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This is an amazing memoir. Danticat takes us through her childhood and early adulthood in straightforward language. The emphasis is on her father and Uncle Joseph, the brothers of the title. From births to deaths, from political to financial struggles, this is a story of the strength family bonds. Along the way, we are treated to a vivid Danitcat family centered history of Haiti.

This is a wonderful gathering of information on the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area--from its inception, to its unlikely founding legislation, to past and current battles and successes. Durbin has used her journalistic experience to unearth the information and clearly present it. I now have an understanding of what is at stake in this beautiful area. I have certainly added a number of places to explore to my already long list of Gorge sites to visit.

Luis Alberto Urrea is an amazing writer. He can directly and poetically reach your heart. I had experienced his powerful writing in fiction. This is not fiction. He has stitched together the story of the Yuma 14, a group of Mexicans that crossed the Mexican-US border in the Arizona desert in May of 2001. Fourteen died including one man who has never been identified. Eleven were rescued by US authorities and survived barely. Even with all the uncertainties of the testimonies of confused survivors, Urrea has written a lyrical story that gets to the insanities of the Mexico-US border.

Often when there is a complex news story that arrives in bits and pieces and is difficult to understand, I say that I will wait for the book to come out. This book may not be THE book about the financial crisis/recession that started in 2008 but it is an excellent introduction. Grind has put together an understandable and compelling account of the failure of Washington Mutual (WaMu) Bank. She paints vivid pictures of some of the personalities of involved, as well as the corporate culture of the bank. And she leaves the reader to puzzle out what toxic blend of who’s ego, greed, or incompetence was the catalyst and why nobody seemed to able to right the ship.

A little treasure. A story about where a book and your imagination can take you. The last white man in a village on a island of Papua New Guinea during a civil war that has isolated the village takes on teaching the children. Through the eyes of a thirteen year old girl in the village, the most successful lesson is the Mr. Watt's reading of Dicken's Great Expectations. But he also invites the adults of the village to share their knowledge and stories with the children. A book, imagination and the horror of war weave an amazing story.

What a delightful collection of short stories. Coloane weaves tales of sheepherders, sailors, builders, gold miners and others set in southern Chile. Humor, suspense, bravery and craziness drive these wonderful stories of adventure in a beautiful, bleak and challenging part of the world. The stories seem to be set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and provide some interesting history. Labor strikes, mining the beaches for gold using tidal hydraulics, the tenuous link of coaster steamers to isolated towns and outposts.

Wow! The story of an amazing and resilient man. And so well told! Hillenbrand brings us into the stadium of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the interior of a B-24 bomber limping back to base, a raft drifting across the Pacific, Japanese POW camps and the mental struggles of recovery.

This "progress report" on what we now know about the origins of homo sapiens is something that I have been thirsting for. As Tattersall says what we knew in paleoanthropology when I was in college looks "engagingly quaint today". From deep core ice sampling to DNA testing of ancient bones to functional MRI's of the brain, as well as finding new archeological sites, we have learned a lot. I have read about various finds and testing but have not been able to put it all together. This book does. Tattersall demonstrates why he is a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. He explains clearly what we know for the non-scientist without talking down to us (or at least to me). I truly appreciate the way that he organized the book--going from the oldest hominids to the earliest humans--not by the order that we have found traces of them; and that he used a consistent method of dating (in this case how many years ago) throughout the book.

Wow! The story of an amazing and resilient man. And so well told! Hillenbrand brings us into the stadium of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the interior of a B-24 bomber limping back to base, a raft drifting across the Pacific, Japanese POW camps and the mental struggles of recovery.

This book explains a lot! I am amazed at how much we have learned about the human brain from functional MRI. Scientists have found structures of dyslexics' brains that group at one end of the normal bell shape curve. This difference in structure explains a lot of dyslexics challenges and strengths. The authors do a very good job of describing the difficulties that my dyslexic daughter faced in school and many of the things that helped us. The chapters on careers are helpful because that is her current stage in life. The book hits the right note for parents and teachers and dyslexics themselves who are in need of encouragement.

The challenge is to read this book and NOT be planning your trip to the Amalfi Coast (or your return if you have been so lucky to have visited before). This is armchair traveling at its best. The reader joins Chantal as she guides a group of American women on a week trip to the Amalfi Coast. When does the next flight leave? I really appreciated the bibliography, filmography and glossary of Italian terms. But I would have liked an index also as I wanted to go back and re-read a number of items and link some of the history and it was not always easy to remember where certain things were mentioned.

This is a treasure--impressionistic, haunting journeys in the land between the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas-Slovakia, Moldova, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary--towns with names in three languages or more--mountains, plains and corn fields--pubs, border crossings, Gypsies, cemeteries, buses, trains and ferries. Stasiuk seeks the edges, the eternal of his Europe. This is not linear or chronological but follows the wandering mind of the author. Beautiful! but read with references at hand for this westerner that grew up with this area behind the "iron curtain" and mostly ignorant of its geography, history and culture.

