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Menlo Salon/Summer Reading 2006 |
The Reading Salon will take place on September 14, 2006. All Upper School students are to choose one book from the list and read it over the summer.
The Glass Castle: A Memoir New Title!
Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls' father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls' childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover.
Bel Canto
Ann Patchett
In this romantic novel set in the lavish home of a South American vice-president, a group of international guests gather for a birthday celebration featuring a performance by a world-renowned opera singer. The perfect evening is shattered when terrorists invade the party and seize the guests as their hostages in a tense dispute with the government. 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 continents become compatriots.
Felicia's Journey
William Trevor
Trevor, long admired for his trenchant stories and novels, his subtle humor and broad compassion, retains all those virtues in his deeply absorbing new novel and adds a degree of narrative tension he has not shown before. Felicia is a poor, plain, rather simple Irish girl made pregnant by the first boy to bed her, who then promptly disappears to England, leaving no address. When she abandons her taciturn family to look for him, her only thought is to be reunited with a lover. But she meets portly, self-delighted Mr. Hilditch, catering manager at a factory in the grimy English Midlands, who shows her unexpected kindness, even helps arrange an abortion for her; after all, he's been a good friend to so many other lost girls, hasn't he? Wary of him at first, then resigned, finally increasingly anxious as she wonders what became of his other friends, Felicia picks her numb way among psychological minefields. What happens to her and to Mr. Hilditch, in the brilliantly evoked setting of dank cafes and pubs, homeless wanderers, revivalists and bus trips to stately homes, is the stuff of nightmare; not cynically created, but one born of deep understanding and piercing truth. This is a thriller lifted to the level of high art, and it should win Trevor many new admirers. (from Publishers Weekly)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jonathan Foer
Oskar Schell, hero of this brilliant follow-up to Foer's bestselling Everything Is Illuminated, is a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist. Like the second-language narrator of , Oskar turns his naïvely precocious vocabulary to the understanding of historical tragedy, as he searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father when he was killed in the September 11 attacks, a quest that intertwines with the story of his grandparents, whose lives were blighted by the firebombing of Dresden. Foer embellishes the narrative with evocative graphics, including photographs, colored highlights and passages of illegibly overwritten text, and takes his unique flair for the poetry of miscommunication to occasionally gimmicky lengths, like a two-page soliloquy written entirely in numerical code. Although not quite the comic tour de force that Illuminated was, the novel is replete with hilarious and appalling passages, as when, during show-and-tell, Oskar plays a harrowing recording by a Hiroshima survivor and then launches into a Poindexterish disquisition on the bomb's "charring effect." It's more of a challenge to play in the same way with the very recent collapse of the towers, but Foer gambles on the power of his protagonist's voice to transform the cataclysm from raw current event to a tragedy at once visceral and mythical. Unafraid to show his traumatized characters' constant groping for emotional catharsis, Foer demonstrates once again that he is one of the few contemporary writers willing to risk sentimentalism in order to address great questions of truth, love and beauty. (from Publishers Weekly)
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
Jung Chang
In Wild Swans, Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century. Chang's grandmother was a warlord's concubine. Her gently raised mother struggled with hardships in the early days of Mao's revolution and rose, like her husband, to a prominent position in the Communist Party before being denounced during the Cultural Revolution. Chang herself marched, worked, and breathed for Mao until doubt crept in over the excesses of his policies and purges. Born just a few decades apart, their lives overlap with the end of the warlords' regime and overthrow of the Japanese occupation, violent struggles between the Kuomintang and the Communists to carve up China, and, most poignant for the author, the vicious cycle of purges orchestrated by Chairman Mao that discredited and crushed millions of people, including her parents. (from Amazon.com)
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
Mary Roach
Roach made an exceptional debut two years ago with Stiff—it might seem a hard act to follow. Yet she has done it again: after her study of what becomes of our mortal coil after death, she now presents an equally smart, quirky, hilarious look at whether there is a soul that survives our physical demise. Roach perfectly balances her skepticism and her boundless curiosity with a sincere desire to know. She ranges into the oddest nooks and crannies of both science and belief (and scientists who believe), regaling the reader with tales of Duncan Macdougall, a respected surgeon who weighed consumptives at their moment of death to see if the escaping soul could be measured in ounces, and of female mediums who, during séances, extruded a substance called ectoplasm from their private parts (she even examines a piece of alleged ectoplasm archived at Cambridge University). She goes to school to learn to be a medium, subjects her brain to electromagnetic waves to see if they induce the experience of seeing ghosts and joins a group trying to record sounds made by the spirits of the Donner party. The text is littered with footnotes: tangential but delicious tidbits that Roach clearly couldn't bear to leave out. She is an original who can enliven any subject with wit, keen reporting and a sly intelligence. (from Publishers Weekly)
The Future of Illusion
Sigmund Freud
Sure, you’ve heard of Freud; but have you ever read anything he wrote? Probably not. So here’s a good place to start: his analysis of religion. Freud wanted to know why some people believe so strongly in religion while others don’t believe in it at all. He also wondered why it’s so difficult to change your mind about religious beliefs. Looking at it from a psychological point of view, he explored the emotional needs that religion satisfies. From there he tried to analyze what happens to a person who loses faith in religion but still feels the psychological need for it. Sound interesting?
