The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

Let me just say, I Love Annie Dillard. This book is pure poetry, and I read it slowly and savored every word. It is the love story of a couple named Maytree who live in Provincetown, among the artists and the sea salt. It is a hymn to life long love and may be best appreciated by mature readers. Thank you, Annie, for finally writing another novel. Here is Annie Dillard's website.

Peony in Love by Lisa See

I loved Lisa See's novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan so much that I was anxiously awaiting this new novel. Although I enjoyed the book, it was hard for me to suspend my disbelief enough to accept a protagonist who is a ghost for two-thirds of the novel. I liked the way that the book is based on the story line of an actual opera, The Peony Pavilion, and I enjoyed the love story, but I felt like I was watching that old movie Ghost. Lisa See has a great website with the historical background for this very well researched novel -

Seven Loves by Valerie Trueblood

This novel is the story of one woman, May, at seven different points in her life. It is an interesting premise, and since May is an English teacher, I enjoyed reading this slim novel.

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

If you enjoyed The Kite Runner or Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, you will love this novel set in seventeenth century Iran. The heroine, who is purposely unnamed, is a carpet maker who suffers many misfortunes on her way to finding her own place in the world. I was really impressed by the author's comments in the back of the book and the extensive bibliography that is included. The book has a very interesting website that I also enjoyed reading. My favorite part of the novel, though, is the italicized fables that are part of the storytelling tradition of the novel.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

I waited a long time for my turn to take What the Dead Know out of the library (I'm trying to curb my book spending and read library books this summer) so I assumed it would be a good read. I was not disappointed. I do not read many mysteries, so I probably missed the clues that would have prepared me for the ending, but I was turning pages quickly to find out what happened. The book opens with a car accident involving a woman claiming to be Heather Bethany, one of the famous Bethany sisters who disappeared some 30 years ago from a shopping mall. The book alternates between the present and the case history. I enjoyed every minute of it.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan's Atonement is on our summer reading list for AP English students this year, so naturally when I found out he had a new novel, I had to read it. This one won't be discussed with the students. On Chesil Beach takes place on the wedding night of Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting, both virgins. They flashback to earlier scenes of their lives throughout this slim novel, but most of the novel is just build-up to the consumation of their love. To say more would be anti-climactic. McEwan's prose is lovely.

Flight by Sherman Alexie

Our book club met at the cottage on the lovely shores of Lake Erie to discuss Sherman Alexie's Flight. The book begins with a very appropriate epigraph from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Alexie's hero is a teenage orphan named Zits who time-travels to key moments in history after becoming involved in a fatal bank shooting. I was initially turned off by Alexie's obviousness, but our book discussion left me thinking this would be a great book to read with high school students - especially because it is a very quick read.

Our Summer Trip

David and I have just returned from a fun and educational trip through Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. Check out the new travel blog - Blues and Literature

And My Shoes Kept Walking Back to You by Kathi Kamen Goldmark

This was the perfect book to take on a trip to the music capitals of Memphis and Nashville. After walking Beale Street and listening to rockabilly I went back to the motel and read this gem by Kathi Kamen Goldmark. The author is a singer/songwriter from San Francisco who described this as her love song to honky tonk roots music. The book tells the story of Sara Jean Pixlie as she navigates the path to stardom in Nashville. Goldmark is a founding member of the mostly-author band "The Rock Bottom Remainders". This is her first novel.

Later, at the Bar by Rebecca Barry

This interrelated series of short stories were described by a reviewer as a Rust Belt Cheers. Lucy's Bar is the nightly meeting place of a motley cast of characters. The writing is spare and the characters are genuine.

Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander

The main character in this novel is a Jewish man who earns a living defacing gravestones of people with questionable reputations in the towns so that their names can be saved. He takes his son along on a midnight mission that leads to disaster. The novel is both sad and witty.

A Thousand Spendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

I loved this book as much as The Kite Runner for entirely different reasons. It is predominantly a woman's story. Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy man who is forced to bring her into his home when Mariam's mother dies. Instead of being absorbed into his family, she is married off to a much older shoemaker and forced into a life that she stuggles many years to make her own. Hosseini has proven his talent with this second compelling novel of life in Afghanistan.

Evening by Susan Minot

I read this book after looking at the huge displays in the bookstores and reading about the upcoming movie which is being called the summer's "must see". The novel tells the story of Ann Lord who is on her deathbed. Surrounded by her children, drifting in and out of the present, she recalls the one true love of her past - a secret from those who love her now. The book reminded me of "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Ann Porter - a stream-of-consciousness memory piece that reinforces that theme that we never fully know one another.

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

Eggs by Jerry Spinelli

Black and White by Dani Shapiro

loosely based on the life and photographs of sally mann

www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mann/index.html

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

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.