Customer Comments

READ THIS BOOK! It will forever change the way you think about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and possibly about everything else.

Another winner from Carofiglio! His books are so good they deserve rereadings, and I keep his paperbacks on hand for just that reason. Here again he creates a situation of ambiguity connected to a long past love affair with a mysterious woman who played a significant role in his life, and we get brief glimpses of that experience interspersed with his protagonist's legal efforts to free his past lover's son who is in custody and facing life in prison for a murder he may have committed. Carofiglio's protagonists are always worth getting to know because of their excruciating humanness, self-deprecation, cultural references, and sense of humor.

When it was recommended I was skeptical. I found this book fascinating, beautifully written, and accompanied by exquisite art work. Highly recommended.

My Two Elaines provides important information to caregivers of Alzheimers patients, particularly to partners and/or family members of such patients. In his heartbreaking story of caring for his beloved wife Elaine, Schreiber confesses his mistakes and "wishes I'd know that earlier" in the 18 years of his wife's Alzheimers. He relates the struggle of experiencing his love, the first Elaine, becoming a different person as the disease progressed, and how he came to love his "second Elaine". It is clear that the rest of his life will be spent assisting and counseling caregivers. This is a deeply moving personal account of the experience of accompanying a loved one through the difficult progression of this dread disease. Highly recommended.

Bewilderment grabbed me and wouldn't let go. Richard Powers is a powerful writer, and I had thoroughly enjoyed his Pulitzer prize-winning book The Overstory, but Bewilderment is a whole other matter. It felt so personally intense that I found it impossible not to feel part of the small family struggling through such wrenching experiences, even as I recognized their story portraying our threatened planet. Even the tragic ending felt exactly right, somehow. Highly recommended.

Small Things Like These is a wee book, only 114 smallish pages. But it's impact is like a punch to the gut. Claire Keegan's way with words is extraordinary: I was right there with Bill Furlong the coal merchant as he moved about his small village being a good, ordinary man. Until he could no longer pretend that everything was really all right. Keegan draws characters from inside out, so I knew them personally, and I could feel Bill's struggle with something horrific within his own small village. And then he did something foolish and heroic that would change both his life and the life of the village forever. Highly recommended. I just reread it for the first time and feel certain I will read it again and again, perhaps especially when I feel a need for courage to take an unpopular stand on a charged issue.

This book is dynamite! It is absolutely a MUST READ if you care about this country. Of course it is controversial because it exposes truths about us that have been long hidden or denied. Richardson does an excellent job of distilling a great expanse of U.S. history into a short, meaty couple hundred pages. In the process of doing so, she manages to make connections between movements and events that reveal how, in effect, the south did win the civil war. Highly recommended. Spread the word.

POW! What a punch in the stomach this essay collection gives! Excellent writer Sarah Kendzior not only selects key sore points in the our culture but also draws connections between and within them that have previously escaped me. Her ability to do that, more than any specific topic in her collection, makes this book essential reading and rereading and spreading the word. No one is spared. All but the wealthy (obviously worthy!) have been led down various subtle paths to their detriment. Most of us didn't even see it coming. THE VIEW FROM FLYOVER COUNTRY is short, succinct, quickly readable--don't miss it. Highly recommended.

If you thought deeply entrenched housing segregation in the U.S. resulted primarily from cultural preferences, Rothstein's myth busting treatise will quickly disabuse you of that idealistic notion. Through his deep research, the author presents nothing less than a damning indictment of government at every level playing a decisive role in mandating separation of the races from the get go. I thought I knew quite a bit about housing segregation and mortgage lending and insuring, having worked in that field for many years in many different capacities from non-profit organizations to quasi-governmental agencies to major banks, but I certainly did NOT know that the major home ownership insurance, the Federal Housing Administration or FHA insurance, which was created to enable the first great homeownership initiative following the return of service members after the second world war, EXPLICITLY EXCLUDED BLACKS. And since segregation was still legal for conventional mortgages and mortgage insurance and real estate business, blacks were essential cut out of all but the most undesirable locations in every part of every city and town. The reason the FHA was crucial for the explosion of home ownership after WWII was that it allowed, for the first time, home buyers to achieve home ownership with much smaller down payments than were previously available because the federal government insured the mortgage loan for a small fee. States and localities followed the fed's lead. READ THIS BOOK!

Donna Leon's superb writing never fails to bring back cherished memories of Venice. I have fallen in love with Commissario Brunetti and his family through her books. But this time she takes us off shore into the laguna and onto a small island and introduces us to an interesting new set of characters. We are left with a moral dilemma: this would be great grist for any number of book clubs.

