The Middlesteins

The Middlesteins
by Jami Attenberg
F/ATTENBERG

Multiple generations of the Middlestein family populate Attenberg's novel.  Matriarch Edie's overeating threatens her life and creates a rift between her and the rest of the family--particularly her husband of thirty years, Richard, who has given up on her and moved out.  Their daughter Robin grapples with her feelings of resentment for her father and how to help save her mother from eating herself to death.  Robin's laid-back brother Benny is married to high-strung, health-conscious Rachelle, who is planning their twin children's extravagant b'nai mitzvah party while also worrying about Edie.

This is a realistic portrait of a family with all its complex personalities and problems.  The author saves the book from being a downer with her compassionate handling of the characters and her infusions of humor.

Gone Girl

"Ice-pick-sharp... Spectacularly sneaky... Impressively cagey... "Gone Girl" is Ms. Flynn's dazzling breakthrough...." --Janet Maslin, "New York Times

GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn 

 Marriage can be a real killer.
On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media--as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents--the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter--but is he really a killer?
As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn't do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?
With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.

A wicked good read of a marriage gone wrong--I loved it!  ~ Katherine

Shalimar the Clown

SHALIMAR THE CLOWN
by Salman Rushdie
F/RUSHDIE
CD SHALIMAR THE CLOWN

Reviewed by Galia O. for Between the Covers Adult Summer Reading Program:  When I first started listening to it I thought the sentences were interesting but it was a bit difficult to understand who is who.  After a short time (really short, like ten minutes of listening to the audio CD), things clarified and the incredible story began to grow.

I loved three things in particular about the book:

1.  The story of Shalimar, which is really the story of the other characters that inhabit his life:  his gorgeous naive wife; her Americanized daughter, looking for her way in life, losing too much; and most of all, the daughter's father--the intellectual yet effective, mythical in abilities and accomplishment ambassador.  I wanted to know more about them all!

2.  The breadth:  The story finishes in today's America, but inhabits many of the most important events of the twentieth century, especially in Europe and Asia.  Fun and interesting how the author weaves these together.

3.  I loved his sentences.  There were some that were just gems--multi-faceted, complex, shiny, and I wanted to read them again . . . not because I didn't understand them but because they were wonderful, poetic in the way Rushdie put them together.

Strongly recommended!  5 out of 5 stars

The Red Book

THE RED BOOK
by Deborah Copaken Kogan
F/KOGAN

Clover, Addison, Mia, and Jane were roommates at Harvard until their graduation in 1989. Clover, homeschooled on a commune by mixed-race parents, felt woefully out of place. Addison yearned to shed the burden of her Mayflower heritage. Mia mined the depths of her suburban ennui to enact brilliant performances on the Harvard stage. Jane, an adopted Vietnamese war orphan, made sense of her fractured world through words.

Twenty years later, Clover, once a securities broker with Lehman, is out of a job and struggling to reproduce before her fertility window slams shut. Addison’s marriage to a writer’s-blocked novelist is as stale as her so-called career as a painter. Hollywood shut its gold-plated gates to Mia, who now stays home with her four children, renovating and acquiring faster than her director husband can pay the bills. Jane, the Paris bureau chief for a newspaper whose foreign bureaus are now shuttered, is caught in a vortex of loss.

Like all Harvard grads, they’ve kept abreast of one another via the red book, a class report published every five years, containing brief autobiographical essays by fellow alumni. But there’s the story we tell the world, and then there’s the real story, as these former classmates will learn during their twentieth reunion weekend, when they arrive with their families, their histories, their dashed dreams, and their secret yearnings to a relationship-changing, score-settling, unforgettable weekend. ~from the publisher

Reviewed by Lisa for Between the Covers Adult Summer Reading Program:  Interesting read about a group of friends going to their twentieth college reunion, and how their lives have evolved since graduating from Harvard.  4 out of 5 stars

Gun Games

GUN GAMES
by Faye Kellerman
F/KELLERMAN

The Hesse suicide strikes a troubling chord in the household of Decker and his wife, Rina Lazarus, now that they've taken in Gabe Whitman—the gifted and brilliant fifteen-year-old son of a killer—whose own unexplained comings and goings only remind Decker that he knows almost nothing about the secretive boy living under his roof. But it's a second teen suicide—a young girl who attended the same exclusive prep school as Gregory Hesse—that points Decker and his detectives down a dark alley of twisted allegiances and unholy alliances . . . and toward a cold-blooded group of high schoolers with a shocking predilection for guns and violence. ~from the publisher

