Sunset Park by Paul Auster

David gave me this book for Christmas and Paul Auster is a great writer, but the story was so-so and I found myself putting it down more often than picking it up. Two stars.

Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

Luckily, a Christmas break lunch visit with Salvatore Scibona reminded me that I had purchased Lord of Misrule the day after it won the National Book Award. On a strong recommendation from Salvatore, I started the book on December 27 and read it as much as I could over the remainder of the Christmas break week - stealing time from family visits and getting out of bed to read after everyone else was asleep. Although I didn't think that a book about horse racing would appeal to me at all, the beauty of Jaimy Gordon's prose made the subject matter secondary. Her vernacular was a quirky as the names of her minor characters - Deucey Gifford, Medicine Ed, Kiddstuff, Suitcase Smithers, Two-Tie, and Joe Dale Bigge. I had to read slowly to isolate plot details from West Virginia dialect of stall conversations and metaphoric descriptions. I would describe it as something like the Cannery Row of horse racing. A lovely Christmas present to myself was carving out the time to read this beautiful book.

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

My second ibook was a Christmas break comic treat that allowed me to read early in the a.m. by the light of the Christmas tree with my backlit iPad screen. Quite a luxury. I loved the crazy complications that 4 wives and 28 children brought to Golden Richard's life. This book reminds me a bit of a John Irving novel, with plot details that evoke wry laughter.

False Friend by Myla Goldberg

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

Room by Emma Donahue

I can't say enough about how heartbreaking and lovely this book is.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Much anticipated and worth the wait.

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart is the new American satirist. I plan to use sections of this crazy, funny, cautionary novel opposite Brave New World in AP English this winter. It is a super entertaining and pretty spot-on depiction of modern relationships, politics, economic disaster and obsession with technology.

Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman

A wedding night tragedy opens this novel which follows the lives of the family members of the bride and groom through the next four summers. For some reason, none of the characters really won my sincere support. Waldman is the wife of novelist Michael Chabon.

Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes

Wow! This one may win the prize for the book that kept me up the latest on a summer night turning pages to find out how Vanderbes' Thanksgiving day tragedy would finally end. The Olson family has plenty of issues - unmarried daughter Ginny's recently adopted, mute Indian child, son Douglas's strained relationship with his wife Denise, and the unspoken wounds in the marriage of the parents, Eleanor (the perfectionist) and Gavin (the Vietnam war-scarred quiet man). Mix in a malfunctioning oven, two angry teenager burglars, and a heavy serving of mayhem with dessert and you have a shockingly violent novel that somehow also had me snickering.

The New England Vacation Blog

Our Vacation Blog
Just back from 2 weeks and 2,700 miles of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, including visits to several Robert Frost sites and a search through Cornish, New Hampshire for evidence of the late great J.D. Salinger.

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman

I wanted this novel to have more connection to cookbooks and less concern with dot-com-computer-tech-post-9/11. Half of the storyline is about one of two sisters - Emily who is the CEO of a start up silicon valley company and Jess who works for an eccentric used book collector. Goodman tries to do too much and I would much rather have had the book focus on Jess's storyline - especially with the lovely cover which is what initially caught my eye.

Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls

Our August book club selection was this fictionalization of the biography of Jeanette Walls' maternal grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. I am a big fan of Walls' memoir The Glass Castle, and for readers who wondered, as I did, how her parents could have ever become such risk-takers, this novel, at least, fills in the details on her mother's side. Rose Mary, Jeanette's mother, was raised by a renegade horse-breaker, school teacher, no-nonsense ranch wife. We listened to this book on audio tape driving home from Vermont and Jeanette Wall's own reading made it even more enjoyable. I'm looking forward to talking about the book with my daughter who is about to finish The Glass Castle as part of her summer reading for Honor English 11.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

After swearing off buying any new books this summer, the cover of this novel sold me, but the interrelated chapters detailing the lives of musicians and spanning several decades made it a difficult novel to follow. The biggest surprise of the novel was the Powerpoint presentation style of one of the last chapters. The novel is clever, the portrayal of aging rock stars is entertaining and the satiric wit is sharp.

