The nominees are in, and it is now your collective task to choose the six titles for next year. The voting will occur on June 3 at the final book club of the year, hosted by Laura Hovenier. However, I would ask that by May 30 you send me your Top 10 and I will compile the initial popular choices. Onto the books which are all available in paperback and Kindle, unless noted otherwise:
A Fine Balance by Rohanton Mistry (624 pages)
book description:
With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.
http://www.amazon.com/Fine-Balance-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/140003065X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337108833&sr=8-1
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (352 pages)
book description:
Compared favorably to the works of Faulkner and Dickens, Arundhati Roy’s debut novel is a modern classic that has been read and loved worldwide. Equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama, it is the story of an affluent Indian family forever changed by one fateful day in 1969. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevokably by the arrival of their beautiful young cousin, Sophie. It is an event that will lead to an illicit liaison and tragedies accidental and intentional, exposing “big things [that] lurk unsaid” in a country drifting dangerously toward unrest. Lush, lyrical, and unnerving, The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.
http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Small-Things-Novel/dp/0812979656/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1337109089&sr=1-1
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris (336 pages)
book description:
"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book.
Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural
http://www.amazon.com/When-You-Are-Engulfed-Flames/dp/0316154687/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337109434&sr=1-2-fkmr0
Life is a Trip: The Transformative Magic of Travel by Judie Fein (120 pages)
book review:
One famous travel writer, Bruce Chatwin, one asked another, Paul Theroux, what he thought about his work. As recounted in Theroux’s collection of travel pieces, Fresh Air Fiend, Theroux’s major complaint was that Chatwin “never explained the difficulties and in-betweens of travel—where he slept, what he ate, what kind of shoes he wore.” In LIFE IS A TRIP: The Transformative Magic of Travel, Santa-Fe based travel writer Judith Fein describes many such in-betweens. For her, the most mundane moments are often turning points, when a trip can turn into a catharsis, where plans are thrown out and intuition takes over. Fein loves to take herself off the beaten path and then wait to see what happens. Her collection of essays is not so much about an intrepid traveler as a spiritual searcher, someone willing to travel to the ends of the Earth to find answers.
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Trip-Transformative-Magic-Travel/dp/0981870880/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337111180&sr=1-1
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (291 pages)
partial book description:
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works -- and only a handful of collections -- to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America. In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail -- the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase -- that opens whole worlds of emotion.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Namesake-Novel-Jhumpa-Lahiri/dp/0618485228/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337111379&sr=1-1
The Land of Decoration by Grace McLeen (320 pages)
book description:
Judith and her father don't have much - their house is full of dusty relics, reminders of the mother she's never known. But Judith sees the world with the clear Eyes of Faith, and where others might see rubbish, Judith sees possibility. Bullied at school, she finds solace in making a model of the Promised Land - little people made from pipe cleaners, a sliver of moon, luminous stars and a mirror sea - a world of wonder that Judith calls The Land of Decoration. Perhaps, she thinks, if she makes it snow indoors (using shaving foam and cotton wool and cellophane) there will be no school on Monday...Sure enough, when Judith opens her curtains the next day, the world beyond her window has turned white. She has performed her first miracle. And that's when her troubles begin. With its intensely taut storytelling and gorgeous prose, "The Land of Decoration" is a heartbreaking story of good and evil, belief and doubt. Its author, Grace McCleen, is a blazing new talent in contemporary literature.
http://www.amazon.com/Land-Decoration-Grace-McCleen/dp/0701186828/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1337112079&sr=1-1
Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee (256 pages; not yet in paperback in U.S.)
partial book description:
As a young woman, Leymah Gbowee was broken by the Liberian civil war, a brutal conflict that tore apart her life and claimed the lives of countless relatives and friends. Years of fighting destroyed her country—and shattered Gbowee’s girlhood hopes and dreams. As a young mother trapped in a nightmare of domestic abuse, she found the courage to turn her bitterness into action, propelled by her realization that it is women who suffer most during conflicts—and that the power of women working together can create an unstoppable force. In 2003, the passionate and charismatic Gbowee helped organize and then led the Liberian Mass Action for Peace, a coalition of Christian and Muslim women who sat in public protest, confronting Liberia’s ruthless president and rebel warlords, and even held a sex strike. With an army of women, Gbowee helped lead her nation to peace—in the process emerging as an international leader who changed history. Mighty Be Our Powers is the gripping chronicle of a journey from hopelessness to empowerment that will touch all who dream of a better world.
