Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple

A 2013 Alex Award winner (meaning its a book in the adult section found to be highly appealing to teen readers), Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a laughable and adventurous satire packed with hilarious characterization and witty dialogue mostly in the epistolary fashion using email correspondence, letters, police reports, report cards, and other documents.  Modest readers might find some strong language offensive yet very in-character when utilized.

You’ll find hilarious characters, some to love, some to hate, and some to drive everyone crazy!  Semple pokes fun at Seattle’s subcultures of anti-fashionable, pro-geek, tech-talking, community-oriented, hyper-diverse, ultra-green, alternative-lifestyle embracing citizens.  Semple herself is a transplant to the Seattle region from Los Angeles, as is the character Bernadette, where she wrote screenplays for “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Ellen,” “Mad About You” and “Arrested Development.”

Caution, spoilers (because the events are revealed asynchronously and non-chronologically): Bernadette Fox has escaped her failed career as a genius architect by isolating herself in a crumbling fortress of a home where she can’t sleep and torments herself with self-pity.  She’s become so anti-social that she’s hired a virtual assistant to handle even the most mundane logistics of her life.  For years, her precious 15-year old daughter Bee has been Bernadette’s only reason for living.  Bee’s been promised this trip to Antarctica as an award for her perfect report card (Her Microsoft-guru dad can afford it).  Now, she’s having a panic attack brought on by the prospect of accompanying Bee through the sea-sickening Drake passage, “the roughest and most feared water in the world,”  and this leads to a series of outrageous circumstances that culminate in a final resolution that just might restore Bernadette’s artistic passion.

The narration, and actual singing, by actress Kathleen Wilhoite, is extraordinarily energetic and adds much to the listening experience of the audiobook version, which I was whizzed through completely enraptured with joyous laughter.  When hearing her voicing the hysterics of the ‘gnats’ (aka the condescending moms of Bee’s classmates at Galer Street School), I was reminded of Tea Leoni’s over-the-top character in the movie Spanglish.

Check the WRL catalog for the print or large print versions, too.

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Second Fiddle, by Rosanne Parry

Second Fiddle is a story of adventures in exotic locales. From the outside it may seem that this is always true of military family life. It is accurate that I have lived in six countries and four states. And I have the annoying habit of being able to trump just about anyone’s extreme temperature stories, having lived in both one of the hottest cities in the world, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and one of the coldest, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. But the appeal of exotic travel chronicles only part of the experience. The constant moving of military families is an important theme in Second Fiddle and the book does a great job of capturing the sense of loss, while at the same time, even the thirteen-year-old characters appreciate that they are also receiving a gift.

As the main character, Jody says near the beginning, “The upside of being a military kid was that you got to see a lot of cool places. The downside was that every time you made a friend, you had to move away.” And her friend Vivian adds, “My mother thinks I’m having this great international experience, but changing schools all the time is just the same horrible experience over and over.”

Jody and her two friends Giselle and Vivian live on an American Army base in Berlin in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They are brought together by their love of music and they travel by train each week to music lessons in East Germany with Herr Muller. They are scheduled to attend a music competition in Paris and they all know it will be their last time to perform together as they are all moving away. On their way home from a music lesson they witness an attempted murder and the adventure begins, sending them across international borders as they desperately try to save the life of a young man.

Without their musical connection the three would not have been friends at all, as Giselle’s father is a general and the base commander, while Jody’s father is enlisted. Jody feels she can’t invite the general’s daughter over as even the adults in the enlisted housing area wouldn’t like it. Of course, parents’ ranks shouldn’t make a difference to the children, but this book accurately reflects that they do.

Author, Roseanne Parry based Second Fiddle on her own life experiences as she says that she moved to Germany in 1990 with her soldier husband. While the details of girls’ adventures can at times seem melodramatic, the book does a wonderful job of capturing the feel of military life. She mentions details that I recognize or have heard from my children and other people. For example, impending doom in the smell of moving boxes; the constant absence of Jody’s Dad; Jody not minding moving so much when she was younger; finding the question of where are you from impossible to answer; living in one place for three years for the first time and feeling unnatural in knowing her way around; and also remembering the time of an event in your personal history from where you lived (“I was seven so it must have been Missouri”).

Second Fiddle is an exciting older children’s adventure that sneaks in some history about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War. Try it if you are interested in the military lifestyle and the people who lead it.  I also recommend it for military families, both older children of around ten and up and their parents. It will be a great start for conversations about the lifestyle.

Check the WRL catalog for Second Fiddle.

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The Aubrey-Maturin Series, by Patrick O’Brian

Not to stretch a naval metaphor, but I’ve been in a reading doldrums. Nothing satisfies. At these times I fall back on one of two tried-and-true authors: Terry Pratchett or Patrick O’Brian. Pratchett pops up pretty regularly on Blogging for a Good Book, but I am amazed to see that we have never written about O’Brian, whose 20-volume Aubrey-Maturin series fills an entire library shelf.