This book started by making me cry. Benedict poignantly describes a couple holding their daughter as she dies, every parent's worst nightmare. Their child went from healthy to dying of a fast moving, virulent and mysterious illness in little more than a week. It turns out that she got it from eating a contaminated and undercooked hamburger at Jack in the Box. Benedict takes us from the outbreak to the first arbitrated settlement of the E. coli illnesses and deaths on the west coast from Jack in the Box in the early 90's. He tells us the story through some of the people involved, mainly the plaintiffs' attorney, Bill Marley and the CEO of Jack in the Box, Bob Nugent. He includes parents, doctors, researchers, public health officials, industry consultants and attorneys. Even though I knew the outcome, I found Benedict's story compelling.

An amazing book. Told in the voice of a 70 year old Mauricien, who is finally coming to terms with a central year in his childhood. His two brothers die, his family moves from an agricultural camp to a town, and he makes friends with an European Jewish boy being held in a prison near his house. Appanah brings his anguish and regret home to the reader. This is another piece WW II history that I was totally unaware of.

Wow! Tracy Kidder does it again! In the eloquent telling of one remarkable man's story, Kidder gives us insight into war trauma, ethnic violence, a country and region, the violence of poverty. And he gives us hope!

An interesting view of Abigail Adams based mostly on letters that she sent and received. The thread that Holton used to tie it together is how Adams controlled money in a time when married women didn't have any legal right to do so. Thoughts: It is amazing how much American English has changed in 250 years. Holton defines for us words that have almost come to mean the opposite today. How heart wrenching it is to have children die. Again the myth of the nuclear American family is destroyed as parents spend years away from their children, die and remarry and children get handed around to various relatives and friends. During the current controversy about what religion meant to the founding fathers, Abigail's attitudes and observations are interesting.

A wonderful read. The story of one enigmatic man, Johnny Lim, told from three viewpoints-his son, his wife's journal and the reminiscences of a friend in old age. The main part of the story is set on the Malay peninsula just before the Japanese invasion in WWII. We never know Johnny but we learn much about his family and friend.

Wow! I am ready to go back to France and explore the country and its people with a whole new set of eyes! Graham Robb presents the common people of France outside of Paris--how and where they lived, how they learned, why and how they traveled, what they ate and how these things changed between the revolution and the WWI. This book is a revelation.

I am in awe of writers that track down letters, journals, military records and people all over the world and then put together a coherent and engaging book. David Grann has done this in this story of Percy Fawcett, the great Amazonian explorer who disappeared in the rain forest with his son, Jack and another man in 1925.

In retrospect, when mortgage credit disintegrated, we saw that there had been a few voices raised in warning. Kosman is raising a voice about the next credit catastrophe. Private equity (PE) firms went on a buying binge in the late 90's and early 00's. They had the companies that they bought borrow most of the money the PE firms used to buy them. The banks that lent the money applied less than rigorous standards in approving the loans because they would resell them (sound familiar?). The PE firms try to improve the position of the purchased company by short-sighted management in order to re-sell or take the company public in 5 or 6 years. Of course recent conditions have not been conducive to this and some of the highly leveraged companies have gone bankrupt. And many of the loans will start coming due in 2012. Read this book to see how the PE firms still make money even when they drive their "investments" into bankruptcy and why our public employee pension funds are at high risk of becoming under-funded because of this. Kosman offers some suggestions on what Congress and the administration can do to somewhat cushion the blow but also gives a pessimistic out-look of these changes being made because of the influence that PE firms have in Washington. The book gives evidence of having been rushed to press--editing errors and sections that are a little skeletal, but it is definitely an infuriating and important read.

Off beat humor, off-the-wall characters, perfect title

I resist reading political autobiographies because I am sure that they will be self-serving drivel. But this was selected by my book group and I am glad it was. It was written after law school and covers Obama's childhood and, what is now termed his "discovery years" as he drifts trying to figure out who he is and what he should do. This edition was printed in 2004 after Obama was elected to the senate and includes an introduction written at that time, but, supposedly, no revisions. It focuses on two things--what it means to be African American in the US post WWII and his family background--his mother and her parents who were very involved in his childhood, his Indonesian step-father and his absent and elusive Kenyan father. Nurture and nature--what traits he possibly inherited and the values that were instilled and the ones that he adopted. I really enjoyed imagining what some of the people in the book-Indonesian playmates, classmates at Punahoe, etc. have made of his election.

Because Philbrick fills us in on the history of Nantucket whaling, 19th century marine navigation, the effects of dehydration and starvation, you would think this true tale would be ponderous, but instead it is gripping. "The Essex disaster is not a tale of adventure. It is a tragedy that happens to be one of the greatest true stories ever told."