Band of Brothers
Stephen E. Ambrose
The book follows the men who trained and became the first U.S. Airborne troops from the group's origins and early training, through their baptism by fire in the Normandy Invasion and right up to the end of WWII. It's history at the level of individual soldiers, their trials, struggles and triumphs on real battlefields. The stories are riveting even for non-history fans.
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
All children should believe they are special. But the students of Hailsham, an elite school in the English countryside, are so special that visitors shun them, and only by rumor and the occasional fleeting remark by a teacher do they discover their unconventional origins and strange destiny. Kazuo Ishiguro's sixth novel, Never Let Me Go, is a masterpiece of indirection. Like the students of Hailsham, readers are "told but not told" what is going on and should be allowed to discover the secrets of Hailsham and the truth about these children on their own.
Romiette and Julio
Sharon M. Draper
When Romiette Cappelle meets Julio Montague, she feels as though she has met the soul mate. But like the Shakespearean characters whose names echo theirs, Romiette and Julio discover that not everyone approves of their budding romance, and in trying to escape the dangerous local gang who violently oppose their interracial relationship, their plans go awry and the two find themselves caught in a desperate struggle to avoid the tragic fate of Shakespeare's famous young lovers.
The Language Instinct
Steven Pinker
Following fast on the heels of Joel Davis's Mother Tongue is another provocative and skillfully written book by an MIT professor who specializes in the language development of children. While Pinker covers some of the same ground as did Davis, he argues that an "innate grammatical machinery of the brain" exists, which allows children to "reinvent" language on their own. Basing his ideas on Noam Chomsky's “Universal Grammr” theory, Pinker describes language as a "discrete combinatorial system" that might easily have evolved via natural selection. Pinker steps on a few toes (language mavens beware!), but his work, while controversial, is well argued, challenging, often humorous, and always fascinating.
Dispatches from the Edge
Anderson Cooper
Few people have witnessed more scenes of chaos and conflict around the world than Anderson Cooper, whose groundbreaking coverage on “CNN” has changed the way we watch the news. In this gripping, candid, and remarkably powerful memoir, he offers an unstinting, up-close view of the most harrowing crises of our time, and the profound impact they have had on his life.
After growing up on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Cooper felt a magnetic pull toward the unknown, an attraction to the far corners of the earth. If he could keep moving, and keep exploring, he felt he could stay one step ahead of his past, including the fame surrounding his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, and the tragic early deaths of his father and older brother. As a reporter, the frenetic pace of filing dispatches from war-torn countries, and the danger that came with it, helped him avoid having to look too closely at the pain and loss that was right in front of him.
But recently, during the course of one extraordinary, tumultuous year, it became impossible for him to continue to separate his work from his life, his family's troubled history from the suffering people he met all over the world. From the tsunami in Sri Lanka to the war in Iraq to the starvation in Niger and ultimately to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Mississippi, Cooper gives us a firsthand glimpse of the devastation that takes place, both physically and emotionally, when the normal order of things is violently ruptured on such a massive scale. Cooper had been in his share of life-threatening situations before -- ducking fire on the streets of war-torn Sarejevo, traveling on his own to famine-stricken Somalia, witnessing firsthand the genocide in Rwanda -- but he had never seen human misery quite like this. Writing with vivid memories of his childhood and early career as a roving correspondent, Cooper reveals for the first time how deeply affected he has been by the wars, disasters, and tragedies he has witnessed, and why he continues to be drawn to some of the most perilous places on earth.
Striking, heartfelt, and utterly engrossing, Dispatches from the Edge is an unforgettable memoir that takes us behind the scenes of the cataclysmic events of our age and allows us to see them through the eyes of one of America's most trusted, fearless, and pioneering reporters. (from Amazon.com)
The World is Flat
Thomas L. Freidman
Thomas L. Friedman is not so much a futurist, which he is sometimes called, as a presentist. His aim, in his new book, The World Is Flat, as in his earlier, influential Lexus and the Olive Tree, is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn't going to be flat, it is flat, which gives Friedman's breathless narrative much of its urgency, and which also saves it from the Epcot-style polyester sheen that futurists--the optimistic ones at least--are inevitably prey to.