Set in the world of the royal navy during the Napoleonic wars, O’Brian’s novels are first and foremost the portrait of a lifelong friendship between Jack Aubrey, affable and resolute ship’s captain, and Stephen Maturin, surgeon, naturalist, and intelligence agent. The series pretty easily finds its audience of men (and women) who are interested in age-of-sail adventures on the high seas; I’m not sure it always finds its audience of women (and men) who enjoy Jane Austen’s prose style, well-crafted sentences and characters, or the complications of Regency-era manners.

The New York Times may have called them “the best historical novels ever written,” but I avoided this series for years based solely on the infernal diagram of sails that opens every volume. No one wants to have to memorize sailing terminology just to get into a good story. Even as I began to be won over by O’Brian’s carefully-chosen words and dry humor, I simply refused to care which sail was a spritsail.

Fortunately, there is so much more than sails to care about as you turn the pages: there are also debauched sloths. Battles, mutinies, French prisons, typhoons, desert islands, music, birds, rich vocabulary, and a whole Dickensian roster of colorful secondary characters. There is indeed a lot of naval jargon, but the reader is not beat about the head with it, or if he is, he has a sympathetic ally in his ignorance in the person of Stephen Maturin. Stephen is also a landlubber, an outsider looking in to the regimented world of the royal navy, and he does not care any more about how many masts a ship has than I did.

Jack is famously lucky at sea, a skilled, courageous ship’s captain who will take, burn, and destroy the enemy at every opportunity, while on land, he is easy prey for speculators or a pretty face. Stephen is an Irish-Catalan physician with a passion for natural philosophy, and is forever cluttering Jack’s ship with beetles, wombats, and diving bells. If you cross him, he will fleece you at cards. If you double-cross him, he will find you, he will shoot you, and then he will dissect you. Their world of naval battles and subversive intelligence work occasionally collides with the domestic sphere and the polite drawing rooms of Jane Austen, usually with disastrous results, and then they are back to sea to escape debt, lawsuits, wives, sweethearts, and mothers-in-law.

And if you do begin to care about spritsails, there are many fine books to help you explore Aubrey and Maturin’s world, whether you’re interested in the vocabulary, the geography, the ships, or even, heaven help you, the food (probably the only cookbook in the library with a recipe for rats in onion sauce).

Check the WRL catalog for Master and Commander.

Or try the audiobooks. Patrick Tull and Simon Vance are both fantastic readers.

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Alone on the Ice, by David Roberts

Crunch crunch crunch crunch tang tang tang tang crunch crunch.

Tang is the sound your boots make when you are stomping about in the Antarctic, and suddenly you are no longer stomping on solid ice, but rather on a thin layer of snow disguising a crevasse of unknown depths. Sometimes the snow “lids” are thick enough that you can walk over these pits without danger. Sometimes they aren’t.

Crevasses are the essential theme of Alone on the Ice, a riveting account of Douglas Mawson’s 1911-1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE). The AAE was contemporary with Scott’s and Amundsen’s race for the South Pole; when Scott and his men were dying in their tent in the middle of nowhere, Mawson and his men were tentbound in the same blizzard in another part of nowhere. Geologist Mawson and his band of Australians and New Zealanders were not interested in the South Polar holy grail, however; they were in Antarctica for science. Amassing specimens and data, they scattered across the inner blank of the continent in several parties, mapping, geologizing, and falling into crevasses in every direction.

Irrepressible young photographer Frank Hurley, who would later take such memorable photographs of Shackleton’s Endurance expedition, actually admires the “unearthly beauty of the abyss” while he hangs about awaiting rescue. Mawson, starving and alone in his crevasse with no one to rescue him and no strength to haul himself up, has one great regret: that he didn’t eat all of the rest of his food the night before.

The first of Mawson’s sledging companions, Belgrave Ninnis, drops into a gaping abyss along with the strongest of the dogs, the tent, and nearly all of the food. Xavier Mertz succumbs to starvation, or possibly to vitamin A poisoning from eating dogs’ liver. Mawson continues on. Despite having no real hope of survival, he saws his sledge in half with a pocket knife and rigs a windsail out of his dead comrade’s trousers. He even gets out of his crevasse, quoting Robert Service as he climbs: “it’s dead easy to die, it’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.”

Meanwhile, at base camp… Mawson’s men build their winter base in, literally, the windiest place on earth (you can watch them struggling in Frank Hurley’s silent film). Against all odds, they manage to erect a radio tower and establish rudimentary communications with the men staffing an almost equally cold and lonely outpost on Macquarie Island, but! in a Hitchcockian turn, the only man who knows how to operate the radio begins to lose his mind. Descending into paranoia, he accuses his companions of hypnotising him, threatens them with death and lawsuits, refuses to wash, and begins to collect his urine in small bottles.