http://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Be-Our-Powers-Sisterhood/dp/0984295151/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337112291&sr=1-1
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (487 pages)
from Booklist:
Call it the "book book" genre: this international sensation (it has sold in more than 20 countries and been number one on the Spanish best-seller list), newly translated into English, has books and storytelling--and a single, physical book--at its heart. In post-World War II Barcelona, young Daniel is taken by his bookseller father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a massive sanctuary where books are guarded from oblivion. Told to choose one book to protect, he selects The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax. He reads it, loves it, and soon learns it is both very valuable and very much in danger because someone is determinedly burning every copy of every book written by the obscure Carax. To call this book--Zafon's Shadow of the Wind-- old-fashioned is to mean it in the best way. It's big, chock-full of unusual characters, and strong in its sense of place. Daniel's initiation into the mysteries of adulthood is given the same weight as the mystery of the book-burner. And the setting--Spain under Franco--injects an air of sobriety into some plot elements that might otherwise seem soap operatic. Part detective story, part boy's adventure, part romance, fantasy, and gothic horror, the intricate plot is urged on by extravagant foreshadowing and nail-nibbling tension. This is rich, lavish storytelling, very much in the tradition of Ross King's Ex Libris (2001).
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Wind-Carlos-Ruiz-Zaf%C3%B3n/dp/0143034901/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337112716&sr=1-1
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (320 pages)
book description:
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested
with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but
not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's
apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us
a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation
and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.
http://www.amazon.com/Sarahs-Key-Tatiana-Rosnay/dp/B005B19UPE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337112910&sr=1-1
Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour (304 pages)
book description:
From one of Iran’s most acclaimed and controversial contemporary
writers, his first novel to appear in English—a dazzlingly inventive
work of fiction that opens a revelatory window onto what it’s like to
live, to love, and to be an artist in today’s Iran.
The novel entwines two equally powerful narratives. A writer named Shahriar—the author’s fictional alter ego—has struggled for years against the all-powerful censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Now, on the threshold of fifty, tired of writing dark and bitter stories, he has come to realize that the “world around us has enough death and destruction and sorrow.” He sets out instead to write a bewitching love story, one set in present-day Iran. It may be his greatest challenge yet.
Beautiful black-haired Sara and fiercely proud Dara fall in love in the dusty stacks of the library, where they pass secret messages to each other encoded in the pages of their favorite books. But Iran’s Campaign Against Social Corruption forbids their being alone together. Defying the state and their disapproving parents, they meet in secret amid the bustling streets, Internet cafés, and lush private gardens of Tehran.
Yet writing freely of Sara and Dara’s encounters, their desires, would put Shahriar in as much peril as his lovers. Thus we read not just the scenes Shahriar has written but also the sentences and words he’s crossed out or merely imagined, knowing they can never be published.
Laced with surprising humor and irony, at once provocative and deeply moving, Censoring an Iranian Love Story takes us unforgettably to the heart of one of the world’s most alluring yet least understood cultures. It is an ingenious, wholly original novel—a literary tour de force that is a triumph of art and spirit.
http://www.amazon.com/Censoring-Iranian-Love-Story-Vintage/dp/030739042X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113127&sr=1-1
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (528 pages)
book description:
The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Tree-Grows-Brooklyn-P-S/dp/0061120073/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113305&sr=1-1
The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea (272 pages)
book description:
The author of "Across the Wire" offers brilliant investigative reporting of what went wrong when, in May 2001, a group of 26 men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona. Only 12 men came back out. "Superb . . . Nothing less than a saga on the scale of the Exodus and an ordeal as heartbreaking as the Passion . . . The book comes vividly alive with a richness of language and a mastery of narrative detail that only the most gifted of writers are able to achieve.--"Los Angeles Times Book Review."