What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone. But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments--when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East--is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete--and win--not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. (He doesn't forget the "mutant supply chains" like Al-Qaeda that let the small act big in more destructive ways.) Friedman tells his eye-opening story with the catchy slogans and globe-hopping anecdotes that readers of his earlier books and his New York Times columns will know well, and also with a stern sort of optimism. He wants to tell you how exciting this new world is, but he also wants you to know you're going to be trampled if you don't keep up with it. His book is an excellent place to begin. (from Amazon.com)
My Sister’s Keeper
Jodi Picoult
The difficult choices a family must make when a child is diagnosed with a serious disease are explored with pathos and understanding in this 11th novel by Picoult (Second Glance, etc.). The author, who has taken on such controversial subjects as euthanasia (Mercy), teen suicide (The Pact) and sterilization laws (Second Glance), turns her gaze on genetic planning, the prospect of creating babies for health purposes and the ethical and moral fallout that results. Kate Fitzgerald has a rare form of leukemia. Her sister, Anna, was conceived to provide a donor match for procedures that become increasingly invasive. At 13, Anna hires a lawyer so that she can sue her parents for the right to make her own decisions about how her body is used when a kidney transplant is planned. Meanwhile, Jesse, the neglected oldest child of the family, is out setting fires, which his firefighter father, Brian, inevitably puts out. Picoult uses multiple viewpoints to reveal each character's intentions and observations, but she doesn't manage her transitions as gracefully as usual; a series of flashbacks are abrupt. Nor is Sara, the children's mother, as well developed and three-dimensional as previous Picoult protagonists. Her devotion to Kate is understandable, but her complete lack of sympathy for Anna's predicament until the trial does not ring true, nor can we buy that Sara would dust off her law degree and represent herself in such a complicated case. Nevertheless, Picoult ably explores a complex subject with bravado and clarity, and comes up with a heart-wrenching, unexpected plot twist at the book's conclusion. (from Publishers Weekly)
Dear Theo
Irving Stone
These are the letters Vincent Van Gogh sent to his brother, Theo, who was his muse. The letters construct the thinking and feelings behind what are now masterpieces. During his lifetime, his work was not recognized, and Theo kept his brother painting and believing in himself.
The Savage Wars of Peace
Max Boot
This history of US foreign and military policy addresses America's "small wars" in chronological order from fighting the Barbary pirates in 1801 up to the conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East. For the purposes of the reading Salon, I would like you to read the preface and Part III (pgs 281-352) that focuses on the lessons of Vietnam and the small wars of the 1990s. The author has a provocative thesis, arguing that "small war missions are militarily doable" and are in fact a necessity because the U.S. has an obligation to intervene in civil wars, to stand up to aggressors, and to help spread freedom. It should lead to a lively discussion.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Michael Pollan
Most of us are at a great distance from our food. I don't mean that we live "twelve miles from a lemon," as English wit Sydney Smith said about a home in Yorkshire. I mean that our food bears little resemblance to its natural substance. Hamburger never mooed; spaghetti grows on the pasta tree; baby carrots come from a pink and blue nursery. Still, we worry about our meals -- from calories to carbs, from heart-healthy to brain food. And we prefer our food to be "natural," as long as natural doesn't involve real.
In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan writes about how our food is grown -- what it is, in fact, that we are eating. The book is really three in one: The first section discusses industrial farming; the second, organic food, both as big business and on a relatively small farm; and the third, what it is like to hunt and gather food for oneself. And each section culminates in a meal -- a cheeseburger and fries from McDonald's; roast chicken, vegetables and a salad from Whole Foods; and grilled chicken, corn and a chocolate soufflé (made with fresh eggs) from a sustainable farm; and, finally, mushrooms and pork, foraged from the wild. (from the Washington Post)
Old School
Tobias Wolff
A scholarship boy at a New England prep school grapples with literary ambition and insecurity in this lucid, deceptively sedate novel, set in the early 1960s and narrated by the unnamed protagonist from the vantage point of adulthood. Each year, the school hosts a number of visiting writers, and the boys in the top form are allowed to compete for a private audience by composing a poem or story. The narrator judges the skills of his competitors, avidly exposing his classmates' weaknesses and calculating their potential ("I knew better than to write George off.... He could win.... Bill was a contender"). His own chances are hurt by his inability to be honest with himself and examine his ambivalent feelings about his Jewish roots. After failing to win audiences with Robert Frost and Ayn Rand, he is determined to be chosen by the last and best guest, legendary Ernest Hemingway. The anxiety of influence afflicts all the boys, but in crafting his final literary offering, the narrator discovers inspiration in imitation, finding his voice in someone else's. The novel's candid, retrospective narration ruefully depicts its protagonist's retreat further and further behind his public facade ("I'd been absorbed so far into my performance that nothing else came naturally"). Beneath its staid trappings, this is a sharply ironic novel, in which love of literature is counterbalanced by bitter disappointment (as one character bluntly puts it, "[Writing] just cuts you off and makes you selfish and doesn't really do any good"). Wolff, an acclaimed short story writer (The Night in Question, etc.) and author of the memoir This Boy's Life, here offers a delicate, pointed meditation on the treacherous charms of art. (from Publishers Weekly)
Libra
Don Delillo
In this powerful, eerily convincing fictional speculation on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Don Delillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped. A gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction, alive with meticulously portrayed characters both real and created, Libra is a grave, haunting, and brilliant examination of an event that has become an indelible part of the American psyche. (from the publisher)
The Firecracker Boys
Dan O'Neill.