Roberts, the author of several books on mountaineering, quotes from letters, diaries, and Mawson’s account, The Home of the Blizzard, to tell this story. Exciting, horrifying, and full of human interest, it’s a great read for anyone who enjoys tales of exploration, and especially for Shackleton fans, who will recognize many of the expeditioners. That’s right… some of them went back!

Check the WRL catalog for Alone on the Ice.

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Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers

Grave Mercy is the first of Robin LaFevers’ His Fair Assassin series.  It takes place in Brittany in the late 1400s.  The Duke has recently died, leaving 12-year-old Anne facing many suitors for her hand and her kingdom.

Ismae, the daughter of a turnip farmer, is unaware of the precarious situation in her country.  Her world is the small village where she grew up abandoned by her mother and brutalized by her father.  When her circumstances can get no worse, she finds salvation at the hands of strangers who secret her away to the convent of St. Mortain, the ancient god of Death.  Her days are spent learning swordfighting, poisons and their uses, hand-to-hand combat, and the “womanly arts” because as a handmaiden of Death, she must be ready to use any means necessary to fulfill Mortain’s will.

During her trials to prove her readiness for service, she meets Gavriel Duval, one of the young duchess’ most trusted advisors.  Duval catches Ismae moments after she killed a traitor who was marked for death by the saint.  He follows Ismae to the convent where he tries to get the reverend mother to cooperate with his need to catch and question the traitors before they are killed.  The reverend mother neatly traps him into taking Ismae with him to court in Guerande so as to keep the convent better informed of the factions warring for the kingdom.

Viscount Crunard, chancellor of Brittany, and the reverend mother put another task to Ismae, keep Duval under surveillance to determine if he is the traitor working against the Duchess.

Now Ismae faces court intrigue, complex family dynamics and the unfamiliar feelings of falling in love.  But while out of her element, she doesn’t sit idly by and wait for orders from the Convent, nor does she follow every directive from Duval.  She shows spunk and an appealing independence.  Her training as an assassin and special talents as a follower of Mortain come in handy more than once.

And while Ismae grows impatient waiting for her saint to indicate who among the many suspects she should kill, time is running out for the young Duchess as France makes moves to invade.

Grave Mercy is a fast-paced story based on actual people and events.  While the first of a series, it neatly stands alone.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to read what comes next, but I wasn’t left unsatisfied after I read the last page.  I can see this book, and the rest of the series, appealing to adults as well as young adults.  The main characters are well-developed, and the supporting cast is interesting. And did I mention the falling in love part?  Well-written and satisfyingly believable.

I particularly enjoyed listening to the audiobook which was skillfully narrated by Erin Moon.  She did a terrific job changing her inflections for the different characters.  I especially liked hearing the correct pronunciation of the character and city names.  The audiobook is about 14 hours long.

Check the WRL catalog for Grave Mercy

Check the WRL catalog for the audiobook of Grave Mercy

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Harvest, by Tess Gerritsen

The psychologically disturbing horrors of the evil-doers in this medical thriller made my spine tingle. Even though I found it hard to believe some of the sticky situations these characters found themselves in, I found myself believing that such corruption, immorality, and greed might indeed be possible in the medical community and I now possess a new suspicion of doctors and hospital systems.

Gerritsen’s adrenaline-charged thrillers followed her earlier career in romantic suspense, but her focus on the medical settings in these crime thrillers is what got my attention. That, and the constantly moving plot of this intricately layered story about a very promising medical resident-cum-amateur detective, Dr. Abby DiMatteo, who finds herself uncovering clues to the disturbing possibility that extremely wealthy heart transplant recipients may be jumping to the head of the non-discriminating transplant list while other patients with a legitimate place lose their lives. Even more disturbing is the possible source of the ”donated” organs. From the very first chapter, fascinating characters are introduced in separate plotlines such that the reader suspects but doesn’t know for sure how each of the characters will be connected later on. This was a great stand-alone read with a very satisfying ending. It’s not the entry into a series and it’s one of her early thrillers, but I didn’t find anything about it out of place in time. A romantic plot is threaded into the story as well.

The knowledge that the author was a real-life doctor before she turned to full-time writing gives me confidence in her ability to accurately portray medical students, residents, and practicing physicians. Lovers of suspense and mystery will love Harvest, and the themes are so disturbingly chilling that even horror fans might enjoy Tess Gerritsen, who also incorporates the supernatural into some of her novels.

Look for Harvest in the WRL catalog.