http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Highway-True-Story/dp/0316010804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113559&sr=1-1
Drop City by TC Boyle (464 pages)
book description:
It is 1970, and a down-at-the-heels California commune devoted to peace, free love, and the simple life has decided to relocate to the last frontier—the unforgiving landscape of interior Alaska—in the ultimate expression of going back to the land. Armed with the spirit of adventure and naïve optimism, the inhabitants of “Drop City” arrive in the wilderness of Alaska only to find their utopia already populated by other young homesteaders. When the two communities collide, unexpected friendships and dangerous enmities are born as everyone struggles with the bare essentials of life: love, nourishment, and a roof over one’s head. Rich, allusive, and unsentimental, T.C. Boyle’s ninth novel is a tour de force infused with the lyricism and take-no-prisoners storytelling for which he is justly famous.
http://www.amazon.com/Drop-City-T-C-Boyle/dp/B0009YARGY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113734&sr=1-1
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (352 pages)
book description:
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds, and people from different continents become compatriots. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion . . . and cannot be stopped.
http://www.amazon.com/Bel-Canto-P-S-Ann-Patchett/dp/0061565318/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337114253&sr=1-1
Grand Opening by Jon Hassler (336 pages; no Kindle edition)
from Publisher's Weekly:
As if retrieved from a time capsule, Hassler's fifth novel faithfully evokes a dark vision of Midwestern small-town life in 1944. The Foster family Catherine, Hank, their 12-year-old son, Brendan, and Catherine's elderly fatherare urging a 1928 De Soto toward the town of Plum, Minn., and a time-honored American Dream: ownership of a business (they have purchased a dilapidated grocery store), a home and a sense of belonging. But Plum turns out to be a lemon; sour in spirit, pitted with religious bias and general mistrust. Hank's store is patronized only by Catholics like himself; the Lutheran trade is taken by a Lutheran competitor. When Catherine attempts to comfort an employee who's having an epileptic seizure, rumors circulate that they are having an affair. Even Brendan is forced into a quest for moral certainties when he befriends the town's pariah. Though much of this book may be overly familiar to older readers, it may edify younger ones of late exposed to quantities of literature extolling those not-so-good old days.
http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Opening-Jon-Hassler/dp/0345410173/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113982&sr=1-1
Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West (400 pages)
book description:
Hope is hard to come by in the hard-luck town of Willow Creek. Sam Pickett and five young men are about to change that.
Sam Pickett never expected to settle in this dried-up shell of a town on the western edge of the world. He's come here to hide from the violence and madness that have shattered his life, but what he finds is what he least expects. There's a spirit that endures in Willow Cree, Montana. It seems that every inhabitant of this forgotten outpost has a story, a reason for taking a detour to this place--or a reason for staying.
As the coach of the hapless high school basketball team (zero wins, ninety-three losses), Sam can't help but be moved by the bravery he witnesses in the everyday lives of people--including his own young players--bearing their sorrows and broken dreams. How do they carry on, believing in a future that seems to be based on the flimsiest of promises? Drawing on the strength of the boys on the team, sharing the hope they display despite insurmountable odds, Sam finally begins to see a future worth living.
Author Stanley Gordon West has filled the town of Willow Creek with characters so vividly cast that they become real as relatives, and their stories--so full of humor and passion, loss and determination--illuminate a path into the human heart.
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Your-Ponies-Stanley-Gordon/dp/B005FOELVU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337114293&sr=1-1
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (176 pages)
book description:
A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning new chapter in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.
This intense novel follows Tony Webster, a middle-aged man, as he contends with a past he never thought much about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony thought he left this all behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sense-Ending-Vintage-International/dp/0307947726/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337114650&sr=1-1
The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa (368 pages; not yet on Kindle)
book description:
The novel entwines two equally powerful narratives. A writer named Shahriar—the author’s fictional alter ego—has struggled for years against the all-powerful censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Now, on the threshold of fifty, tired of writing dark and bitter stories, he has come to realize that the “world around us has enough death and destruction and sorrow.” He sets out instead to write a bewitching love story, one set in present-day Iran. It may be his greatest challenge yet.