A non-fiction account of how the U.S. government tried to show the "positive side" of nuclear weapons during the Cold War by planning to use them to create a new harbor in the Alaska wilderness. Unexpected resistance by Alaska Natives and a scholar/scientist pair (who lost their jobs) saved the day. This is a little-known chapter in American history that deserves much more attention. The parallels to today’s events are numerous. This book would spark a lot of discussion! Very well-written.
Bad Blood: A Memoir
Lorna Sage
A beautifully- written account that is a cut above the many memoirs out there. Lorna Sage had a difficult childhood growing up in Wales. Her love of books and the intellectual life (including Latin) saved her. She grew up to be one of Britain's most respected literary critics.
The Known World
Edward P. Jones
Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel, The Known World, is a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery. Caldonia Townsend is an educated black slaveowner, the widow of a well-loved young farmer named Henry, whose parents had bought their own freedom, and then freed their son, only to watch him buy himself a slave as soon as he had saved enough money. Although a fair and gentle master by the standards of the day, Henry Townsend had learned from former master about the proper distance to keep from one's property. After his death, his slaves wonder if Caldonia will free them. When she fails to do so, but instead breaches the code that keeps them separate from her, a little piece of Manchester County begins to unravel. Impossible to rush through, The Known World is a complex, beautifully written novel with a large cast of characters, rewarding the patient reader with unexpected connections, some reaching into the present day. (from Amazon.com)
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell
Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author of The Tipping Point, campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of behavior. The key is to rely on our "adaptive unconscious"--a 24/7 mental valet--that provides us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea. Gladwell includes caveats about leaping to conclusions: marketers can manipulate our first impressions, high arousal moments make us "mind blind," focusing on the wrong cue leaves us vulnerable to "the Warren Harding Effect" (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless president). In a provocative chapter that exposes the "dark side of blink," he illuminates the failure of rapid cognition in the tragic stakeout and murder of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. He underlines studies about autism, facial reading and cardio uptick to urge training that enhances high-stakes decision-making. In this brilliant, cage-rattling book, one can only wish for a thicker slice of Gladwell's ideas about what Blink Camp might look like. (from Amazon.com)
Funny in Farsi
Firoozeh Dumas
This is a lighthearted "memoir of growing Up Iranian in America. All teenagers should read this book because it will help them appreciate their own parents after experiencing Firoozeh's humorous depiction of moving from Iran to California. It has been chosen as the “Community Reads” book for several areas of the country. Her website, firoozehdumas.com, offers a reading guide for teachers and book groups. Firoozeh is a Palo Alto resident.
The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
This New York Times bestseller is one of the most intriguing, amazing books I have read in a long time, and I would love to recommend it to other students at Menlo.
Ruiz Zafón's novel, a bestseller in his native Spain, takes the satanic touches from Angel Heart and stirs them into a bookish intrigue à la Foucault's Pendulum. The time is the 1950s; the place, Barcelona. Daniel Sempere, the son of a widowed bookstore owner, is 10 when he discovers a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julián Carax. The novel is rare, the author obscure, and rumors tell of a horribly disfigured man who has been burning every copy he can find of Carax's novels. The man calls himself Laín Coubert-the name of the devil in one of Carax's novels. As he grows up, Daniel's fascination with the mysterious Carax links him to a blind femme fatale with a "porcelain gaze," Clara Barceló; another fan, a leftist jack-of-all-trades, Fermín Romero de Torres; his best friend's sister, the delectable Beatriz Aguilar; and, as he begins investigating the life and death of Carax, a cast of characters with secrets to hide. Officially, Carax's dead body was dumped in an alley in 1936. But discrepancies in this story surface. Meanwhile, Daniel and Fermín are being harried by a sadistic policeman, Carax's childhood friend. As Daniel's quest continues, frightening parallels between his own life and Carax's begin to emerge. Ruiz Zafón strives for a literary tone, and no scene goes by without its complement of florid, cute and inexact similes and metaphors (snow is "God's dandruff"; servants obey orders with "the efficiency and submissiveness of a body of well-trained insects"). Yet the colorful cast of characters, the gothic turns and the straining for effect only give the book the feel of para-literature or the Hollywood version of a great 19th-century novel. (from Publishers Weekly)
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire
Timothy Zahn
Five years after the Return of the Jedi, the galaxy begins to recover from the reign of the Galactic Empire. The newly formed New Republic has pushed the remnants of the Imperials off Coruscant and to the edges of known space. The heroes of the movies are recovering from a life of war: Princess Leia and Han Solo are married, and are expecting
Jedi twins, while Luke Skywalker is working to rebuild the lost Jedi Order. The Empire refuses to die a peacefully death, however. That most brilliant tactical mastermind the galaxy has ever known, the Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, has assumed control of the remnants of the Empire's fleet, readied it for war, and pointed it at the fragile heart of the New Republic. Allying himself with a mad Jedi Master, Thrawn develops a plan to bring the Republic to it's knees and once again place the Empire at the head of the galaxy far, far away.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Mitch Albom
Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. Then on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. With his final breath, he feels two small hands in his—and then nothing. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly-life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers, yet each of them changed your path forever.