Reviewed by Marie for Between the Covers Adult Summer Reading Program:  Decker/Lazarus novel--a good story.  4 out of 5 stars

The Venetian Betrayal

THE VENETIAN BETRAYAL
by Steve Berry
F/BERRY

In this novel of suspense, a miraculous healing serum, kept secret by an ancient puzzle and buried with the mummified remains of Alexander the Great--in a tomb lost to the ages for more than 1,500 years--is the coveted prize for a cunning despot unless Cotton Malone, former U.S. Justice Department agent turned rare-book dealer, can beat her to it.

Reviewed by Patrick for Between the Covers Adult Summer Reading Program:  Very good adventure yarn.  4 out of 5 stars

Calico Joe

CALICO JOE
by John Grisham
F/GRISHAM
CD F/GRISHAM
F/GRISHAM LARGE PRINT

In the summer of 1973 Joe Castle was the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone had ever seen.  The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas dazzled Cub fans as he hit home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shattered all rookie records.  Calico Joe quickly became the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing Mets pitcher. On the day that Warren Tracey finally faced Calico Joe, Paul was in the stands, rooting for his idol but also for his Dad. Then Warren threw a fastball that would change their lives forever. ~from the publisher

Reviewed by Marie for Between the Covers Adult Summer Reading Program:  Fun, entertaining, unrealistic (!) but a good summer "listen."  4 out of 5 stars

Lone Wolf

LONE WOLF
by Jodi Picoult
F/PICOULT

Luke Warren has spent his life researching wolves. He has written about them, studied their habits intensively, and even lived with them for extended periods of time. In many ways, Luke understands wolf dynamics better than those of his own family. His wife, Georgie, has left him, finally giving up on their lonely marriage. His son, Edward, twenty-four, fled six years ago, leaving behind a shattered relationship with his father. Edward understands that some things cannot be fixed, though memories of his domineering father still inflict pain. Then comes a frantic phone call: Luke has been gravely injured in a car accident with Edward’s younger sister, Cara.
 
Suddenly everything changes: Edward must return home to face the father he walked out on at age eighteen. He and Cara have to decide their father’s fate together. Though there’s no easy answer, questions abound: What secrets have Edward and his sister kept from each other? What hidden motives inform their need to let their father die . . . or to try to keep him alive? What would Luke himself want? How can any family member make such a decision in the face of guilt, pain, or both? And most importantly, to what extent have they all forgotten what a wolf never forgets: that each member of a pack needs the others, and that sometimes survival means sacrifice? Lone Wolf describes the nature of a family: the love, protection, and strength it can offer—and the price we might have to pay for those gifts. What happens when the hope that should sustain a family is the very thing tearing it apart?  ~from the publisher

Reviewed by Lisa for Between the Covers Adult Summer Reading Program:  Very well written story of survival in the wilderness and living with wolves.  Also how a child handles the fate of a terminal parent after a tragic accident.  5 out of 5 stars

The Gods of Gotham

THE GODS OF GOTHAM
by Lyndsay Faye
F/FAYE

It is 1845 and New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland. These two seemingly disparate events will change New York City. Forever. Timothy Wilde tends bar near the Exchange, saving every dollar and shilling in hopes of winning the girl of his dreams. But when his dreams literally incinerate in a fire devastating downtown Manhattan, he finds himself disfigured, unemployed, and homeless. His older brother obtains Timothy a job in the newly minted NYPD, but he is highly skeptical of this untested "police force." And he is less than thrilled that his new beat is the notoriously down-and-out Sixth Ward-at the border of Five Points, the world's most notorious slum.