The Caves of Perigord captured me and wouldn't let go. I was intrigued by the title, having visited the area for a painting workshop some years ago, and picked the book up without knowing any more about the author. Walker successfully managed the three narratives in the book--the prehistory, the WWII French Resistance movement, and the present day--skillfully, and ultimately wove them together believably. Fascinating characters, some based on actual players in the struggles of WWII, and real history added to the substance of the book. I am pleased to learn that Martin Walker has written a number of other books, and they will immediately go on my reading list! Highly recommended, especially for anyone who has visited the Perigord Region and/or had the opportunity to visit the caves which are available for cave drawing viewing.

All This Life was the first book of Joshua Mohr's I have read...but it will definitely not be the last. I loved that All This Life is set in the very present moment in the city where I live (San Francisco). Mohr's compassion for his (mostly) flawed characters shines through, and made me care about them, too. His writing is exciting, and the story barrels along at breakneck pace. My heart was pounding as I finished the book. Now I am looking forward to reading his other work and anticipating future work, thankful that he is young!

As soon as I finished reading Kanon's ISTANBUL PASSAGE I eagerly sought out his latest book, LEAVING BERLIN. Now I feel compelled to read all his other novels. The richness of his narrative had me anxiously in East Berlin with Alex, the voice of Leaving Berlin, in the divided German city of 1949. Kanon creates such complex, fascinating characters and places them in such challenging situations it is impossible not to care about them. And in the process of living with them I was faced with the moral and ethical challenges of their lives which were not only heart wrenching but also life threatening. No neat endings here. Highly recommended.

Istanbul Passage is a thrilling read, all 400 pages of it. Dizzying in complexity, fascinating in locale, some of the best dialogue imaginable, believable and deeply interesting characters kept me reading waay too late. Rich in historical detail, Kanon offers a disturbing look at the underbelly of diplomacy and intelligence at the dawn of the cold war in the strategically located Turkish capitol of Istanbul.

ALL THE OLD KNIVES is the first book I have read by Olen Steinhauer. It definitely kept my interest throughout. The mechanism of switching back and forth between the voices of the two main characters was very effective in maintaining a high level of tension. The surprise ending blew me away! I will definitely be checking out some of Steinhauer's earlier books.

Carofiglio is my new favorite mystery/legal thriller writer, and for me, this tops all his other excellent books ( those which have been translated into English ). Guido Guerrieri, his protagonist in Reasonable Doubts, is excruciatingly insightful and he shares those insights with the reader unsparingly. You gotta love this guy! This is intelligent writing with plenty of wit by a writer who has real experience as an anti-Mafia prosecutor. Can't wait for his next book!

Carofiglio is far and away the best crime writer I have read. I just finished rereading A WALK IN THE DARK, and if anything I enjoyed it even more than the first time. His writing is spare and beautiful, and his protagonist is intelligently and unsparingly self-reflective. Because of the author's personal experience with the Italian police and prosecution, his insights and disclosures about how the system really works ring disturbingly true. I was shocked all over again by the final pages of A WALK IN THE DARK. Highly recommended, along with everything else Carofiglio has written that has been translated. Cudos also to the terrific translator.

Charles Blow has become one of my favorite columnists, so when I learned that he had written a memoir I was eager to read it. I was not disappointed. Blow's deeply personal and excruciatingly honest writing moved me. The memoir revealed so much about this man who writes with such wisdom and compassion combined with sharp intelligence. The writing itself is quite beautiful. Strong poetic images alongside some brutal experiences. He does not spare himself in his critical review of life experiences. This is a man who has earnestly struggled to know himself and love his true self, warts and all. I look forward to all his writing to come and wish him a long and fulfilling life.

This is the most hopeful book about the future of our world that I have encountered this year. Rifkin consistently manages to pull together useful (and mainly hopeful) threads of information from throughout the world in support of his projection toward a zero marginal cost society. And in the course of doing so he manages to make it accessible to readers who are not professionally trained as economists or societal historians. Better yet, his writing is so engaging that one wants to read this very dense, very full treatise on exactly the words in the subtitle: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism. Whether or not one agrees with his conclusions, it is impossible not to be excited by the information presented and by the vision that propels it. After reading a library copy, I have ordered it as I know I will want to consult its wealth of information into the future, and I want to mark it up for reference. It is impossible to read this book without learning a great deal in a most engaging way. Would be great for a serious book group.

This book is a punch in the gut. I just finished reading it and it is swirling in my mind. It is so spare, and so unsparing, that it is difficult to characterize. No spoilers here, but I could not wait for it to end and at the same time I dreaded the ending. In about 200 short pages Eggers stirs all the emotions in the most unique way I have experienced in novel form. It was impossible for me not to feel empathy for the unnamed protagonist even as he acted indefensively. And it was impossible for me not to feel empathy for some of his captives and to hope for their deliverance. The dialogue about SWAT teams was excruciatingly powerful and provocative.We are all flawed, and so of course our society is flawed as well. Eggers' book raises deep questions worth broad discussion and soul-searching efforts to deal more honestly with the culture we have collectively created. Read it.