An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain
Diane Ackerman
Alchemy, the fantastic process of transmutation, is the metaphor used by the author to describe the internally lived world of the mind. Alchemy also describes the author's ability to transform the written word into a phantasmagorical journey of art and science. The reader experiences the excitement and thrill of exploration of one’s internal landscape. Ackerman skillfully weaves literature, metaphor, self_-exploration, and scientific discoveries together to create an intricate pattern of examination of the mind. By combining detailed descriptions of neuro-scientific findings, often at the cellular level, with the internal musings of her own experience and the literary descriptions of others, she has created a masterful description of how the mind works and encourages us to seek further discoveries in the vast frontier portrayed by the mind. This book is an interesting, insightful, and intriguing read. --Ridenour, Nancy (from the American Association for the Advancement of Science)
Dune
Frank Herbert
Paul Atreides, a boy of nobility, travels to the desert planet of Arrakis, the center of a power struggle rife with subversion. As the sole sourceof a valuable spice and home to the desert-dwelling Fremen, domination of Arrakis is coveted by the enemies of the House Atreides. Rival House Harkonnen violently seizes control from the Atreides and banishes Paul to the desert. As he dwells among the mysterious Fremen, Paul begins to grasp Arrakis. His terrible destiny unravels as he struggles to regain his family's supremacy. Dune is a brilliant science fiction novel of unrivaled intricacy -- essential reading for sci-fi fans or first-time sci-fi readers.
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque
At the turn of the century, Europe's countries developed intense nationalism, creating extreme tension in the world. Thus, at the start of World War 1, war was seen as a cleansing act, something that would wipe away the weaker elements of society. War was glorious, a way to be a hero and to show your patriotism. All Quiet on the Western Front, a novel written by a German soldier from the front about ordinary soldier's experiences, shoots down these ideas of war being glorious. A must read classic, Remarque's vivid writing style brings the reader to the anxiety of the trenches and of warfare, and is definitely a reading experience you will never forget.
Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin
James Baldwin's first novel. With startling realism that brings Harlem and the black experience vividly to life, this is a work that touches the heart with emotion while it stimulates the mind with its narrative style, intense characters and true vision of racism in America. Moving through time, James Baldwin tells the story of the black migration from the rural South to the urban North by starkly contrasting the attitudes of two generations of an embattled family. It is also the story of America as it confronts an inevitable change.
Buddhism Plain and Simple
Steve Hagen
Interested in learning about an Eastern religion/philosophy that's short on dogma and long on practical application to the unavoidable ups and downs of daily life? I'm a beginner to learning about Buddhism, so as I flipped through this book, I was attracted by its simplicity and clarity, as well as its emphasis on learning how to be more "present" and aware in daily life. It seems like a kind of "Buddhism for Dummies," but with more personal depth. On Amazon, it got "5 stars" on all reviews.
In Legend Born
Laura Resnick
Determined to free their country of Sileria from its Valdani conquerors, a freedom fighter, a noblewoman, an exiled warrior, and a vengeful mage put aside their personal vendettas to follow the lead of a young seer whose visions promise an end to slavery. Romance author Resnick makes her fantasy debut with a smoothly narrated, intricate tale of revolution and the human heart. The characters' efforts to overcome the barriers that divide them and discover their common bonds provides a welcome depth to this series opener and sets the stage for future titles. This is a solid choice for most fantasy collections. (from Library Journal)
Reviving Ophelia
Mary Pipher
From her work as a psychotherapist for adolescent females, Pipher here posits and persuasively argues her thesis that today's teenaged girls are coming of age in "a girl-poisoning culture." Backed by anecdotal evidence and research findings, she suggests that, despite the advances of feminism, young women continue to be victims of abuse, self-mutilation (e.g., anorexia), consumerism and media pressure to conform to others' ideals. With sympathy and focus she cites case histories to illustrate the struggles required of adolescent girls to maintain a sense of themselves among the mixed messages they receive from society, their schools and, often, their families. Pipher offers concrete suggestions for ways by which girls can build and maintain a strong sense of self, e.g., keeping a diary, observing their social context as an anthropologist might, distinguishing between thoughts and feelings. Pipher is an eloquent advocate. (from Publishers Weekly)
East of Eden
John Steinbeck
First published in 1952, East of Edenis the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis. (from the publisher)
Words in a French LifeKristen Espinasse
This book is a collection of essays (in English) from an American woman rearing two French children with her French husband in Provence. Each essay centers on a French word and offers a look at French culture and lifestyle from an insider's point of view, yet also through American eyes. A very charming book!