Beautiful black-haired Sara and fiercely proud Dara fall in love in the dusty stacks of the library, where they pass secret messages to each other encoded in the pages of their favorite books. But Iran’s Campaign Against Social Corruption forbids their being alone together. Defying the state and their disapproving parents, they meet in secret amid the bustling streets, Internet cafés, and lush private gardens of Tehran.
Yet writing freely of Sara and Dara’s encounters, their desires, would put Shahriar in as much peril as his lovers. Thus we read not just the scenes Shahriar has written but also the sentences and words he’s crossed out or merely imagined, knowing they can never be published.
Laced with surprising humor and irony, at once provocative and deeply moving, Censoring an Iranian Love Story takes us unforgettably to the heart of one of the world’s most alluring yet least understood cultures. It is an ingenious, wholly original novel—a literary tour de force that is a triumph of art and spirit.
http://www.amazon.com/Censoring-Iranian-Love-Story-Vintage/dp/030739042X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113127&sr=1-1
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (528 pages)
book description:
The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness -- in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.
http://www.amazon.com/A-Tree-Grows-Brooklyn-P-S/dp/0061120073/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113305&sr=1-1
The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea (272 pages)
book description:
The author of "Across the Wire" offers brilliant investigative reporting of what went wrong when, in May 2001, a group of 26 men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona. Only 12 men came back out. "Superb . . . Nothing less than a saga on the scale of the Exodus and an ordeal as heartbreaking as the Passion . . . The book comes vividly alive with a richness of language and a mastery of narrative detail that only the most gifted of writers are able to achieve.--"Los Angeles Times Book Review."
http://www.amazon.com/The-Devils-Highway-True-Story/dp/0316010804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113559&sr=1-1
Drop City by TC Boyle (464 pages)
book description:
It is 1970, and a down-at-the-heels California commune devoted to peace, free love, and the simple life has decided to relocate to the last frontier—the unforgiving landscape of interior Alaska—in the ultimate expression of going back to the land. Armed with the spirit of adventure and naïve optimism, the inhabitants of “Drop City” arrive in the wilderness of Alaska only to find their utopia already populated by other young homesteaders. When the two communities collide, unexpected friendships and dangerous enmities are born as everyone struggles with the bare essentials of life: love, nourishment, and a roof over one’s head. Rich, allusive, and unsentimental, T.C. Boyle’s ninth novel is a tour de force infused with the lyricism and take-no-prisoners storytelling for which he is justly famous.
http://www.amazon.com/Drop-City-T-C-Boyle/dp/B0009YARGY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113734&sr=1-1
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (352 pages)
book description:
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds, and people from different continents become compatriots. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion . . . and cannot be stopped.
http://www.amazon.com/Bel-Canto-P-S-Ann-Patchett/dp/0061565318/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337114253&sr=1-1
Grand Opening by Jon Hassler (336 pages; no Kindle edition)
from Publisher's Weekly:
As if retrieved from a time capsule, Hassler's fifth novel faithfully evokes a dark vision of Midwestern small-town life in 1944. The Foster family Catherine, Hank, their 12-year-old son, Brendan, and Catherine's elderly fatherare urging a 1928 De Soto toward the town of Plum, Minn., and a time-honored American Dream: ownership of a business (they have purchased a dilapidated grocery store), a home and a sense of belonging. But Plum turns out to be a lemon; sour in spirit, pitted with religious bias and general mistrust. Hank's store is patronized only by Catholics like himself; the Lutheran trade is taken by a Lutheran competitor. When Catherine attempts to comfort an employee who's having an epileptic seizure, rumors circulate that they are having an affair. Even Brendan is forced into a quest for moral certainties when he befriends the town's pariah. Though much of this book may be overly familiar to older readers, it may edify younger ones of late exposed to quantities of literature extolling those not-so-good old days.
http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Opening-Jon-Hassler/dp/0345410173/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337113982&sr=1-1
Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West (400 pages)
book description:
Hope is hard to come by in the hard-luck town of Willow Creek. Sam Pickett and five young men are about to change that.
