The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

Grace Eventually by Anne Lamott

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

www.theinventionofhugocabret.com

Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley

Alligator by Lisa Moore

This is another library selection that I made on the basis of the cover. This novel is written by a Canadian author and is set in Newfoundland. It features an unusual cast of characters. For example, the first character readers meet is 17 year old, ecoterrorist Colleen, who is downloading video clips of beheadings after watching a man who places his head inside the jaws of an alligator. The book is told from multiple points of view, and I was mildly fascinated by whole lot of folks Moore creates in this quirky little novel.

Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen

This book was a Christmas book from my husband, David, who said he bought it for me because of the girl in the red kayak on the cover. I have a red kayak and he said it look just like me - right? I love Carl Hiaasen for a fun read and this one was perfect for two consecutive snow days we had this week. Honey Santana is the sort of character that makes you want to say "You go girl"

Invisible Children

Although this is a documentary and not a book, it is certainly worth mentioning since it has relevance to this book blog. Our high school showed Invisible Children to a packed auditorium of students largely through a connection I have maintained with my former student Halle Butvin. Halle checks this blog for book ideas from time to time and noticed my comments about Beasts of No Nation back in the fall. She posted a comment on this blog, which led me to discover her blog, Locus Amoenus about her travels to Uganda and her work with Global Youth Partnerships for Africa. She came to my classes this week with a moving slide show of her recent visit to Uganda. She was joined by a member of the Invisible Children road crew and the persuasiveness of their presentations in the classroom packed the house for the screening that evening. I am proud of Halle's work and pleased that the students here in the suburbs may be opening their eyes, and hearts, to a cause larger than their own neighborhood.

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

After all of the heavy reading I have been doing lately, this satire was a laugh-out-loud pick-me-up. Misha Vainberg is the irreverently funny hero of this novel which takes place in St. Petersburg and later in the tiny post-Soviet country of Absurdistan. Nothing is sacred in this expose of society and politics. I would recommend the chapter which outlines his "modest proposal" for a new style of Holocaust Museum.

What is the What by Dave Eggers

I have admired the work of Dave Eggers for a while, and do moreso now for the worth of this novel. Eggers interviewed Sudanese Lost Boy Valentino Achak Deng about his journey out of Sudan, his life in the refugee camps, and finally his difficult transition to life in the U. S. Eggers fictionalized his story into a novel that is so sad and so moving. I am amazed at the resilience of Deng and overcome by number of displaced persons from Africa that his story represents.

Perfume by Peter Suskind

After reading about the movie made from this novel, I was curious enough to read Perfume, the international best selling novel by German author Peter Suskind. This horrifying tale of an 18th century Parisian orphan, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, begins on the day of his birth in a stinking marketplace. The wet nurse assigned to care for him by the monk who assumes his responsibility returns the baby because he has no odor - none of the warm caramel smells of newborn infants. Grenouille remains scentless throughout his life, but his sense of smell is highly developed which makes him a valued employee to perfumers. Because the novel is subtitled The Story of a Murderer, I expected more description of the murders, but I was somewhat pleasantly surprised that the novel was not like Silence of the Lambs. Rather it reminded me more of the sensory descriptions in a novel like Chocolat. I thoroughly enjoyed this vivid book.

Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

This is a library book that I am going to have to own. After hearing Margaret Atwood speak at the Cleveland Public Library this month, I decided to read this book of autobiographic stories. I love Atwood's fiction and this collection reminds me of all that I enjoy about Atwood. My favorite chapter is titled "My Last Duchess" and is a reflection on reading Browning's poem in an English class. Having taught the poem many times, I loved this chapter.

Truth and Beauth by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett's Bel Canto is a novel I really enjoyed a few summers back, so when I read about her tender memoir of her friendship with fellow writer Lucy Grealy, I assumed it would be a very good book. Patchett and Grealy were friends at Iowa Writer's Workshop, and much of Truth and Beauty is about the writing life. Grealey, who wrote her own memoir about the agonies of living with a face disfigured by childhood illness (Autobiography of a Face), suffered through thirty-some surgical procedures, always confiding her pain in letters and phone calls to Patchett. Grealy's life and eventual death are the centerpiece of this examination of all-consuming love between friends. I am planning to read Grealy's book next.

How the Light Gets In by M.J Hyland

I seldom buy a book just because the cover makes it look appealing, and I was actually turned off by the comment on the back of the book that compared the main character to Holden Caufield, but I'm glad I read How the Light Gets In. Protagonist Louise (Lou) is an Australian foreign exchange student, lured away from her harsh and impoverished family by the promise of a suburban, white-bread American high school experience. She initially loves the comfort and closeness of her host family, the Hardings. But things rapidly deteriorate when her insecurities and reckless desires get the best of her. I couldn't put this one down.

Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen

After reading this book of personal essays, I can see where Franzen's The Corrections came from. These essays give Franzen's readers a glimpse of his own family life, complete with the family vacation to Disneyworld. I particulary enjoyed the sections about church youth group that reminded me of my own teen years.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

I wanted to like A Spot of Bother a bit more than I did. The characters in this dysfunctional family are all struggling with their own secrets - hypochondria, sexuality, insecurity, etc. - that are threatened by an upcoming family wedding. The characters in the cover art are precariously perched on the wedding cake that represents this central event of the novel. The book reminded me of Franzen's The Corrections.

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

Middle aged women seeking a laugh-out-loud read should check out this collection of essay by Nora Ephron. She writes about everything from the "maintainance" of hair coloring and manicures to the contents of her purse. I read one particularly accurate essay about the joys and frustrations of raising children on an evening when I was arguing with my own tweenage daughter. And she has a lovely credo of life's lesson's learned.

Maybe a Miracle by Brian Strause

I received a free copy of this book from Random House to review for students. The author grew up in Columbus, Ohio, so there are many Ohio references, including a protagonist who puts off entering OSU to begin his freshmen year because of the tragedies and "miracles" his family is experiencing. His sister, who is in a coma after nearly drowning in the backyard pool, is displaying the stigmata and attracting throngs of miracle seekers. Strause's best feature is the voice of his young narrator, Monroe Anderson, who is sarcastic and delightfully irreverent.

Suspension by Robert Westfield

I was drawn to Westfield’s darkly comic novel by a description of the main character, Andy Green, whose occupation is to create the wrong answers for standardized multiple choice tests. Green encounters plenty of wrong turns and road blocks following an assault in a NYC alley that forces him inside his Hell’s Kitchen apartment to recover, only to reemerge into the post 9/11 city which has changed as much as he has. This novel had a few too many coincidences for my liking.

Banned Books Week 2006

Banned Books Week

Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski

This book is a playground. The website for the book says it all www.onlyrevolutions.com

Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala

This is a difficult book to recommend in the usual sense, but one that I feel every teenager in America should read today. The narrator, Agu, is a child in an unnamed West African nation when war comes to town. He is separated from his family and taken into the "army", and before he can even comprehend what is happening to him, he is committing atrocities that almost completely erase his memories of his happy life with his family. The joy of this novel is in the narrative voice that Iweala ingeniously crafts to pull the reader into the innocence of Agu's mind. I read this book in one sitting and nearly wept many times. It is a must-read.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

This is the most amazinng book of my summer reading. Special Topics in Calamity Physics was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review last Sunday, but it was already on my pile of new books waiting to be read. I started it immediately and couldn't put it down. It I could teach AP English from this book alone - I would. The Table of Contents is set up as a Core Curriculum and lists titles of classic works of literature that are the chapter titles for the story of a high school senior named Blue Van Meer. She lives with her father, her mother is deceased, who moves her all over the country as he takes various teaching jobs. Although they average three addresses per year, he promises he will not move her during her senior year, and so she meets a band of misfit students who include Blue in their weekly dinners with their teacher, Hannah Schneider. Two thirds of the way through, the novel becomes a mystery. It ends with a Final Exam section for the reader. Pessl's "documentation" of sources makes the book a very literary read. The website is a gem, too - http://calamityphysics.com

Blue Angel by Francine Prose

This novel is set on an idyllic college campus where a previously highly moralled Creative Writing professor meets a young student in one of his workshops who lures him into a murky romantic relationship. I was reminded of Jane Smiley's Moo while reading this darkly comic satire of higher education. Particularly enjoyable were the chapters from the student writers' works that Prose includes.

JPod by Douglas Coupland

This is a laugh-out-loud funny book about pod mates at a computer game company whose last names all begin with the letter J. Their office antics reminded me of the movie Office Space, but Coupland's writing style is what gives the book a freshness. Every few pages or so are random lists, such as all of the three letter words that are allowable in Scrabble plus one that is not. It makes for a fun read and a pretty clear window into office behavior. Check out the very cool website for this book - www.jpod.info

Red Weather by Pauls Toutonghi

This book showed up in many summer publications as a new novel of interest. Main character Yuri Balodis is just a typical high school student trying to survive adolescence and the craziness of his immigrant parents. Then he meets Hannah Graham, daughter of a socialist activist, who is everything his parents wouldn't want for him in a girlfriend. Yuri begins sneaking out at night to peddle the activist paper with Hannah and things start to heat up. Much of the humor in this book comes from the twisted grammar of Yuri's father, who is trying to raise his son to be a good American. I've read reviews that call Red Weather a Latvian-American Catcher in the Rye.