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Postmortem, by Patricia Cornwell

Postmortem is Patricia Cornwell’s first medical thriller featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta and homicide detective Pete Marino, set in Richmond, Virginia. I tried to keep my reading confined to the audiobook in my car, but I found myself taking it to bed with me every night and not falling asleep until I’d listened through at least two CDs per night. I hadn’t read a “coroner” story or watched very many TV shows (no more than a few CSI episodes) on this topic of forensic pathology since one of my old favorites, Quincy, M.E., starring Jack Klugman, in the late 70s to early 80s, so I’m delighted to rekindle my odd fascination with the gory details of autopsies and forensic investigation. I don’t feel bad about this considering that Cornwell’s tales seem to have taken up permanent residence on the bestseller lists. I’m pretty stoked that I’ll now be able to read or listen to more than 20 books in the Kay Scarpetta series, and I’ve also now discovered a number of other writers of suspense-filled medical thrillers to add to my reading list.

Scarpetta is a strong, female leading character (Quince was quite the chauvinist, as I recall). In this first novel, she’s obviously up against male characters who think she does not belong in her position as Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia. She also has to gain the confidence and respect of her sidekick, detective Pete Marino, who reappears throughout the series. The pairing of a medical expert with a legal or police professional seems to be a very effective device in this style of literature, one that has proven successful in a number of series and TV shows. I really enjoyed the character development in Postmortem. Pete and Kay don’t get along well at first, but over time they recognize each other’s unique talents and slowly develop an awkward rapport tinged with sarcasm and a bit of humor that promises to develop further into the series. The ending was unpredictable and the inevitable dangerous situation the characters get themselves into could not have been resolved without their loyalty to each other and teamwork.

The medically fascinating details in these books showcase some of the latest technological advancements in forensic pathology through the years. Some might find it odd to deal with Cornwell’s older books and the now-obsolete computer technologies and medical practices, but others may enjoy it, sort of like opening a time capsule. Her latest novels continue to incorporate modern techniques and equipment being used in the real world of medicine, virtual autopsies for example.

This review is not for those who are already loyal fans of Patricia Cornwell. It’s to alert readers newly interested in fast-paced medical thrillers that we have her series of books in the library just waiting for your discovery! Check the WRL catalog for Postmortem, in print or in audiobook on CD.

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Doors Open, by Ian Rankin

Mike, Robert, and Allan, just regular guys bonded by a mutual interest in fine art, very uncharacteristically plot to pull off an art heist during Scotland’s Doors Open Days from the National Gallery’s warehouse in Edinburgh, Scotland.  The crime requires enlisting the help of an immature but very talented art student to paint forgeries and a handful of professional thugs, including a former classmate of Mike’s, to disable guards and hold hostages.  All goes as planned until elements beyond their control spiral them into rather deep trouble.  New and unexpected dangers are at every turn.  Loyalties thought to be rock-solid unravel, with cops and mobsters over their shoulders constantly, sparking up their nerves like firecrackers fused and ready to ignite.

Mike’s software company had made a bundle but he was seeking the kind of thrills he’d discovered money couldn’t buy.  He far too much enjoys the illicit power of concealing a firearm that he never loads.  Allan’s a bored banker who’s lost his wife’s affection and respect, yearning to stop feeling so spineless.  Robert, an aging and ambitious art expert, comes up with the big idea to liberate a number of paintings from storage, convincing his art-appreciating buddies that they should have them.

Not the type I usually read, but picked because I’m intrigued by art theft.  I enjoy high-suspense heist films such as Oceans Eleven and The Thomas Crown Affair so I figured this book would be interesting.  I didn’t immediately like its main characters who take foolish risks by turning criminal out of disenchantment with their lives.  But I was soon fully engaged and couldn’t wait to find out what would happen.  Playing the audiobook in my car, I caught myself slowing down or taking longer routes, flying through the eight discs totaling ten hours.

Those who love fast-paced suspenseful crime reads will enjoy this book right up to the ending.  There’s a nice Scottish flavor to the narration of the audiobook, and James MacPherson gives distinctive voices to each personality.  The character of Detective Ransome is not as fully developed as fans of Rankin’s retired Inspector Rebus series may expect, but Doors Open is a fine stand-alone.

I delightedly discovered that the story was earlier published as a serial in the New York Times Magazine, with an mp3 recording of Chapter 1 read by Ian Rankin still available online in The Funny Pages/Sunday Serial.

Check the WRL Catalog for Doors Open in Audiobook format on CD,  in print or in large print.

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gods in Alabama, by Joshilyn Jackson

Today’s review is from Nancy in Circulation Services:

“There are gods in Alabama: Jack Daniel’s, high school quarterbacks, trucks, big tits, and also Jesus.”

Joshilyn Jackson grabs you with her opening line and has you chasing her words through a wonderfully funny, exciting, eye-opening, and suspenseful journey. Her frequent “Southernisms” will keep you in stitches no matter what part of the country you’re from, and for those of us born and bred below the Mason Dixon Line, you’ll catch yourself acknowledging your Southern Belle tendencies with an uncontrollable smiling nod.