Teacher Man
Frank McCourt
The author of Angela's Ashes and 'Tis has been winning such superlatives since he broke onto the literary scene as a self-proclaimed "old man." In this third volume of memoirs, the McCourt turns to one of his first loves: teaching. He describes his sometimes bumpy coming-of-age in the classroom and explains its integral relationship with his writing career. McCourt's ability to fine-tune even short anecdotes eventually makes readers feel like partners in his apprenticeship.
Journey Through Genius
William DunhamUniversally regarded as one of the finest pieces of mathematical exposition in recent memory, Dunham's book explores mathematical insights of dazzling brilliance and universal aesthetic appeal. Works of Euclid, Archimedes, Euler, Cantor and others are selected for their elegance and explicated with extraordinary grace and clarity. Even if you have already selected another reading salon offering, if you enjoy mathematics, then you need to read this book!
Elegant UniverseBrian Greene
One of the more compelling scientific (cum-theological) questions in the Middle Ages was: "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Today's version in cutting-edge science is, "How many strings...?" As posited by string theory physics, strings are furiously vibrating loops of stuff. The concept of strings was devised to help scientists describe simultaneously both energy and matter. The frequency and resonance of strings' vibration, just like those of strings on an instrument, determine charge, spin and other familiar properties of energy? And eventually the structure of the universe: a true music of the spheres. There's a chance that strings are themselves made up of something still smaller. But scientists can prove their existence only on the blackboard and computer, because they are much too tiny? A hundred billion-billion times smaller than the nucleus of an atom? To be observed experimentally. Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Cornell and Columbia universities, makes the terribly complex theory of strings accessible to all. He possesses a remarkable gift for using the everyday to illustrate what may be going on in dimensions beyond our feeble human perception. Just when we might be tempted to dismiss strings as grist for the publish-or-perish mill, Greene explains how they have demonstrated connections between mathematics and physics that have helped solve age-old conundrums in each field. This book will appeal to astronomy as well as math and physics fans because it probes the important insights string theory gives into hotly debated issues in cosmology. Later chapters require careful attention to Greene's explications, but the effort will prepare readers to follow the scientific advances likely to be made in the next millennium through application of string theory. (from Publishers Weekly)
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel is regarded as one of the true modern masters of the short story. She has a particular reputation as an author of very short stories--pieces that take just a few pages to achieve lasting depth and complexity. This collection includes all of her published stories, including those from her first collection, Reasons to Live, which established her as a genuine literary star. As Brad Hooper says of her in “Booklist,” "She has never imitated, never been just a somewhat anonymous member of a pack of talented storywriters. She is an original, having found--and kept--her unique way of expressing her not so much cut-and-dried as deeply penetrating vision."
Time Traveler's Wife
Audrey Niffenegger
When people hear the words "time traveler" they immediately think "science fiction." But, in this case, it is simply a premise for a beautiful and engrossing contemporary story about a relationship. How do you love someone when you never know when he is going to appear and at what age? This recently published book has received rave reviews from critics and readers alike - it is a suspenseful and poetic book about love and time.
A Prayer for Owen MeanyJohn Irving
Perhaps the greatest title character in post-WW2 American fiction, Owen Meany experiences a life and legacy that are retold by a hilarious narrator who will undoubtedly make you laugh as well as push you to tears. This epic narrative deals with the ups and downs of adolescence, and the challenges that a lifetime friendship will face (it doesn't get much worse when your best friend accidentally kills your mom). Owen Meany clearly leaves a permanent impression on the narrator; he will leave one on you, too, if you choose to read this incredible novel!