Read this book. Read it if you already doubt the nature of American foreign policy in Asia. Read it especially if you cannot fathom why anyone would question the rightness of American foreign policy in Asia. Read it if you just want a fascinating read. Wonderful writing: articulate, intriguing, suspenseful. And amazingly brief for the punch it delivers.

I stumbled upon this book in the "new non-fiction books" section of a library in a city other than my own, and the title intrigued me. Marwan Bishwara was not a familiar name to me, but the title, and the credentials of the author, led me to take the book with me. I am so glad I did. Whether or not one agrees with the author, his voice needs to be heard. My ignorance of the history of the Arab nations and their histories is unfortunately not unique among my contemporaries and Americans in general. Bishwara provides an excellent brief history of the Arab countries counted among those which experienced the "Arab Spring". He also provides a recommended reading list for those of us wanting more detail. He spares no one in his critiques: the post-colonialist demagogues who betrayed their subjects are skewered as well as the (we) Americans who supported them, ignoring the oppression of their subjects, until it was obvious that the winds were blowing in a different direction. His open admiration for the youth who risked and gave their lives to change the direction of their countries is, frankly, thrilling. He is convincing in his belief that there is no going back, that the break is permanent, however uncertain the future may be. Highly recommended.

I did not want this book to end. For a novel to be set in three of my favorite cities (London, Vienna, and Venice)and to be written in prose so beautiful it is both poetic and heart wrenching is an enormous gift. Although my classical musical knowledge was insufficient to fully appreciate many of the references, An Equal Music was a magical read. I will search out every other book Vikram Seth has written in hopes of similar joy of reading.

The Third Industrial Revolution is the most important book I read in the past year. Yes, some of the science is a bit intimidating to those of us who are not scientists, but overall the book is not only very readable but also exciting and hopeful about the future...if good policy choices are made and implemented in a timely manner. Rifkin does a good job of briefly reviewing the first and second industrial revolutions as they relate to his proposed third revolution to help the reader put his proposals into context. He also does an excellent job of bringing international efforts into view in a very personal way, raising awareness of some encouraging and exciting alternative energy work being done off shore which is not generally covered in mainline media. I found it a terrific introduction into the conceptual idea of creating a world-wide energy web to match our existing communication internet, with enough information about what will be required to bring that about to give me hope for a continued future for humankind.

Sex at Dawn was referenced in an article in the New York Times, otherwise I would probably not have ever heard of it. Why not? It challenges most of our culture's most cherished beliefs about the historical primacy of monogamy as the natural, normal, moral choice of male/female relationships. And it naturalizes homosexuality within a historical context. No wonder we have not heard more about it! I note that the authors are not American...one wonders who would have published this work in the U.S.A. It is intelligent, well researched, very readable by a layperson, and totally outrageous, in a good way. For anyone who has been dismayed and bewildered by the state of sexual relations in this (U.S.) culture, and who feels there must be a more honest and wholesome way to relate to our fellow humans, this book is a revelation. Whether or not the reader agrees with the authors, their writings are a brilliant introduction to the REAL history of human sexuality and how it has evolved (or devolved?) over time. Highly recommended.

After seeing the author, Isabel Wilkerson, interviewed on C-SPAN'S BOOK TV, I decided to purchase The Warmth of Other Suns to read to my 100 year old mother when I visited her in January 2011. The reason I chose this book was because most of the narrative would have occurred during my Mom's lifetime (she was born in 1910 on a farm in South Dakota)and a good bit of it would have occurred during my lifetime. Also, the subject matter was something which she and I have discussed many times, and in which we both have considerable interest. Mom suggested I tape my reading of the book since I had a small voice recorder with me. This proved to be the magic ingredient: as I read to my Mom across her kitchen table in the morning sunlight of Ft. Collins, Colorado, the narrative provoked memories of her life experiences which would never have come up in ordinary conversation. And all of them, and our conversation about them, are now recorded along with the narrative of Wilkerson's brilliant text. Both Mom and I were saddened by the horrific treatment of our black brothers and sisters in the South, and we were both shocked at how much we did not know about the depths of inhumanity inflicted upon them. Wilkerson's skillful interweaving of historical fact and personal narrative of her three chosen spotlighted subjects is the perfect combination of the general and the intimately personal to hold the reader at close attention throughout the book. This wonderful book should be required reading for all Americans. If Isabel Wilkerson never writes another book, she will have, by this one alone, achieved a rare place among the chroniclers of the real story of the beautiful black people who came here unwillingly and enriched the lives of all of us in spite of the pain inflicted upon them. I am deeply grateful to her.