Arlene Fleet has fled her home town of Possett, Alabama, for the big city of Chicago in hopes of escaping a tiny little mistake made in her sophomore year of high school… killing the senior star quarterback and dumping his body over a cliff. Her pact with God is that if he will let her get away with this small error in judgment by not letting the body be found, she will keep three promises: never tell a lie no matter the cost, stop fornicating with every boy that crosses her path, and never return to her hometown of Possett. Ten years later, fate steps in as her African American boyfriend declares “I want to meet your family or it’s over.” One by one her promises are challenged, leading her back to Possett and the array of special family and friends. This good-hearted group includes her Southern Baptist, Bible toting Aunt Florence, her slightly “touched” crazy mother, a family tree of happy racists, and her unconditionally loving best friend Cousin Clarice. With her past catching up with her, the future seems too scary to face. Arlene remembers and reveals the events of her life that tell the story of the murder but keep the reader guessing until the end as to what really happened that night.

The story covers tough issues such as sexual abuse, teenage promiscuity, and a bit of racism mixed with denial, and in the same light expresses the strong bond between best friends and family. It’s a story of self awareness, soul searching, and acceptance of differences that will make you sad, angry, and relieved, while allowing you to laugh out loud at the antics and expressions of the eclectic characters you will come to love.

The audiobook, read by Catherine Tabor, a Georgia native, captures the diction and accent of the Alabama southerner. gods in Alabama is truly brought to life!

I recommend this first work of Joshilyn Jackson as well as her next book, Between Georgia. Another great read or listen!

Check the WRL catalog for gods in Alabama.

Check the WRL catalog for gods in Alabama in audiobook format.

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The Descendants, by Kaui Hart Hemmings

I haven’t yet seen the movie based upon The Descendants but the Audiobook version narrated by Jonathan Davis clearly indicates why George Clooney played the protagonist Matthew King. Davis’ speaking mannerisms are similar to Clooney’s and as I listened I could almost picture Clooney doing that little forward yet sideways cock of his head with a raised eyebrow that he does so well.

Matt King, descended from a Hawaiian princess who had married a missionary, inherited the largest percentage of his royal family’s landholdings making him the largest landholder in the Hawaiian islands.  He holds all the cards as his shareholding cousins await his decision as to whose bid package will be accepted–each proposes the development of pristine land into shopping malls, golf resorts, and exclusive subdivisions with million-dollar views, but Matt is dealing with much larger issues.  With his risk-taking wife in a coma due to a boating accident, parenting is suddenly required of him to manage his teenage daughters, and he suspects his wife had been having an affair.

The narrative clips along at a fast pace as we join Matt on an interisland quest with troubled 10-year old Scottie who keeps acting out in a baffling way, beautiful 17-year old Alex who is furious with her dying mother, and an oddly charming character named Sid who becomes increasingly important to the story.  Matt drags them along from Oahu to the Big Island and Kauai as he processes the realization that he’s suddenly a single parent, seeks information about his wife’s affair, notifies close friends and family about Joanie’s fate, and attempts to connect with his daughters. Meanwhile, he must decide what to do about the land, and his decision is tied to the tragic events in his family life.

A focused plot allows insightful dialogue to reveal relationship issues between the characters.  I like and respect the character of Matt King a lot even though he owns up to some major flaws as a husband and father.  His endearing journey of self-discovery promises to heal the rift between him and his daughters.  The content does include profanity, sexuality, and drugs so it’s not a gentle read, realized when my kids were in the car listening to the CD!  I read that the movie is rated R primarily for the language, drug and sexual references.

I found this to be an excellent audiobook even though I suspect that a few Hawaiian place names were mis-pronounced.  The content accurately depicts many aspects of Hawaiian and Pacific island life that are familiar to me. Short chapters and engaging dialogue really kept me awake and I’m one of those people that uses recorded stories as a very effective sleep aid.  I look forward to the critically acclaimed DVD for which I’m currently #38 of 69 on the waiting list at the library.  I hope that the movie’s popularity will cause many viewers to read Kaui Hart Hemmings’ exciting book.

Check the WRL Catalog for The Descendants in Audiobook format on CD.  The book is also available in print.

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Waiter Rant, by The Waiter

The anonymous writer who subsequently revealed himself to be Steve Dublanica upon the publication of his second book is the creator of an award-winning blog in which he aired the behind-the-scenes dirty laundry of his workplaces in trendy New York restaurants. It’s often suggested that employees should avoid potentially slanderous comments online about their coworkers, bosses, or customers. Dublanica managed this anonymously for years with the only person ever pegging him as “the guy who writes that blog” turning out to be a famous actor who had patronized an upper-class bistro where he worked.