Possession
A.S. Byatt
"Literary critics make natural detectives," says Maud Bailey, heroine of a mystery where the clues lurk in university libraries, old letters, and dusty journals. Together with Roland Michell, a fellow academic and accidental sleuth, Maud discovers a love affair between the two Victorian writers the pair has dedicated their lives to studying: Randolph Ash, a literary great long assumed to be a devoted and faithful husband, and Christabel La Motte, a lesser-known "fairy poetess" and chaste spinster. At first, Roland and Maud's discovery threatens only to alter the direction of their research, but as they unearth the truth about the long-forgotten romance, their involvement becomes increasingly urgent and personal. Desperately concealing their purpose from competing researchers, they embark on a journey that pulls each of them from solitude and loneliness, challenges the most basic assumptions they hold about themselves, and uncovers their unique entitlement to the secret of Ash and La Motte's passion." (from Amazon.com)
The Historian: A Novel
Elizabeth Kostova
Considering the recent rush of door-stopping historical novels, first-timer Kostova is getting a big launch—fortunately, a lot here lives up to the hype. In 1972, a 16-year-old American living in Amsterdam finds a mysterious book in her diplomat father's library. The book is ancient, blank except for a sinister woodcut of a dragon and the word "Drakulya," but it's the letters tucked inside, dated 1930 and addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," that really pique her curiosity. Her widowed father, Paul, reluctantly provides pieces of a chilling story; it seems this ominous little book has a way of forcing itself on its owners, with terrifying results. Paul's former adviser at Oxford, Professor Rossi, became obsessed with researching Dracula and was convinced that he remained alive. When Rossi disappeared, Paul continued his quest with the help of another scholar, Helen, who had her own reasons for seeking the truth. As Paul relates these stories to his daughter, she secretly begins her own research. Kostova builds suspense by revealing the threads of her story as the narrator discovers them: what she's told, what she reads in old letters and, of course, what she discovers directly when the legendary threat of Dracula looms. Along with all the fascinating historical information, there's also a mounting casualty count, and the big showdown amps up the drama by pulling at the heartstrings at the same time it revels in the gruesome. Exotic locales, tantalizing history, a family legacy and a love of the bloodthirsty: it's hard to imagine that readers won't be bitten, too. (from Publishers Weekly)
The History of Love: A Novel
Nicole Krauss
With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together the stories of Leo Gursky and 14-year-old Alma. 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. (from Powells.com)
The GirlsLori Lansens
This is a story of conjoined twins, Ruby and Rose, “ …connected inseparably, facing the world side by side…Every experience of growing up comes rushing through in their telling – their first loves, their painful choices, losses, and triumphs – but every experience is doubled, sometimes joyfully and sometimes painfully. The Girls charts the depths of a miraculous friendship, unsettling and beautiful in its closeness. As the two stories parallel, diverge, and intertwine, building to an unforgettable conclusion, Lansens aims at the heart of human experience and the fundamental joy of connection.” (from the publisher)
The Long Emergency
James Howard Kunstler
This book imagines the world after cheap, oil-based energy is no longer available. Kunstler predicts a complete change in our economic, political a social lives that he feels cannot be avoided. This book is full of warnings and offers no solutions, but will get you thinking about the way we live our lives today and what they might be like tomorrow.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Lisa See
In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she’s painted a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men. As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on fans, compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. Together, they endure the agony of foot-binding, and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their deep friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart. (from the publisher)
The Tortilla Curtain
T.C. Boyle
The newest selection for the” Silicon Valley Reads” community program is The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle. This novel depicts the lives of two Southern California couples who live in close proximity to each other, but under very different circumstances. One couple is affluent liberals; the other illegal immigrants. Eventually, their different worlds intersect in what the publisher calls "a tragicomedy of error and misunderstanding." The Tortilla Curtain was just selected as the 2007 Silicon Valley Reads Book. This is the fifth year for the “Silicon Valley Reads” program, which encourages everyone in the community to read the same book and discuss it. Beginning in early 2007, “Silicon Valley Reads” events related to The Tortilla Curtain will take place throughout Santa Clara County. Boyle is the author of several novels, one of which—World’s End—won the PEN/Faulkner Award. His short fiction has appeared in major American magazines, such as “The Atlantic Monthly,” “Esquire” and “ The New Yorker.” He lives near Santa Barbara. (from SiliconValleyReads.org)
Fatal Mountaineer
Robert Roper
Combining a mountain climbing adventure story with digressions into philosophy, biography, John Muir, the changing American culture in the 1960s and 70s, and the CIA, this book tracks Willi Unsoeld's climb of Nanda Devi, at 25,645 feet the highest peak in India. Unsoeld, best known for his daring first ascent of the spectacularly difficult West Ridge of Mt. Everest, taught philosophy and outdoor leadership at Evergreen College in Washington until his climbing death in 1979. Author Robert Roper uses the Nanda Devi climb as a jumping off point to examine Willi's philosophy of climbing and of life.