I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

I enjoyed Laura Lippman's What the Dead Know so much that I was thrilled to score a copy of this novel to review. Although I felt pretty creeped-out by the story of a middle-aged woman who is contacted from prison by the man who she sent there decades before, I turned the pages of this novel pretty quickly to see how the story would unfold. Protagonist Eliza Benedict is busy mothering her own young children when she receives a disturbing message from Walter Bowman, a man who is facing execution for molesting and murdering young women, as well as holding young Eliza hostage back in her teens. Flashbacks propel this psychological thriller.

The Lovers by Vendela Vida

This was one of my favorite books of the summer, perhaps because of the lovely descriptions of the coastline in Turkey where the main character, Yvonne, goes to try to recapture some of her honeymoon memories following the death of her husband. Although is begins as a story about travel, it quickly becomes a psychological character study and then abruptly turns into an examination of redemption after an accidental death helps Yvonne to reckon with her relationship with her own child. Vida is married to Dave Eggers, and as a literary couple, they are the ones to watch in the next decades.

One Day by David Nicholls

This novel follows the relationship of Dexter and Emma, beginning on the day they graduate from college in 1988 through 20 years of bad jobs, missed opportunities and love loss. Each chapter is set on July 15th of the next year, and their on and off again courtship made for an easy, entertaining summer read.

The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst

If you are looking for a book to read on the beach or plane tomorrow, pick up this literary mystery. Fictitious author Octavia Frost is on her way to drop off a manuscript at her publisher's office when she sees the television news story about her rock-star son being taken in as a suspect in his girlfriend's murder. The novel is enhanced by samples of Frost's own fiction - endings and alternate endings of her novels between the chapters that advance the storyline of the murder investigation. Apparently, Octavia has a hard time selecting the right ending for her books - no so for Parkhurst.

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

A high school music teacher is caught having an affair with a student. I wish I thought that was a novel idea. What made this book interesting to me was the character of the saxaphone teacher who functions as a manipulative force in the coming together of several student's lives. I was reminded of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Eleanor Catton's prose makes this read worth your time.

The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart

I have finally found a way to score some advanced reader copies of books and this was the first to steal my attention this summer. What a wonderful little story. I had no idea that the Tower of London was used as a menagerie on several occasions throughout history. The novel focuses on the strain created in his marriage when one of the Beefeaters is approached to manage the tower zoo. My favorite part of the novel was the alternate story line concerning the Beefeater's disgruntled wife and her odd co-worker at the London Underground's Lost Properties Unit. Funny, warm and satisfying, this book will be available August 10 from Doubleday.

Old School by Tobias Wolfe

Our book club selection for June proved to be a quick read perfectly tailored for English teachers. Set at a male boarding school in the sixties, the book examines what it means to be a teacher and a writer. Robert Frost, Ayn Rand and Ernest Hemingway are each visiting authors slated to come visit the school. Prior to these visits, the boys write a contest piece that determines which of them will be selected to have a private interview with the visiting author. I will recommend this book to teacher friends - there should be a lot of book club discussion fodder here.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson

We went to see the Swedish subtitled movie of The GIrl with the Dragon Tattoo on Friday night, so I was anxious to finish this last installment in the trilogy. Wow!!!! Up really late turning pages at the end of Lisbeth's trial last night. I love these books!

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

My official first day of summer break following a week of grading AP English Literature and Composition essays in Louisville was spent reading Aimee Bender's new novel. I am a huge fan of Bender's quirky characters and this book did not disappoint. The main character in this work of magical realism is a little girl named Rose who can taste emotions in her food - from the sadness of her mother's lemon cake to the sterility of school cafeteria food. I devoured the book in one sunny day on the deck - no pun intended.

Elliot Allagash by Simon Rich