With hilarious anecdotes, Waiter Rant chronicles Dublanica’s early days as a fumbling beginner, at age 30, through his development into a top waiter with management responsibilities. He dealt with a lot of ups and downs, insane dealings with bosses and owners, but enjoyed being able to please the majority of his customers. His background in a Catholic seminary and a psychology degree helped him handle the toughest customers with ease. This “rant” made me recall my own awkward challenges with learning how to negotiate the delicate relationships and pecking order between wait staff and management as well as the hardworking kitchen crew and often-arrogant bartenders when I waitressed while in college and a few other times while I was still figuring out what I wanted to become. Apparently, restaurants are often quite the dysfunctional family, places where sexism, racism, nepotism, ethnic discrimination, segregation, indentured servitude, and sexual harassment are all alive and well.

The author had become disillusioned after a foray into various short-lived healthcare jobs that had made him feel victimized, alienated, and depressed, and had only taken the waiter job in order to make ends meet but found himself working in the business for more than ten years. Writing his blog and eventually publishing this memoir helped him find his career in writing, but simultaneously he contemplated continuing the service job because he found that he is quite good at it.

“Just like at the seminary and in my previous job, I once again found myself surrounded by well-educated people who looked good, said the right things, and behaved dishonestly.”

Restaurant employees as well as customers concerned about getting an insider’s advice that will get them priority seating as well as prevent them from eating food contaminated by a disgruntled server will appreciate this book. It’s also a good laugh with some amusing tongue-in-cheek stories and a perspective on human behavior that only an eavesdropping server can share. One thing the author loves and appreciates about being a waiter is being an anonymous witness to many of life’s moments that often occur over restaurant meals such as marriage proposals and life-changing conversations.

Check the WRL catalog for Waiter Rant, also available in audiobook format.

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Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

I hate books I can’t understand,” said Bell. “I like a book to be clear as running water, so that the whole meaning may be seen at once.”  —The Small House at Allington

Anthony Trollope’s fictional heroine, Bell, likes just the sort of book that Trollope himself wrote, clear as running water. After his death, Trollope’s reputation was that of a writer of light fiction lacking in plot and literary style. Now the literary tide has turned, and he is praised as a master of realism. Whereas his great contemporary, Dickens, gives us a three-ring circus of grotesque and absurd characters in every chapter, Trollope writes of ordinary people who are neither all good nor all bad. They talk and gossip as ordinary people do—about their gardens, politics, who is engaged to whom—and their characters and feelings are subtly revealed in these everyday conversations.

Which brings me to Timothy West. I love reading Trollope in print, but I can understand why some people fault his prose as boring or flat. Not until I listened to his novels performed on audiobook by Timothy West did I fully appreciate the glory of Trollopean prose. The man was born to read Trollope, and Trollope was born to write novels to be read by Timothy West.

If you have not read Trollope before, I recommend starting with Barchester Towers, the second of Trollope’s six Barsetshire Novels, even though it alludes to events in the first book, The Warden. It is Trollope’s best-loved novel, and for good reason. The great question that touches all others in the story is, who will rule the diocese of Barchester: the vain but cowardly new bishop, Dr. Proudie, his terrifying wife, Mrs. Proudie, or his sanctimonious chaplain, Obadiah Slope? Entertaining events ensue. All of the many characters are guilty of human weakness or bad judgment—yet their failings and moral dilemmas are treated with humor and (for the most part) forgiveness.  West voices the characters perfectly. He is especially superb as the narrator, who is continually making witty asides to the reader.

Sadly, there is no real Barsetshire. Trollope is said to have taken his inspiration for the cathedral city of Barchester from the real Salisbury in Wiltshire, and his country locales from various places in England’s West Country. But though Barset exists only in the imagination, there is no more pleasant place in the world to spend a few quiet hours.

Check the WRL catalog for Barchester Towers on audiobook

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The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, by Stephen King

Don’t read this book; listen to it.  Trust me, it will be well worth your time.

Anne Heche is one of those actresses I have a hard time watching on screen.  She always seems to be teetering on the edge of a place that I find painful and embarrassing to watch.  She’s a good actress but more often than not seems too vulnerable, too immature, and just barely maintaining control, much like a teenager on the precipice of change, for better or for worse.  But while this kind of performance doesn’t work for me on screen it definitely worked in this audiobook.  Heche’s aching vulnerability, childlike innocence, and quiet intelligence brings Trish McFarland to life in a way that will linger with you long after the story ends.

On yet another forced Saturday outing to get out and “do things,” Trish McFarland, her mother, and brother are hiking one of the many trails on the Appalachian Trail.  The forced family bonding and the push to get past the divorce and adjust to life in Maine inevitably leads to another unending fight between Mom and brother Pete.  Wrapped up in battle, the two soon forget everything around them, including Trish.

Tired of the fighting and trying to get their attention, nine year-old Trish makes a much-needed mental and physical pit stop.  In her attempt to catch up, Trish makes the pivotal decision to take a shortcut that leads her further into the woods and away from family, home, and safety.  Unwilling to give up the fight to get home, Trish–armed with her radio and her love of the Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon–battles her fears, uses her head, and maintains hope that she’ll make it back from her perilous journey to everything important.