The Life of Pi
Yann Martel
A fabulous romp through an imagination by turns ecstatic, cunning, despairing and resilient, this novel is an impressive achievement "a story that will make you believe in God," as one character says. The peripatetic Pi (ne the much-taunted Piscine) Patel spends a beguiling boyhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper. Growing up beside the wild beasts, Pi gathers an encyclopedic knowledge of the animal world. His curious mind also makes the leap from his native Hinduism to Christianity and Islam, all three of which he practices with joyous abandon. In his 16th year, Pi sets sail with his family and some of their menagerie to start a new life in Canada. Halfway to Midway Island, the ship sinks into the Pacific, leaving Pi stranded on a life raft with a hyena, an orangutan, an injured zebra and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. After the beast dispatches the others, Pi is left to survive for 227 days with his large feline companion on the 26-foot-long raft, using all his knowledge, wits and faith to keep himself alive. The scenes flow together effortlessly, and the sharp observations of the young narrator keep the tale brisk and engaging. Martel's potentially unbelievable plotline soon demolishes the reader's defenses, cleverly set up by events of young Pi's life that almost naturally lead to his biggest ordeal. This richly patterned work, Martel's second novel, won Canada's 2001 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. In it, Martel displays the clever voice and tremendous storytelling skills of an emerging master. (from Publishers Weekly)
I Didn't Do It for You
Michela Wrong
Wrong’s work is a fascinating account of the histories of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Often heart rending, not infrequently hilarious, this book kept me riveted from start to finish. I learned about the largest clandestine field hospital ever built, why the British said that Eritreans would not be allowed to attend school beyond fourth grade--"...because they're smarter than us." I learned what happened when Italy arrived and when the British left. I learned about the Kagnew satellite station, I learned about what American soldiers stationed there did for entertainment, and, finally, I learned what became of all the formal entreaties directed to the United Nations when these nations were in the direst straits. This is a great book for anyone interested in colonialism, war, revolution and the collision of cultures.
Days of GraceArthur Ashe
This work is a genuinely affecting testament from the quietly activist champion-athlete who died young. With an unobtrusive assist from Arnold Rampersad (The Life of Langston Hughes), Ashe offers a thoughtful, if episodic, appreciation of his well-spent life. Opening with a replay of the distressing events leading up to his dramatic disclosure in April 1992 that he'd contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion following open-heart surgery ten years earlier, the author takes a leisurely and comfortably digressive stroll down memory lane, evenhandedly recalling--among other matters--just what it was like to be the first black to compete successfully in the predominantly white world of big-time tennis. The winner of three Grand Slam titles, Ashe developed heart disease that ended his pro career while still near the top of his game. Subsequently appointed captain of America's Davis Cup team, he proved there can be fulfilling life after sports. A low-key, albeit effective, advocate of racial justice and allied causes, the globetrotting author enjoyed an uncommonly felicitous personal life. With time out for candid commentary on fellow touring pros (Connors, McEnroe, Smith, et al.), he includes a host of heartfelt tributes to his wife, parents, and others who helped him along an upward path. With considerable eloquence and dignity, Ashe also affirms the do-as- you-would-be-done-by precepts that sustained him. He closes with a poignant letter to his young daughter, which, though written in anticipation of death, looks to the future with some hope, as well as backward to her strong family roots. This is a class act that, sadly, will have no encore. (from the publisher)
Female Chauvinist Pigs
Ariel Levy
Ariel Levy’s debut book is a bold, piercing examination of how twenty-first century American society perceives sex and women. Writing vividly, she brings her readers to places she visited to make her assessment; the elevator of Playboy Enterprises with women auditioning to be Playmates in the fiftieth anniversary edition, a Florida beach where sunbathers urge a woman to take off her bathing suit for the camera crew of “Girls Gone Wild”, a San Francisco Italian restaurant where a lesbian worries she’s not dressed up enough for her date, a CAKE party in New York, with women grinding each other’s pelvises in time to pulsating dance rhythms, and outside a juice bar in Oakland where a beautiful high school student shares disappointment at her experiences with sex.
Levy cleverly leads us to explore the role models women aspire to emulate. We are not pursuing the confident, self-determined, powerful, free ideal the women’s liberation movement would have dreamed for its daughters. Instead, our icons are porn stars and strippers and prostitutes. Paris Hilton and Jenna Jameson flaunt their successes in the pornography industry, and in doing so seem to earn our adulation.
Levy relates our embracing of this raunchy culture to unresolved tensions thirty years ago between the sexual revolution and the women’s liberation movement, and amongst feminists; joy at discovering the delights of our clitoris conflicting with disgust at pornography’s objectification of women. She creates a convincing argument by analyzing a diverse spectrum of material; presents a fascinating palette of interviews with revolutionary women’s libbers, nouvelle raunchy feminists, and everyday women and men. Detailed facts and recurring names are sometimes cumbersome, albeit worth ploughing through for the ‘a-ha moments’.
The reality that we model ourselves on images whose "individuality is erased" is harsh, yet Levy’s work is imbued with hope – hope that women can celebrate their uniqueness instead of their ‘hotness’, explore their sexuality as delight rather than consume sex as currency, and succeed professionally because of their brilliant minds and personalities, not because of their brilliant bodies. (from Amazon.com)
