersion journalism. Energetically detailed first-person narratives, they combine detectivelike observations with history, travelogue, and social commentary. The first and most popular of these works was Great Plains (1989), in which Frazier reported on his journey from New York across the great American West. A meeting with an Oglala Sioux named Le War Lance proved crucial to his exploration, and Le plays an even larger role in Frazier's second foray. After Frazier and his family moved from Manhattan to Missoula, Montana, he decided to write about life on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Le, a man of courage and convictions, a teller of tall tales, a heavy drinker, and a master manipulator, provided entree into the homes of family and friends as long as Frazier kept his wallet and car at the ready. In between recounting every nuance of every experience, Frazier profiles Le and his family, American Indian Movement leader Russell Means, historical personages including Crazy Horse and Red Cloud, and SuAnne Marie Big Crow, a high-school basketball star who epitomized the best and most tragic aspects of Pine Ridge. He also writes with indelible precision about the reservation's dwellings and treacherous roads and highways as well as the grim and violent town of White Clay, Nebraska. By weaving the past with the present and illuminating so many aspects of Indian life, Frazier's frank and adroitly improvised narrative will stand as one of literature's most complex yet most clarifying testaments to the essence of American Indian culture. ((Reviewed November 15, 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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The sonnets - William Shakespeare

The sonnets - Shakespeare, William

Summary:Shakespeare's sonnets, the greatest of Elizabethan sonnet sequences, were first published in an unauthorized version in 1609. William Shakespeare was then forty-five years old, a successful playwright, a country gentleman, and an affluent member of the Globe, the most important theatrical enterprise in London.
Although the sonnets are among the finest poems in the English language, questions about them have preoccupied scholars for several hundred years. This edition portrays the sonnets in the order and sequence thought to be traditional.

Library Journal Reviews
Shakespeare is again the hottest ticket in town: he has been voted the person of the millennium in Great Britain, while an Oscar-nominated film about his love life is burning up box offices. Along with being the world's greatest playwright, his unparalleled genius for rhyme and meter make him also one of the greatest poets, evidenced by the 154 sonnets he penned throughout his life. This beautiful hardcover offers them all, with illustrations and an index of first lines. A real top-shelf edition. Copyright 1999 Library Journal Reviews

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A separate peace - John Knowles

A separate peace - Knowles, John

Summary: Gene Forrester looks back fifteen years to a World War II year in which he and his best friend were roommates in a New Hampshire boarding school.



Kirkus Review
A first novel traces with some discretion the events in the last year at a New England boys' preparatory school (recognizably Exeter) where, in 1942, the fairly peaceful, protected life is already overshadowed by the uneasiness of the war- and the draft ahead. As told by Gene Forrester, it concentrates on his not always calculable relationship with Finny, whose careless charm, disregard for and defiance of any rules, and dazzling athletic feats attract him- and also distract him from the academic success Gene is more interested in achieving. And it is the variables on the emotional exchange of their relationship which gives the book its interest; the close friendship which is not unmixed with resentment; Finny's dominance, which ends in dependence after the accident (for which Gene is responsible) which cripples Finny- and secondarily leads to his death.... While the imprint here is a personal one, it is unsentimental, and Knowles- a cleancut writer- has given the subtler elements of this attachment, in which identification is a strong part of the involvement, a clear definition. (Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1959)

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The woman warrior: memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts - Maxine Hong Kingston

The woman warrior: memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts - Kingston, Maxine Hong

Summary: A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity. - (Random House, Inc.)



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Goodbye to all that - Robert Graves

Goodbye to all that - Graves, Robert

Summary: In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and covers his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. "Goodbye to All That", with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraits of an artist ever written.

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