Listeners will enjoy the description of the Appalachian Trail, its beauty and its dangers.  They will root for Trish as she runs out of food, sustains injuries, and battles the elusive presence that is shadowing her, anxiously “turning the pages” to discover if Trish’s fortitude and faith in Tom Gordon will get her out of the forest or if she’ll remain forever lost.

Check the WRL catalog for The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

 

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Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens

Annie O’Sullivan is like any other young, vibrant, 32 year-old woman in the world today balancing career, love, and family.  She has good and bad days but on the whole life is on an upswing.  She’s on the cusp of winning a major real estate deal that will push her into the big leagues and her boyfriend is crazy about her: what more could a girl ask for? Does this sound like the plot of a lighthearted, chick-lit novel? It’s not.

At the end of a slow open-house Annie is packing up when a promising prospective buyer arrives at the last minute.  But David is more interested in Annie than the house.  In an instant Annie’s whole world turns upside down and the reader sits back and watches the aftermath unfold.

Following her kidnapping and year of imprisonment, Annie must try to pick up the pieces after her escape from a madman.  Like a voyeur, the reader observes as Annie slowly opens up to her psychiatrist about her ordeal, escape, and recovery.  It’s a wonder that Annie functions at all.  After a year of isolation where everything in her life is controlled–including when she is allowed to use the bathroom–and then winning her freedom, all Annie wants to do is lock herself away.  But at her core she is a strong woman, and we see her fight to reclaim her life and work with the police to find the person responsible for her ordeal.

With a gripping plot, intense pacing, and emotional turmoil it only takes a few pages (or a couple of audio tracks in my case) to be completely enthralled by Annie’s story.  I started listening to the audiobook one day and sat in my car for just one more track (actually, six more) because I couldn’t break away.  The next day I took a long road trip, and reached the last few chapters, but I had to buy it for my Kindle because my friends would not let me sit in my car to hear the end.  If you’re looking for a thrilling novel that has nothing to do with espionage, terrorism, lawyers or big business, this is the story for you.  Try it on audio or in print form: you won’t be disappointed.

Check the WRL catalog for Still Missing

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Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography, by Andrew Morton

This week’s posts are from WRL Development Officer, Benjamin Goldberg.

This biography of Angelina Jolie is a pager turner (or in this case a CD spinner). Read by Bronson Pinchot, it is both satisfying to listen to and engaging. The daughter of Jon Voight, Jolie became a household name when she played the live-action version of the sexy, savvy Tomb Raider Lara Croft. With the role, Jolie arrived as one of the top paid actresses in Hollywood. In this thoroughly researched and well-written book, Andrew Morton documents her rise to international fame, concurrently revealing her less noted darker side and her oft touted humanitarianism. It’s a captivating story, especially when you consider she is not yet 40 years old.

Morton begins his story with brief biographies of her parents, Voight and Marcia Lynne. He describes a less than ideal childhood of neglect, irresponsibility, loneliness and rebellion. Jolie was a wild child in the truest sense. Morton depicts drug use, dysfunctional behavior, and sexual exploration that began in her early teen years and continues, to some extent, into adulthood. Despite a tendency toward self-loathing, Jolie is driven to excel at whatever she sets her mind to accomplish. As a teen she entered the world of modeling. She used her striking beauty to transition into music videos and then acting.

Without distracting from the main story, Morton weaves his subject’s dedication to her mother and estrangement from father into the ongoing Jolie story. Jolie’s mother not only vilified Voight, she also lived vicariously through her daughter’s successes. Morton analyzes Jolie’s well-documented collection of tattoos and knives, but also discusses her vices of cutting and heroin. Morton paints an image of a self-interested woman who is attracted to danger. She prefers adventure to calm and can be fickle in her choices of spouses (she has married and divorced twice), lovers, and friends.

The author also posits that as Jolie has gotten older, she has expanded her ability to care for the plight of others. It is in this sphere that Jolie became United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador and has dedicated much of her time and money to philanthropic endeavors. A turning point in her life seemed to come in 2004, when she filmed “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” with Brad Pitt. The two actors started a relationship that continues to make headlines around the world, as well as a family of three birth children and three adopted children.

I fully anticipate that the “Angelina Jolie Story” will be made into a movie someday. Her life, to date, is the stuff of fairytales and horror stories. Morton’s biography of Jolie sheds light on one of today’s most successful actresses in a moving and persuasive way. It you enjoy biographies about famous people, read or listen to Angelina.

Check the WRL catalog for Angelina

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Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton

Gabrielle Hamilton’s ambivalence about the chef’s life is our gain: throughout her career as a cook, culminating in her position as chef-owner of the New York restaurant Prune, Hamilton has always wanted to write. Eventually earning an MFA on the side, she’s crafted an introspective memoir with a writer’s ear for telling details.