One night while returning from his rounds, heartsick and defeated, Timothy runs into a little slip of a girl—a girl not more than ten years old—dashing through the dark in her nightshift . . . covered head to toe in blood. Timothy knows he should take the girl to the House of Refuge, yet he can't bring himself to abandon her. Instead, he takes her home, where she spins wild stories, claiming that dozens of bodies are buried in the forest north of 23rd Street. Timothy isn't sure whether to believe her or not, but, as the truth unfolds, the reluctant copper star finds himself engaged in a battle for justice that nearly costs him his brother, his romantic obsession, and his own life. ~from the publisher

Reviewed by Marie for Between the Covers Adult Summer Reading Program:  Interesting novel of police force formed in New York City--but slow moving.  2 out of 5 stars

An Absolute Scandal

AN ABSOLUTE SCANDAL
by Penny Vincenzi
F/VIN

An inside view of the greed and social power plays behind the closed doors of upper-crust society. When the money disappears in the thick of a financial crisis, the real story begins. For Nigel Cowper, this means the destruction of his family business; his wife, Lucinda, is willing to do everything she can to help him—except give up her irresistible lover. The powerful, charismatic banker Simon Beaumont and his equally successful wife Elizabeth lose everything they've worked so hard to acquire; but the ultimate tragedy is something that neither one could have anticipated. Yet the well-to-do are not the only ones whose lives are upended: a self-sufficient widow, a single mother, and a schoolmaster find that their lives are also turned upside down. ~from the publisher

Reviewed by Jeanne as part of Between the Covers Adult Summer Reading Program:  Hard to get into, but then a real page-turner!  All about a financial crisis and the effect on several families.  5 out of 5 stars

Into the Darkness

INTO THE DARKEST CORNER by Elizabeth Haynes

Into the Darkest Corner is an intense, psychological thriller that had me reading long into the early morning hours.  The present has Catherine dealing with a crippling case of OCD as well as post traumatic stress syndrome following her involvement in an abusive relationship.  An alternating timeline is of a  younger Catherine, a bit of a party girl, who falls in love with a charming, charismatic mystery man, whose dark and abusive side insidiously and quickly traps her in a situation that she can't escape.  

Elizabeth Haynes has written an intensely terrifying debut novel  with characters that are vivid and unforgettable.  The descent into an abusive relationship and the paralyzing effect of OCD was amazingly written and as a reader, and the reader is convinced that escape from either is not a simple matter.  I'm looking forward to Hayne's next book.

“Families are Wolitzer’s turf, and she’s an observant and often humorous chronicler of domesticity and the stuff that comes with it: illness, loss, boredom, crankiness, and, on good days, love.”—Publishers Weekly

AN AVAILABLE MAN by Hilma Wolitzer

When Edward Schuyler, a 62-year-old science teacher loses his beloved wife, Bee, he finds himself popular with local widows and divorcees, even though he's quite content to be on his own and work through the grieving process of losing his partner. But soon his neighbors and family are also on the hunt for a new woman for Edward, and reluctantly he begins dating--and as we follow him on this path toward a new life, we wish we had Edward for a friend or neighbor. This is a wonderfully tender book, full of heart, and hope for love, after love.

THE PARROT WHO OWNS ME
by Joanna Burger
636.6865/BURGER

The Parrot Who Owns Me: The Story of a Relationship, by Joanna Burger, was recommended to me by fellow librarian Mary Proudfoot.  The author is a renowned ornithologist:  “Birds are my passion,” she says, “but parrots are my weakness.”  Fifteen years before she wrote this memoir, she adopted an orphaned thirty-year-old Red-lored Amazon named Tiko.  The two formed a strong bond once Tiko gradually warmed up to her (and her husband, though Tiko harbored some jealousy toward him).  Tiko's antics are by turns amusing and fascinating:  he slides down the bannister, displays courting behavior toward the author during the springtime, and eats off her plate.

As well as being a story of the relationship between Tiko and the author, the book also includes findings from Dr. Burger’s field work on the science of birds that complements what she learns about Tiko.

This book is a great read for those who enjoy memoirs about parrots and other birds (Alex and Me, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, and Wesley the Owl, to name a few) as well as if you are interested in animal behavior and the bonds between animals and humans.

"A great gorgeous whirlwind of a novel, boundless in its imagination. You will be swept away."--Justin Cronin, New York Times bestselling author of The Passage

Pure by Julianna Baggott

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

~ from the publisher

 THE SNOW CHILD by Eowen Ivey

 
 

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.   ~ From the Publisher

Check out the author's website!