Sam Pickett never expected to settle in this dried-up shell of a town on the western edge of the world. He's come here to hide from the violence and madness that have shattered his life, but what he finds is what he least expects. There's a spirit that endures in Willow Cree, Montana. It seems that every inhabitant of this forgotten outpost has a story, a reason for taking a detour to this place--or a reason for staying.
As the coach of the hapless high school basketball team (zero wins, ninety-three losses), Sam can't help but be moved by the bravery he witnesses in the everyday lives of people--including his own young players--bearing their sorrows and broken dreams. How do they carry on, believing in a future that seems to be based on the flimsiest of promises? Drawing on the strength of the boys on the team, sharing the hope they display despite insurmountable odds, Sam finally begins to see a future worth living.
Author Stanley Gordon West has filled the town of Willow Creek with characters so vividly cast that they become real as relatives, and their stories--so full of humor and passion, loss and determination--illuminate a path into the human heart.
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Your-Ponies-Stanley-Gordon/dp/B005FOELVU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337114293&sr=1-1
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (176 pages)
book description:
A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning new chapter in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.
This intense novel follows Tony Webster, a middle-aged man, as he contends with a past he never thought much about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony thought he left this all behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sense-Ending-Vintage-International/dp/0307947726/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337114650&sr=1-1
The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa (368 pages; not yet on Kindle)
book description:
In 1916, the Irish nationalist Roger Casement was hanged by the
British government for treason. Casement had dedicated his
extraordinary life to improving the plight of oppressed peoples around
the world—especially the native populations in the Belgian Congo and
the Amazon—but when he dared to draw a parallel between the injustices
he witnessed in African and American colonies and those committed by
the British in Northern Ireland, he became involved in a cause that led
to his imprisonment and execution. Ultimately, the scandals surrounding
Casement’s trial and eventual hanging tainted his image to such a
degree that his pioneering human rights work wasn’t fully reexamined
until the 1960s.
In The Dream of the Celt, Mario Vargas Llosa, who has long been regarded as one of Latin America’s most vibrant, provocative, and necessary literary voices—a fact confirmed when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010—brings this complex character to life as no other writer can. A masterful work, sharply translated by Edith Grossman, The Dream of the Celt tackles a controversial man whose story has long been neglected, and, in so doing, pushes at the boundaries of the historical novel.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Celt-A-Novel/dp/0374143463/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337114810&sr=1-1
Faithful Place by Tana French (416 pages)
book description:
Tana French's In the Woods and The Likeness captivated readers by introducing them to her unique, character-driven style. Her singular skill at creating richly drawn, complex worlds makes her novels not mere whodunits but brilliant and satisfying novels about memory, identity, loss, and what defines us as humans. With Faithful Place, the highly praised third novel about the Dublin Murder squad, French takes readers into the mind of Frank Mackey, the hotheaded mastermind of The Likeness, as he wrestles with his own past and the family, the lover, and the neighborhood he thought he'd left behind for good.
http://www.amazon.com/Faithful-Place-Novel-Tana-French/dp/0143119494/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337552682&sr=8-1
Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron (384 pages; paperback release in October 2012)
book description:
Running the Rift follows Jean Patrick Nkuba, a gifted Rwandan boy, from the day he knows that running will be his life to the moment he must run to save his life, a ten-year span in which his country is undone by the Hutu-Tutsi tensions. Born a Tutsi, he is thrust into a world where it’s impossible to stay apolitical—where the man who used to sell you gifts for your family now spews hatred, where the girl who flirted with you in the lunchroom refuses to look at you, where your Hutu coach is secretly training the very soldiers who will hunt down your family. Yet in an environment increasingly restrictive for the Tutsi, he holds fast to his dream of becoming Rwanda’s first Olympic medal contender in track, a feat he believes might deliver him and his people from this violence. When the killing begins, Jean Patrick is forced to flee, leaving behind the woman, the family, and the country he loves. Finding them again is the race of his life.