The first step on Hamilton’s path to reluctant chefdom wasn’t a C.I.A. education, or the heartwarming inspiration of a grandmother’s home cookery, or anything like that. At 13 years old, following her parents’ divorce and the subsequent implosion of her family, Gabrielle found herself unsupervised in a house with nothing left to eat—so she walked into town and got herself a job. A restaurant just happened to be the first business she hit.

From dishwashing to waitressing (with a sideline in cocaine and grand larceny), to cooking in catering and kids’ camp kitchens, Hamilton writes as much about hunger as about food, and as much about a failing marriage as about life in the restaurant business. Some of that hunger is literal-—her cravings as a cold, lonely backpacker bunking in youth hostels—and some of it is longing for family, not for the dishes on the table, but for the happy clan preparing and enjoying the meal.

Of course, half the fun of memoirs is armchair psychoanalysis of the narrator. Hamilton provides plenty of material, from estranged family to a complicated marriage with her Italian husband, from which she gained not so much a partner as an Italian mother-in-law. Despite describing the green-card inspired wedding primarily as a piece of performance art (she was in a serious relationship with another woman at the time), she finds herself longing for an intimacy and understanding from the partnership that never materializes.

Dedicated, workaholic, opinionated, and conflicted on many subjects from her marriage to the role of women in the restaurant business, her tone is often warm and generous and sometimes brittle. I particularly enjoyed the audiobook (which is read by the author); Hamilton spins a good story, in print or out loud.

If you’ve enjoyed Ruth Reichl‘s musings on food and relationships or Anthony Bourdain‘s tales of kitchen bravado, this memoir falls somewhere in between.

Check the WRL catalog for Blood, Bones & Butter.

Or try the audiobook.

 

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The Hearts of Horses, by Molly Gloss

My colleague Connie from Outreach Services provides today’s review:

As a born and bred Easterner, I find something alluring and mysterious about the American West. This book transported me there, with a look back at at the western home front during World War I.  Molly Gloss did a great job of capturing  small town, rural life in Oregon ranching country in 1917.

The story follows Martha Lessen, a 19-year-old horse wrangler, who travels a circuit  from ranch to ranch gentling wild horses. The reader meets and gets to know shy Martha as she uses her own sweet way of communicating with horses, and as time goes on, we get to know her neighbors’ stories, too.

It begins with Martha’s theories of how best to work with the horses, which stem mostly from her own rough childhood.  We see her slowly forming relationships with her horses, her neighbors, and finally with one man in particular.

Along with Martha’s story we learn about life out west during the early 1900s: the dangers of diseases that had no treatment, and societal problems such as abuse (of both animals and humans) and addiction.  Gloss also raises the issue of bigotry and prejudice against people deemed “our enemy” during times of war. There’s a lot for book groups to discuss.

I am not a “horse person,” but I enjoyed the sections of the book where we see Martha relating to and training her horses. And, I found it interesting that the main character, like many pioneering and rural women, followed her own path, and not the stereotypical one.

This story would be enjoyed by anyone who likes historical fiction, animals, and even a little romance.  I listened to the audio version and although some may not like the narrator, I enjoyed it more and more as the story went on.

I highly recommend this book.

Check the WRL catalog for The Hearts of Horses

Check the WRL catalog for the audiobook of The Hearts of Horses

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And Thereby Hangs a Tale, by Jeffrey Archer

This is the first work by Jeffrey Archer that I’ve read, and I was delighted with the variety of stories in this collection, several of which are based on true incidents.

“Stuck on You” launches first. This is one of those whodunnit mysteries that I enjoy reading.  You just know there’s a detail you’ve missed that would help you solve the case before the author brings it to a close.  Jeremy has been persuaded to steal an engagement ring for the woman he loves, Arabella. But when the security officers search Jeremy they can’t find the ring.  How did he get away with it?  Archer doesn’t disappoint in revealing a clue that seemed obvious once it’s revealed.

Next is “The Queen’s Birthday Telegraph.” This story is less a mystery than what appears to be a bureaucratic mishap.   Albert’s wife, Betty, didn’t receive a telegraph from the Queen when she turned 100.  When Albert investigates he learns a surprising fact about his wife that makes him smile.

All the stories continue in that vein — brief glimpses of life from different people with different backgrounds and circumstances.  Some endings have surprising hooks at the end, others are more predictable.  The overall feel is more cozy than anything stressful or hard-boiled.  It made for a delightful break.

I started off listening to this on audiobook and loved hearing Gerard Doyle’s voice.  In most cases I was able to complete a whole story on the way to or from work.  That was great — I didn’t have to sit in the driveway and wait for the story to come to a good stopping point!

Check the WRL catalog for And Thereby Hangs a Tale in print or in audio

 

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