This is Ms. Huxley's stories of a few of her childhood years spent in Thika (in what has become Kenya) as her parents try to start a coffee plantation. It includes their neighbors-British, Boer and native, particularly Kikuyu and Masai. Her descriptions are beautiful and her child's view of the adults' world is delightful.

A young man of mixed Native American heritage returns from WWII and exorcises his demons of alienation, despair and hatred through ceremony. He reconnects with the land and his people. I long for a way for others who have been damaged by war, alienation, or violence to heal.

For me, history and current events are much easier to understand at a personal level. This book does this for modern China from an unique perspective. The author, as a Chinese-American, has some cultural background from her parents, who arrived in the US via Taiwan. Also I think the Chinese respond to her differently because she does not "look American". The people that she meets during her quest to understand Chinese cuisine range from those who were nearly adults at the time the Cultural Revolution started to those who were born after China started adopting a market economy. Talk about a "generation gap"! She describes how the middle class and the poor working class live in Beijing and Shanghai as well as visits to other cities and to, at least, one rural area. Along the way she describes the working conditions in restaurant kitchens from struggling noodle shops to state-owned to world-class. She explains how various dishes are made and includes recipes. She does all this with compassion and wit.

I was amused to find that we are still dealing with some of the same problems--prostitutes, bridges, roads and "idle men blocking the sidewalks". And it seems that some problems have been solved without government intervention--pigs roaming the streets, cows with loud bells and a sunken ship in the river. For Portlanders this is a treasure because it is hard to make decisions about the future without knowing how we got where we are.

A very interesting memoir. Dr. Holland describes her nine years as the psychiatrist in charge of Bellevue's Psychiatric ER on weekend nights--the funny, the crazy, the lying, the scary, the touching patients. How her armor slowly started to wear thin. I can't imagine wanting to deal with the mentally ill as they come in in ambulances, police vehicles and under their own power. And being under time and space pressure to figure what is wrong and what should be done with them. Are they a danger to themselves or others? Julie explains why I have difficulty dealing with the homeless mentally ill on our streets. "... in our culture, the mentally ill are demonized and shunned. They are ostracized and marginalized as a by-product of our primal fear of going crazy ourselves."

One of those stories that you think that you know but don't actually until you read it. I hadn't realized that the story wandered from Geneva to the Orkeny Islands and Ireland to the Russian arctic. Shelley does a wonderful job of writing of Frankenstein's and the fiend's anguish, fear and loneliness but I did not feel that she gave enough understanding of their sudden changes in direction. But I guess that is the danger of writing myths--little do we understand the capricious gods going from benevolent to angry and back again. This edition is beautifully illustrated with drawings and reproductions with sidebar notes. They sometimes added to the story and sometimes only distracted.

"In memory of the 13 heroic men who lost their lives in service of the their country fighting the Mann Gulch Forest Fire...on August 5, 1949". Memorial plaque. Norman Maclean visited the site of the Mann Gulch Fire while the ashes were still smoldering and went back time after time during his life. Twenty five years after the fire, he started to try to make sense of the deaths--combing the Forest Service archives, interviewing survivors, clambering over the hillside marked by crosses with a tape measure. He traced their path. He looked for their legacy in changes in Smokejumper training and forest fire fighting operations. He wrestled with telling their story up to his death forty years after the fire. This haunting book is what he left us. This book was recommended by my brother, who worked on Forest Service fire fighting crews in the 70's.

What a range of conflicting emotions! I thought the two main characters (actually all the characters) were sometimes strong, smart, weak, stupid, caring, giving, and selfish--just like real people. The book tells the story of two women--one over decades, the other over days. It is set in Sri Lanka and gives us a tantalizing taste of the society, culture, geography and recent history of a country that I know very little about.

This is an amazing collection of short stories. Anthony Doerr can set a scene that is vivid with great economy--"A cloud stretched across the moon." The book cover says the stories are "steeped in the mysterious connection between human and nature". But these stories are also about staying in place or leaving and returning. There are several stories about maturing love--understanding and accepting the other person. My favorite is "Mkondo". But I was laughing aloud reading "July Fourth." These are stories to return to.