http://www.amazon.com/Running-Rift-Naomi-Benaron/dp/1616200421/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337552886&sr=1-1
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo (197 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Alchemist-Paulo-Coelho/dp/0061122416/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337553253&sr=1-1
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (240 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Striped-Pajamas-John-Boyne/dp/0385751532/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337553839&sr=1-1
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro (605 pages; just released in hardcover)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Passage-Power-Lyndon-Johnson/dp/0679405070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337572947&sr=8-1
Lords of Sipan: A True Story of Pre-Inca Tombs, Archaeology, and True Crime by Sidney Kirkpatrick (284 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/Lords-Sipan-Story-Pre-Inca-Archaeology/dp/1466399368/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337573158&sr=1-1
Aunt Julia and the Script Writer by Mario Vargas Llosa (384 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/Aunt-Julia-Scriptwriter-A-Novel/dp/0312427247/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337573490&sr=1-1
In The Dream of the Celt, Mario Vargas Llosa, who has long been regarded as one of Latin America’s most vibrant, provocative, and necessary literary voices—a fact confirmed when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010—brings this complex character to life as no other writer can. A masterful work, sharply translated by Edith Grossman, The Dream of the Celt tackles a controversial man whose story has long been neglected, and, in so doing, pushes at the boundaries of the historical novel.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Celt-A-Novel/dp/0374143463/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337114810&sr=1-1
Faithful Place by Tana French (416 pages)
book description:
Tana French's In the Woods and The Likeness captivated readers by introducing them to her unique, character-driven style. Her singular skill at creating richly drawn, complex worlds makes her novels not mere whodunits but brilliant and satisfying novels about memory, identity, loss, and what defines us as humans. With Faithful Place, the highly praised third novel about the Dublin Murder squad, French takes readers into the mind of Frank Mackey, the hotheaded mastermind of The Likeness, as he wrestles with his own past and the family, the lover, and the neighborhood he thought he'd left behind for good.
http://www.amazon.com/Faithful-Place-Novel-Tana-French/dp/0143119494/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337552682&sr=8-1
Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron (384 pages; paperback release in October 2012)
book description:
Running the Rift follows Jean Patrick Nkuba, a gifted Rwandan boy, from the day he knows that running will be his life to the moment he must run to save his life, a ten-year span in which his country is undone by the Hutu-Tutsi tensions. Born a Tutsi, he is thrust into a world where it’s impossible to stay apolitical—where the man who used to sell you gifts for your family now spews hatred, where the girl who flirted with you in the lunchroom refuses to look at you, where your Hutu coach is secretly training the very soldiers who will hunt down your family. Yet in an environment increasingly restrictive for the Tutsi, he holds fast to his dream of becoming Rwanda’s first Olympic medal contender in track, a feat he believes might deliver him and his people from this violence. When the killing begins, Jean Patrick is forced to flee, leaving behind the woman, the family, and the country he loves. Finding them again is the race of his life.
http://www.amazon.com/Running-Rift-Naomi-Benaron/dp/1616200421/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337552886&sr=1-1
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo (197 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Alchemist-Paulo-Coelho/dp/0061122416/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337553253&sr=1-1
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (240 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Striped-Pajamas-John-Boyne/dp/0385751532/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337553839&sr=1-1
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro (605 pages; just released in hardcover)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Passage-Power-Lyndon-Johnson/dp/0679405070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337572947&sr=8-1
Lords of Sipan: A True Story of Pre-Inca Tombs, Archaeology, and True Crime by Sidney Kirkpatrick (284 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/Lords-Sipan-Story-Pre-Inca-Archaeology/dp/1466399368/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337573158&sr=1-1
Aunt Julia and the Script Writer by Mario Vargas Llosa (384 pages)
http://www.amazon.com/Aunt-Julia-Scriptwriter-A-Novel/dp/0312427247/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337573490&sr=1-1