As They See 'Em is not JUST for baseball fanatics. This interesting and well-written account will appeal to anyone with a basic knowledge of baseball. Bruce Weber weaves his experiences at baseball umpire school, umpiring non-professional games and, even, umpiring a few innings of a major league intra-squad spring training game with lots of interviews. He interviewed major league and minor league umps, players, managers, and officials. The stories are peppered with humor and tension. He includes the recent history the umpire unions and labor disputes, giving us a feel for recent changes in the umpire's job. He explains and illustrates the skills that umpires need and the career path that they have to take to get to the majors. From minor league umpires, in their first season, facing a broken-down car on the way to Spokane to umpires coping with dressing room chaos at the World Series. I really enjoyed his tales of the two women umpires who have come closest to the major leagues and how they didn't make it, somehow. It appears that the powers that run professional baseball aren't willing to go there, yet. Through his interviews, Weber gives us an inkling of what it is like to umpire the World Series or be the plate ump for a perfect game. I have been to three major league games in the past three years (bringing my lifetime total MLB games to four) and I find that I enjoy the ambiance of a baseball stadium on a pleasant summer evening, but I do need help from my companions understanding some of the things that happen on the field. But I am unable to watch baseball on TV--it does not hold my interest. But thanks to this fascinating book, I know that the next game that I watch, I will be watching the umpires almost as much as the players.

The way I like my sci fi--a story with fully realized characters put in a strange world to explore and have their assumptions challenged. The result is a look into the human soul.

This is a gem. After the Soviet launch of Sputnik, Hickam and his buddies decide to build their own rockets. With Mark Twain-like humor, he writes about the troubles they get into and the subtle and the overt community support as these local kids reach for space. He also describes adolescent experiences with love, sex, booze, trying to make sense of the world and figuring out their places. Hickam's mother is pushing for a way for him to escape the dying town and the dangers of the mine while admonishing him not to blow himself up. His father is the manager of the mine and his response is much more complicated and undecipherable to Hickam. He describes the small town ambiance perfectly--how, if a kid does something wrong, his parents know all about it before he gets home. There are so many wonderful people in this story. The doctor who stitches them up and dispenses advice. The black and white ministers who try to respond to Hickam's revelation that God is plane geometry. The young high school science teacher who inspires, pushes and supports the boys. The union shop steward who tries to balance his responsibilities to the workers and the community as a whole. The head of mine security (essentially the local cop) who knows when to protect, when to punish and when to leave the kids to their parents. Highly recommended.

This is a book that will touch your heart and keep you thinking. It starts with an inadvertent time capsule being opened. The family belongings of Japanese Americans stored when they were "evacuated" from Seattle's Japan Town are discovered in the basement of a long boarded-up hotel forty years later. Henry Lee, a recently widowed, Chinese American is sure that something very important to him is among the crates and suitcases stored there. The book takes us back and forth between the Henry's growing up during the war years and his adjustments in the 80's to the loss of his wife, whom he has nursed for many years. We explore the complications of family communication when we see his immigrant parents send mixed messages about him "speaking American" and sending him to an all white school, but insisting that he finish his education in China. And we see Henry try to re-establish communication with his own college-age son. We explore race as we see Henry and Keiko, his Japanese-American friend, endure the bullying of their classmates; we watch Henry's African-American musician friend, Sheldon, negotiate the un-written rules of northern segregation; we see the official policies toward people of Japanese descent during the war; and we even see the effects of racial red-lining.

The author, Tilar Mazzeo, takes the pieces of the slim biography that has come to us of the Widow Clicquot and fills in the history of France, and champagne and the industrialization of winemaking to give us the story of a remarkable woman. Mazzeo writes with an energy and liveliness that compliments her subject.

This book really grabbed me. It is about love--"mama worry" the fierce love of a mother for her children; brotherly love; the growth and maturing of love between spouses; soldierly love--the solidarity and support that only those who have "been there" can offer one another. And it is set in a period of time of great tension and change in America's long, slow, sad saga of race relations.

Very interesting! The story of the spice race. Who knew that the sprinkle of nutmeg on my holiday eggnog had such a long, adventurous and tragic history? Men endured dangerous voyages, deadly illnesses, sieges, battles, torture and executions for the possession of a handful of backwater islands where nutmeg grows because nutmeg and other spices represented huge profits. Milton does an excellent job of bringing the history of the spice trade to life. I would have liked a time line. He necessarily goes back and forth in time to bring us coherent stories of various voyages, explorations and peoples' histories. But I would have liked to be able to see what was happening in the "spiceries" while Barents was eating polar bear liver in the Russian arctic, without having to rely on my poor memory for dates.

Fascinating! This book tells the story of the Great Uprising of 1857 in the area around Delhi. The author uncovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and/or untranslated records and accounts of this time period. And he can write! Whether he is describing a typical day in Dehli before the uprising; the British inhabitants deaths and escapes; the suffering of the inhabitants of Dehli during the seige; or the tenous position of the Dehli Field Force outside the walls, he makes it come alive. You can feel the confusion, the hate, and the suffering. And you come away with a sense of loss for a civilization, for tolerance, for art.

Fascinating! The author uncovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and/or untranslated records and accounts of Dehli during the Great Mutiny of 1857. And he can write! Whether he is describing a typical day in Dehli before the uprising; the British inhabitants' deaths and escapes; the suffering of the inhabitants of Dehli during the seige; or the tenous position of the Dehli Field Force outside the walls, he makes it come alive.